Calhoun's Cannons for Oct 2 2013
Nope, wasn't the jihadists.
This time, Washington was
hijacked by a cohort of wild-eyed government-hating, Christian, jihadist
Neo-Confederates who do not like green eggs and ham.
Actually, it's Obama they don't like. Neither does the mainstream Republican Party,
the old guard that the Neo-Confederates have now managed to take over. From day one they all vowed to resurrect the
tactic of Southern Resistance and stand with the ghost of Governor Wallace in
the schoolhouse door -- segregation now,
segregation tomorrow, segregation forever! -- with rhetoric filled with Southern grievance, dog-whistle music and
sick fears of ol' Nat Turner.
And for the past 5 years, while the country foundered,
desperate for help from Washington,
in Congress it was all one long ridiculous Wallace-ite blockade: Not today, not
tomorrow, not ever! Even legislation
crafted by Republicans themselves was suddenly dumped when it appeared the
President might possibly support it too.
Cooties! Cooties! No! No! Never!
Instead of governing, these fools wasted time repeatedly voting
to defund, defeat, deny Obamacare to millions of uninsured Americans. It was their ultimate Green Eggs and Hamish
bet noir. And like cocaine addicted lab mice, they kept futilely hitting the
anti-Obamacare bar again and again, hoping against hope that this time ---
pleeze, pleeeze, puh-leeeze -- they
would be rewarded by one teensie bit of cheese for their micey little handsies
so they could claim they "won" a fight noted only for its monumental
stupidity and utter futility. Forty-three times, forty-four? I've lost count.
Finally, they shut the place down. That'll show 'em! So what was the despised, hideous, awful
"government" they shut down? Well, for example, it was a VA employee
helping an Iraq
vet get benefits, including treatment for ongoing PTSD. Yes, the same bunch who couldn't wait to send
that vet to war in the first place, were
now more than willing to toss him under the bus for reasons of obsessive
ideological purity and conservative resentment.
They were also willing to toss their own staffers under the
bus, offering at one point in their desperation, to force all Congressional
staff members be required to "buy their health insurance on the new
exchanges [but] without any government subsidies." So while they made sure they'd keep their own Cadillac plans (paid for by the taxpayers)
they were happy to toss their staff -- the little people -- to the wolves. Portrait of self-serving politicians who
don't want to govern but want only to rule -- the perfect Marie Antoinette
moment.
And so came Oct 1, and two very important things happened:
1) The Government was shut down by a handful of radical, crazy-eyed Neo-Confederates
in order to "save" the American public from the sheer horrors of
Obamacare. 2) The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) started signing up people on
the exchanges and the system kept crashing because so many people were trying
to access it in order to sign up for the horrible, terrible, dangerous,
freedom-destroying, awful, no-good, Obamacare.
Is it possible that Americans are finally figuring out that they are not helpless passengers on this
ship of state, but crew? And being crew, it's up to them to keep the
ship in working order, keep it off the rocks, keep it steady. And if the captain and ship has been hijacked
by wild-eyed pirates and is being held hostage, it's up to the crew to take the ship back and set
things right.
Now, where's Seal
Team 6?
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