nytimes: The Republican Wreckage

[spanone]

House Republicans have lost sight of the country’s welfare. It’s hard to conclude anything else from their latest actions, including the House speaker’s dismissal of President Obama’s plea for compromise Monday night. They have largely succeeded in their campaign to ransom America’s economy for the biggest spending cuts in a generation. They have warped an exercise in paying off current debt into an argument about future spending. Yet, when they win another concession, they walk away.

This increasingly reckless game has pushed the nation to the brink of ruinous default. The Republicans have dimmed the futures of millions of jobless Americans, whose hopes for work grow more out of reach as government job programs are cut and interest rates begin to rise. They have made the federal government a laughingstock around the globe.

In a scathing prime-time television address Monday night, President Obama stepped off the sidelines to tell Americans the House Republicans were threatening a “deep economic crisis” that could send interest rates skyrocketing and hold up Social Security and veterans’ checks. By insisting on a single-minded approach and refusing to negotiate, he said, Republicans were violating the country’s founding principle of compromise.

“How can we ask a student to pay more for college before we ask hedge fund managers to stop paying taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries?” he said, invoking Ronald Reagan’s effort to make everyone pay a fair share and pointing out that his immediate predecessors had to ask for debt-ceiling increases under rules invented by Congress. He urged viewers to demand compromise. “The entire world is watching,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/opinion/26tue1.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

[TxVietVet]

1. I say, if the conservanazis want to ruin the economy for ideological gain,

let it happen. The teabaggin' kkkluckers are pushing this bu$hit. Let them accept the blame for destroying the US economy. Boner is useless. He's just another corporate shill. He can't control his rethugs in the House. Cantor is an idiot. A conservanazi idiot.

[HereSince1628]

9. Is having clear villians to blame really worth the destruction?

After r's bring the national economy to complete meltdown and get blamed, then what? It isn't like the r's can fix what they have broken.

They are pushing a vision of the end game of Norquist's grand scheme to kill the federal government, which is to say, they are threatening the end of the United States as we know it.

Fear of that very possible outcome is why the Dems are fucked. Fear, the tool of the R's is working its mayhem. Dems believe default cannot be allowed to happen---at any cost. And so the blackmail will work and the federal gov't will have been stripped of it's capacity to do the work of a federal government.

[TxVietVet]

18. In the end, it will be the destruction of the conservanazi republikans.

They are a minority in this country. However, after the default, there will be a depression that will make the Great Depression look awful. The people will take over government one way or the other. They will not tolerate a government that abandons them, I believe. That was the great fear after the '29 Crash. The conservanazis at the time didn't care if people lived or died. There was no hope. No one under Hoover was doing squat. I believe the reasonable leaders of this country were happy when Roosevelt was elected. They were happy that he could put the unemployed young men in work camps. It gave them something to do and money for their families.

The main thing is that the conservanazis keep threatening to ruin the country to destroy Obama, who was duly elected by a majority. It won't fit well with the majority of Americans. Many are armed and pissed. They will see no way out. WE may have to suffer a bit, but maybe, just maybe we can get rid of this corporate elitist group that is destroying our democracy. I'm not advocating violence, but when you oppress people long enough, something happens. The conservanazis just enjoy trying to disenfranchise and demonizing the minorities of this country. You take that minority and working Americans who got screwed by the corporatists, and you have a big majority in this country.

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Mao Tse-Tung

[HereSince1628]

19. I guess you do...

Frankly, I am doubtful about pain making people more rational and accurate in their observations.

I agree that pain and suffering can give people a sense that they are being wronged. However, I lack faith in people's ability to accurately identify their persecutors.

The history of civil wars and revolutions provides little confidence that social upheaval dependably results in liberty, justice, or prosperity.

[paparush]

2. REPUBLICANS 2012 - Keeping millions out of work to put one man out of a job.

They are a cult.

[mymomwasright]

11. Now that would be an excellent bumper sticker!

Too bad the price is so high.

[babylonsister]

3. Recommend-wake up, America! nt

[luckyleftyme2]

5. the first time i see this

the first time I see a stalemate brought on by business was in a shipyard . the company was making record breaking profits and refused raises ,wanted cuts in their payment of health insurance,cuts in retirement plan etc. the union would compromise then the company would ask for more. they walked out 7 times and the last time it was early morning! well we pounded with hammers on the steel in the ships for hours! the next day when I came in for my shift it was going on louder than ever! the sound finally reached washington and both the navy and the company realized we were serious! a massive walk out was planned and things were going to get ugly!
well the company came back to the table,raises were given benefits were raised not cut and the following year the company profits increased. you see they can't make money without your skills and ability! most of the boards in these companies are made up of lawyers or old money (people with lilly white hands!)
they are incapable of screwing in a light bulb because they wouldn't know where to look for it!

[luckyleftyme2]

6. an amendment

I'M SURE BOEHNER CAN FIND A BROOM,PULL A SPIGOT HANDLE AND SHOOT THE CHIT;BUT I DOUBT HE COULD DO A DAY OF MANUAL LABOR!
McCONNELL IS ANOTHER STORY. IF EVER I SEE A NERD IN THIS WORLD I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYONE FIT THE LOOKS OR PLAY THE ROLE AS WELL AS HE DOES!!

[malaise]

4. K & R n/t

[FSogol]

7. K & R. n/t

[leveymg]

8. I get worried whenever the Gray Lady pretends to be on "our side." We're being had,

big time, by professionals with style. The purpose of this is to cut the social safety another Trillion of so dollars to pay for more tax cuts for the Uberwealthy.

The Times is Wall Street. They don't really give a rat's ass about "the futures of millions of jobless Americans." They're just worried about their bond ratings if this charade goes on too long.

The "entire world is watching," indeed.

[Octafish]

12. Excellent analysis. Here's an old resource you may find useful...

...the "Lies Of Our Times" online archive (PDFs):

http://www.liesofourtimes.org /

This magazine published for only a few years in the early 1990s.
Their goal was to correct the record fouled by The New York Times and the rest of Corporate McPravda.
IMFO, what LOOT also did in that short time is chronicle the treasons of the BFEE.

[leveymg]

15. "We lie by not telling you things. We don't lie by telling you things that aren't true."

Actually, they do both, when they think they can get away with it. Which is increasingly the case as jobs in the corporate media become increasingly dear, and the survivors shed the veneer of "journalism" and the public expectations for truth and integrity in the media continue to decline.

It's become just another well-paid mercenary profession, its level of venality maybe a step or two below law, about the same as corporate accounting and auditing.

You get what you pay for, and usually not that.

[ashling]

10. They have warped an exercise ... into an argument about ______

They have warped an exercise in paying off current debt into an argument about future spending. Yet, when they win another concession, they walk away.

This was their strategy in every issue they have "negotiated."
If they can't negotiate in bad faith, they don't negotiate at all.

[WinkyDink]

13. Judith Miller. NEVER FORGET.

[rhett o rick]

16. I wont. Judith Miller the traitor. She has blood on her hands. nm

[deacon]

14. Can only hope more people see them as the extremists they are. n/t

[Stuart G]

17. k & r thanks for posting...nt

[DirkGently]

20. "a laughingstock around the globe." Yep. Courtesy the self-annointed Responsible Adults.