The "Super Committee"

The “Super Committee” will announce in a few hors that it has failed to make the necessary adjustments to prevent catastrophic legislated automatic cuts in the federal budget. The issue seems to be, solely and wondrously, the stubborn refusal of Republican demagogues to accept the necessity of new taxes. A four year old can tell you the way to have more money is to increase revenues and reduce expenditure, and that one alone will not, in dire events, do. The rich must keep their riches, all else be damned. My rage is increased because there doesn’t even seem to be two legitimate sides to this issue, and yet the wrong side wins. It’s like observing that the boat is sinking, and one says “Bail till we reach the shore” and the other says, “Saw a bigger hole” and somehow the bigger hole wins. Republicans have found a way to govern through hollow slogans like “No New Taxes” or “Take America Back” or “Class War,” discovering furthermore that the sooner the slogan crumbles under investigation, the more the American people like it, the more fervently and unthinkingly they will defend it. They have discovered that hysterical declaration is thought by many to be equal to a reasoned argument, that a prideful community of falsehood is the accepted counter to investigation and proof. Something in our heritage or educational system makes us think that ingrained belief or heartfelt prejudice is a right that reason and investigation should not be allowed wrench from our grasp. You can be a Republican and be intelligent, and you can be a Republican and be moral, but you can't be a Republican and be both. We’ve got ourselves a government by demons, an Infernocracy. Democrats? If angels, timid angels at best, shying from the holy war. The Republican party is at war– deliberately and consciously–with the America which takes care of its weak and curbs its predatory. They want old times back–though they are too ignorant really to understand how the old times were-- where the big prey on the small and nothing prevents the greater robbers from stealing year by year more of the common wealth. They fancy themselves among the privileged, as surprisingly many of the underclass– out of the sadness of imagination-- do. I remember my friend in Furey’s in Sligo saying that he was afraid in America, because there was nothing to stop your fall. It will be worse now. Education, healthcare, the safety of the elderly, art, public works, all gone so that a few calculating demons can return to their constituency and say “I fought new taxes!” I believed after George W that no Republican would ever get a vote again. My pity is gone for a people who stick their hands in the fire again and again and wonder why they are in pain.