MORE ON THE TWIN CRISES -- SHUTDOWN AND DEBT CEILING

Kind reader Carolyn Meinel pointed out the very interesting blog by novelist/journalist/futurist David Brin on the present political impasse that has shut most parts of the Federal Government.

 http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2013/10/how-shut-down-will-likely-end.html

I left a comment much has morphed into this:

One clue to the House Republicans' vicious nihilism is their death grip on both the government closedown and the debt ceiling as hostages to a political settlement.

By now, even small children and low-flying birds should know that just threatening default costs money, debits against all taxpayers, and benefits only for our in-country and global creditors. 

There are generally accepted balance sheets that document the billions of dollars of wealth transferred from our government (and us) to the very rich in 2011, the last time Boehner's Boys threatened to welsh on the National Debt. Obstinately repeating a previous mistake is not good politics. 

Furthermore, a second hostage is redundant, far more dangerous than valuable. Any sane politician would drop the debt ceiling issue and pre-empt the costly "anxieties" of the global marketplace by raising the ceiling. This will allow the GOP or the TP to focus completely on their real agenda: re-budgeting the government that must eventually be re-opened.

Frankly, they should go to Hell on that issue, too, since the Constitution has provided many ways to change legislation, but this isn't one of them.

But this got me thinking about crises.   The very fact that the GOP and TP have created both these political Crises, the Shutdown and the Default should be, in itself, very bad politics.  It re-illustrates once again how Republican voters, most of whom are not part of the 1%, are being suckered by the superrich Tea Party backers to vote against their own interests.  

As 2011, and the Financial Crisis of 2008 and the previous world-changing economic event, the Oil Crisis of 1973, all show:  crises are what separate the strong from the weak, the few from the many.  Crises provide extraordinary opportunities for strong predators to disadvantage weak multitudes. 

Perhaps this is why our government, whose leaders have, since 1980 been almost completely paid for, and completely bought by Big Money, has so constantly created and marketed crises.  The bad investments and worse fraudulent off-loadings of the mistakes by a few identifiable bankers and institutions are conflated into a Global Financial Crisis.  One day of terrible acts terrorism begets not a measured response against the few dozens of terrorist perpetrators but a Global War on Terror.  One awful assault in Kenya is a threat to America.

Countering Crisis demands the kinds of bloated, ill-conceived, poorly-executed budgets most Republicans love to hate.  Except, when it’s a crisis, …  the GOP loves to pay.  And so do the Democrats.

And, of course, in crises, TV ratings go up, not just for news, but for “prime time,” when the people made to pay for and fear the crisis are staying home at night.  Thank goodness they can still purchase by mail or over the internet.

Crises are so sustaining to America's most powerful people and institutions.  And like most of the crap these people and institutions offer for sale or diversion to Americans, these "Crises" are worthless and unnecessary.