Climate Change

We’ve got to hand it to the Republicans. They have successfully created climate change. They turned up the heat, clouded the air and sent thunderbolts of fear throughout the land, unleashing that terrible lightning. The sword is slashing at every social program in its wake.

For decades they have been salivating for a chance to dismantle the hard-earned progressive legislation passed under FDR and LBJ. Now with control of the House and the Court along with a Senate held hostage, they have taken advantage of a prolonged Recession and decimated housing market to stampede their agenda as a top priority.

Never mind that it was under their watch that the ill wind was first conceived. Never mind the unfunded wars, unconscionable tax cuts for the wealthy and unregulated banks which have brought us to the brink. Forget that factories have been pad-locked in a rush for overseas cheap labor. All this has been obfuscated by their smoke. Repeated lies hang over the country like an inversion layer. And hazardous it is to our health and well-being.

Perhaps the greatest legerdemain in political history has been the mobilization of the least-served among us, as a grass-roots counter-revolutionary force. If the Tea Party prevails in 2012 we will be witness to an act of massive self-destruction; as if a Tsunami had been turned against the very people who made the waves. They are not an insurrection of the dispossessed, they are a counter-force against the only institution prepared to cast a net; namely the government.

A true populist agenda would demand an end to corporate subsidies, job creation, both private and public and government investments, not shutting it down. Why would the disadvantaged give a hoot about debt ceiling or even deficit? Only if they are sheep being led to slaughter.

The climate change in the air is rife with doom. We are told that Social Security needs to be privatized and Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable without putting an axe to it. I don’t buy it. An estimated 43 billion dollars per year will be saved when the healthcare bill is implemented just by not having the government pick up the charges for emergency care for the uninsured. Billions more can be recovered with tighter cost-controls over the program. Bumping up the contribution to Social Security of high-end wage-earners would restore solvency to the system.

Dare I say that the Republicans are engaged in a treasonous act? Do they want the Dow to plunge? Yes. Are they incentivized to keep the unemployment numbers above 9%? Yes. Their agenda is to see the economy fail. I regard it as sedition. Obama will not be running against any of their candidates. He’ll be running against the job market and foreclosure numbers. Without any chance of federal money pumped into stimulus I believe he will initiate an executive order forcing banks into mandatory re-negotiation before further foreclosure proceedings..

Fear trumps common sense, only for a while. At some point along the way the mesmerized public is going to wake up and connect the dots. A new set of demands will replace the talking points originating from the board rooms. It may happen glacially or it may register on the Richter scale. Winds will come because they rise organically from what is just and true. Clocks do not run counter-clockwise.