"This is where we are": Andrew Sullivan on the shutdown
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/13/this-is-where-we-are/This is what were dealing with. This is not an alternative budget; it is not another way of insuring millions and cutting healthcare costs; it is not a contribution to anything but to the logic of nullification of an election. It is yet another declaration of cold civil war a call for a nonviolent refusal to be governed by a re-elected president because he is pursuing policies with which an electorally defeated minority disagree. Simply pursuing those policies has rendered Obama a monarch who is arguing his way or the highway. But all Obama is doing is implementing a campaign promise and settled law, while governing under a continuing resolution that reflects the sequesters level of spending, a level agreed to by the Republicans. He wants a budget agreement between the House and Senate in a conference that the Republican House has long resisted entering. He has said that he is happy to negotiate with anyone on anything as long as the blackmail of a government shut-down and of a threatened global depression are ended. And his record shows that he has compromised again and again as his own most fervent supporters look on in dismay.
. . .the rank threats of unimaginably radical consequences if a re-elected president doesnt junk what he was re-elected to do are so foul in their lack of concern about the common good, so poisonous in their slander of a president, and so contemptuous of our orderly system of government, that it is vital the threats do not work and are not accommodated. No president of any party has any right to legitimize such an attack on the American system of government and the way it conducts business by elections, debates, compromises and budgets, not threats of total government shut-down and the collapse of the dollar if our global credit rating is effectively destroyed overnight.
I hoped wed be nearing some kind of deal at this point, rather than witnessing this upping of the ante from the forces that truly live on the fringes of the far right, but which, without any resistance, have now defined the Republican party. It is no accident that among those addressing this rally to blackmail the country and the world were Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz. I can see a very powerful populist electoral ticket with both of those on it either of a third Tea Party or of an even more radicalized GOP. And perhaps that is the only way to expunge this nihilist extremism from our system. Except that it may succeed in expunging the system and the economy before we can test it where in a democracy we are accustomed to test it: in elections, not in the chaos of economic blackmail.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
MBS
(9,688 posts)I just dont trust it, said Mr. Tripcony, who has an equal distrust of President Obama. I dont like him, and I dont feel comfortable with anything hes got to do with.
Mr. Tripcony said he had a better idea for a system to provide health care at a fair price. I think it should be the same for everybody, he said. One big company, whether owned by the government or private. Informed that he had described the single-payer system that Mr. Obama abandoned when Republican critics called it socialized medicine, he said, Yeah, I know, its crazy.. . .
. . .Mr Tripcony is doing us a favor. He is telling us the truth. This crisis has almost nothing to do with actual policy as you can see from a base Republicans rational support for a single-payer healthcare system and willingness to get Obamacare insurance. There is nothing to the current Republican strategy but blind, irrational hatred for a re-elected president: I dont like him, and I dont feel comfortable with anything hes got to do with. Somehow, this feeling must be granted some relief, or they will bring down the world economy. But any relief granted on these terms would simply pave the way for more economic terrorism and blackmail in the future, which would mean an end to our system of government. The GOP have driven themselves into a tight, airless corner of ideological purity and self-destruction. The trouble is: their own self-destruction means ours as well. And the worlds.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Crybaby racists who soiled themselves and refuse to be Changed.
Arkansas Granny
(31,528 posts)fasttense
(17,301 posts)then go out and protest? Why? They have what they want. They have brought our government down. But that is not enough for them.
So, why aren't liberals out protesting this shut down by the Tea Baggers? Why aren't we out there saying we have your back Obama? RepubliCONS and Tea Baggers alike get back to work and do what you are getting paid to do.
FlaGranny
(8,361 posts)they want to get Obama out of the white house at any cost.
These folks are systematically working to take over control of the government. Some say it's not treason, but it sure is treasonous. They are working to dismantle a fair voting system. They are working on a "takeover" of the minority to impose their will on the majority. They are working to undermine our system of government, pure and simple.
Edit: All the despotic leaders in the world should admire what they are doing and how they are doing it. I'm afraid for us.
kmlisle
(276 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Andrew Sullivan called us traitorous fools stuck in Vietnam era thinking, too shallow to understand the wisdom of Dick Cheney and GW Bush. He castigated those who protested the war in strident and extreme language far worse than any he has used about his fellow Republicans currently in power.
And Sully is just one example of Centrist and Conservative Obama supporters who have done little but attack liberals and LGBT and others who are not exactly like themselves.
Attack your fellows and when the need for numbers arises, your fellows say 'gee, that's ok, you guys protest'.
MBS
(9,688 posts)-- or perhaps what would be called a centrist today- and. yeah, he was wrong on Iraq.
but his conservatism gives him close knowledge of and insight into the danger of the Far Right. He KNOWS who these people are, and why they must not be allowed to prevail.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)but it fails to address Sullivan's argument for the need to defeat this most recent Confederate assault upon the American Union. Either he is totally or partially correct or he is not. Please do not use his prior positions as arguments against his current ones.
MBS
(9,688 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)That's why they staged this little piece of theater.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)notice the Iraq War and Occupy. No media, no big financial backers, and actually no elected representatives on our side. If we want this to stop we are going to have to do some very dirty work.
Botany
(70,574 posts)+1
linked to FB...needs bigtime exposure
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Their problem is one thing, Obama isn't white enough.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,034 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)every last republican is to blame, not just the "fringe". there is absolutely no way in hell that Palin and Cruz will break off onto some 3rd party ticket. They are and will continue to be republicans, and the entire group should be considered terrorists and enemies of America.
BellaKos
(318 posts)A real journalist would have pointed out that these people LIE -- beginning with the LIE that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Maybe some of 'em will start doing their jobs now that their OWN money is in jeopardy.