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Is it a game of chicken or a p_ _ _ing contest?
Of course this is about the debt limit crisis currently going on between the Republicans and the President. Reading the latest it seems each side is waiting for the other to blink first. What a joke!
And the unmentionable isn't even in the discussion; that being the outrageous and bloated defense budget, the one item above all others that explodes the deficit. But neither of these "posers" acknowledges the 800 lb. gorilla sitting in the back of the room. Instead, they'd rather discuss cutting Medicare and Social Security, argue against or support continuing tax cuts for the rich or simply consider which additional part of the social safety net they could cut without it reverberating on their re-election prospects. Then without missing a beat, they both refuse to hold the "banksters" accountable and continue to give them a free pass for their role in perpetrating the present economic and fiscal crisis.
But is this not typical of the dysfunction that reigns in Washington?
How can you solve real problems when the real issues are not put on the table?
Look at health care "reform". Advocates for a single payer, Medicare type reform plan were refused a seat at the table. A reform that could really reduce health care costs i.e. the outrageous and unnecessary overhead costs of the private health care behemoths that balloon health care cost was never considered. Instead what gets passed as "reform" is a plan that further enriches the private health care firms which does nothing to rein in health care costs (which supposedly was a primary reason to consider reform to begin with). Yet it's given the aura of health care "reform" which is nothing but a mirage. That's how Washington works.
But it's no secret why it works this way and why real reform isn't possible.
It's a theme this writer has posed extensively on these pages which is simply the sycophants in office are beholden to big moneyed and special interests that bankroll and underwrite their campaigns. And they don't go against the very thing that puts them in office and keeps them there. In the event they lose a re-election, there is no problem; they just become a lobbyist for one of the outfits they previously did their bidding for. Sure it's a rigged game but whose going to change it?
So there's no mystery behind the shenanigans that passes for serious debate now over extending the debt ceiling.
Meanwhile our "unbiased and objective" news media just continue to cover the "debate" now over the debt ceiling crisis while refusing to get to the heart of the matter which is reducing the debt by cutting the defense budget, which apparently would offend their "objectivity" sensibility. But the silence of our "free press" just masks the truth behind the phony debt limit discussions now made out to resemble serious debate on the issue.
It's all rather maddening, yet understandable. But the real joke is on the people for acquiescing and tolerating this charade.
Only the people can demand and force the necessary changes and push for citizens backed publicly financed elections as necessary to bring about real representative democracy to serve the interests of the people and end the present system beholden to the plutocrats and oligarchs.
That's the basic reform, before all others can happen, which could bring real change to this country. Until that happens there continues to be no mystery as to why things are the way they are.
