During World War II, as a young boy who went to the movies nearly every Saturday afternoon, I well recall footage of the War in the Pacific, and of those Japanese Kamikaze pilots whose suicide mission was to fly their fighter planes into American naval vessels. There was even a riddle going around at that time:
Question: What do you call a failed Kamikaze pilot? Answer: Lucky!
Today, America is saddled with a Kamikaze Congress, which seems determined -- thanks in large part to the Republican majority in the House of Representatives -- to do its best to commit economic suicide by shutting down our government, as it has tried to do previously. The House GOP leadership has been refusing to take any corrective action to avoid such a government shutdown when our legal debt limit is reached in a few days, unless and until Congress agrees to at least the following: a one-year delay in the implementation of Obamacare, a fast-track overhaul of the federal tax code, and no new EPA rules on limiting greenhouse gases. These are their minimal demands -- individual Tea Party Republicans have many other equally-improper forms of blackmail they want to impose on us.
Consider, though, just the three demands above. The Affordable Care Act, found to be Constitutional by our Supreme Court, has already been undercut by delays in some major provisions by the Obama Administration itself, in an act of consummate cowardice, which yet appears to be insufficient to satisfy the Republican Forces of Darkness. The real reason for a fast-track overhaul of federal taxes can only be to provide even more loopholes and benefits to the rich, which might be challenged in a more deliberative approach. And of course the Tea Party crew do not care about the environment or a livable planet for future generations, not if that would interfere with the prerogatives of the wealthy and the despoilers.
While there is no instant or easy solution to these woes, it would help a great deal to have a President who stands up for those principles which he advocated in two successful election campaigns. It would help a great deal to have such a profound public outcry of outrage that the Forces of Darkness back off from their Kamikaze approach to government. And it would help a great deal for our federal government to operate the way every household and business should operate, by keeping expenditures within its means except for some rare and justified departures. But, do not hold your breath for much of those events to happen! These Congressional Kamikazees have had lots of practice honing their skills at destruction.
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