We are told that exceeding the Debt Ceiling is the problem, and that all federal programs must be prudently reduced, especially Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental, etc, but no mention of the costs of America's military atrocities in the Middle East nor the support of the Weapons Industry and the monster Security apparatus. The major roles in this bipartisan propaganda are the Republican Chest-Beaters and the Democrat Wimp-Outs.
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Of course the solution is: (1) Stop the wars, (2) Reduce the Department of Defense to its namesake, i.e. Defense, (3) Revert to the Eisenhower (a Republican, wasn't he?) income tax tables, and (4) Hire someone like Elizabeth Warren to watch the bookkeeping. Then -- Presto Change Oh! -- problem solved !!!
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There are, however, a couple of major impediments: The Republicans are just too blatantly indentured to the Greed Interests who support their campaigns, golf outings and such, and the Democrats are just too furtively indentured to the Greed Interests who support their campaigns, golf outings and such, as well as setting a new and lower standard for the word "Wimp."
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A complicating factor is the America electorate, who either (1) have no blithering idea of what's actually going on, or (2) insist that we must support the Lesser-Evil to escape the More-Evil. (Stalin rather than Hitler?)
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An intelligent and honest person would have none of this Treachery, none of this Cowardice, and certainly none of this Juggling of the Moral Scales that the local partisan boosters explain away as "that's what politics is."
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Empires rise, and empires fall, and the poor suckers tooting their partisan horns across the world's once "Best Promise" can't figure out how to manage the downward slide because they either don't see it or will not admit to it.
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One can only hope that our next national identity -- however arrived at -- is managed more intelligently and infinitely more honorably.
Rafe Pilgrim, after "a life largely wasted on hard honest work," found himself a jungle of turkey oak, scrub pine and giant palmettos up a dirt road running east of Crystal River, Florida, which neither school busses nor the U.S. Postal Service dare (
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