US Government Shutdown

Who gives a damn? That monstrous society should shut down and never reopen. Do the world a favour.

You can post links - but I'd still appreciate an answer to my question. Who gives a damn!? This is a phony little drama, designed to show that the U.S. is run by bloodthirsty, greedy, self-centred brutes. Ok, I'm convinced. Guess what. Nothing will happen. The "warring" parties have too much of an interest in sucking the blood of the working people and waging war and aggression and plunder of the peoples of the world. They will come to a happy compromise. At all of our expense.

And if I'm wrong - and they actually engage in mutual destruction - I've got a bottle of champagne socked away for just that occasion.

By the way, didn't they pull the same bogus trick back in 1995 or so?

Gotta look that up...

Yup... the old memory still has a few sparks left:

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_shutdown_o... States federal government shutdown of 1995 and 1996[/url]

Somehow they recovered from this terrible crisis. They patched it all up. Clinton had sex with Lewinski, lied about it, then when he was caught, bombed Somalia and Afghanistan. Then there was Afghanistan, and Iraq, and now Libya.

Shut down the United Fucking States of Amerika, and give the world a much-needed and well-deserved break!

I am with the first post... So.....

I am kind of concerned that they might invade somebody else to take the spotlight off themselves for a bit.

from what i read 800.000 people will be out of work. that's a lot of people

Never fear, the government did not shut down. All Obama had to do was cave, and that he did.

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/971499--congress-white-house-rea...

Obama hailed the deal as “the biggest annual spending cut in history.” House Speaker John Boehner said that over the next decade it would cut government spending by $500 billion — and won an ovation from his rank and file, tea party adherents among them.

Only education, spending on social programs and things that would do good for people have been cut. The tea party Republicans are more than happy about this.

I fail to see what I'm supposed to be happy about here. All I know that in my world, this will really cripple the already dire straights of my friends in the US. The Republican Tea Party will continue to hold the nation hostage, the democrats will still be barely fighting, and the Independent, open and well respected socialist Bernie Sanders will STILL be the only senator with any decency.

This was all kabuki theater.  Obama, as the Capitulator-in-Chief, would have agreed to almost anything to avoid a shutdown.  And the Republicans knew it.  The only reason they didn't push for more is that they decided to cash in their winnings rather than risk the slim chance of a shutdown.

Another mugging in congress, another loss for the people. By 2012, there will be no unions and very few old people (They're hungry already - imagine them lasting that long?) but plenty of unvaccinated, poorly-fed new babies. But Obama won't have the grace to step aside in favour of someone more credible. If they even have a plausible Dem candidate who hasn't defected or suicided...

Why does it need to be a Democrat?  For any candidate to make it through the primary means they would have to raise millions if not tens of millions just for the nomination battle.  It is that system that traps people of good will who enter politics.  An Independent does not need to spend all their time on the phones to rich people begging for money while any Democratic contender would.  I watch enough American politics to know that part of the horse race story in the MSM is how many millions Presidential candidates are raising to fight the primaries as a gauge of how serious they should be taken as a candidate.  

No way in hell does an independent have a shot. The process is set in concrete - and so is the electorate's mind. It will take total economic and civic disintegration to effect any maqjor change. Not in the given time-frame; probably not for another decade.

absentia wrote:

No way in hell does an independent have a shot. The process is set in concrete - and so is the electorate's mind. It will take total economic and civic disintegration to effect any maqjor change. Not in the given time-frame; probably not for another decade.

Voters can elect a Congress and if they get the right majority it will not matter whether it is Obama or a Republican. The Congress and Senate have the ability to reign in any agenda and turn the President into a lame duck.  That is exactly what the Republicans are doing to Obama.  Are you one of those people who think Obama deserves another term?  Personally I would prefer to see a democratic majority with a Republican President than a one party state like the first two years.  Even with both Houses and the Presidency Obama did not bring in the progressive policies he ran on. 

Because the mould appears to be set in concrete is why it was introduced as a dream scenario.  Even on a progressive board one dare not dream because the system is broken and we all know it?  

Lets all sit on our hands because the rich have succeeded in turning the electoral system into a Wheel of Fortune at a third rate carnival. Defeatism in the name of pragmatism is all I'm hearing from you.  Eventually the poor people will get so screwed that they will rise up and the American middle class can ride their backs to power?  

Total economic and civc disintegration?  wow quite the precondition to progress.  watch many post apocalypse movies?

Northern Shoveler wrote:

Voters can elect a Congress and if they get the right majority it will not matter whether it is Obama or a Republican. The Congress and Senate have the ability to reign in any agenda and turn the President into a lame duck.  That is exactly what the Republicans are doing to Obama.

Yes, of course. And why were they able to do that? Because the people don't seem to understand what's going on, the media never ask pertinent questions and there is always some big scare to push the wrong buttons. But mainly because the Democrat majority of 2008 was gutless, spineless and glueless. That's not suddenly going to change in a year.

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  Are you one of those people who think Obama deserves another term?

No; he didn't even deserve the first one. Let everyone down, big-time. Chris Hedges was right: "He's just another brand [of the same product]." I'm fervently hoping he doesn't turn out to be correct in his other predictions.

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  Personally I would prefer to see a democratic majority with a Republican President

Which fathead? Sarah, Newt or Glen? That doesn't matter - it's who pulls their strings.

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than a one party state like the first two years.  Even with both Houses and the Presidency Obama did not bring in the progressive policies he ran on. 

Again, because it wasn't a single party majority. The Dems are divided into at least three distinct groups that can never vote in unity, or keep to a single agenda - and even if they could, they're scared sh... er ... stupid by the teapots and tinpots.

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...  Even on a progressive board one dare not dream because the system is broken and we all know it?

Dreaming is fine. I can imagine a lot of good things happening in the US - and some of them actually are, under the surface; just not as fast as they ought to happen. 

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Lets all sit on our hands because the rich have succeeded in turning the electoral system into a Wheel of Fortune at a third rate carnival. Defeatism in the name of pragmatism is all I'm hearing from you.  Eventually the poor people will get so screwed that they will rise up and the American middle class can ride their backs to power?

That's pretty much how it happens. What should we do with our hands to change the outcome of another country's election? I'm not using any names for the defeat that's already taken place: merely making an observation, not a recommendation. 

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Total economic and civc disintegration?  wow quite the precondition to progress.  watch many post apocalypse movies?

Read a few history books. Sorry, but there is no progress. Cycles... an ascending helix, at best.

But i'd be very, very pleased to be proved wrong.

500_Apples wrote:

Unionist,

That which happens in the USA is important because Canada is a puppet state and branch plant of the USA. In the long run, Canada cannot maintain a distinct political and sociological system from the USA. The US system is the guiding center, and the Canadian system will oscillate around that center. We were to the left of the USA for a couple decades, and now we have the ever-more popular Stephen Harper restoring ideological balance.

I disagree with you. Entirely. The social and political values and institutions of the Canadian people are dramatically different from those of the U.S., with of course additional complex differences within each nation. As for being a "puppet" state and "branch plant", that's ahistorical and defeatist talk. Just have a look at Latin America these days. You could have called Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador "puppets" a few moments ago - and Cuba for that matter. The United States will disintegrate and die (im yirtseh hashem) while the other peoples of the Americas will continue to flourish - just as the Indigenous peoples, targets of genocide, have long outlived the hapless Spanish conquistadors who once must have looked far more powerful than the U.S. empire which you seem to see as having some importance.

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Aside from that, 5% of the world's population lives there, and 25% of the world's economy, and 50% of its military. If you care about humanity as a whole, you should care about where the USA is going.

Of course I care about humanity, and of course I care about where the USA is going. I want to see its decline and fall - its demise - so that humanity can thrive. I hope you're not suggesting that you had some sentimental feelings about fifth century Rome? I believe humanity survived the collapse of this corrupt empire and moved right along. That's what will happen when Washington is sacked as well.

Of course, as a progressive person, I'm hopeful that the people of the U.S. themselves will open their eyes, heed the call of history, and destroy their ruling elites along with the Obamas and Palins etc. But I see little reason for confidence that this will happen before external political, economic, and military pressures get the job done first.

Unionist wrote:

A simple click will unfriend them and save the overall health of your facebook page. Desperation seems to have become the 51st state for U.S. leftists.

Now that is another question entirely. I have a facebook friend (and a dear friend and solid fellow, though a long-time expatriate) who posted asking why Harper is so popular if so many of usclaim he is so bad. WHile I was fallowing the election before that, I wasn't nearly as engaged until he threw down that little gauntlet.

And just two days ago another "facebook friend" (an acquaintance and self-proclaimed anarchist who regularly quotes Bakunin)  declared that he would automatically unfriend any "moron" who wrote "hate speech" about Israel being a Zionist entity. I couldn't resist, and I was a bit surprised to see that he backed down, though I think still doesn't get how close his position is to that of our PM.

In short, keep your friends close and your teaching opportunities closer.

Northern Shoveler wrote:

We seem to agree on much.  I think the President of the free world should be chosen by a direct ballot of all adults on the planet since they all claim to rule in everyone's behalf.

Not much longer. Empires, like everything else, including species, have a life cycle.

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Thinking outside the box is required precisely because violence begets violence and little progress has ever been achieved when violence becomes the norm.

When was violence not the norm? For how long a period in any one country? Certainly never, world-wide, even for a day.

I have lived my adult life in a bubble of peace and prosperity... even while violence - state, corporate and private - was carried out against citizens, even of my own country, a few miles away.

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When the guns come out reason stops mattering.  If America does descend into chaos unfortunately that will not lead to anarchy but more likely feudal corporatism.

Both of those steps in the imperial decline. So is civil war. The current crop of USian conservatives want nothing less than the return of slavery - and i don't think the people will stand for that, once they figure out who is being thrown under what bus. Another likely step, once hostilities cease, is a cluster of wary, more or less feudal, states - i'm thinking six regions, could be more - with modest, semi-isolated economies. We'll be able to trade with several of them.

When has corruption not been the norm? When has deceit not been the norm? I am fully aware that violence is always around us and that is why I refuse to embrace it. If you see a fire you cut off its oxygen not fan it so it burns the house down faster.  I have read a lot of history especially of revolutionary periods and the people always suffer and seldom do the new bosses treat them any better than the old bosses.  I say just skip the violence and work on any other ideas or dreams because while they have little chance of stopping all the violence the alternative doesn't even try. 

Northern Shoveler wrote:

When has corruption not been the norm?

Now you're talking about the profit motive itself. In order to even attempt to deal with corruption in and out of government, the profit motive and exclusive private property laws would have to be scrapped. Anglo-American free trade and market theorists have repeated the lie for decades that the benefits to society of deregulation and privatization would far outweigh cost and effects of corruption. This is clearly not true by today. We are being led down a road to serfdom and self-destruction by an economic system in all its variations that has failed time and time again since 14th century Italy. Logicians and philosophers have repeated over and over only to fall on deaf ears that the most logical thing to do would be to scrap what does not work and start over and paying close attention to what clearly has not worked well at all.

I can't wait for the US to implode, we do need to get rid of Harper so he doesn't take us down with them. I don't hate Americans, but I do hate the imperialist shit that they (their government) foists on the world. I am ashamed that Canada has been dragged along on the last few adventures.

Nobody says to much about Britain. Are they not similar to the americans, just without the guns? London is a (the) global banking center,no? I really do need to read more about what is left of the Anglo empire, and where it came from, any suggestions?