The October 2013 government shutdown represents a turning point in American politics. The big money that has always maintained control behind the scenes has gotten bold. The Koch brothers, Monsanto, the pharmaceutical industry, big banks and oil; the one percent have come out from the dimly lit back rooms where the strings were previously pulled in private. They have opened the shutters and shown a shadow of their faces to a carefully selected audience. They’ve amassed a number of talking heads and paid for them to gain political positions of power.
Attaching themselves to the GOP has been their entryway into the mainstream and while republicans scramble to keep up with their identity, the extreme, anti government, racist, evangelical zealots may be maneuvering their way towards wiping out the Republican Party altogether.
This is not a result of chance or coincidence. This seems to have been a carefully devised plan that has been in the works for a very long time. We are facing the culmination of a dumbing down of the people, a superficially functioning media and political fraud. More has gone on behind the scenes than we the public will ever know about.
Obstructionism seems to be the latest, greatest game on the hill. Health care obstructionism follows gun law obstructionism which follows the sequester obstructionism which follows the Chuck Hagel confirmation obstructionism and hurricane Sandy relief obstructionism… The shutdown of our government may finally be the event that puts an end to this trend. So much has gone under the radar and been pushed through without public knowledge and therefore without consensus.
Apparently, global warming can be dismissed as lefty propaganda and evolution can be erased from our science books. The constitution can be reinterpreted and our food supply can be poisoned with deadly chemicals. We can learn to turn a blind eye to reason and be coerced into engaging in wars all over the world but when we find the economy of our daily lives taking yet another plunge because Washington has turned into loony tunes, Americans may respond.
Unfortunately, there is a skepticism of politics in general and an overall feeling of defeat when it comes to being able to alter the course of our daily lives let alone the course of our future. This is a tired nation that has been shown time after time that our preferences are mute, that our voices are nullified the moment they are released.
The only good that may come of this debacle is a chance that with nothing left to lose we may rise up as a nation against this undercurrent and declare that this emperor has no clothes.
