I do not insert myself in the community forum after I post articles on TMV for a variety of reasons. The last time I participated in the forum was in August 2009 when I got into a needlessly nasty tussle with former conservative TMV contributor Jazz Shaw over healthcare reform. Disgusted with myself I even stopped writing anything for TMV for several months as a result of it.
I believe TMV readers have a right to voice their comments on whatever I write without having to debate me personally but they certainly like to dig into each other quite a bit. (My philosophy is never jump into a fight that doesn’t involve you personally but I’ll call 9-1-1 to break it up.) I don’t even have or want a username or password to participate in the comments section of TMV. I would suggest that everyone please reconsider the need to constantly requote each other in your comments – it’s getting really unwieldly at this point and nearly impossible to follow your discussions.
I always read the comments to my posts but never get upset anymore because I refrain from such debates. However your recent comments stopped me and therefore I have prepared this new post in partial response to your disappointment in my advocating the elimination of federal funding for Planned Parenthood if it means keeping the federal government operating instead. I may regret wading into the vociferous debate sparked by my prior post. I don’t plan to do this very often but with over 40 comments on my prior post, perhaps everyone should move to another post – possibly written by another great TMV writer.
Kathy, I think you might have erroneously strung two separate thoughts and analogies together. I never compared a poor woman’s legal right to an abortion with an annoying fly. Many Republicans have viewed certain favorite Democratic programs as pesky flies or nasty affronts to their worldview. My post’s main thrust was to view the overall budget numbers and national economic mess in light of a small program that is highly charged for ideologically-driven people.
What we are facing today is – and will be for the foreseeable future – an unrelenting, nasty, mean-spirited, pointless, gutless, incendiary, unnecessary and diversionary political fight over French (Freedom) Fries in the Congressional Cafeteria. (Please no one assume that fried potatoes are akin to women’s health.) Our nation’s political and economic systems are so completely partisan, broken, corrupt, dysfunctional, out-of-balance, unproductive, gridlocked, surreal and paralyzed, that we are arguing about so many irrelevant matters instead of seeing the big picture.
Congress has two stark choices: (1) Remain at odds over 1% of the agreed-upon cuts pursuing extreme ideological grounds and the government shuts down, putting millions of public and private sector jobs in jeopardy, plus cutting off unemployment benefits and food assistance in many states such as Arizona who solely rely on federal money to operate these programs. Alternatively (2) Give up the fight over Planned Parenthood and keep the Federal Government operating. There is no option number (3) no matter how much we wish or argue for it. Even some other distasteful riders may have to be accepted on other partisan subjects to keep the government operating.
Republicans are simply not compromising on this issue and probably several other ones really distasteful to Democrats. No one in this process is negotiating in good faith. They are doing this at this late stage because they know they can hold everyone else hostage and that under normal circumstances and voting procedures they would not be able to do this type of extreme partisan brinkmanship. Many on the right actually welcome a prolonged government shutdown for a variety of reasons but I think it would be a disaster on many levels.
My extensive legal and business experience has shown me that in certain disputed situations, no reasonable compromise exists and one must simply cut one’s losses and move on for financial and tactical reasons and for the sake of one’s sanity. Life is just too short to waste time and energy on some intractable issues and nasty, implacable and close-minded people. This position is even more imperative when a nation’s financial health is at stake. Sometimes we have to make ugly choices based solely on monetary considerations and calculating the total number of people who would benefit or be harmed by a particular choice.
Kathy, we are simply faced with two very ugly choices and only those choices. We can’t argue or wish them away. In such a situation, I reluctantly chose to make the best of a very bad situation and advocated the least distasteful alternative. Your SSI and normal social security payments will be unaffected by the shutdown unless it lasts until a vote on the debt ceiling that would nicely mess up everything – domestically and internationally. I also ignored my spouse’s impending job loss but I considered the hundreds of thousands of public and private sector people who will be without employment as a result of a federal government shutdown.
I ask you to think about your initial comment a bit longer. You might realize that it is highly unlikely that Planned Parenthood’s federal assistance can be saved and that we can still keep the Federal government operating. I merely suggested a mechanism for progressives and supporters of Planned Parenthood to look for alternative methods of funding its operations.
Democrats put themselves in this nasty situation by not agreeing upon a budget last year when they ostensibly had complete control in Congress. Instead they just kicked the can to the future. They should have realized that it would be impossible to share power and decision-making with an opposition party that has no interest whatsoever in governing, debating sane national priorities, raising taxes on their wealthy benefactors, or making serious and reasonable efforts to reduce unsustainably large federal deficits that are due in large part to a bloated military, too many foreign wars, many useless corporate subsidies, a massive loss of revenues due to the greatest economic decline since the 1930’s, and an overall mis-allocation of limited resources by prior administrations and Congresses.
This budget charade is being orchestrated behind the scenes by our wealthy oligarchy and their thousands of lobbyists in Washington DC who will not suffer financially if the Federal Government closes for weeks or months. A shutdown may increase the public’s overall distaste for a completely dysfunctional public sector and that may lead to privatizing many public services, properties, and assets to private ownership and control.
We are quickly devolving into a neo-feudalistic kleptocracy and it sadly appears that our ruling classes will not do a thing about reversing this ugly trajectory. Planned Parenthood is only the first of many programs that will be gutted or axed on ideological not fiscal grounds over the next several years in the false hope that severe austerity and sacrifice imposed upon everyone but the extremely wealthy will somehow return us to prosperity.
My spouse looks upon her impending job loss from a Federal contractor with the idea it may be a needed push to leave a 3-year position that has devolved into a barely-tolerable employment situation over the past 6 months. She is bilingual, intelligent, charming, hard-working, dependable, versatile and quite attractive. It won’t be easy for our family financially since unemployment benefits won’t be paid in Arizona with a government shut-down, and my meager consulting work is so erratic. We’ll survive because we simply want to survive. We have lowered our monthly expenses to the minimum. We have no mortgage or automobile payments, and we have no credit card or student loan debts. We owe some hospital bills and Federal back taxes that are on payment plans.
Many other people will have a very difficult time because they are not flexible, are deeply in debt without any savings, or have limited skills. (In Arizona to be considered for most of the growing number of low-paying part-time retail, caretaking, food service and hospitality jobs, one must frequently speak Spanish fluently.) But the biggest impediment for most people in finding any new work is the severe lack of decent jobs in most places across the nation.
Perhaps a long government shutdown coupled with a vote not to increase the federal debt ceiling will collapse our entire corrupt and unsustainable political and economic systems. It may be easier to start anew rather than fix the mess we’re in. Perhaps everyone in Congress realizes they are not up to the task of governing anymore and they secretly welcome the End of the American Empire. Is anyone ready to learn Spanish and Chinese, and start paying for everything with a new IMF World currency?
Best wishes and hugs to you Kathy and my other TMV fans from Marc and our family in Phoenix. Fortunately when we go walking in the local park and look around to the mountains and beautiful scenery, we never see any of the miles of debt or worthless financial papers that we are creating and fearing every minute. They really don’t exist, they’ll never be paid back, and eventually we’ll all be better off when we just forget about all of that worthless crap and start over caring about the things that really matter in life.