The debt ceiling playing out on the national stage as it never has before, is an illuminating window to realizing what our country is. It's an existential glimpse. It's unfolding like:
a Shakespearean opus
viewed under a strobe light
on a giant turntable
set to 78.
All the classic elements are present.
Wars, Lies, Factions, Treachery, Flawed Protagonist, Suffering, Loss
It's a set piece with a color scheme, [red, white and blue of course], flags of the realm all in a row beside the usual heraldic insignia.
The revolutions are fast while at the same time they seem to be in slow motion. You see repeat after repeat of the same tableau and sometimes a glimmer of something that wants to remain hidden but it was there. The Constitution, the foundational writ of this story is in the dirt being trodden upon for a split second. But no!! There it is again, enshrined in glass, within marble halls, all is well. Never mind.
The conflict in this story [as any good story must contain] is between the Republicans and the Democrats. Hatfields and McCoys, Montagues and the Capulets, Yankees and the Red Sox. Pick your binary analogy as you like it. We're here to entertain and provide diversion while we're about what we're always about, us and our continued employment as actors on your stage. All of this is in service to our masters who own the theater, sell the tickets and write our lines.
The plot is irrelevant at this point. Because we have been sufficiently able to say anything and have it mean nothing and everything at the same time. You won't notice what is true or what isn't. You are only supposed to believe it based on which side you've decided to support. What comes out of our mouths is inconsequential. Look at our mascots, pick one and revere it. Adore it and support it and convert others to your fealty. Go ahead, do it.
Ignore the fact that our beloved and beautiful hero has just flubbed his lines and has taken the villain's to recite as his own. Don't worry that his supporting cast is now seemingly flummoxed and cannot stutter theirs. Let's move along. Eat your peas. Pay your bills. Live within your means. But you have to come see us tomorrow night and every night. The next great saga is being written as we bow.
Needle being ripped across the platter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The fact is that this country is on the brink of a Constitutional crisis regarding the debt ceiling and the very ability of our Government to remain solvent and our sovereignty to remain intact. We have more than half of the legislative branch employing parliamentary procedure and hostage taking as a means to undo what the previous legislature and the Executive enacted. The Republicans, using the Teabaggers as cover and media as abettors, are robbing the Treasury to thwart the rule of law.
Make no mistake, they hate Medicare, and Social Security and Medicaid and ACA which they intend to strangle in its infancy. They have strangled the states and installed their agents where they can. They have diverted our public program nest eggs to wars and privatization and they lead us to the brink of tyranny, nay, civil war, to prey on what we have left.
And our Democratic President is reading their lines. The Democratic cast, except for a few lone voices, are doing likewise.
This is not governing. This is an attack by corporations on the Constitution, which is us. It's war and we've been asleep for the entire first act.