The Games Plutocrats Play

Many a tear has to fall, but it's all in the game.* 

Even though Weeper of the House John Boehner rails, "This isn't some damned game!"

It most certainly is, suavely counters Secretary of State of Affairs John Kerry. Think of this little tiff as a rare bad inning for the World Series champs. 

The fact that one upstart, extremist right wing faction seemingly has the power to bring the greatest nation on Earth to its knees should not be cause for too much concern, he reassured the wavering global client/fan base of Team America. This shutdown kerfuffle is merely an example of how broad-minded and exceptional and strong we truly are. Since it is indeed all a game, it's patently unfair that the United States is getting such a bad rap and taking such an unfair hit to its good rep.

“Do not mistake this momentary episode in American politics as anything more than a moment of politics,” he said. “This is an example of the robustness of our democracy.”

I imagine that those nearly one million furloughed federal workers are breathing a huge collective sigh of relief right about now. When the bill collectors call, they can always say they are experiencing a momentary episode. The robustness of their endangered personal credit ratings must not be challenged.

The New York Times inadvertently broadcast the real truth: "Standing in for President Obama at an economic summit in Asia, (Kerry) warned on Saturday that the United States’ reputation was endangered because of the government shutdown, which sends the message that “we can’t get out (sic) own act together.”

Whereby he confirmed that the latest piece of bipartisan Disaster Capitalism is, of course, just an act. And that we the people are just the audience posing as unpaid bit players in the whole staged fiasco. Along with the furloughed workers, we will breathe a collective sigh of relief as the bickering parties in a fundamentally solid marriage finally come together to renew their vows.... their Grand Bargain for the Grandees. The Republicans won because they got all their hatred out in the open. The Democrats won because they made a good show of fighting for the peeps, even as they started their negotiations having already accepted austerian budget numbers.

The Democrats, as a few analysts point out, have essentially adopted flim-flam man Paul Ryan's budget. All this talk about Obama standing firm against the Republicans is bullshit. He already caved. John Boehner already got 98% of everything he wanted. Wall Street already got 1000% of everything it wanted.

It's all in the game.

Once in awhile he won't call, but it's all in the game. Soon he'll be there at your side with a sweet bouquet. Then he'll kiss your lips and caress your waiting fingertips. And your hearts will fly away.

The sweet bouquet, of course, is cutting Social Security through chained CPI, along with the possible raising of the Medicare eligibility age, no new taxes on the rich, further tweaks to Obamacare, and maybe even approval of the tar sands pipeline. Obama has left "entitlement reforms" on the table for a romantic candlelit dinner in the denouement of Crisis Theater, 2013. Kiss and Makeup Time is inevitable. John Kerry promised this to the fan base of the whole world. They're just waiting for either the staged GOP temper tantrum to bawl itself out, or for Obama to issue a time-out and invoke the 14th. Either way, he wants to bargain away the great social insurance programs of the 20th century.

"The robustness of the Market shall not be challenged" is what he dog-whistled. The world shall remain safe for plutocracy.

Unless, of course, more of us spectators make our voices heard. We stopped the bombing on Syria. We stopped the appointment of Larry Summers to the Federal Reserve. We can also stop the final shredding of the New Deal. We can crash their makeup scene, take all the pleasure out of their fervid makeout session.

We can, and must, get out of the box the media-industrial complex has constructed for us. This is not about Democrats vs. Republicans, and picking a side. This is about the .01% vs. the rest of us. It's about resetting the terms of the Class War.

* This pop staple was actually written by Calvin Coolidge's vice president, Charles Dawes... who was a banker before he entered politics. Plus ça change, etc.

** Update: here's a link to Maureen Dowd's cinematic column, comparing Jeffersonian "Utopia" to Ted Cruz-inspired Thunderdome. It got good reviews from the usual critics; it had me riveted right up to the point where she seemed to compare Julian Assange to a crazoid militia dude. I notice that all our usual media suspects, stung by recent criticism of their "both sides do it" journalism, are now on their best behavior and trying to be very careful not to lump the Dems and the Pugs together in the Shutdown debacle. Ergo, for some reason, Dowd drags out Assange as an example of extreme leftism. My comment:

Great cinematic treatment of 2084. But for many of us, the future is now.

You might even say it started with Jefferson himself, whose declaration that all men are created equal didn't extend to freeing his own slaves. His utopia was envisioned as a utopia for the ruling class.. Emancipation was always for another day. That "existential dread" has been a way of life for the underclass since the founders did the founding. Just ask the Native Americans.

The most recent outbreak of fear of our own government is due not only to the antics of the Tea Party. It stems from the overarching, paranoid antics of the national surveillance state, the evisceration of civil liberties, and capitalism gone wild. Julian Assange did us all a favor revealing such antics. So casting him as a villain in your dystopian film makes me suspect that the script came from the same official sources that brought us "Zero Dark 30."

And it's a movie we've seen before. Create a crisis, foment some fear, use it as a smokescreen to rob the poor and give to the rich. Even John Kerry as much as admitted that the current showdown meltdown is just a glitch in the well-oiled machine. He told a nervous crowd in Asia: "Do not mistake this momentary episode in American politics as anything more than a moment of politics, This is an example of the robustness of our democracy.”

Translation: Fear not, blood-sucking plutocrats. The fundamentals of the Market are strong. Keeping you well-fed is our highest priority.