It is January 31.
Barack Obama could, I suppose, arrest the thirty-one Republicans he needs to for treason, for conspiring in wartime to bankrupt their Commander-in-Chief. Or he could order a drone strike on one of them and scare the others into compliance. Or he could by executive order create a new offence, Economic Sabotage, with a mandatory twenty-five years in solitary for it.
Or he could do what he is doing now, saying America should pay its debts, and, since he was elected on this platform, of paying down deficit by taxing billionaires, no gerrymandered Congress should stop him from keeping his promise, and no Supreme Court neither.
But whatever he does, the result will be, in big-picture terms, the same. The Republicans will be dead, electorally, as of January 1, and will never, never rise again.
They started two losing wars they will not pay for, one to capture a man who wasn’t there, and one to find bombs that weren’t there, wars that will have cost trillions by the time the last wounded veteran dies in the 2090s. They did not raise taxes to pay for these wars, they brought them down. They lost all esteem they had world-wide by doing these fool, punitive, costly things. And they ended the world by not looking closely at global warming, as a President Gore would have done, and striving to fix it if they could.
And whereas it was possible once to conceal what they have wickedly done by altering the language in which it was remembered, or the headlines in which it was assessed, it is not possible, thanks to the social media and the internet and al-Jazeera and the History Channel, to do this now. People will remember after tomorrow that they let all middle-class taxes go up when they could have, by following the newly elected and well-liked President, left them where they are. Every Latino vote they might have retrieved is lost to them now, and, as the Latinos multiply, and vote more keenly hereafter, the White House, forever.
Lincoln was the first Republican President, Bush 2 the last. Civil wars did for both of them, and similar numbers of dead and wounded in avoidable conflicts each felt a need to be in.
The Republican party since Teddy Roosevelt has done much to wreck the international civility that the League of Nations first, and then the United Nations, and the Camp David Agreement, and the Olso Accords, and the Copenhagen Agreement, valiantly tried to preserve. They destroyed the democratic impulse in the Middle East by restoring the Shah and backing Nasser in Eisenhower’s time. They destroyed the democratic impulse in South America in Nixon’s time by killing Allende and Che Guevara and sabotaging Castro and Ortega in Reagan’s time. They wrecked, in Bush 1′s time, the Gorbachev Spring and propelled to world dominance the Yeltsin/Putin tyranny that burned down Parliament House, assassinated rivals, rewarded gangsters with billions and followed and bugged and gunned down dissident journalists by the score. They restored to power the lunatic Shi-ites of Iraq, bringing down a secular government, and failed to defeat in expensive battle the lunatic Sunnis of Afghanistan with a weapons arsenal bigger than any in world history.
They have a lot to answer for, the Republicans, and they will be reminded of it in the coming months, by Obama, the internet, the social media, al-Jazeera and CNN; and the History Channel ten years from now.
Some of them will jump ship, but most will not.
And this is their last day of true power on this earth.
And they will not be missed.
Prove that I lie.
Name:
I know that you aren’t serious in these long pieces but…er…Che was done for in 1967.
One less of the lebenty leben crimes committed by the Republicans eh?
Okay, sorry. One less.
In the play Nixon/Kissinger the two calculate they killed, between them, a million people.
Agree with this, do you? Or do you have another figure?
This is just pay back for another failed attempt at the White House by Mit Romney. These conservative scum bags, who I think, unlike Bob Ellis said in jest, should be arrested, and charged with treason. They are, the repuglicans that is, responsible for bankrupting America, and they are trying to shift the blame onto Obama. The outcome of their treasonous actions, possibly starving to death their own people.
Still what ever they do now will make no difference, all this talk of a new golden age for America is abject bollocks. They’re fucked and they know it.
As an aside, I saw Gillard on the box with her end of year bullshit session, and the words Iran and nuclear ambitions came up. What the fuck does she know we don’t? What I suspected, we’re in for another round of crusading this time in Iran.
Something, anything to take the reality out of the minds of the proles, we are heading for economic Armageddon
I fucking despair how stupid people are.
What I dnt get is O’Bama putting himself through considerable pain to get the Pubs to agree to a saving of $600billion re the debt. Now the USA has $16trillion in debt (er did you hear that Tony Rabbit-now THAT is debt!). A saving of $600billion is a piss in the ocean and will really change nothing at The Grand Old Opry. Now I realise a start has to be made somewhere and it should be in Defence…by cutting it even more so. The farmers are also paid billions in subsidies NOT to produce…bloody crazy! $600billion out of $16trillion will change nothing at all.
It matters not what they do, the party is over. The poor will take the can for this lot, as per usual. The rich will probably have to economise on a cheaper wine, French wine still mind you, no change there much.
I remember the words of Jim Morrison from The Doors fame ” I’m gonna get my kicks before the whole shit house goes up in flames ” Wise council me thinks.
HAIL BOB ELLIS ! MAY YOU LIVE LONG AND MAY YOU WRITE STRONG.
America is now a nanny state and under Obama has just got worse.
Don’t believe me?
2009 OECD statistics: government expenditures per person; France a socialist country, $18,866.00; in the United States, $19,266.00
Obama is caught in a bind. He needs to either print more money (but they wont let him do that) or do the sensible thing that adults do and spend less on everything or jack up the tax rate on everyone!
Yep, the poor, the middle class, the rich - all must pay for the incompetence of successive administrations both Republican and Democrats.
No good gouging the super rich. They don’t have enough cash to fix the mess. Forbes 400 richest Americans have a combined wealth of $1.7 trillion. You could confiscate the lot and its still not have enough to fix the mess.
Economists calculate that America needs to raise the tax rate by at least 30% so that they can pay off the debt in 25 years! Imagine the compound interest rate?
Perhaps they need a 20% GST on everything?
25 years! Thats how long it’ll take them to do that, to balance the books, to get the budget back in balance - if they had the nerve to do something about it.
Its not going to happen overnight.
America must go into recession and drag the rest of the world including us along with it. They need to do a swan dive over that cliff and declare themselves bankrupt or something like that. They need to stop bailing out the banks too. Let ‘em fail!
No point blaming the Republicans. They are all in it together now and need to pony up and be adult about it and stop kidding themselves that she’ll be right.
There’s no point Obama getting up in front of a microphone to say he is forming another super-committee to look into the Fiscal Cliff matter and pay back a billion here or a trillion there next year, when Washington borrows $188 million every hour!
They are living beyond their wildest dreams and this American Dream is well and truly over. Its wakey-wakey time now and someone must pay the piper! Its unfortunate that those at the bottom of the ladder will have to foot the bill. Every time.
Its enough to turn you into a bleeding socialist!
A three percent GST on everything and a third off the Pentagon would do it. And forty percent, not thirty-nine, on the the extremely rich.
Somebody do the figures please.
NBULLSHIT:-And how the FOOOOOK did all of debt this start…the Bushes spending trillions on needless wars. That’s how!
The war President.
Not to mention the Wall St cockroaches who got bailed out to the tune of billions.
Still to be fair, some of those unctuous slimy cunts, did need a new roof on the old Château in the Swiss Alps.
I read this the other day and its a very good metaphor.
THE DEBT CEILING
=======================================
Let’s say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.
What do you think you should do?
•Raise the ceilings,
or
•Pump out the crap?
Think carefully now. Obama or Romney would have both jacked up the ceiling. Its what they are told to do.
Subject: A LESSON ON SPENDING
=======================================
• U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000
Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:
• Annual family income: $21,700
• Money the family spent: $38,200
• New debt on the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Total budget cuts: $385
See, they are living in la-la land.
Bullshit. The “family income” is self limited : they can pay themselves whatever they fucking like - it is called “tax”.
Ahh but if you raise taxes too far, people take action to avoid them, including leaving the country. Why do you think that there are billions sitting in the Cayman islands? The Cayman islands decided to set itself up as a low taxing region and as such has attracted the capital.
So no, they can’t pay themselves whatever they want. Also if the people think that they are paying too much tax, they might support political parties that advocate lower taxes.
All of this is democracy and freedom of movement.
That is why there has to be concerted action on this from all governments which govern over desirable locations. I doubt that too many billionaires want to live in Somalia or Mongolia.
That’s all very interesting Frank, and most I would presume would know, if you keep pouring piss out of a bottle with out replacing said piss it runs out.
But there is so much more to it isn’t there? It is not just about spending like a drunken sailor. The whole concept of capitalism is under threat.
The rich are getting richer producing nothing. The people who do produce, are trying to sell goods at inflated prices no fucker wants. We are in fact drowning in plastic buckets, our own consumerism.
Even the half wits in my party think the system can be fixed, it can’t. We need growth to make capitalism work, that is stagnant. What we made here and in the U.S. and employed millions is now made in China by Cooley labour.
The sweet irony, the Commie Chinese are making money and laughing all the way to the bank. China builds a new factory in Africa the Yanks build a war ship in response. I fucking love it.They are being pissed on by what most Yanks would consider nothing more than fucking ditch diggers.
The writing is on the wall.
Frank you truly do make bullshit a science.
So to assuage the guilt off of the Repuglycans, it is according to ” Franks Logic ‘ (a new term by the way) the Democrats fault as well.
Frank you know the price of everything and the value of nothing. How much of the social welfare bill would be spent on the thousands of war veterans still on the pay roll in the U.S.? Some of those poor fuckers cost a million bucks alone.I have no doubt that would exceed France’s social welfare expenditure alone. Divying it up down to a person is bollicks, and you know it.
No good gouging the super rich!!! Jesus H Christ Frank are you serious? There are millions of rich shit bags in the U.S. who can pay more. The Forbes list!!!!! Jesus.
Like that wanker DQ said Frank, the right don’t do comedy.
Your last paragraph is true though Frank.
As for you being a socialist? Bad nightmares again Frank?
Taxes should be easy in the USA : if you want to do business in the USA you will pay your taxes. Not transfer price to tax havens and low tax regimes, and make your profits there.
The nations of the western world, in particular, need a united front on this issue. For too long multinationals have exported jobs and hoarded billions in safe havens whilst the educated and advanced workforces are exploited by the outrageously overpaid executives and the even more outrageously acquisitive “owners” of the said conglomerates.
Or the tumbrils ought to roll once again - which will it be?
The Republican Party is, as you say Bob, defunct as an effective political party. My three decades residing in that schizoid nation of tree huggers and murderers side by side shows me that as the culture wars now escalate back to class warfare still being waged asymmetrically - but the result will be the same - the barbarian culture is on the road to extinction and the cultural “race” that is favoured for preservation in the struggle for life is the sustainable one - the mutant one in which the Earth is sacred.
A revolutionary sustainable global culture has been growing ever larger since before the world revolution of 1968. The mass media magnifying instrument grossly exagerates the power of the oligarchs.
When will we ever learn.
God alone knows.
Well said.
You must be joking! That is the greatest load of codswallop since Pilger wore nappies!
Read it carefully, please Bob. Then tell me I’m wrong.
Hmm. On second thoughts, I don’t understand it at all.
It is a most auspicious accomplishment. Not knowing is difficult to arrive at. It takes a lifetime. Even an infant can say “No”. They learn early. Some adults never outgrow the easy path of contradiction, insult, innuendo,flagrante delicto and fellatio a la Lewis Brough Palmer Abbott Pyne and young Kabuki Jim.
As I recall, a few years back, that world champion intellectual featherweight Greg Sheridan had a go at Pilgerist Chomskyites in print. Taking a free ride dropping names is parasitic but parasitism is natural right? It just ain’t very human. Civilized behaviour is easy to recognize. Barbarians cannot hide their barbarity long.
We see it here on Table Talk all the time when Bob keeps house.
They import savagery now accross that great Pacific lake in shipping containers marked “News”. Peak was Orwell’s version of the future after Henry Luce “canon” handed off the baton to Mr Murdoch-Fox the cunning Melbourne heir to the opportunistic smearer of the soldier Monash. Pilger and Chomsky risked war zones and peace too. Courage is no virtue cultivated by cowards and bullies.
Newspeak. Oh well Orwell knew Rupert was in nappies too. The stains remain long after MacBeth. That Othello fellow from Hawaii now has four more years and no re-election to worry about.
Franklin Roosevelt showed that rich boys can redeem themselves and do not have to be traitors to humanity.
We all have to choose now.
Life and love and sofia are an option.
So too are Peace love and freedom.
Here comes a sustainable culture.