Was there ever a crisis so tedious and unnecessary as the current debt crisis—a monument to the hypocrisy of the American people, who want the world, but don’t want to have to pay for it? I’ve written before of the “tear it down, tear it all down” fervor of the Tea Party crew, but what is this other than democracy in action? These people did win elections, after all.
The woeful fecklessness of the Bush Administration, which self-consciously modeled itself on the triumphs of the Reagan Administration, only to have everything come out backwards, have left the American people—a majority of them, at least—in a sour, graceless, and ungracious mood. We want to punish someone, preferably someone with unattractive facial hair and a bad accent. As Glenn Greenwald notes, Anwar al-Awlaki, the American citizen targeted for death by President Obama, was, shortly after 9/11, invited to a luncheon at the Pentagon intended to “ease tensions with Muslim Americans.”* But now that Obama needs to kill someone, so that America (and the Pentagon, and the CIA, and the neocon goons at AEI and all around the town) will know that he’s on the job, the poor guy is Public Enemy Number 1. Just as the British kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the rest, so we kill a cleric or two, along with a handful or two of innocent bystanders, to amuse the public.†
Whoa, I guess I was supposed to be talking about the debt ceiling, wasn’t I? I’m afraid that murder by executive order has become a bit of a King Charles’ head thing with me. It keeps popping up everywhere. Well, the Tea Party crowd applauds murder, but so far they haven’t committed any. So far.
*According to the Washington Post, Awlaki is noted for his “fiery sermons.” Okay, Anwar, we’ve had with the fiery sermons! Okay? Enough is enough!
†While so many of our current woes come from the attempts of the Bush fils/Cheney crew to emulate Reagan, in murdering an erstwhile ally Obama seems to following in the footsteps of Bush père, who invaded the countries of two long-time friends of the CIA, Manuel Noriega of Panama and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Sometimes we need allies, sometimes we need enemies. It really doesn’t pay to stand too close to the United States.
