Over the Cliff and Onto the Rocks Below

English: The western front of the United States Capitol. The Neoclassical style building is located in Washington, D.C., on top of Capitol Hill at the east end of the National Mall. The Capitol was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

October 12, 2013

Now that Ted Cruz seems to have self-immolated, or something close enough to it to make me happy, maybe Congress will step away from the fiscal cliff and settle down to do their congressional duties long enough for the country not to self-immolate next week.  Maybe not.  Hard to tell, at this point.

Of course, if they don’t step away, I have the indoor garden – such as it is – up and running this week and a little extra food in the pantry just in case they try to break their fall by latching onto my social security check on their way down.  (Yes, I’m one of those liberal leeches who actually expects the government to make full restitution on the money – and money in lieu of benefits from my employers – the gov. took out of my paychecks for forty-five years.)

And it’s not just us old folks, it’s the working poor, the unemployed,  the hungry or homeless – you know, those who are just lazy. What about all those government workers you’ll have to let go to find real jobs somewhere?  Or the young men and women you sent off to fight your wars and are now screwing over?  Not to mention the rest of those people sucking at the government teet – like the oil industry and big agriculture and big pharma and the banks and multinational corporations?  And what about all those small businesses who depend on government subsidized infrastructure and the interstate transportation systems to get their employees and products where they need to go every day  – the ones who provide all those real jobs.  What happens to those folks if you run the government off the cliff?

If you lose full faith and credit in the eyes of a bunch of foreign governments, you just lose the financial system and its beneficiaries and, after all, they’re less than one percent of Americans (and the rest of the world, for that matter).  If you lose full faith and credit in the eyes of the rest of us, you lose the country.  Your choice, of course, but that’s the way I see it.

That financial system isn’t going to last much longer, anyway, what with all the problems you’ve been too busy squabbling to address.  But, honey, WE are still going to be here and waiting for you when you finally hit the rocks at the bottom of that cliff.  And we are going to be pissed.

Now, I don’t mean to sound like your crabby old mother-in-law, but really, folks, there’s only so much one person can do to protect him or herself from life’s vagaries.  After all, isn’t that why we all banded together 237 years ago?  And wasn’t that what that line in the Constitution, about you all using the revenues you collect for the common defense and the general welfare, really meant?

Like I said, it’s your choice.  But, with the way you’ve been behaving lately, most of the people you’re supposed to represent don’t know whether to laugh, cry or just run for cover.

With peak energy, climate change and an economic engine that’s about out of steam, this idea of a globe-spanning Imperial colossus is so over.  You could get your act together, behave like the adults we thought we elected and lead us into a  leaner, cleaner, more localized (and sustainable) future that works for all of us.  Or you can just go on over the cliff, onto those big, sharp rocks way down at the bottom and take the remains of the Empire and the nation with you.  It’s your choice and you’re wasting all our time.