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FOCUS | We Are Not a Country of Anarchists |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7122"><span class="small">Elizabeth Warren, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Friday, 04 October 2013 11:14 |
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Warren writes: "Behind all the slogans of the Tea Party - and all the thinly veiled calls for anarchy in Washington - is a reality: The American people don't want a future without government."
Elizabeth Warren speaks to reporters during a news conference, 05/02/12. (photo: Steven Senne/AP)
We Are Not a Country of Anarchists
By Elizabeth Warren, Reader Supported News
04 October 13
 f you watch the anarchist tirades coming from extremist Republicans in the House, you'd think they believe that the government that governs best is a government that doesn't exist at all.
But behind all the slogans of the Tea Party - and all the thinly veiled calls for anarchy in Washington - is a reality: The American people don't want a future without government.
When was the last time the anarchy gang called for regulators to go easier on companies that put lead in children's toys? Or for inspectors to stop checking whether the meat in our grocery stores is crawling with deadly bacteria? Or for the FDA to ignore whether morning sickness drugs will cause horrible deformities in our babies?
When? Never. In fact, whenever the anarchists make any headway in their quest and cause damage to our government, the opposite happens.
After the sequester kicked in, Republicans immediately turned around and called on us to protect funding for our national defense and to keep our air traffic controllers on the job.
And now that the House Republicans have shut down the government - holding the country hostage because of some imaginary government "health care boogeyman" - Republicans almost immediately turned around and called on us to start reopening parts of our government.
Why do they do this? Because the boogeyman government in the alternate universe of their fiery political speeches isn't real. It doesn't exist.
Government is real, and it has three basic functions:
- Provide for the national defense.
- Put rules in place rules, like traffic lights and bank regulations, that are fair and transparent.
- Build the things together that none of us can build alone - roads, schools, power grids - the things that give everyone a chance to succeed.
These things did not appear by magic. In each instance, we made a choice as a people to come together. We made that choice because we wanted to be a country with a foundation that would allow anyone to have a chance to succeed.
The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that the white pills we take are antibiotics and not baking soda. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees crash tests to make sure our new cars have functioning brakes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission makes sure that babies' car seats don't collapse in a crash and that toasters don't explode.
We are alive, we are healthier, we are stronger because of government. Alive, healthier, stronger because of what we did together.
We are not a country of anarchists. We are not a country of pessimists and ideologues whose motto is, "I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own." We are not a country that tolerates dangerous drugs, unsafe meat, dirty air, or toxic mortgages.
We are not that nation. We have never been that nation. And we never will be that nation.
The political minority in the House that condemns government and begged for this shutdown has its day. But like all the reckless and extremist factions that have come before it, its day will pass - and the government will get back to the work we have chosen to do together.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Boehner: Obama Stubbornly Refusing to End Crisis I Created |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9160"><span class="small">Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker</span></a>
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Thursday, 03 October 2013 13:32 |
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Borowitz writes: "Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that he was disappointed after meeting with President Obama at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, telling reporters, 'The President is stubbornly refusing to end the crisis I created.'"
President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. (photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Boehner: Obama Stubbornly Refusing to End Crisis I Created
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
03 October 13
The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."
 peaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that he was disappointed after meeting with President Obama at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, telling reporters, "The President is stubbornly refusing to end the crisis I created."
"Government is about teamwork," Mr. Boehner continued. "I've done my part by putting together an entirely optional crisis that has shut down the government and will throw thousands out of work. Now it's up to the President to do his part by ending it."
Mr. Boehner said that he was "flabbergasted" that the President was looking to him to bring the current government shutdown to an end: "So after doing all of the hard work to push the country to the brink, I'm supposed to pull it back, too? How about you pitching in a little, Mr. President?"
The House Speaker said that he hoped he did not have to manufacture another entirely avoidable crisis over the debt ceiling in order to stir the President to action. "Quite frankly, orchestrating these unnecessary stalemates takes a lot of energy and I could really use a rest," he said.
But Mr. Boehner seemed pessimistic that the President "got the message."
"Because of my actions, thousands of federal workers have already been furloughed," he said. "How many more people do I have to throw out on the street before the President wakes up?"
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Herman Wallace, Free at Last |
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Thursday, 03 October 2013 13:30 |
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Goodman writes: "In a stunning legal ruling, Judge Brian A. Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana ordered Wallace's release by overturning his 1974 murder conviction."
Herman Wallace. (photo: Getty Images)
Herman Wallace, Free at Last
By Amy Goodman, Truthdig
03 October 13
 fter close to 42 years in solitary confinement, Herman Wallace is free. Wallace is dying of liver cancer, with days if not hours to live at the time of this writing. In a stunning legal ruling, Judge Brian A. Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana ordered Wallace’s release by overturning his 1974 murder conviction. As he lies dying, Herman Wallace knows that after a lifetime of enduring the torture of solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit, he is now a free man.
Herman Wallace is one of the "Angola 3," along with Robert King, who was released from prison in 2001, and Albert Woodfox, who remains imprisoned in solitary confinement, despite having his sentence overturned on three separate occasions. These three men, all African-American, were locked up in what was considered America's bloodiest prison, maximum-security Louisiana State Penitentiary, known simply as "Angola." The sprawling prison is on the grounds of a former slave plantation, with 5,000 prisoners. It's named for the African country of many of its earlier enslaved occupants. Prisoners toil in the prison's fields, overseen by armed guards on horseback.
Wallace first went to prison for robbery. He, Woodfox and King formed one of the first prison chapters of the Black Panther Party, organizing inmates to oppose the systemic violence and sexual slavery that pervaded the institution.
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Congressional "Mad Dogs" Render the Powerful Powerless |
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Thursday, 03 October 2013 13:29 |
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Nader writes: "None of the powers-that-be could stop a small faction of Republicans in the House of Representatives from shutting down many federal government operations starting on October 1."
Ralph Nader. (photo: unknown)
Congressional "Mad Dogs" Render the Powerful Powerless
By Ralph Nader, Common Dreams
03 October 13
HUTDOWN – blared the Washington Post headline. None of the powers-that-be could stop a small faction of Republicans in the House of Representatives from shutting down many federal government operations starting on October 1.
Suddenly the powerful Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce are powerless, along with two hundred corporate trade associations, who see Uncle Sam as their big customer. Suddenly, the Republican dominated National Governors Association, together with Mitt Romney, the Party's presidential nominee in 2013, are powerless. Also powerless so far are the allegedly sovereign people, who want uninterrupted safety inspections, enforcement of labor and environmental laws, children's nutrition and educational programs (like ), student loan processing, veterans benefits, detection of epidemics, access to national parks, and inspections of nuclear power plants.
All of the above want the federal government to stay open. Most of them do not want to see 800,000 federal workers (out of two million) furloughed. It doesn't matter to House Republicans. About thirty-five to forty obscure, foot-stomping Republicans have scared the easilHead Starty frightened House Speaker, John Boehner, and his curled-lip deputy, Rep. Eric Cantor, into doing what no foreign enemy since the British burned Washington in 1812 has been able to do. This cohort, representing the most cruel, ignorant, narcissistic Republicans in the Party's history, has closed down much of the national government.
Usually lapdogs for big business or business lobbies back in their one-party dominated Congressional Districts, this small echo chamber in the House, assisted by some of their ilk in the Senate, have become "mad dogs." These "mad dogs" do not obey their owners, they embarrass them and make our tepid economic recovery shudder. They shake foreign allies' confidence in the super-power, whose lawless military Empire budgets are mostly untouched by the shutdown.
To make matters more calamitous, these "mad dogs" are also attempting to block the increase in the nation's debt ceiling later this month that is necessary to pay for bills already incurred. Just the rhetoric by these ideologically inebriated Republicans is giving the stock marketers and the big business barons nightmares.
The ostensible reason for these "mad dogs" frothing at the mouth is Obamacare, or what is euphemistically called the Affordable Care Act, which does little to control the drug, hospital and insurance industry's prices. These congressional canines bark daily that the American people are against "big government" Obamacare. They fail to point out that a solid segment in the polls consists of Americans who oppose Obamacare because they want full Medicare for all, or what is called single-payer - a far more efficient, accessible, and simple system with better outcomes and opportunities for disease and injury prevention. Under single-payer, everybody is in, nobody is out, with free choice of doctor and hospital. (Visit singlepayeraction.org)
Why is this Republican faction - a minority in its own Party - so extortionately against Obamacare that they would shut the government down? The answer is simple: Obama. They do not like him. Moreover, these Congressional "mad dogs", well paid and insured by taxpayers, prefer the present 'pay-or-die' gouging marketplace that, according to a peer-reviewed study by Harvard Medical School researchers, takes the lives of 800 Americans each week who cannot afford health insurance to be diagnosed and treated in a timely manner.
The question remains: Why have all these power brokers suddenly become powerless, including all the business lobbies? One explanation is that hyped-up Tea Party activists can threaten primaries against moderate Republicans. In addition these "mad dogs" are in a feeding frenzy and cannot see any reality beyond their pack.
Most puzzling are the allegedly sovereign people, including federal employees, their families and the millions of workers around the country who extend or rely on federal operations. True, there are a few scattered protests around the country. In France, were the Parliament to shut down the government, the French would likely sack the Parliament. In Washington, D.C., the press reported an "eerie silence," before and after midnight struck on September 30. And they might have added - around the country.
How can this not embolden the "mad dogs" further?
It is one thing for America to be a nation of sheep, controlled by the multinational corporate supremacists who have no allegiance to our country other than to control it and ship jobs and industries to repressive regimes abroad. It is quite another matter altogether to be sheep led by "mad dogs" from uncompetitive Districts, whose sheepish voters brought them to Congress where they are exercising their slash and burn plundering.
Who is in charge here? Our Constitution opens with the words "We the People," not "We the Congress" or "We the Corporations." That is why people are deemed sovereign.
That sovereignty is in our hands only if we exercise it and challenge our wayward politicians. Time again for that oft-repeated but ignored cliché: Wake up America! (Easy first step - the Congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121 or find your member of Congress's email address here.) Tell Congress they are putting their own jobs at risk by allowing the shutdown to continue.
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es, Wendy Davis is making an uphill run for governor of Texas.
