A Black Hole is a collapsed star. The star expends all of its energy and explodes into a nova in one final burst of energy before the sun cools completely, and begins to collapse upon itself. What happens next is that the sun turns inside out and takes part of the surrounding space with it, creating a huge hole in space with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing…NOTHING, not even light itself can escape being sucked into it There is a point though at which it is not too late to pull away, and that is just before the final piece of space where light can no longer escape and falling into the unknown black abyss is called an Event Horizon.
Regardless of the outcome of the debt ceiling negotiations, one thing is for certain: we have reached the political equivalent of an Event Horizon.
For the President, the next 48 hours will make or break his Presidency. For the past year he has aquiesced to every single demand of the Republicans and acted more like one every day, rather than that champion of the Left I thought I was electing in 2008. His leadership skills have been awful…he is not a strong leader. He has let the tail wag the dog; instead of getting involved head on with everything from the Health Care Debate to this latest debacle that shouldn’t have happened, he has let circumstances dictate his responses. He is reacting, not ACTING. He is being the complete opposite of the Hope and Change we demanded in 2008. What we got instead was not only more of the same, but more of the same and then some. He is a horrible manager, because any good manager would have had his subordinates in line by now. There would not have been any question of who was in charge and who was the Boss. What’s more the country would have seen that. When you have the small Tea Party faction calling the shots for the Republicans AND the Democrats by making them move farther and farther to the Right causing chaos. The Freshman Senators and Congressmen don’t follow established protocols. They are the lunatics running the asylum now, the children in the playground acting up…and their parents are helpless to control them. We are literally at the abyss, the edge of destruction financially, and this same small group will cheerfully go down with the ship. It doesn’t matter…it’s all for principle.
And this President lets them.
The Senate debates now trying to cobble legislation after holding the required symbolic votes so the Political Class can have something to fall back on when they have to run again and were asked, “How did you vote during the debt ceiling crisis”. And there’s a word for you…”crisis”. There shouldn’t have been one; this is usually a one sentence Bill that is pushed through the House and Senate so quickly it’s done by voice vote and the President simply signs it and the nation can pay its bills for another year or so. Not this time; this time the game changed because this lunatic fringe decided that they would hold the country hostage in order to push through their agenda. There was no serious discussion with the American Public about cutting their social safety nets. There was no vetting in the polls. There was no debate anywhere because this group held America and Americans hostage.
And this President let them.
We now have a new set of rules…a small minority can get what it wants by skirting the checks and balances of the Constitution by forcing people to vote the way they normally wouldn’t…and thus putting into place their agenda without so much as even the courtesy of open debate. (The British used to do this to us back in Colonial Days; so these guys took those lessons to heart. Not only to they have the spirit of the Revolutionaries on their minds, they have the tact and political will of our oppressors in our first battles for independence). There will no longer be a majority getting what it wants in any deliberative body. The President can be forced to compromise his own positions (if he truly had any) no matter what…except there is one way to escape this awful Event Horizon we approach and the only way to save this country now and our political system as we know it for future generations with our current Constitution: INVOKE THE 14th AMENDMENT. Use that Constitutional avenue to say, “OK…I’m done. You guys had your chance. I’m not letting this happen, so by Executive Order I’m authorizing Treasury to pay anyway because there really is no ceiling…and now there never will again under my watch.” he can with DECISIVE ACTION END THIS CRISIS. Or he can be the one man who let Default happen on his watch. This Congress will have every ballot box ready to carry votes against them. Or perhaps People will see this as a way of adding more of the fringe lunatics. No matter…this may have been several Presidents debt (including his own), but this President couldn’t control his Congressional Leaders let alone Congress. This man is a compromiser…a wimp who has absolutely no pair of balls. He had under-negociated on everything with compromise on his mind. Instead of starting out with 100% and ending up with 90-95% of what he wanted as a compromise; He starts at 70% and winds up with 40%. This is a weak, ineffectual leader…and I am a proud Progressive Democrat saying this. So now my Republican friends and I have one thing in common
This man does not deserve another term. He needs a Primary Challenge. He has created a Black Hole from what was once a sun burning brightly heavens, and taken us to the Event Horizon. He has let the Constitution be re-written without so much as a pen being lifted. He has now only one chance and only one: INVOKE 14. Do it now. Tell Congress to take a hike and say you’ve had enough. But he won’t. Because he prefers compromise over confrontation and standing up for your principles, something I thought the man did when I voted for him. Well, I was wrong. He won’t be getting my vote, my time campaigning…nothing but my respect for office and a hole in my heart because he had greatness. He could have been one of the greats, but he let the lunatics run the show. And if America defaults and our Democracy is never the same again (unless he invokes 14)
It is because he let them. He took us to the Event Horizon, and no light will ever escape again. We will not stare into the abyss, we will have become a part of it.
“The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Intersections In Real Time 
Chin up… we’ve always been on the brink of disaster. It’s the American way, and I still hold out hope. Yes, it’s true we haven’t finished our insane rightward swing, but I hope to live to see America as a sensible social democracy before I die. It will take hardship but the future will still be there for us, the people.
-=Chad=-
Ultimately, the reason for this “crisis” is that once again the republicans, and the small faction of tea baggers have framed the debate in the mass media, and amerika has bought into it, hook line and sinker. Amerika is angry that the days of cheap houses and cheap credit are over, and all that is left are cheap trinkets, made in china by workers who are paid almost nothing. Amerika continues to import and buy their junk, (it’s cheap!) while decimating our once hard-working labor force and our jobs.
Then we blame our government for no jobs?!?
Tea Baggers demonize taxes, while still using roads and bridges, electricity, telephone and cell phones and the internet- all infrastructure made possible by taxes! FEMA must come to their rescue in the case of national disaster as well, but taxes are evil!?! Bet none of them will send their SS or medicaid checks back to the government! These are the people who were voted in last time the call went out to vote the bums out, so be careful what you wish for. “Never over estimate the intelligence of the electorate” this quote from a NYS legislator, from my past. Primary difference between repubs and dems: repubs are black and white thinkers, dems see the grey, but don’t know how to frame the issues to their advantage. Who’s left…tea baggers? We’re doomed!
Personally, I am tired of brinksmanship… we keep coming to the edge… closer and closer to the edge. That brinksmanship is NOT leadership, it is a recipe for disaster. Regardless of the outcome, the reputation of the USA is tarnished by this and so many other less-than-honorable actions by both sides of the political coin.
Like our gentle host, I cast my ballot in 2008 for a person that I believed would fill the Office of the President with positive change, honor and good leadership. President Obama has taken my vote (and the millions of other votes for him) and dishonored us. But then, so has every other elected official taken my vote or your vote and dishonored it.
We voted in good faith and, at every turn, we have been ignored. We ARE the People.
We must remember:
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
We need to formally declare those causes which have led us to this point and move forward to make our passionate desire for better governance into a demand.
Right on!
Right on!