As the clock ticks down toward the looming debt ceiling and the federal government shutdown continues, the parties stare at each other like adversaries across an abyss, for they are at war with each other for political primacy. Who will prevail?
China’s revolutionary leader Mao Zedong once wrote that,”Politics is war without bloodshed.” That may be so, but it, like all other war, certainly has no shortage of civilian casualties. The loss of federal monies has created havoc across the nation in an economy that is still on the brink of another recession that members of Congress have intentionally stoked. This public pain has sent congressional standing to an all time low.
According to one broadcast account, only 5% of the nation regards Congress favorably. When people understand that these are politically created crises, actually made by politicians, and therefore wholly artificial, even that figure may drop further. The damage done to real people, to workers, to social programs, to children unfed is but a means to an end. That end? To turn Obama’s presidency into a broken, shattered disaster. This is politics as war, to nuke his legacy and his singular policy achievement: health care.
What is unacceptable to scores of conservative politicians is Obama’s success. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935 he earned the unremitting hatred of the class he came from: the wealthy. They called him a socialist. Sound familiar? The political war now being waged today is far from over, no matter what resolution comes in the next few days or weeks, it will continue thanks to the recent Citizens United ruling, as long as the wealthy can rent or buy politicians to do their bidding. From in prison nation. This is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
