Wolcott: Bankruptcy Bill is a wake up call

If you aren't yet a James Wolcott devotee, i suggest you try him out...he's a staple on my daily blog roll...he doesn't post every day, but i find myself waiting with tail-wagging enthusiasm for each new post. His elegant prose works a sardonic take on media and the tragedy of Bush II into a regular splash of cold water.

His characterization of today's passage of the bankruptcy bill:

This unleashing of legislative machinery to further crush and pauperize the weak and overwhelmed in America...

more below the jump

He offers a bit of a history lesson via Liberty Under Siege by Walter Karp:

In 1982, the president brought out a proposed budget that revealed the true face of "the Reagan Revolution."

"Stunning, shocking, brutal, a savage affront to justice in this second installment of the 'Reagan Revolution.' The military buildup, like a ravening beast, eats through the fisc once more... And how shall the military Moloch be fed? On last year's cruel diet: the poor, the ill, the handicapped, the schools, local services, student loans, enforcement of laws--$43.4 billion of 'deficit reduction,' exact counterbalance to the military's deficit production. A lying budget as well, forecasting declining deficits, 'out and out cooked,' says [David Stockman]..."

sound familiar? well there's more from 1982 via Karp via Wolcott:

"Given tyranny to the American people, for the Right's assault on the Republic grows more intense than ever this year, becomes a kind of mad, jeering defiance that almost unmasks itself."

Then Wolcott weighs in:

Under George W. Bush, the mask is completely cast aside, the jeering defiance in full cry. The bankruptcy bill, the renomination of rejected or blocked judges, the enthronement of America's first Attorney General of Torture, the refusal to even admit the looming disaster of global warming, the arrogant insult to the UN and the diplomatic world with the nomination of John Bolton as UN ambassador--Bush's second term is a triumphal Fuck You that the pundits and cable newsers will interpret as a jaunty thumbs-up, not possessing enough self-respect even to mind being played for fools.

It's really worth reading his whole post...it includes due derision of the democratic "bipartisans" who fucked American then, with the implicit red alert about doing so now...

My first inclination in reading it was to scan for what's different now. Sure the democratic senate squad seems bent on trying out some spine sizes now and again...this bankruptcy bill not withstanding. However, a key difference seems to be that economic policy for the last 20 years has put the average american on the chopping block under the blade of crushing debt+no savings.  

We are going to have to push our democratic leadership hard to prevent them from completely pulling the rug out from under all but the wealthy elite. Things may have already gone to far and much suffering will have to ensue before enough organize to oust or vote out the right. But we are going to have to continue to be innovative and tenacious to pressure anyone we can to obstruct the republican hegemonic move to destroy our country.