June 03, 2011 journal, a deranged Congress is in a Wall Street whirlwind to never never Land declining faster than American jobs and surely they are seeing the foolishness of their ways but cannot change their directions or actions going down road to destruction. . I quote an interesting and timely article with some exceptions it appears to be a worthy. "William Pitt, Truthout: "There are many familiar symbols that represent United States of America. There is the U.S. flag, of course. There is the strange eye above the unfinished pyramid on the back of the dollar bill. There are the myriad iconic buildings in (Masonic) Washington as familiar to us as the back of our hands. Well, + the moment has arrived to add a new symbol to the list, one that represents the sad state of our national politics, the ridiculous media coverage of same, and the deranged condition the American people find themselves in today. I suggest Janus, the ancient two-headed Roman god whose faces look both forward and backward simultaneously. In representing the American people, Janus would be a perfect depiction of a person who wants two things at once, and hasn't yet figured out how to do it." Read the Article To wit: every available scrap of poll data indicates that a large majority of Americans are stoutly opposed to the Ryan plan that seeks to end Medicare...and every scrap of poll data also indicates that a majority of Americans are dead-set against raising the debt-limit ceiling. Who the what the where the when the why the hell is that? Simple answer: the GOP pulled a bait-and-switch on America's most vulnerable voters by claiming that Obama and the Democrats wanted to destroy Medicare, and with this gambit clawed their way into majority control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections. Once they were in, they turned on a dime and started laying the groundwork to annihilate the very Medicare program they had been sounding the alarm over. The looming vote on raising the debt limit-a vote that had previously passed unremarked every year since time out of mind-is now the Line of Death, a doomsday deadline the GOP is using to force Democrats into savage cuts in the social contract. With savvy messaging, the GOP has managed to hoodwink a majority of Americans into thinking that failing to pass the debt ceiling increase is a good thing, our "mainstream" news media has coddled such viewpoints, and the Democrats are only just beginning to figure out how to message against such madness.. The people want to keep Medicare, but they also apparently want to eviscerate the national economy just as the most recent dour economic reports are coming in, because they want big cuts in spending...so long as it doesn't involve the social safety net or any of the hundred other programs they benefit from on a daily basis. They have reached this demented point of view for the same reason old-school computer programmers came up with the acronym GIGO - garbage in, garbage out - to describe how disruptive and destructive bad information can be to any process. For the record: if Medicare is eliminated, growing old in America will once again be synonymous with growing poor. Millions of people will be financially ravaged, as pensions and long-term investments have been plundered and proven to be worth less than the paper they are printed on (thanks to the economic policies of the very people now seeking to eliminate Medicare). For the record: if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling by the drop-dead date in August, the economic calamity we suffered through two years ago will seem like a Cape Cod clambake by comparison. Interest rates will skyrocket, delivering a body blow to the all-important Treasury bond market. The already-anemic housing market will further collapse, crushing the construction industry. Worst of all, the rest of the world (which believes at this moment that America would never be utterly stupid enough to let this happen) would immediately lose confidence in the United States, and a global Depression would fold its wings over us like a funeral shroud. Ever paid $50 for a Big Mac? You will, if this deal goes down. Wall Street finds such a possibility unthinkable at this point, which is why the markets didn't even blink when the GOP House majority vomited up their sham bill to raise the debt ceiling, only to vote it down as a show of force against Democrats and a sop to their Tea Party base. It seems inconceivable that the GOP would shoot itself in both feet-one bullet labeled "Medicare" and the other labeled "economic annihilation"-because it would be the end of them as a force in American politics...but consider this, from Walter Shapiro of The New Republic: Think it can't happen here? Remember that in 2008, with the financial markets in free fall, the House initially voted down TARP, with 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans opting for the apocalypse over risking their reelection chances. During the 2010 campaigns from South Carolina to Nebraska, both Republicans and Democrats confided to me that voting for TARP the second time around was the most difficult political vote of their careers. Having done the responsible thing back in 2008 (NOT TRUE) (and then discovering that the voters will never fully forgive them), these legislators are likely to let someone else mount the scaffold for the debt-ceiling vote. (only banks got the money) Looking at the arithmetic of Tuesday night's debt-ceiling vote (97 Democrats voting aye, 7 voting "present" to protest GOP gamesmanship, and party leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer voting "no," although they will undoubtedly support Obama on a final vote), it is hard to see how the legislation can ultimately pass the House without 80-90 GOP votes. Unless you believe that there will be a grand deficit bargain by the end of July (and elves are dancing in the glen), finding 80-90 Republicans willing to take on both the fury of the Tea Party movement and the doubts of independent voters is a daunting task. In other words, yeah, they are exactly that crazy and stupid, and very well might just let this happen...thanks in no small part to Janus, god of the American voter, who can't decide which way to look, and thus tries to go in two directions at once. The mixed polling signals coming from the electorate are as unhinged as the politicians who listen to them, and that spells bad trouble for everyone. If we go down this hole, we can blame the Tea Party, the media, the GOP, the Democrats, the White House...and us. If we save Medicare but nuke the economy, we're screwed. If we nuke Medicare but save the economy, we're screwed. But if we save Medicare & the economy, wow...what a concept. Seems pretty straightforward to me. But, then again, I am not deranged. This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. William Rivers Pitt is a Truthout editor and columnist. He is also a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress. Fool me once. shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Constantly fool me, just call me a naive fool. The radical extremist so-called republicans have adopted Nazi propaganda and are using it 24/7 on the American people. The Nazi Big Lie is tell lies, even preposterous lies, and repeat them over and over to convince/brainwash the citizenry. (Nazis came from communism) The things" have a lot of help from Fox Fraudcasting--Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck, Savage, Doocy, other foxites, hate radio, hate media, hate bloggers, and even hate preachers. This is what Goebbels said about Nazi propaganda: "The essence of propaganda in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never escape from it." Approximately 50% of the American electorate have succumbed and are totally brainwashed and do not even know they are. Kevin Schmidt So is the other half if they continue to vote for DINOs instead of Progressive Democrats. atyler-Agreed -- except, of course, the Nazis learned all about propaganda from us... R-Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich, baby, tax the rich!! Let's try for a change and see what happens? weg12-yep, we just might not raise debt ceiling. READ The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein...this might be the final shock that will let America fall far enough to install free market rule. It has been the downfallof many a country or rather the poor and middle class. The top just keeps on ticking while the middle and the bottom live with 40 to 50% unemployment and a poverty level above 50%. If that is what you want, let Ryan and the repubs do their magic for the upper class... JcatkesonI have reached an age at which I sometimes think I might be lucky and die before all the stupidity on both sides comes to fatal fruition. I have no answer to economic problems but I do know that poll driven decisions are a very bad idea. The problem we have is there are no office holders willing to stick their neck out for the common good even knowing it will cost them reelection. bird48-This whole subject is nothing more than political theater promulgated by those who are either columnists or incumbents. The average person does not give a fig about either the debt ceiling or the national debt in general. They care even less about pundits, analysts, bloggers, talking heads or policy wonks. What we need in office are responsible people of conscience doing the right thing for the economy such as stopping these idiotic, illegal "wars" and raising taxes on the rich. I can guarantee the rich will not renounce their citizenship, the proletariat won't notice the missing $40 a month, the world will respect us once again and we can get this country back on track. If the sold-out politicians get thrown out because their corporate donors go away, so much the better because after all is said and done, what have they done lately for the ordinary citizen. keeperofthefire-what the hell are we still talking about this totally corrupt and controlled piece of crap congress/phoney system of government, that from day one of this ponzi scheem so called republic has been under control of the super rich pigs & murderers!!!!There is no solving or fixing this problem, so lets move on and get the guts to begin a real revolution to take these evil/insane people destroying america & planet earth down for-ever and start over using our bill of rights as a building block to rebuild this country as a truely free,open & equal society!!! BDR-"Start a real revolution..." To what end? Our international concepts and notions of society were forged in blood. Thirteen thousand years of society has produced five and half THOUSAND wars. If you kill, no matter how justified you believe yourself to be, you are only signing your own death warrant, and eventually someone will come for you. It is a no win situation, and one that a large majority is, I believe, prepared for. Fomenting revolution in America would result in a country that looks a lot like post war Iraq, with splinter factions and armed minority groups battling one another incessantly. Please, please, reshape your anger, and preach peace, not death... Robert Riversong-Keeperofthefire is clearly angry & ready to explode, but equating revolution with violence is a denial of history. Most the successful political revolutions have been non-violent, as we're witnessing today in Tunisia and Egypt, and as we recently witnessed in the former Soviet bloc. Hve3kids-Robert did you know that over 800 Egyptians were killed overthrowing Mubarak...and just how peaceful is the Muselm Brotherhood that will eventually take over....Gerdur Palmadottir-ONLY a peaceful revolution can expect to reach the aim worth fighting for, that is possible in many different ways. People have to get smart and work TOGETHER help each other to live independantly from the banks that own them. Eric Oriol-I agree with you all the way if you agree with me that we will need to eliminate all religious books from our society. Almost every bad habit which results in bad behavior is learned from the torah if you are a jew and the bible if you are a Christian. I would dare guess that the koran is just as insane. All the greed, pain, misery & bloodshed a small powerful few are inflicting on the majority are ideas originating straight out of religious books. If you are not convinced, I invite you to read those damn books and tell me whether I am lying or not. Hve3kids Bad habits, bad behavior, is called sin...God or a higher power is there in those books to point that out to us. We are not naturally good people, we are a fallen people those books don't teach bad behavior it tries to help us on improving it. You need to read it again and look for God's help....and when the government can remove God from our lives then the government becomes our God and then they control our lives the way they see fit....which is called oppression and void of true freedom... Robert Riversong-There is substance behind the popular opposition to both raising the national debt and shrinking the national safety net. Janus is NOT about trying to go in two ways at once - he's about seeing clearly what's both behind and ahead. He's the god of transitions and thresholds. Perhaps popular distrust of both conventional approaches is well-founded. Distrust of living on endless interest-bearing debt which only enriches the bankers, and distrust of cutting the only good thing government has ever offered: a social safety net. The real issue is not the vote on the debt ceiling or shrinking a grotesquely overgrown government, it's an economy based on debt-currency which demands constant unsustain-able growth, allows the clever and ruthless to run ahead, and leaves the bulk of the people choking in the dust. Perhaps it's time we tune out both the liberal Democrats and the illiberal Republicans and listen to an authentic libertarian like Ron Paul who wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard. The last two presidents who tried to take away the power of the bankers - Lincoln and Kennedy - each got a bullet for their troubles. It's not the Congress or the White House we should be concerned with, but the Shadow Government which has always run this nation's political economy. Today, they are so brazen that they come out of the shadows and rotate from Goldman Sachs to the Treasury Department and back, robbing the common pot to fill their own pockets, warning us that the economy will collapse if we don't bail out the banksters and corporados, then warning us of the same fate if we don't allow an endless increase in debt. Lucky Nelson-excuse me but what a crock! It's madness to want to put a ceiling on debt and include the social umbrella??? It's not madness. Reducing the military budget to its 2002 levels would make both those things possible. Jwa1968-Instead of using the image of Janus, the Roman god of hearths, I suggest Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Alice in Wonderland) as symbols of American political derangement! Dean Cameron-I was thinking Archie Bunker, myself... a character that knew neither where he came from or where he was going, quite the opposite of Janus! Kevin Schmidt-I suggest the images of Dubya & Obama. They are much more accurate symbols of American political derange-ment! demogoddess-"There is the strange eye above the unfinished pyramid on the back of the dollar. bill." Symbolic of the pyramid scheme, which our government has become. JimmyOlsenCubReporter-If failing to raise the debt limit will result in the economic apocalypse as predicted here, then it is likely that President will have no choice but to declare martial law, postpone indefinitely the 2012 elections and rule by executive order thus bypassing Congress. And if that possibility does not put the fear of whatever god they worship into the Republicans and induce them to behave themselves, then nothing will! Misslingx-t goes without saying the the debt ceiling will be raised; 10 times in the past 10 .years-why should it be any different now? The only difference worth mentioning is that the best way for conservative corporatist Obama to screw the the American public and his gaga base is to be seen as being "forced" to "compromise'. As for martial law, his own current application of voodoo economics on steroids may accomplish that, and a war with Iran regardless. That's, after all, how these fu-er roll. A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil. Rlwalker-This isn't the first time bait and switch was used in recent times. Corporations begged congress to pass legislation that would impose severe penalties on their wise elderly employees if they retired early because it would hurt their businesses if they all left. Congress did this. Then those same corporations went the other way, downsized those same beloved employees and imposed those same penalties on those employees forced to retire. Are we to believe congress knew nothing about this considering their current approaches to political problems? I think congress was part of the problem, those in office were probably rewarded. The employees certainly weren't. The games go on. GT66-I don't want the debt ceiling raised either but I'm just eager for these fools to bring on the end. Then, with some luck, reasonable people can get back to work&start building America again. Adiantum-What makes you think reasonable people will gain control if economic chaos is upon us? Kevin Schmidt..-The debt ceiling does not matter. What matters is how we spend our money. When we spend it on war, multinational corporate welfare and tax cuts for the upper 1%, our present economy is what we get. Phil-How do we save Medicare and the economy because sounds like the way to go. Misslingx-Why do we get served W.R. Pitt instead of say, Dr. Michael Hudson to inform us about the economy? Why should we raise the debt ceiling? What's so wonderful about not taxing the upper brackets, the corporations, and supporting the MIC, the bondholders, and banksters? Mr. Pitt is of the same scare mongering type as Hank Paulson...- the world will end tomorrow if you don't fork over several Trillion to save the banksters. What's with that, and where has it gotten us? Here's a link via link to Michael Hudson: http://mosquitocloud.net/eu-re... Here's another to Michael Whitney, who at least does know something about economics: http://mosquitocloud.net/full-... Cvanbroc-Oh, come on! NOBODY knows anything about economics and the louder they proclaim their expertise, the less-informed they are. Jerrynewsom-Wait a minute.....the TARP turned out to be a scam pulled on the entire country by Sec'y Paulson, and Americans were overwhelmingly against it!! RBStanfield-ean Baptiste Colbert 17th century French finance minister who said "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing." We seem to be in an era where we want to minimize the feathers we gather and the geese are the uber-wealthy that are hissing. It is very strange that the citizens want to raise taxes (on the uber-wealthy) to meet the state's pressing needs and the Grand Old Plutocrats are against the proposition. That the geese who are hissing (and laying golden PAC eggs) are the companies who are not citizens (with DNA) and aren't supposed to have voting rights. The new taboo politically incorrect word "taxes", kinda like.. Oh, let's not go there...Y..emen's President Is "Lightly" Injured in Shelling of Palace .Nasser Arrabyee and J. 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