by Stephen Lendman
Seven previous articles explained the following:
(1) Bipartisan lying manipulated popular sentiment to believe what political Washington won’t tolerate – defaulting or not raising the debt ceiling. In fact, it’s been done routinely 74 times since 1962, including 10 times in the last decade. Moreover, whatever may unfold ahead, default won’t happen now, and top officials know it.
In addition as Ellen Brown explains in her latest article headlined, “Bipartisan ‘Russian Roulette’ and America’s Federal Debt: The Debt Ceiling Is Unconstitutional,” authority under the 14th Amendment’s Section 4 mandates paying public debt obligations.
Despite a nonsensical 1917 law imposing a debt limit, the 14th Amendment says “the validity of the public debt of the United States….shall not be questioned.” As a result, “(w)here statute and the Constitution collide, the Constitution prevails.” It’s constitutionally mandated, “not a matter of negotiation.”
Moreover, “(t)he debt crisis was created, not by a social safety net bought and paid for by,” payroll tax deduction insurance premiums, contractually obligating Washington to pay benefits as mandated.
“The debt ceiling crisis” also was manufactured, “engineered to extort concessions that will lock the middle class in debt peonage for decades to come.”
Indeed that and much more as previous articles explained, recapped briefly below.
(2) Weeks, perhaps months ago, the fix was in to destroy America’s social contract incrementally with multiple cuts over a number of years. Principally, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and publicly funded pensions are targeted for total elimination.
Then, or perhaps coincidentally, everything else, ending all social benefits, returning America to 19th harshness. Republicans have long sought eliminating all New Deal and Great Society programs. Obama-led Democrats agree.
(3) Obama, America’s first Black president, was chosen for this purpose, doing what no Republican would dare. It was classic reverse Nixon goes to China. No Democrat would have tried when no diplomatic relations existed.
Obama is rock-hard conservative, a pro-war, pro-corporate, anti-human/civil rights ideologue neocon, pretending to be populist. His legacy’s now written, exposing him as the president who reversed a century of social progress.
Write it down, remember it, and get mad enough to resist. The alternative’s too harsh to accept. Moreover, it violates the Constitution’s “general welfare” clause – Article I, Section 8, stating:
“The Congress shall have power to….provide for (the) general welfare of the United States,” meaning all citizens, not just the privileged few.
In addition, the Preamble’s opening words are “We the People,” everyone, even though political Washington violated constitutional provisions from inception, including who benefits and who doesn’t.
On Sunday, the tradition was upheld. Phase I’s now done. Expect further cuts through 2012, then more major ones if voters foolishly reelect Obama or a Republican in 2012, or any member of America’s duopoly ever.
Their only viable option is opting out or voting progressive independent en masse. At the same time, massive nationwide protests are essential, demanding what’s now agreed be reversed, putting their bodies in harm’s way to do it.
Political Washington’s agreement is a cancer, touching all working Americans. Expunge it or perish socially, economically, and politically under the yoke of punishing poverty and neo-serfdom, a future no one should tolerate.
(4) Banana republicanization of America is planned – a kleptocracy run by venal politicians and corporate shysters, mega-thieves, criminals, scamming the public with austerity, debt peonage, and banker occupation, heading them for mass impoverishment misery so they can accumulate more wealth.
(5) Planned cuts won’t reduce America’s debt, only slow future increases. In other words, final agreement details left a festering public debt unresolved, heading the nation for eventual bankruptcy and ruin.
(6) Fixing America’s debt problem is simple if done responsibly. Yet measures begging for enactment went unaddressed, including:
— cutting military expenditures minimally in half, ideally much more, including closing overseas bases, reducing force levels, ending foreign occupations, and renouncing imperial wars;
— taxing speculators and the rich;
— making corporations pay their fair share;
— strengthening America’s social contract, not destroying it;
— stopping the offshoring of high-paying manufacturing and professional jobs plus many others;
— real regulatory reform with teeth;
— abolishing monopoly and oligopoly power;
— returning money creation power to Congress as the Constitution demands; and
— investing the nation’s capital in productive growth, not handouts to Wall Street and other corporate favorites, as well as permanent imperial wars, turning America into a corrupted, fascist, lawless sinkhole not fit to live in, except for the elite few pulling the strings.
(7) From start to finish, the fix was in. Political theater disguised it – a charade, playing out for political advantage and high stakes, each side jousting with the other, pretending they already hadn’t agreed.
Working Americans don’t know what was planned. In reports, op-eds and editorials, major media scoundrels danced around the issue, regurgitating deceptive lies. It’s their customary role, also concealing the dire state of the economy, heading for ruin because of destructive policies.
In fact, since 2008, Main Street America’s been in Depression, a condition getting worse, not better. Now hard times will deepen with greater budget cuts passed at a time massive stimulus is needed for job creation and productive economic growth. That’s not what Washington plans or intends.
On July 31, New York Times writers Carl Hulse and Helene Cooper did their job as ordered headlining, “Obama and Leaders Reach Deal,” saying:
Late Sunday, a deal was reached to “cut trillions of dollars in federal spending over the next decade” at the worst possible time, what Hulse and Cooper left unsaid, repeating the deception that default loomed without agreement.
A July 31 Times editorial continued the Big Lie, headlining, “To Escape Chaos, a Terrible Deal,” saying:
The deal will “avert a catastrophic government default,” at least “through the end of 2012. The rest of it is a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists.”
Left unsaid was no possibility of default. Not now at least. Both parties won’t tolerate it. Wall Street knows it. All corporate America, in fact, but knowledgeable pundits and editorial writers won’t explain.
Moreover, as discussed above, Obama and most Democrats back major social benefit cuts. They’re as hardline as Republicans. Pretending otherwise is gross deception. It’s a longstanding American media speciality, representing wealth and power interests only like political Washington, popular needs be damned.
Debt Deal Details
Terms call for initially raising the debt limit by $2.7 trillion in two stages, an immediate $1 trillion followed by another $1.7 trillion in four months. Over the next decade, debt ceiling increases will match cuts dollar-for-dollar.
Moreover, tax hikes are off the table. So are defense cuts, replaced by so-called “triggers,” smoke and mirrors deception never implemented since included in a 1980 spending bill.
Instead of strengthening them, non-entitlements will be cut first, including education, housing, transportation, and environmental programs as follows:
— $25 billion in FY 2012;
— $47 billion in FY 2013; and
— higher amounts to follow over the next decade.
Then a bipartisan House/Senate committee will decide on up to $1.8 trillion in further cuts, mostly hammering Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
In addition, not only won’t taxes be increased, corporate ones will be cut – quietly so most people don’t know and America’s media won’t say, or will bury brief comments well into articles unnoticed.
Moreover, most so-called progressive Democrats supported Senator Reid’s bill for $2.4 trillion in spending cuts, including $1 trillion less for defense by reducing America’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Republicans rejected the idea out of hand. They also wanted bigger cuts. So do Democrats concealing what they want but won’t say.
As a result, at decade’s end, far more than three trillion will be cut. What’s agreed is a down payment on further cuts to come, much more. Corporate America demands them – on the backs of working Americans, including impoverished ones needing help they won’t get.
In fact, when political betrayal is completed, America’s social contract will be gone, all of it, especially what people most value. The nation will become a wasteland. Working households will be impoverished, trapped in debt and neo-serfdom peonage.
An August 1 Wall Street Journal editorial called Sunday’s agreement “A Tea Party Triumph….a rare victory for the forces of smaller government.”
Of course, beneficiaries of big government only want socially responsible policies downsized, then eliminated entirely, so bigness they benefit from gets bigger, what Journal writers never say.
Bipartisan perfidy assures the worst of all possible worlds for working Americans, unless popular anger erupts and fights back, deciding what political Washington wants won’t be tolerated. Short of that, it’s coming. Bank on it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
