America's 'Terror in a Teapot' (News, Switzerland)
"The shutdown will cause billions of dollars in damage,
plunge people into ruin, and cost lives, and ultimately the U.S. will most
certainly be worse off than before. In this way the Tea Party, held up by many
in Europe as exemplary, will accomplish what terrorists the world over have
been unable to do. If everything proceeds as planned, new Tea Party icon Ted
Cruz should soon be getting a congratulatory telegram from al-Qaeda."
Imagine:
a terror organization prepares for an attack against the United States long in
advance. The goal is to achieve its own radical aims as the Western
superpower’s capacity to act is seriously curtailed, its security is
compromised, and many people are plunged into hardship.
The
shutdown of the U.S. government, which began last week, shows what happens in a
democracy (or what’s left of it) when radical forces do everything in their
power to achieve their goals, in this case, blocking universal health
care.While drawing comparisons with
terrorism may seem crass, the consequences of a shutdown could be more serious
than any bombing attack.
Of
course, the shutdown hasn't entirely stopped the United States. Both active
duty military and most police will continue to be paid, as well as air traffic
control, emergency medical services, and personnel who monitor the power grid.
The
cuts, however, are far from harmless. The Centers
for Disease Control will only operate on a very limited basis - at the
beginning of the flu season, and if an infectious disease should break out just
now, it would be almost impossible for the CDC to respond by dispatching
physicians. Although they continue to work, CDC administrative offices have
been shut down.
Even
the Environmental Protection Agency
will suffer cuts, and big polluters will surely know to take advantage of the
fact that the illegal disposal of dangerous waste can now occur under the
department’s radar - for some Tea Party partisans, this may even be an added
benefit.
As
is always the case, the weakest will be affected the most: Shortly into the
shutdown, nutritional programs for children and infants will run out of funds,
social services won’t be able to enroll people with disabilities, Army veterans
won’t be able to attend rehab and reintegration programs, and invalid pay and
pensions may be delayed by two to three more weeks.
For
us in Europe, however, it’s gratifying to know that the intelligence services
have also been forced to reduce their activity to a minimum and that our emails
cannot be as thoroughly scanned - likewise those of Islamist terrorists.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
But
these are only the consequences of the attack on the government agency side, on
those requiring their services. For agency employees, however, it means staying
home without pay. Forced unpaid leave for 800,000 government workers: people
with families, people with mortgages and school tuition to pay. If the shutdown
lasts longer - and with the teapot terrorists that is not unlikely - it could
cost tens of thousands of people their homes and livelihoods.
And
all this because the Obama Administration has introduced health care reforms
that enable all citizens to purchase health insurance, a right that should
certainly be resisted if one doesn’t want poor people to live longer than
absolutely necessary. The fact that Obamacare, as it
is so aptly called, has just now become available, makes the "Tea
Terrorist Blockade" even more absurd, and makes their ideological
pigheadedness into the stuff of idiocy, not least because a longer shutdown
could also stifle the economy, which had only just begun to recover.
The
fact that the manipulation of congressional boundaries (also called gerrymandering) leads to
over 90 percent of seats in the government-blocking House of Representatives
being won by manipulation rather than real elections, with seats being as good
as allocated, turns this chamber of Congress into a place where behavior is not
determined by accountability to voters and the nation, but by pigheaded
ideological destructivism.
The
shutdown will cause billions of dollars in damage, plunge people into ruin, and
cost lives, and ultimately the U.S. will most certainly be worse off than
before. In this way the Tea Party, held up by many in Europe
as exemplary, will accomplish what terrorists the world over have been unable
to do. If everything proceeds as planned, new Tea Party icon Ted Cruz should
soon be getting a congratulatory telegram from al-Qaeda.
