Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yeah, in the House of Representatives! Or should I say, they gerrymandered themselves into control.

The "keepers" still control the house. The "takers" won the Senate election and the Presidential election.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

The "keepers" still control the house. The "takers" won the Senate election and the Presidential election.

That notion isn't a big help.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

Dude, the "takers" won the election.

The large-scale money-grabbers still have the House. It's hard to characterize what 'classes' won the Presidency and the Senate.

My scores are pretty predictable, to those who are most familiar with me on here:

Harm = 3.7
Fairness = 4.5
Loyalty = 3.0
Authority = 3.3
Purity = 3.0

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

The "neo-con" label is a tricky one, which has changed over time. In general though, the neo-cons were/are not very socially conservative, and not very interested in limited government. They were simply Democrats who were opposed to communism and left the Democratic Party because it was adopting the pose of appeasement that it has retained to this day. In recent times, neo-cons were the authors of the notion that the way to prevent terrorism was to spread democracy in the Middle East, including doing so through military means.

Reagan does not fit that description, past or present. Simply adopting a tough posture toward the Soviets and increasing military spending is not enough to qualify someone as a "neo-con". He was not a military adventurist. I would not argue that he was a libertarian either, although he was heavily influenced by libertarian thought, in the form of Hayek, Friedman, and so on.

Prior to Reagan the lessons of Vietnam were stifling. US military adventurism was zero. Grenada broke the ice. While the climax of the Panama invasion occurred on Bush 41's watch, the planning and build up started during the Reagan administration.

I wouldn't say Reagan was a full fledged neo-con. He came nowhere close to the preemptive unilateral invasion under false pretenses pulled by Bush 43. Still, he started the recent Republican trend towards military adventures. He at least kept his adventures modest and achievable. He had limited objectives. He targeted small isolated countries. He had exit strategies that would get him out after a short stay. He did a pretty little 'Short Victorious War,' the best kind.

In Tip O'Neal's book, Man of the House, there is a scene following Reagan's briefing Congressional leadership on the Grenada invasion. Tip asked if Reagan had talked to Maggie Thatcher about it. It seems no one in the Reagan White House or Pentagon had caught on to Grenada's membership in Britain's Commonwealth of Nations.

Unfortunately, the later full stage neo-cons didn't follow Reagan's example, and I don't mean invading only Commonwealth nations. They seemed to think that if Reagan didn't need to plan for a long term occupation or nation building, they didn't need to either. They thought that what worked in the Caribbean could be tried in the Middle East.

Yes, there is a big difference between Reagan and Bush 43. Reagan created the Republican unraveling pattern. Bush 43 took Reagan's style and substance to the extreme. Bush 43 was Reagan ever so much, more so. Turning that around, Reagan might be a neo-con lite.

Originally Posted by annla899

That notion isn't a big help.

The perspective of looking at US citizens and dividing them into keepers and takers does bring to the surface an aspect of the Republican unraveling world view. It is an aspect of 'Government is not the solution, it's the problem.' It plays to the notion that all problems are best solved with tax cuts. At a deep level, there is an assumption that tax money cannot be spent wisely, thus anyone involved in a government program is evil, misguided, has ulterior motives, or is otherwise an enemy of America.

Now, I think an opposite case can be made. The GIs and Boomers during the heyday of tax and spend liberalism did worthy things and were willing to pay for it. Still, tax and spend liberalism can be and was over done. Reagan's belief that the US government was evil, and thus his attempt to cripple the US government, was sincere, perhaps right for its time, but not right to the extreme, and not right forever. There is a time and a place to unravel America, but the time is not forever.

But the recent explicit stating of the Republican meme is revealing.

Originally Posted by B Butler

The perspective of looking at US citizens and dividing them into keepers and takers does bring to the surface an aspect of the Republican unraveling world view. It is an aspect of 'Government is not the solution, it's the problem.' It plays to the notion that all problems are best solved with tax cuts. At a deep level, there is an assumption that tax money cannot be spent wisely, thus anyone involved in a government program is evil, misguided, has ulterior motives, or is otherwise an enemy of America.

Divide and conquer.

Set people against each other on whether they on the net receive from or pay into government programs but stand for those (like military buildups and farm subsidies) that have big-money support. Pit the elderly against the young on education and the young against the old on Social Security and Medicaid. Pit fundamentalist against secularists. Pit consumers against environmentalists. Pit Catholics whose focus is on reproductive repression against those who want the social agenda. Pit Rural America and the suburban fringe against core cities and the inner-tier suburbs. Use the most refined techniques of propaganda against people unfamiliar with the techniques.

We seem to be catching on. There is no escape from freedom except into the maw of oppression and tyranny.

Now, I think an opposite case can be made. The GIs and Boomers during the heyday of tax and spend liberalism did worthy things and were willing to pay for it. Still, tax and spend liberalism can be and was over done. Reagan's belief that the US government was evil, and thus his attempt to cripple the US government, was sincere, perhaps right for its time, but not right to the extreme, and not right forever. There is a time and a place to unravel America, but the time is not forever.

Government needs to help people who cannot help themselves and people who have ended up in a bad way through no fault of their own. It is the only institution that can defend us from invasion, establish justice, and enforce human rights. That will surely be a continuing process and will require professionals on a long-term process, so it can't be cheap. Maybe the gravy train needs to be sidetracked so that we can better meet basic needs (like alleviation of childhood poverty). Farewell, subsidies that would not exist except for noisy lobbyists. Farewell, lucrative deals with defense contractors (don't be too scared -- the US met the needs of the last two Crisis wars with improvisation).

But the recent explicit stating of the Republican meme is revealing.

Those stating that meme got reckless, ruthless, and arrogant. They took the velvet glove off the mailed fist. The majority of voters now know.

Originally Posted by B Butler

The perspective of looking at US citizens and dividing them into keepers and takers does bring to the surface an aspect of the Republican unraveling world view. It is an aspect of 'Government is not the solution, it's the problem.' It plays to the notion that all problems are best solved with tax cuts. At a deep level, there is an assumption that tax money cannot be spent wisely, thus anyone involved in a government program is evil, misguided, has ulterior motives, or is otherwise an enemy of America.

Now, I think an opposite case can be made. The GIs and Boomers during the heyday of tax and spend liberalism did worthy things and were willing to pay for it. Still, tax and spend liberalism can be and was over done. Reagan's belief that the US government was evil, and thus his attempt to cripple the US government, was sincere, perhaps right for its time, but not right to the extreme, and not right forever. There is a time and a place to unravel America, but the time is not forever.

But the recent explicit stating of the Republican meme is revealing.

Good post.
And while reading it some random but theory related social-political thoughts came back to me. Based on recent events especially how hurricane Sandy has triggered such a different response it looks to me like the 4T may really have begun in 2005 when Katrina hit. Granted the following in based just on the current political reality but I believe that others may see parallel developments in music and elsewhere. We saw the rise of a new coalition with the 2006 midterm and the momentum carried over to the Obama election of 2008. But cusps matter and there was still enough desire, especially amongst conservatives, to go back to the 3T way. This sentiment and a lot of commercial propaganda, allowed for the rapid rise of the Tea Party. And the Tea Party peaked just as the new coalition was disenchanted with the flaws exposed in the political process in the passing of the healthcare bill, the ACA. Specifically, how does a bill that was supposed to promote a single payer or at least a public option mutate into a law that requires people to buy insurances from financiers that they don't like and certainly don't trust. The result was an election that locked in GOP gains that may take the enitre decade to overcome. Nevertheless the new coalition came together enough to reelect Obama in 2012 and hold a supposedly friendly Senate for him.

And what I see all of this coming down to is that, to borrow from Chas' micro turning idea, the time from Katrina to Tea Party peak in 2010-11 was the crises high. The Tea Party has lost a lot of its popularity and we have now moved into a time when a 3T style appeal is too post seasonal. That's not to say that an efective anti Obama appeal can't be crafted, it's just not likely that the GOP will be able to mount one until they understand the 4T well enough to at least craft a message that poll tests well. Sooner or later they will.

So where does this lead us? Well as a micro turning lasts us about 5 year I suspect that Obama's second term will correspond closely with the crises awakening. The "new way" whatever it is works out to be, and we may or may not get some clues based on how the budget talks go, will be in place by the 2016 election. Which of course means that the 45th presidents early years will be the time of the crises unraveling. He/she may be a reaction against Obama who finds that there is no going back. Or he/she may be a successor who finds applying whatever work best in the Obama years requires at best more modification than was expected. So all of this suggests that the crises-crises will start sometime in the early 2020's and end somewhere in the mid 2020's. I don't want to predict the years 2021-2025 because, well, I really don't want to see anything like ration cards come back.
To say nothing of what which would imply

Originally Posted by Just Passing Through

The "neo-con" label is a tricky one, which has changed over time. In general though, the neo-cons were/are not very socially conservative, and not very interested in limited government. They were simply Democrats who were opposed to communism and left the Democratic Party because it was adopting the pose of appeasement that it has retained to this day. In recent times, neo-cons were the authors of the notion that the way to prevent terrorism was to spread democracy in the Middle East, including doing so through military means.

This requires some factual correction. The original neoconservatives weren't former Democrats. They were former New Left radicals. (I suspect the confusion here may possibly come from JPT's propensity to call anybody remotely non-conservative "far left." The neocons actually WERE far left, without redefining that term.)

But the interesting thing about the New Left is that while it contained theoretical conceptions that make the "left" label accurate, it also contained, as radical movements tend to do, an authoritarian streak built into the idea that society needs to be beaten and forced into compliance with a set of ideas it rejects, but that the movement considers true and right. That authoritarianism is something that the radical left shares with the radical right (and which is rejected by liberals and more moderate socialists like myself). All New Left radicals were at peace with that authoritarianism or they wouldn't have been part of the movement, and for some the authoritarianism and forcing of society into a this-is-right mold were actually more important than the left-wing ideas that informed the mold itself.

That last category includes all those who later became "neoconservatives." The shift was easy for them because what they really wanted wasn't socialism but tyranny. Socialism was merely the justification for tyranny, and they found it quite easy to shift to a different justification as they matured and realized that socialism wasn't going anywhere and that their authoritarianism actually had a more natural home in association with certain right-wing ideas (although as JPT notes, by no means all of the complex of ideas that constitutes the "conservative" movement -- neocons are, as he said, generally not social conservatives).

Numerically, the neocons have never been an important part of the Republican constituency, but they have exercised influence far beyond their numbers in the Reagan and G.W. Bush administrations. Was Reagan himself a neocon? Certainly not (he, unlike the neocons, actually WAS a former Democrat). But his administration was under their influence and took actions in accordance with their ideology. The same is even more true of the Bush administration, although Bush himself is no more a neocon than Reagan was.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

This requires some factual correction. The original neoconservatives weren't former Democrats. They were former New Left radicals. (I suspect the confusion here may possibly come from JPT's propensity to call anybody remotely non-conservative "far left." The neocons actually WERE far left, without redefining that term.)

I'd suggest that any confusion on this particular point would be entirely in JPT's mind.

On second thought, not just on this particular point.

the last 5 or so posts by Brian, Bob, Tee, and Pbrower are good exampls of what keeps me coming back here.

If you all are sick of me, stop making such informative/insightful posts. My presence is your collective faults. Well, yours and Mike Alexander's.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

And while reading it some random but theory related social-political thoughts came back to me. Based on recent events especially how hurricane Sandy has triggered such a different response it looks to me like the 4T may really have begun in 2005 when Katrina hit. Granted the following in based just on the current political reality but I believe that others may see parallel developments in music and elsewhere. We saw the rise of a new coalition with the 2006 midterm and the momentum carried over to the Obama election of 2008. But cusps matter and there was still enough desire, especially amongst conservatives, to go back to the 3T way. This sentiment and a lot of commercial propaganda, allowed for the rapid rise of the Tea Party. And the Tea Party peaked just as the new coalition was disenchanted with the flaws exposed in the political process in the passing of the healthcare bill, the ACA. Specifically, how does a bill that was supposed to promote a single payer or at least a public option mutate into a law that requires people to buy insurances from financiers that they don't like and certainly don't trust. The result was an election that locked in GOP gains that may take the enitre decade to overcome. Nevertheless the new coalition came together enough to reelect Obama in 2012 and hold a supposedly friendly Senate for him.

Dubya is the awful leader that pops up at the end of a 3T and gets caught in a 4T for which he is ill-prepared. He may promise Harding-like "normalcy" when the status quo offers the acceleration of rot. The responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy exemplify the difference between a bad 3T response and a good 4T response
to a natural disaster. Katrina caught about everyone unprepared in part because the President did nothing to prepare a response (other than to grease the skids for a Governor and a big-city mayor of the opposite Party). Sandy compelled the President to take time off a campaign that he thought he could lose -- but he already had plans in place and enough lead time to coordinate aid with a Governor and a big-city mayor of the opposite Party.

Consider that the possible dangers of a 4T could be not so natural in origin -- like air raids and missile strikes. How well a country responds to storms and earthquakes says much about its ability to meet not-so-natural hazards.

And what I see all of this coming down to is that, to borrow from Chas' micro turning idea, the time from Katrina to Tea Party peak in 2010-11 was the crises high. The Tea Party has lost a lot of its popularity and we have now moved into a time when a 3T style appeal is too post seasonal. That's not to say that an effective anti Obama appeal can't be crafted, it's just not likely that the GOP will be able to mount one until they understand the 4T well enough to at least craft a message that poll tests well. Sooner or later they will.

I am not so sure that one can subdivide Eras automatically. I see waves of danger followed by partial recoveries. Crises can be comparatively short and consummately deadly (like the American Civil War Crisis), and we might yet avoid apocalypse. But a Crisis Era can be unusually long (Thirty Years' War in Germany or the horror of Russia from catastrophic reverses in World War I through the end of the Great Patriotic War). A country can have a real regeneracy (US in the 1930s, a time of peaceful reforms) or a false regeneracy (Nazi Germany, 1933-1938, with the imposition of persecutions and the destruction of personal freedom).

The Tea Party looks like a false regeneracy because of its reactionary character -- endorsement of greater inequality and a rejection of reason.

So where does this lead us? Well as a micro turning lasts us about 5 year I suspect that Obama's second term will correspond closely with the crises awakening. The "new way" whatever it is works out to be, and we may or may not get some clues based on how the budget talks go, will be in place by the 2016 election. Which of course means that the 45th presidents early years will be the time of the crises unraveling. He/she may be a reaction against Obama who finds that there is no going back. Or he/she may be a successor who finds applying whatever work best in the Obama years requires at best more modification than was expected. So all of this suggests that the crises-crises will start sometime in the early 2020's and end somewhere in the mid 2020's. I don't want to predict the years 2021-2025 because, well, I really don't want to see anything like ration cards come back.

We passed a critical point. Mitt Romney came close to getting elected, and had the Republicans turned a few Senate seats to themselves instead of losing a few (they might yet lose one in Arizona, which would be a hoot), then Republicans would be in a position to define what sort of regeneracy we would have -- a huge shift of power and wealth toward economic elites from everyone else. Living standards would plummet for 90% of the population. The Religious Right would exact its demands, perhaps imposing its superstition and its concept of Christian morality upon the rest of us. The political process would develop for all practical purposes a Fourth Branch of Government -- corporate lobbyists who dictate what sort of legislation is possible and what passes. The militaristic neocons would dictate foreign policy which might dictate that wars be waged to secure markets, cheap labor, and plunder the resources of other countries. I can't quit say that anything like a KGB or a Gestapo would appear as a secret police to squelch dissent -- but I can only imagine that a preacher who preaches the Sermon on the Mount instead of the duty to suffer in This World on behalf of economic elites in the here-and-now for bliss in the Next might face a beating or a 'disappearance'. It might be possible to see Rachel Maddow on satellite -- but only for those authorized to receive broadcasts from India, as a rule those who see her as the equivalent of a Tokyo Rose or Axis Sally. I need not discuss the hazards of a reckless course of diplomatic bullying and other aggression as well as ensuring that many Americans have nothing to lose from the overthrow of the system.

Some of the doubts that I had about President Obama are answered. He is strong enough to fend off a campaign of harsh invective funded with deep-pocket, well-organized opposition that thinks that it can say anything and get away with it if it says it often and loudly enough. Our democracy is saved for the next four years, even if the House of Representatives is terribly unrepresentative.



It would be ugly.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Some of the doubts that I had about President Obama are answered. He is strong enough to fend off a campaign of harsh invective funded with deep-pocket, well-organized opposition that thinks that it can say anything and get away with it if it says it often and loudly enough. Our democracy is saved for the next four years, even if the House of Representatives is terribly unrepresentative.

I'm in sympathy with a lot of what you said above.

I don't know that the House of Representatives is unrepresentative. A lot of the country is still buying into the unraveling mind set. The government can't do anything well. If one cuts taxes as much as possible, the government won't be able to afford to do bad stuff. Rich people create jobs, so rich people ought to be allowed to get richer.

I disagree with the above of course, but a lot of folk are still buying into it. The House is representative of this.

The question of when the crisis started is one of definition. There have been a whole bunch of catalysts. One can start as early as September 11th 2001, or argue that the straw that breaks the camel's back and starts the regeneracy hasn't arrive yet. My own opinion is we've got a double barreled crisis, that Bush 43 mishandled the security aspect, but valuable values changes resulted. I'd open the economic phase with the housing market crash, but no regeneracy yet on the economic crisis.

Thanks. Let me add that any belief that we are better off if a small "educated" or "well-bred" or whatever elite is running things and all we have to do is obey, is a good way to send society way off track - going downhill. It goes back to Plato, whose deep disappointment with what Athenian democracy had turned up was shared by many, a feeling which resulted eventually in Alexander the Great moving in. Was Athens any better off?

Or perhaps Plato was really saying "If we have to have an oligarchy, let's see to it they are taught to think and taught good values." Lotsa luck with that - the medieval Church tried to do exactly that with the feudal nobility.

At any rate, anyone who preaches that their little cadre should be running things is probably suffering from a fair amount of hubris.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

This requires some factual correction. The original neoconservatives weren't former Democrats. They were former New Left radicals. (I suspect the confusion here may possibly come from JPT's propensity to call anybody remotely non-conservative "far left." The neocons actually WERE far left, without redefining that term.)

But the interesting thing about the New Left is that while it contained theoretical conceptions that make the "left" label accurate, it also contained, as radical movements tend to do, an authoritarian streak built into the idea that society needs to be beaten and forced into compliance with a set of ideas it rejects, but that the movement considers true and right. That authoritarianism is something that the radical left shares with the radical right (and which is rejected by liberals and more moderate socialists like myself). All New Left radicals were at peace with that authoritarianism or they wouldn't have been part of the movement, and for some the authoritarianism and forcing of society into a this-is-right mold were actually more important than the left-wing ideas that informed the mold itself.

That last category includes all those who later became "neoconservatives." The shift was easy for them because what they really wanted wasn't socialism but tyranny. Socialism was merely the justification for tyranny, and they found it quite easy to shift to a different justification as they matured and realized that socialism wasn't going anywhere and that their authoritarianism actually had a more natural home in association with certain right-wing ideas (although as JPT notes, by no means all of the complex of ideas that constitutes the "conservative" movement -- neocons are, as he said, generally not social conservatives).

Numerically, the neocons have never been an important part of the Republican constituency, but they have exercised influence far beyond their numbers in the Reagan and G.W. Bush administrations. Was Reagan himself a neocon? Certainly not (he, unlike the neocons, actually WAS a former Democrat). But his administration was under their influence and took actions in accordance with their ideology. The same is even more true of the Bush administration, although Bush himself is no more a neocon than Reagan was.

They may have preached socialism in economics, but they were aiming at oligarchy - just an oligarchy of themselves. Well, they got it. I'm sure it's made them rich and powerful. Has it done so for the nation?

Guys - do you dare ask "Are the people any better off than they were 12 years ago?" Including the last 4 because of neocon tactics in the House of Representatives. "Stand in the doorway and say No!"

Originally Posted by playwrite

the last 5 or so posts by Brian, Bob, Tee, and Pbrower are good exampls of what keeps me coming back here.

If you all are sick of me, stop making such informative/insightful posts. My presence is your collective faults. Well, yours and Mike Alexander's.

It's not your response to intelligent and informative posts that was distressing, but your insistence on substituting silly little insulting nicknames for reasoned rebuttal.

"And as former Secretary of labor Robert Reich has said: "If the past four years have proved anything, it’s that the White House should not begin with a compromise."

Already? Obama Tells Supporters to Expect 'Bitter Pills'

As the Huffington Post, who listened in on the call, reports:

The president, speaking from a White House phone, cautioned listeners to expect disappointments during his second term. As he has in the past, Obama warned that he was prepared to swallow some bitter pills during the negotiations, including some that would agitate the base.

"As we move forward there are going to be new wrinkles and new frustrations, we can't predict them yet," he said. "We are going to have some triumphs and some successes, but there are going to be some tough days, starting with some of these negotiations around the fiscal cliff that you probably read about."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/14

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Or perhaps Plato was really saying "If we have to have an oligarchy, let's see to it they are taught to think and taught good values." Lotsa luck with that - the medieval Church tried to do exactly that with the feudal nobility.

Not just Plato. Kong Qiu made the same point. Of course, it didn't work any better for his people than it did for the Greeks. Really, for effective advice I'm more inclined to look to Kong's contemporary Li Dan or his successor Zhuang Zhou (or, if we're sticking with Greeks, Diogenes and Zeno, respectively).

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Thanks. Let me add that any belief that we are better off if a small "educated" or "well-bred" or whatever elite is running things and all we have to do is obey, is a good way to send society way off track - going downhill. It goes back to Plato, whose deep disappointment with what Athenian democracy had turned up was shared by many, a feeling which resulted eventually in Alexander the Great moving in. Was Athens any better off?

Or perhaps Plato was really saying "If we have to have an oligarchy, let's see to it they are taught to think and taught good values." Lotsa luck with that - the medieval Church tried to do exactly that with the feudal nobility.

At any rate, anyone who preaches that their little cadre should be running things is probably suffering from a fair amount of hubris.

Anyone who believes in the necessity of a political "vanguard" will get no support from me.

Originally Posted by Deb C

"And as former Secretary of labor Robert Reich has said: "If the past four years have proved anything, it’s that the White House should not begin with a compromise."

Already? Obama Tells Supporters to Expect 'Bitter Pills'




http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/14

Rather than just trying to prove Obama is a bad guy or something, what we need to do is tell him what we think.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Rather than just trying to prove Obama is a bad guy or something, what we need to do is tell him what we think.

Many of us have been telling him via letters and petitions. Some of us are protesting.

Obama is not a bad guy. I don't know that I've ever said he was. I've always indicated that it's the dirty rotten system.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

It's not your response to intelligent and informative posts that was distressing, but your insistence on substituting silly little insulting nicknames for reasoned rebuttal.

I give reasoned rebuttal where it's deserved, silly little insulting nicknames where it is warranted.

But your observation is noted and I will attempt more tolerance.... but no promises. Some of O.W's blood flows in my veins.

A true friend stabs you in the front. - O. Wilde

Originally Posted by playwrite

the last 5 or so posts by Brian, Bob, Tee, and Pbrower are good exampls of what keeps me coming back here.

If you all are sick of me, stop making such informative/insightful posts. My presence is your collective faults. Well, yours and Mike Alexander's.

Gee, my presence is their collective fault as well.

Originally Posted by playwrite

I give reasoned rebuttal where it's deserved, silly little insulting nicknames where it is warranted.

But your observation is noted and I will attempt more tolerance.... but no promises. Some of O.W's blood flows in my veins.

Personally, I would rather read up front comments from you, than underhanded slams from some others. Otherwise known as passive aggressive talk.

Originally Posted by B Butler

The perspective of looking at US citizens and dividing them into keepers and takers does bring to the surface an aspect of the Republican unraveling world view. It is an aspect of 'Government is not the solution, it's the problem.' It plays to the notion that all problems are best solved with tax cuts. At a deep level, there is an assumption that tax money cannot be spent wisely, thus anyone involved in a government program is evil, misguided, has ulterior motives, or is otherwise an enemy of America.

Now, I think an opposite case can be made. The GIs and Boomers during the heyday of tax and spend liberalism did worthy things and were willing to pay for it. Still, tax and spend liberalism can be and was over done. Reagan's belief that the US government was evil, and thus his attempt to cripple the US government, was sincere, perhaps right for its time, but not right to the extreme, and not right forever. There is a time and a place to unravel America, but the time is not forever.

But the recent explicit stating of the Republican meme is revealing.

It is what it is Bob....it's a natural divide that will continue to grow. Tax and spend is no longer an option. Borrow and spend has reaching it's limitations. Print and spend represents the ends which triggers the economic divide.