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Who’s got a lighter?

October 6, 2013 by Dave Knadler

The tramps were burning a sofa in the fountain.”

I've always laughed at that line, from Charles Portis’ Masters of Atlantis, for its precise allegory of a civilization brought low. He’s talking about a mansion once magnificent enough to warrant a fountain; now here are some barbarians igniting the furniture for no particular reason. It’s better than “Ozymandias,” really.

I thought of it again while reading this piece in the New York Times. It explains how the government shutdown is not really an outgrowth of stupidity and foolish pride, as you’d think, but is the explicit goal a years-long strategy by certain of America’s uber-wealthy (spoiler alert: The Brothers Koch) to persuade the ignorant to destroy their own comforts.

It’s a nice bit of reporting, and depressing too, as all good reporting should be. I know smart people can persuade stupid people to do pretty much anything, but I’m still a little fuzzy on why billionaires like the Kochs even care whether the poorest Americans are able to afford health insurance.

What am I missing here? We’re not talking about buying everybody a swimming pool, for crying out loud. Aren’t the One Percent pretty much immune to the trifling concerns of the teeming masses? Why would they spend millions opposing something that might — worst-case scenario — cost them thousands?

I don’t know. But if you can believe John Boehner, it does look like the tramps have decided to burn the sofa. In the fountain.

(By the way, I’ve decided to pronounce Boehner’s surname as “Boner” for the duration of the shutdown. Or perhaps permanently, depending on how things go. Who’s with me?)

More along these lines:

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Filed Under: american life, politics

Comments

  1. Paula says

    October 6, 2013 at 10:38 pm

    If the Tea Party crazies succeed in delaying the ACA, they will literally have blood on their hands. They are despicable.

    The President should continue to hang tough. If they get away with harming the ACA, or SS or Medicare, in exchange for not causing economic catastrophe, then they will be even worse every time.

    Notice they never want to save money by paying less in subsidies to the oil companies, or by not paying land owners for not growing crops on land they put shopping centers on, etc., etc. …….No, just hurt the little people for the sake of the rich. Most of their supporters hide behind the Bible and the flag while condoning this behavior.

    BTW, my husband has been calling him Senator Bonehead forever.

  2. Hayley says

    October 8, 2013 at 9:44 am

    NYT produced a really great flowchart on the shutdown as well, available here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/30/us/politics/the-back-and-forth-over-the-shutdown.html?ref=politics&_r=0

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