WRECKING CREW

If the OpEd topics I choose to write about were a direct reflection of what I think about most, there would be a lot more about the tragedy being played out in Congress: the cruel attack on the poor, the sabotage of health care, the fierce effort to blackmail the country into submission to the GOP-Tea Party agenda. But I can’t add much to Krugman, Reich, Steiglitz and many others.

I would say that the Koch-Limbaugh-Cruz-Cantor crowd doesn’t represent simply a different set of opinions in the national debate. These are mean people, as close to an American version of fascists as we’ve ever had, no different than Joe McCarthy. They appeal to a political constituency that includes many honest and decent Americans, but those adjectives don’t apply to the chiefs of the wrecking crew.

Nor should one view the present madness as an aberration that will automatically be overcome by healthy demographic and generational trends. Evil and fanatic political minorities, fueled by the most reactionary tycoons among the super wealthy, have sometimes been able to alter disastrously the course of nations.

The majority of the country is against them, angry at the havoc they are creating, hoping that paralysis of the government will end.  But it’s hard to see any hope for breaking the destructive impasse without changing the present balance in Congress. That won’t be easy, but it must be possible.

The necessary prelude is a great public outcry against the current scheme to strangle the nation into acceptance of the GOP’s austerity budget and its hatred of affordable health care.