About the Cliff

James Madison in his The Federalist No. 10, gave this observation:

“The most common and durable source of faction has been the various and unequal distribution of property…Our Republic will be an impossibility because wealth will be in the hands of a few.”

Back then it was a prescient statement. Today it is both a reminder and warning of what is ahead of us. The John Boehner mentality is alive and well in America in 2012. Ours is a society in which the few rule the many. Even majority rule no longer exists. In the Republican view of things, 60% or more must support a position before the vote counts as a win. How odd is that?

Democracy has been hailed as the great social balancing agent between the powerful and the un-powerful, the rich and the poor, the educated and uneducated. But it is not. At least in America. The rule of the majority lives not among us.

And so fairness and justice also loses power, fades away and dies.

Or shall it?

That depends on what the American People allow to happen. The election of 2012 made it clear that the narrow view of the conservative right is not in favor. Yet the majority continues to listen and not impose calumny upon those with whom they disagree. The thanks they get are not camaraderie or mutual understanding, or even an agreeable discussion toward compromise. The thanks are obdurate obstructionism and blame heaped on the one person who is trying to accommodate the spoiled rich while gaining fairness for the many.

No, the Fiscal Cliff is a product of and by Congress. They agreed, both Democrats and Republicans, that January 1 was the date upon which automatic tax hikes and spending cuts were to go into effect. Two years were provided before then to find a workable compromise. Only one side of the discussion has provided the offers and data to support them. The other side has tossed meaningless words into the conversation and no data to support those words.

The stalemate belongs to John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Congressmen Cantor and Paul Ryan. No manner of protestation by them erases that fact. The American people know this. They get it.

So does the world community. The shame they have earned is legion.

When the rest of us seek peace on earth, peace among all people, the end of gun violence and mass murder of little children, the conservative right continues its little games.

Unlike Ebeneezer Scrooge one wonders if John Boehner and Mitch McConnell will ever awake to civility and justice?

December 21, 2012