The End of Nations: Republicans Local Harbingers of Global Trend

In the unconscionable blackmailing of America over the normally pro forma raising of the nation's debt ceiling, President Barack Obama caved in to every Republican demand, and agreed to slash trillions in vital services and to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid.

In doing so, Obama agreed to strangle the nation's nascent economic recovery, doomed his Presidency, and all but assured a Republican in the White House in 2012.

Fortunately, Republicans were too greedy to accept Obama's capitulation.

In a move that legitimized Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) Medicare couponization scheme, Obama, apparently having learned nothing from the firestorm of outrage over that heinous scam, would slash $500 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years, relinquishing the high ground Democrats' had held on the issue.

Obama appeared eager to gobble poison pills by the handful, as he offered to slash $250-$350 billion in other, non-healthcare, entitlements, including student aid and federal workers' retirement benefits.

The trillions in spending cuts would devastate the economy, and would certainly hurtle the nation into an even deeper economic morass.

Yet, Republicans balked when Obama sought a fig leaf in the form of an arcane adjustment to the depreciation rates for corporate jets. Obama apparently believed crowing, "Thanks to me, billionaires have lost part of their corporate jet deduction!" would make up for your dying horribly and miserably because you couldn't afford to see a doctor or go to a hospital after you and all your loved ones drained life savings in a futile effort to save you.

Despite total victory, Republicans had no intention of mitigating the Presidential nudity.

"The legislation the President has asked for...cannot pass the House...the American people simply won't stand for it, and their elected representatives in Congress won't vote for it," sneered House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), saying the right thing for the wrong reason. While Americans should be outraged the President surrendered their country to the GOP's plutocrat overlords, Boehner meant the President's embarrassingly timid revenue requests, not the slashing of services and Medicare, were unacceptable. Boehner apparently traveled in extremely constricted circles and believed the American people were a tiny coterie of ultra-wealthy trans-national plutocrats who happened to reside in the United States and liked to take advantage of luxurious living without paying for anything except lobbyists and politicians.

In the end, Obama would likely not get even his private jet fig leaf. Nor would he deserve it.

Republicans have eagerly exploited any opportunity to seek more and greater tax cuts, tax breaks and tax subsidies for their ultra-wealthy patrons. This past spring, Republicans threatened to shut down the government unless they got billions in tax cuts, tax breaks, and tax subsidies for their beloved plutocrats. Now, Republicans threatened to force the United States government into default and plunge the world financial markets into total cascade failure if they didn't get trillions in tax cuts, tax breaks, and tax subsidies for their beloved plutocrats.

At every opportunity to shut down the government or cause any manner of obstruction or catastrophe, Republicans have proven themselves to be nothing more than common extortionists. They would not approve a Fish and Wildlife official unless they got oil drilling permits. They would not approve a Cabinet Secretary's paycheck unless they got more drilling permits. They would cause a government shutdown unless they got billions. They would cause a global financial meltdown unless they got trillions.

At every turn, the Obama Administration capitulated unconditionally.

Although no credence should be lent to the Republicans' scatological notion that dismantling government and giving trillions in tax breaks to the rich will somehow create jobs, the Obama Administration scraped and bowed to the ludicrous.

All the Republicans' tax cuts, and all the Republicans' tax subsidies would not create jobs, at least in America. Corporations are sitting on nearly two trillion in cash and aren't hiring anybody "except lobbyists," as Paul Krugman pointed out.

Thirty years of tax-slashing, trickle-down, supply-side voodoo nonsense never created jobs. America created more jobs after Bill Clinton raised taxes in the 1990s than after George W. Bush slashed taxes in the 2000s.

Thirty years of tax-slashing, trickle-down, supply side voodoo nonsense has done nothing for ordinary Americans except left them with crumbling infrastructure, collapsing schools and universities, and increasingly inaccessible health care. Wages are stagnant. Homes, retirement savings, and pensions, for those who have them, are worth less.

Republicans likely only claim the tax cuts, tax breaks and tax subsidies for the rich would create jobs because jobs are what people want. If folks wanted a clean environment, Republicans would claim tax cuts for the rich would create a clean environment. If folks wanted to be taller, Republicans would claim tax cuts for the rich would make you taller.

In fact, mega-corporations and the rich have long ago passed the paying of taxes, and are well entrenched in drowning in subsidized wealth. Much more important to plutocrats and Republicans is dismantling government. Not making government smaller. Republicans covet not just the dismantling of government, but of governance itself.

The plutocrats whose bidding the Republicans do are busy dismantling western democracies all over the world. Moody's downgraded Portuguese debt to junk status and Standard & Poors nixed a move that would have rolled over some Greek debt, further roiling prospects in the euro zone. Plutocrats aren't interested in solutions. They're interested in sovereignty.

Global capitalists have gotten so powerful and so rich, they've outstripped the world's ability to rein them in. What began as the capitalist desire for unregulated profiteering has become a relentless juggernaut that will not be stopped until all governance is destroyed, and today's de facto plutocracy becomes the only game in town.