Apocalyptic GOP Is Dragging Us Into a Civil War

[Playinghardball]

Source: Rolling Stone
By Matt Taibbi

Had a friend send me this article by former Republican staffer Mike Lofgren under the subject line, "Informative reading for tonight's Republican showcase." I'm probably late in seeing it, but Lofgren's piece raises fascinating and terrifying questions about the future of our political system and the increasing possibility that we are headed toward something like a civil war, or a constitutional crisis.

Lofgren, in describing the reasons for his defection from the Republican party, describes a Republican camp that increasingly acts not like a traditional peacetime political organization, but more like an apocalyptic cult or one of the authoritarian movements from early 20th century European history.

In particular, the insane decision to turn the once-routine procedure of raising the debt ceiling (Lofgren notes it was done 87 times since WWII) into a political crisis revealed that the GOP party mainstream had sunk to the level of terrorism – holding our economic system hostage in exchange for political concessions.

This was a form of violence, and a serious escalation even from the days of George W. Bush, when the party was mostly limited in its willingness to use human beings as pawns in homicidal ploys for political power. Bush and Rove were willing to sacrifice Iraqi lives, and the lives of American servicemen, for oil and votes. But this current crew of Republicans shook canisters of kerosene over the entire American population and threatened to light a match if it didn't get what it wanted.

More at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/how-the-apocalyptic-gop-is-dragging-us-into-a-civil-war-20110907

[Turbineguy]

1. Don't you guys know?

The sooner the republicans destroy the world, the sooner God can get to work creating a new one. If you didn't read your Bibles, you would know that.

That's how it works. God can't do a thing unless and until he gets the OK from the GOP.

Edited to change "country" to "world". Repubs like to Think Big.

[villager]

2. ...at a time when the Empire is unsustainable anyway. Expect a breakdown into smaller

...regional polities/countries/republics, etc., by around mid-century...

[Dogtown]

3. I see a balkanization coming.

Unfortunately, I'm stuck in a part of the country most likely to splinter into a theocracy.

[Odin2005]

4. This country has gone truly insane.

:scared:

[Dover]

11. I see this story was so good it was posted twice! n/t

[gordianot]

5. I have not really figured out what exactly Republicans represent.

On some days they look like totalitarians but I am not sure that covers it. They do appear to want some sort of one party rule with government run by internal party rule. That they even allowed Rick Perry on the stage with secessionist leaning, science denier medieval mentality, ready to destroy the federal government is quite a shock. I am convinced there is a war within the Republican Party and they are not organized enough to come up with a plan other than get control of everything. This is a Hegelian nightmare, that one segment of the country is hell bent on chaos an ultimately anarchy. We are crumbling the Republic is failing and are in mortal danger of falling into States Rights regionalism. The horror of this situation is that Federal leadership cannot even hint at what is happening by acknowledging the problem they risk creating an infection. We are in an age of unreason our own dark ages. By any other name what has happened to the Republican could have happened to the Democrats. In our new upside down America Democrats have become the real conservatives of the union and Republicans are the wild eyed (literally) reactionary radicals. You cannot live with terrorist and criminals. The flames are lit.

[hifiguy]

6. John Dean wrote an entire book about this general issue

and it's called "Conservatives Without Conscience." Dean's absolutely irrefutable theory is that the Repuke party has been taken over entirely by people with "authoritarian personalities" who cannot tolerate ambiguity or dissent (one might properly call them proto-fascists) and has been highly effective in recruiting what he calls "authoritarian followers" who follow their leaders blindly and hate who they are told and conditioned to hate. Dean views this development as a grave threat to american democracy. He ain't whistlin' Dixie.

Interestingly, Dean quoted his old friend Barry Goldwater at some length as utterly deploring this very trend.

[Denninmi]

7. Actually, I just call them fascists.

Proto doesn't seem to apply anymore.

[MedicalAdmin]

8. It reminds me of this map..

http://images.tribe.net/tribe/upload/photo/c60/68f/c6068fee-6bb4-4af1-a9e9-e03136fd4ffa

or maybe this one.

[TwilightGardener]

9. They're trying to kill us, in an economic and maybe a literal sense.

I was, and remain, horrified at what has been happening. And Obama is one man, by himself, to stop it. And he really can't.

[Dover]

10. Seems to me that if the focus was shifted from politics to the real culprits

-those entities who are backing both parties and benefiting by keeping this house divided so it can't stand together - then it would be easier to come together. I'm speaking of course of corporations. The msm can't be relied on to inform, as Assange and others have made clear. And our courts and voting apparatus are also corrupted. So social media and local efforts from the grassroots is the only means of collective change. If you'll recall, the mission is to drown the government and then fill the power gap through corporate control. BOTH parties have a hand in this shift of power and are bent on privatizing. The corporate model, no matter how benign their claims and stated intentions, is not a democratic system. Corporations are by nature profit driven hierarchies with minimal or no mechanism for input or shared power.

By the way, the kind of divisiveness that feeds their plan is very much in evidence at DU. We have to get past the "us vs. them" mentality and broaden our understanding and perspective on how we have become pawns in our own destruction. By changing our own perspectives and activities and refusing to buy into their model, we become powerful and self sustaining.