As long as I’ve got the blood all angried up with politics anyhow, let me say something about this debt-ceiling nonsense that’s been dragging on for weeks and weeks: enough of this bullshit! It’s time to stop all the pointless grandstanding and just raise the damn thing already. It’s a simple administrative procedure that’s been done dozens of times in the past, and there’s no reason why this occasion has to have everything riding on it. No reason, aside from the Republicans being their usual overbearing, obstructionist asshats, of course.

Don’t talk to me about the debt or our out-of-control spending either. The fact is, Republicans don’t give a shit about the debt unless there’s a Democrat in the White House. They just don’t. The debt ceiling was raised 18 times during Reagan’s term as president, and nobody said a word about it. Dick Cheney said, and I quote, “deficits don’t matter.” Yes, I know it’s grown much larger in the handful of years since the Dark Lord shot off his mouth, but I stand by my statement: nobody would be talking about this issue now if the president had a little R after his name when he appears on television.

It’s painfully obvious to me what this debt-ceiling fight is about. It’s about the same thing all the fights in Washington have been since at least the days of Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America: scoring political points. Finding a way to dominate, to set the agenda, to frame the argument, and ultimately, to assume and retain power. It is about the Republicans thinking that finally, after decades of trying, they’ve found a weapon they can use to bludgeon the New Deal to death, and to (hopefully) deny a president they’ve never accepted as legitimate a second term. Maybe even finding a way to impeach him, depending on what action he’s forced to take by their infuriating intransigence. In other words, Republicans are willing to destroy the country’s credit rating and very likely its economic recovery (such as it is) in order to score some points in their never-ending political game. They’re not frightened of imploding everything because they don’t believe the federal government has any right to exist anyway.

And then there’s the Democrats, proving yet again what a pack of craven pussies they are. They’ve basically handed the Republicans everything they wanted and haven’t fought for anything progressives want. Way to go, you cowardly slime. Not that the Republicans have accepted any of it. That’s largely why I think this whole conflict is nothing more than political: the Dems have rolled over for them and they still won’t play ball. Which is pretty much how things have been for the last three years.

Finally, there’s President Obama. Barack, my friend, I’ve stuck with you for three years even as you’ve wimped out on single-payer healthcare and stubbornly refused to put your foot down with the lunatics on the right, who would happily send you to Gitmo in the delusional belief that you’re a Muslim sleeper agent raised from birth to become a president just so you can bring down the country from the inside. But it’s finally reaching a point where you’re embarrassing me, man. Stop with the “Mr. Reasonable” bullshit already. The Republicans are not going to deal with you. They are not going to accept you and they are not ever going to like you. Just stop banging your head against that wall of bipartisanship, rally your own troops, and try being more of the flaming liberal the right claims you are. Tell them no, they’re not going to gut Medicare and Social Security, they’re going to grow the hell up and do the responsible, logical, decent thing that will go a long ways toward fixing everything: let the Bush tax cuts expire instead. But of course, you won’t do that, because you’re really not a flaming liberal, are you? By any sane measure of your actions, you’re actually a moderate Republican in the same mold as Dwight Eisenhower. Too bad you don’t have the prosperous times and sane Congress Eisenhower was blessed with.

This is a dangerous moment in history, I think… we could finally be seeing the moment Grover Norquist prophesied, when federal government is shrunk down small enough to strangle. Some people rejoice at the thought. Let’s hope they’ve been saving and investing wisely for their retirement. Because everybody does that, right? Right?

I don’t suppose very many people outside of Utah have even heard the name Tim DeChristopher, so I’d better provide some back story before this evening’s rant begins.

It all started in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration, December 2008, when Dubya authorized the BLM to auction off millions of acres of public land leases here in Utah — some of which were uncomfortably close to the scenic landscapes of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks — for oil and gas exploration. Many people, myself included, feel like the Bushies were trying to pull a fast one, handing their friends in the energy industry some prime real estate at dirt-cheap (so to speak) prices in a hastily organized deal while the rest of the country was distracted by the approaching spectacle of Barack Obama’s inauguration. But some people noticed. And on the day of the auction, one of these people — a 27-year-old economics student from the University of Utah named Tim DeChristopher — decided to do something about it. He somehow got inside the auction and started bidding on parcels of redrock country himself. He later said his goal was simply to drive up the prices and make life a little uncomfortable for the energy-industry representatives in the room, but in a quirk of fate, he actually started winning auctions that he had no intention of paying for. He instantly became a hero to the environmental movement for successfully “monkey-wrenching” the corporations, and he later saw some vindication when the auction was ruled illegal because the proper protocols had not been followed, and most of the leases that had been
sold were rescinded. But of course there was a price to pay for daring to cross the powerful people: he was charged with two felony crimes related to his disrupting the auction.

Because of the nature of this state — vast tracts of undeveloped land that are breathtakingly beautiful, surprisingly fragile, and geologically rich, all at the same time — Utah is often ground-zero for big environmental battles. Huge swaths of Utah’s territory are owned by the federal government, which generates much resentment in a largely conservative state that, frankly, doesn’t have a lot going for it aside from lots of open space. People in the outlying and very desolate parts of the state crave the jobs that oil and gas fields, as well as various types of mining operations, would bring. But naturally those very same regions are the unspoiled wild places that environmentalists want to ensure remain unspoiled, essentially locked away from the locals who would tear them up in search of something of more tangible value.

With those kinds of tensions percolating through the atmosphere, it probably goes without saying that DeChristopher’s trial generated a lot of emotion, and a lot of theater. And as it happens, I’ve been a witness to much of it, due to the fact that I work right across the street from the federal courthouse. The plaza just west of my building has hosted a number of big — well, big for Utah — rallies in support of DeChristopher, attracting heavyweights lefties like Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary; the actress Daryl Hannah; and Utah’s own Terry Tempest Williams, an acclaimed naturalist and writer. It was all rather entertaining during the trial itself. But the fun ended this week, following DeChristopher’s sentencing. (There was never any question he would be convicted, of course, not in this state. He may have been on trial in a federal court, but it was a federal court in downtown Salt Lake City, under the auspices of a judge who was born and raised here. And in this state, you do not cross Big Business or interfere with the free market and win your case. A casual glance at the comments in the Salt Lake Tribune suggest a not-insignificant percentage of Utahns would like to see him tarred and feathered. Of course, an also not-insignificant number of people would like to nominate him for sainthood. Utah also happens to share a lot of history with Edward Abbey, whose novel The Monkey Wrench Gang is said to have inspired radical environmentalism in the first place… yet another of those diametrical contrasts that make life here so interesting.)

DeChristopher was sentenced Tuesday to two years in a federal minimum-security prison as well as a fine of $10,000, which is surprisingly light in my opinion. Not because I think he deserved more, but because I expected the judge to throw the book at him. (The maximum sentence could have been a full ten years in prison.) His supporters on the plaza disagreed, however. They apparently thought he should’ve gotten simple probation. I’ve also heard they were angry because the judge hadn’t allowed him to explain the necessity of his actions in order to do something to limit climate change. Whatever was motivating them, they were getting ugly by the time I got off work. And this is where my rant begins.

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Woke up this morning to the news that gay marriage is now legal in New York state. Good for New York. Social progress comes slowly. Sometimes it seems it’s never going to arrive. But if you wait long enough, work hard enough, hold on to your principles no matter what, it eventually does come around. The long trajectory of this country has forever been toward greater equality under the law for all its citizens, no matter who they are or what they stand for. New York just affirmed that fundamental idea in a major way.

Now, anyone care to wager over whether my home state of Utah will be the last in the union to the affirm that idea? No, I suppose not… the odds are too bad…

Kevin Drum says what I’ve been thinking lately:

Republicans didn’t care about the deficit when Reagan was president, they didn’t care when Bush Sr. was president, and they didn’t care when Bush Jr. was president. They only get religion when a Democrat is president and they need an all-purpose reason to oppose everything Democrats want to do. Is this really too complicated to understand? It’s a political tactic — and a good one! — not a genuine reaction to anything in the real world. In the real world, stimulus spending is winding down, Medicare was reformed a mere 14 months ago and is solvent for at least another decade, Social Security is solvent for two or three decades, and the deficit is very plainly not a domestic spending problem. It wasn’t a problem at all until 2001, and after that it was caused by two gigantic tax cuts, two
unfunded wars, and a finance-industry driven recession. If we just let the tax cuts expire, get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and get the economy moving, the medium-term deficit will disappear.

No comments please. I’m not in the mood to argue about things that ought to be self-evident.

It would’ve been nice, I think, if the previous administration had given more weight to the “intelligence, patience, and commandos” approach that was used yesterday to such great success, rather than going directly to “Hulk SMASH!!!!” mode and bankrupting us with full-scale wars in two separate countries. I’m just sayin’. 

So the son of a bitch is dead. Good. Now can we get the hell out of Afghanistan and stop having to take our shoes off at the airport? I know the answer to both questions is “probably not,” which for me beggars a third one: what practical good did bin Laden’s death accomplish?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m as thrilled as anyone that this particular “i” has finally been dotted. It’s been a long time coming. But after all the cheering dies down, what, if anything, has actually changed? Al Qaeda is still out there, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them stage a bunch of retaliatory attacks, possibly even here on American soil; we’re still hemorrhaging resources into a country that’s known as a historical breaker of empires (and our empire is so very close to being broken, isn’t it?); we’re still running the anti-American gulag at Guantanamo (yes, I’ve heard some of the intelligence that got bin Laden came from Gitmo; doesn’t change the fact that the place’s very existence runs counter to all the American values I learned as a kid from Star Trek and Schoolhouse Rock); the PATRIOT Act is still in effect, making a mockery of our Fourth Amendment protection against unwarranted search and seizure; the TSA is still getting its jollies without even buying us dinner first; people still need jobs; the ice caps are still melting; we’re still running out of oil; Hollywood is still creatively bankrupt (although there’s sure to be a movie or three about today’s big story); and the Republicans are still trying to dismantle 75 years of social progress. In short, the 21st Century continues to suck. Hard.

On the other hand, bringing down the monster who is directly responsible for steering our nation into the Bizarro-world dimension we’ve inhabited for the past 10 years has had an undeniably positive effect on the country’s psyche. I noticed on my way into work this morning that a lot of people are walking with a renewed spring in their step, and the prevailing mood seems to be, if not actually happy, than incrementally less miserable than it’s been in a very long time. I find myself thinking of Doolittle’s Tokyo raid that accomplished very little tactically speaking, but was a huge morale booster in the dark months after Pearl Harbor. Bin Laden’s execution is perhaps the same sort of event… it didn’t really change a damn thing, as I’ve noted, but everybody’s feeling better because of it. And I must confess, that includes myself.

Of course, it could just be that the days are finally starting to warm up, and the tulips in the downtown sidewalk planter boxes are looking lovely… that always makes me feel a little happier…

Earlier this week, Josh Marshall reminded us that Monday night was the 20th anniversary of the start of the Persian Gulf War, and then he remarked that he’s “not sure which is more surprising: that there’s not a peep about this in the news or that, my god, the Gulf War was 20 years ago.”

I second that on all counts.

Twenty years… is that even possible? That’s roughly the same temporal distance that separated the Vietnam War from the Gulf War, and at the time the Gulf War was taking place, Vietnam seemed like ancient history to this very young man. Very relevant history (or so I thought at the time), but ancient nonetheless. And now I guess that dark January night in 1991 when I listened to the aerial bombardment of Baghdad live on my car radio must seem like ancient history to some other young man. And yet I remember it all so clearly. How could I not? Everything that was happening during that period — both in my personal life and on the worldwide scale — loomed very, very large in my mind. It all seemed so significant.

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