The Curse of Living in Interesting Times

I was a very odd little girl. When I was a wee thing, I wanted to grow up to be a famous painter/ queen/ revolutionary. I could totally see myself running around a jungle in camos with a bandoleer of bullets, a portable easel, and a big sparkly crown.

As I grew up, some of those dreams shifted a bit. I'm an artist though I am far from famous. I have declared myself Queen of my own damn universe and you all know what i choose as my blogging id. But I thought that all my chances of being a revolutionary had died out with the end of the cold war and liberalization of Latin American governments (there is a reason I choose to learn Spanish instead of pretty, girly French in 7th grade- I thought I'd go start revolutions there, not here).

But I may not need my passport and malaria meds to get my inner rebel on after all.

It looks like we may just be in the middle of a coup after all.

(Giant disclaimer- I do not read HuffPo. Just like I do not read the orange Cheetoh. I am not a masochist so reading the often sexist dribble at either of those places is not my cuppa. This comes via Corrente. )

Larissa at HuffPo writes:

As I see it now, we have but two options and I have long alluded to hoping against hope that one of these options would not be the only one left to a peaceful people. The first and frankly most preferable option is for Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot.

No time needs to be wasted on hearings as we already now have in writing, formally as presented to Congress, the intentions of this administration to nullify Congressional powers permanently, to alter Judicial powers permanently, and to openly steal public funds using as blackmail the total collapse of the US economy if these powers are not handed over. You do see how this is blackmail, do you not? You do see how this is a manufactured crisis precisely designed to be used as blackmail, do you not?

Yep, it sounds straight up like a coup to me. We are being blackmailed in to handing over $700 billion (some people are putting the real bailout cost at closer to 1.8 trillion) and our democratic system in order to ameliorate a massive and totally foreseeable disaster caused by those with money and ignored by those with the power to check it.

This is the moment. Right now we are about to learn if when the shit hits the fan, our government works for us or against us. And if it is against us we will have no other choice than to scrap it. Yes, scrap the entire thing. Learn from our mistakes, and move on.

And on that note, a few choice quotes from my favorite revolutionary. Damn, more than 200 years old and they are still dead on relevant.



"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

— Thomas Jefferson
1812


But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, September 6, 1789