Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels Sen. Tom Harkin to Congress: "We are at one of the most dangerous points in our history."
By Matt Berman September 27, 2013 | 10:43 a.m.
As the clock ticks down toward a possible government shutdown, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, isn't holding back.
On the Senate floor before 10 a.m. Friday, the senator gave a speech describing how American politics have reached the level at which "a small group of willful men and women who have a certain ideology"—read: the tea party and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas—have been able to take over the congressional budget debate in the last week. "Since they can't get their way," Harkin said, "they're going to create this confusion and discourse and hope that the public will be so mixed up in who is to blame for this, that they'll blame both sides."
This isn't just congressional business as usual, Harkin said. It's much, much more dire:
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It's dangerous. It's very dangerous. I believe, Mr. President, we are at one of the most dangerous points in our history right now. Every bit as dangerous as the break-up of the Union before the Civil War.
This isn't the first time the senator has spoken out about the spiraling budget and the fight over Obamacare. Harkin suggested Thursday that Cruz looked "foolish" for his "little tirade" that lasted from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday morning. Harkin called out Cruz as being part of "the most extreme tea-party wing" of his party, and for his "ideology-driven obstructionism."
Of course, it'd be a stretch to think that the United States is on the cusp of anything as violent as the Civil War. But the consequences of a government shutdown or topping over the debt ceiling could be massively harmful for the U.S. economy, whether you're looking at the possibility of a downgrade in U.S. credit or just the shutdown in payments and services with thousands of government employees out of work.
Harkin isn't the first to pull out a dramatic historical analogy on the Senate floor this week, either. During his 21-plus hour speech, Cruz hearkened back to Nazi Germany for a comparison to "pundits" who think Obamacare cannot be defeated:
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If we go to the 1940s, Nazi Germany—look, we saw it in Britain. Neville Chamberlain told the British people: Accept the Nazis. Yes, they will dominate the continent of Europe, but that is not our problem. Let's appease them. Why? Because it can't be done. We cannot possibly stand against them.
In America there were voices who listened to that; I suspect the same pundits who said it couldn't be done. If this had happened in the 1940s, we would have been listening to them. Even then they would have made television. They would have gotten beyond the carrier pigeons and letters and they would have been on TV saying: You cannot defeat the Germans.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., later pilloried Cruz on the floor for the comparison.
So, for those of you keeping track at home: With just three days to go until a possible government shutdown, we've already had comparisons to Nazi Germany and the Civil War. And we're surely not done yet.
Title: Re: Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
Post by: Lipstick on a Hillary on September 27, 2013, 03:59:32 pm
Oh for God's sake. I knew this HAD to come from one of the ultra-partisan clowns when I read the headline.
Title: Re: Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
Post by: sinkspur on September 27, 2013, 04:00:59 pm
Hyperbole is the last resort for those who have run out of ideas.
Title: Re: Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
Post by: GourmetDan on September 27, 2013, 04:34:27 pm
"Since they can't get their way," Harkin said, "they're going to create this confusion and discourse and hope that the public will be so mixed up in who is to blame for this, that they'll blame both sides."
How about, "Since you can't get your way...", hmmm?
Without a doubt, you'd be riding that horse if the shoe was on the other foot.
Lying fool...
Title: Re: Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
Post by: jmyrlefuller on September 27, 2013, 04:43:49 pm
Well, when people become ignorant and stupid, dumbed down by public education, corrupted "science," and a perverted media, you are bound to have irreconcilable elements of radicals, because everyone believes they are entitled to their own facts.
Title: Re: Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
Post by: andy58-in-nh on September 27, 2013, 05:08:41 pm
Well, when people become ignorant and stupid, dumbed down by public education, corrupted "science," and a perverted media, you are bound to have irreconcilable elements of radicals, because everyone believes they are entitled to their own facts.
You're on to something there. But, in a society of the kind you describe (sadly: ours), the problem is not simply one of people selecting which facts they choose to accept as truth.
The far greater problem is that having been torn from the moorings of their foundational principles and subjected to propaganda in place of information, people no longer know what to believe. They are uncertain of who they can trust.
It is a supreme irony of our times that in an age of mass, instantaneous, ubiquitous communication, people can no longer easily identify what is real.
The yawning chasm in our politics is a function of diametrically opposed visions of government now being promoted by Progressives on one side, and Republican Constitutionalists on the other. The confusion in the public sphere largely results from a learned and intentionally promoted dependence on politicians and cultural institutions for the discernment of Truth, as opposed to a former reliance on reason, accumulated human knowledge, history, and traditional religious faith.
That widespread anger, fear and depression result from such a condition ought not surprise us. For traditional conservatives and libertarians, the great challenge of our age is how to wrest control of our culture from those who are steering it toward the rocks.
Title: Re: Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
Post by: Right_in_Virginia on September 27, 2013, 05:21:27 pm
Quote
Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
It's starting to feel more like 1775.
Title: Re: Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
Post by: mountaineer on September 27, 2013, 08:18:53 pm
Did he mean slavery was back in style, because it sure feels like it.
Title: Re: Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
Post by: Fishrrman on September 28, 2013, 01:26:51 am
Right_in_Virginia: [[ It's starting to feel more like 1775 ]]
mountaineer: [[ Did he mean slavery was back in style, because it sure feels like it ]]
Don't blame the messenger for the message. Harkin is right.
The country _is_ in a state of "Cold Civil War". Not "hot" yet -- but the divisions are there for all to see. Some on the left see this as clearly as do we on the right.
The country is literally "dividing" before our eyes, just as it did once before.
Here in the USA, we’re at where we _were at_ about 1856 or so.
The new “Great Divide” represents a chasm of unbridgeable philosophies so broad that reconciliation no longer is possible.
However, many Euro-Americans are still blind to this divide. It’s right there before them, they must deal with its symptoms and consequences every day, yet they still refuse to acknowledge its existence or speak openly of it. The divide remains buried beneath the surface of the A-Euros’ “white guilt”.
At the same time, the non-Euro Americans have no equivalent to “white guilt”. They are boldly advancing their agendas and openly celebrating their ethnic bonds. Hence, we have “La Raza” (now what does _that_ mean?), “Black this... and that....”, and so forth. The non-Euros know and understand that the guilt of the Euros can be used against them, and that Euros who are attacked for “racism”, “this...ism”, or “that....ism” will cower and submit rather than fight back. No one demonstrates this better than the Republican Party itself.
Meanwhile, The Great Divide grows.
On one side are those who believe in what I’d call (for lack of a better term) the old “Scots-Irish defiance”. This is the philosophy that embraces freedom, family, home, work, independence, and the mistrust of government which is regarded as a “taker” of what the individual creates. Simply stated, these are the “Don’t Tread On Me” folks.
On the OTHER side is a growing cohort of people who harbor beliefs that are diametrically opposed from the above group. These people see government as “the giver” -- their "keeper". These people view the “Don’t Tread on Mes” who oppose government largesse and power as a threat to their needs, and brand them as intolerant and “racist”, or whatever.
Call this “the new slavery”, if you will. Only now, it’s government that has become “the new Massa”, and corrupt politicians and their ever expanding cadre of bureaucrats, administrators, and regulators who take on the role of “the new overseers”.
On the one side of the divide, those who love freedom and mistrust government. On the other, those who love entitlements and government and its “gifts”, and who don’t seem to care much about their own “freedom”, so long as they get handouts.
In the 1850’s, it was “the North” against “the South”. In the twenty-first century it has become those who still embrace the concept of “freedom”, vs. those who would surrender it.
And most ominously, the two “sides” are no longer divided by region — instead, they appear to be divided by _race_.
Of course there are some non-Euros who share the same value system as do the Euros. But they are relatively small in number, their numbers so small as to be all-but insignificant. How many blacks voted for McCain in 2008?
What chances are there that these two fundamentally-opposed factions can EVER be reconconciled?
If reconciliation isn’t possible, what then?
I can see this. You probably can too. If Senator Harkin sees it, more power to him.
What's coming is coming. Not the soap box or ballot box. Sumthin' else...
Title: Re: Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
Post by: Oceander on September 28, 2013, 01:28:59 am