Talking to the Neighbors -- After the Election

MeanMesa has posted before about the importance of talking to one's neighbors about politics.  Naturally, this activity usually advances to "front and center" when we are anxious to influence how our neighbors will vote.  Older Short Current Essays posts (It's Time To Talk To The Neighbors) have included images of our own favorite means -- the "home made door to door index card" -- of educating all our MeanMesa neighbors about what we consider to be pressing issues to be decided in a campaign.

MeanMesa Galactic Command resides in a comfortable, ca.1960's,  apartment complex here on the high desert.  The place has around 80 units of two bedroom apartments.  Although we're pretty respectable by Albuquerque standards, on a national scale, we'd be firmly centered in the middle to lower class income range.  Consequently, even though lots of our neighbors have jobs, lots of them also rely on government services to get along, especially in the wreckage of the Great Republican Recession.

Well, as we have been listening to the squawking utterances of the Tea Bag Express and Rolling Freak Show which has just been handed the keys to the House of Representatives, it is clear that our neighbors need to expect even harder times ahead.

Of course, we heard the "kissy - feely," momentarily sober, Speaker Boner talk about "crossing the aisle," but the real message comes from the staggering, unknown throw backs who, although they now temporarily hold some power in Washington, D.C., haven't actually realized that they are no longer surrounded by Texas hill billies in Pig Feet Creek.  Their message?

"Whaa, harumpgh, harumpgh, we gonna' tek aowr contr' bek!  Ef thet means shuttin' down th' gov'ment, then sew be it!  Us baggers dun heeard th' VOICE O' Th' PEEPPEL!"

Of course, MeanMesa visitors know that, in fact, there are only a very few voices -- the ones which bring "grassroots checks" to rather stinky, Citizens United, First Ammendment "grassroots  patriots," that is, corporations, law firms, Freedom Works, Americans for a Brighter Future Without Poor People, and, of course, the Chamber of Commerce.

Patriotic Tea Bag Campaign Contributors

However, although the "House of Circuses" has only just begun its 6th grade level rampage of further looting, there remains this rather unpleasant prospect of having the government shut down.  You know, Newt Gringrich style.  You know, Contract on America style.  Although the tea bags and the "establishment Republicans" they are dragging behind the truck have, indeed, found some power in their loins, this idea of shutting down the government for a few months as a glorious tirade has limits.

They won't be able to do any permanent damage to programs such as Social Security and Medicare, but they will be able to unfund all the administrative work which makes these programs function.  This means that even though the Social Security Trust Fund is in good shape ($2Tn), they can temporarily furlough all the labor which would normally be responsible for mailing out the checks.

Based on this disturbing plan of the baggers, MeanMesa once again fired up the old steam powered index card printer and produced another card, this one warning our neighbors about the real possibility of harder-than-they-expected times ahead.

Finally, is all this just to blow the "activist horn" of MeanMesa hobbling around the complex?  Not at all!  The point is is best posed as a question.

"Based on what you think, isn't there anything YOU might like to discuss with YOUR neighbors?"

Heh, heh.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, irritates the billionaires at Freedom Werks more than neighbors talking to their neighbors.  Not a single dollar in their  democracy crushing "war chests" can reach through that wall.