Are we nearing an end to all this mind numbing debt ceiling business? There are certainly a great number of things to read out there about how the deal currently being brokered is a win for Republicans, or a possible long term win for Obama and the Democrats, or blow to the progressive movement, or the best we could have gotten, etc. etc. But if we take a step back and look at the wider picture here, certainly we can at least agree that something profoundly stupid has taken place in Washington, and it does not bode well for the future.
There used to be this great movement of progressive optimism, pushed in secular philosophical circles all the way to social gospel theologies, that believed humanity was on an inevitable march towards perfection. From Hegel to Walter Rauschenbusch, the myth of progress was preached from the lectern to the pulpit. For all that those like the rather dour looking Reinhold Niebuhr did to frown away this hope, for all that tragic events like multiple world wars and multiple genocides did to slap us back to reality, a great many number of progressives plastered back on that drunken smile after 2008's changing of the guard.
I can't believe its 2011 and junior House Republicans are steering the country like its a giant socialist, fat, debt bloated (ok this last ones true) pig towards something rather different than the perfect utopia where all light posts will be made of candy cane and police will only need to give out free hugs.
Maybe I am being dramatic here, and this is just a small John Boehner shaped bump on the road. But, can you blame me?
Update: I have since talked myself off this ledge. This is not the end of the world, and there is still yet good in this world.
-Tim
A blog from Protestants for the Common Good about faith and politics.
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