MR. BOEHNER, CALL A HALT TO THE COUP D'ETAT

If you haven’t already, you must hear this excerpt from an actual House of Representatives proceeding, because all Americans need to know how far the House has gone to constrict the life breath of our democracy. As you hear it, note the smugness of the speaker pro-tem chairing the session as he rebuffs the arguments of a representative who wants to bring to the floor for a vote an amendment proposed by the Senate to end the shut down and debt payment crisis we now face.

Next consider this definition of coup d’état that comes from Wikipedia.

A coup d'état  . . . is the sudden deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to depose the extant government and replace it with another body, civil or military. A coup d'état is considered successful when the usurpers establish their dominance. When the coup neither fails completely nor succeeds, a civil war is a likely consequence.

A coup d'état typically uses the extant government's power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d’état: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak states that "[a] coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." The armed forces, whether military or paramilitary, are not a defining factor of a coup d'état . . .

The House of Representatives has amended its standing rule so that only the speaker or his delegate could call for a vote on an amendment made by the Senate, effectively putting in the hands of one man, John Boehner, the ability to call a house vote on a sensible and necessary plan to permit the government to function, with no recourse to the full House, and to make timely payments of debt service This is the latest step of a coup d’etat designed to concentrate power in the hands of the Tea Party rump. It’s clear that the change to the long-standing and sensibly-democratic House rule  was adopted simply to prevent a vote that the Tea Party rump would probably lose.

Earlier steps include use at record levels of frequency of procedures in the Senate to prevent bills and appointments that the Democratic majority would pass ; court decisions that permit unlimited and often anonymous campaign donations; radically gerrymandered House districts, proposals to have presidential electors chosen by congressional districts instead of statewide. Some call the Tea Party crazy, but these small steps are beginning to form a pattern of concentrating power in a minority of Republicans.

A small group of government insiders using the power of the government to take over functions constitutionally assigned to both Houses of Congress and the President is  happening and it closely tracks the definition of coup d'état. And now it has come to this: a small rump of Congress has amassed the power to prevent the U.S. government from functioning according to our constitution and laws.

I offer no solutions, but we must prevent the democracy hating rump of Congress from taking over the government for its own purposes. Add to court decisions that, the absolute refusal of a minority of the House of Representatives to permit the nation to function according to its constitution and laws, and there is real danger present. The Tea Party rump is drawing about itself, in small steps, a wall of undemocratic actions to preserve and extend its power over the majority made up of Republicans and

Democrats. I offer no solutions except to exhort the sane members of both parties to put a stop to the power-hungry rump’s ongoing coup.

Many have called the Tea Party faction crazy, but they begin to seem diabolically clever. They’re on the verge of causing untold damage to this Country’s finances for a long time to come, of severely reducing our reputation as the leader of the “free world;” of depriving Americans of lawful benefits; and repealing the democratically elected and Supreme Court approved Affordable Health Care act by simply withholding the funds necessary to implement it.

President Obama and the Democrats are doing the right thing by not yielding to the demands of bullies but, oddly enough, only John Boehner can call a halt to this passive violence by calling for a vote in the House. He hasn’t so far been a profile in courage but we can only hope.