Civil War.

Editor,

The battle over spending cuts versus revenue, social programs versus tax cuts for the rich, has been going on for at least 35 years. Now it seems the billionaire backers of the extreme right wing have drawn a line in the sand and will give no ground.

In "The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln," Sean Wilentz makes clear that the battle over slavery versus abolition raged on Capitol Hill for about this long until yet another tortured legislative palliative could not be fabricated, the can could be kicked down the road no further.

Then came the Civil War.

The point, I think, is that insoluble political arguments fester for decades until at some point temporary stopgaps stop working. Civil war does not pop into everyone's mind one morning in a vacuum.

For years right wing robbers try and try to outsmart everybody else, and they always succeed to a point: through the goodwill of reasonable people looking for compromise and the anger of trolls looking for a scapegoat they draw in.

But they can never win because their greed and callousness are so transparent. Finally they dig in their heels, there is a spark, and millions of crazed fanatics start shooting.

The USA was nice while it lasted, but the right wing will never back down.

You've all been reading that shutting down the government was planned by Republican think tanks for months, that the Republicans changed the rules of the House so only the Speaker can bring the Senate bill to the floor.

The USA is already at war.

Re: "The Dixiecrat Solution" (10/14/2013)