Today a partial shutdown of the US takes place as the GOP…

…does its best to imitate the dreaded fast food cook who spits into your hamburger.

All through my fight on the Red Plan I’ve tried to avoid this role. For one thing the GOP today has no sense of humor about itself. Every Republican with a hint of compromise in their bones is constantly looking his or her shoulders for fear that Rush Limbaugh’s Rangers will attack them for impiety or heresy and knock them off at the next primary. As for me I’ve lost so many elections my scar tissue is too thick to worry much about my electoral fate.

From the very beginning of the Red Plan fight I’ve tried to keep the focus on the right way to do things by being honest and relying on the electoral process. One of my thoughtful critics, Kurt, has commented on a whiff of self righteousness that seems to emanate from this blog. Certainly my lawnsign slogan “Honesty is the best policy” is as trite as they come even if its hard to argue with. That sounds a tad self righteous as though I were recalling the Old McGuffey Readers with their noble if fanciful tale about George Washington and his chopped Cherry Tree. The fact is I can tell a lie. I’ve done it every Christmas to children for years in the Spirit of Miracle on 34th Street.

The Red Plan however is not Santa Clause and Duluth voters are not Virginia. From the beginning I was well aware that my fulminations about Dr. Dixon were sulfuric, that my predictions of disaster might have the unfortunate quality of being self fulfilling. For instance, how many people have pulled their children out of the District because my worrying about it has been echoed over and over to the point that they have acted upon it ensuring more nails in the coffin of the Red Plan.

I consider that a sad but inevitable result of being lied to and resenting it. Maybe Rome put down a Jewish Rebellion 30 years after crucifying Jesus because the Messiah picked the scab of Jewish complicity with the Romans once too often. Should the Savior have kept his mouth shut just to keep the populace quiet, complacent and avoid some future Roman apocalypse?

The Republicans are martyring themselves on the Cross of Obamacare but I’m not impressed. First, because the President and the Democrats won an election fair and square despite the voter suppression native to the Dixiecrats who took over the GOP. and Second, because 45 million Americans had no health insurance which I believe is a necessity for a modern industrial economy.

In Duluth we put 450 million into our schools like it or not. Now we have 1. a financial incentive not to let the investment fail because of our legitimate old grievances and 2. a community responsibility to offer good public schools for children.

Karl makes that that point in his blog as he calls for the pro children Supt Gronseth people to work in concert with the anti Red Plan force represented by me. He’s a very bright graduate of East High and preternaturally wise for only having graduated four years ago. He calls this the best pitch he can make for voting for the levy.

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