NNAMDI F. AKWADA FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

In his attempt to encourage the Republican Party to bring up the clean continuous resolution (CR) appropriation bill to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote and approving the debt ceiling, President Barack Obama indicated that the United States was not a Banana Republic and a deadbeat. Banana Republic is the racial pejorative phrase that was coined and used by the British and other western countries to describe the same colonial protectorates that they stole from to enrich their coffers. These countries were left with vast populations of poor people, intractable political difficulties to benefit the chosen ones and the west, with colonial mentality elites who govern with the venial of entitlement and administer resources with the tint of impunity.

An objective analysis of the "Banana Republic" terminology will reveal the indispensable facts that the United States of America is the current numero uno Banana Republic. This is the country where a small segment of the country led by the Tea Party and Republicans are hell-bent on ingraining their own status quo on the larger society by ensuring that millions of their fellow citizens are without health insurance and coverage. These Republican representatives and Tea Party zealots in congress who are mostly millionaires have hijacked the term "the American People," though they represent the minority within the minority that has continued to decline amidst their quest to take their country back.

Although some have called the Republicans the "21st century economic gangsters" this appears to be the wrong euphemism. To say these GOP members (Republicans) are gangsters is an insult to true gangsterism which made allocations for some norms even within the confines of abnormalities. These Republicans/Tea Party brats are a bunch of hoodlums and petty arrogant suits who will wean off babies from milk, starve families, and sabotage economies because of funding from special interest groups and past enabling from Democrats.

Sadly, the Republican insurrection and intransigencies have been placated by the American people including the Obama's administration for a very long time. The same folks who drove up the debt and fleeced the nation under the Bush and Cheney administration through war expenditures, tax cuts for the wealthy 1%, and Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act, are now crying about financial prudence. There is no need to look elsewhere for Banana Republics in this era of the Republican and Tea party coup and attempted coup d'état de.

Interestingly, these overthrow and arm stringing of the government is now a well-funded venture. In search of a Republican vice presidential candidate in 1999, Dick Cheney decided to nominate himself. But that was the beginning of the game plan, as those of us that have actually resided under coups can attest. After stealing the elections through the shenanigans in Florida by refusing to count ballots with the assistance of the Supreme Court and the spinelessness of the American people including the Democrats, they evolved their plans. Dick Cheney and his Republican buddies used the attacks on 9-11-2001, as the pretext to invade Iraq while damning world opinions and protests. Then Mr. Cheney went ahead to allocate bid and no bid contracts to his former company Halliburton.

That fleecing of America is at the heart of the foul cry for deficit reduction that we hear from the right wing insurgents. Some of the same characters in the current government shutdown like the speaker of the House, Mr. John Boehner voted for those high crimes and misdemeanors. The Pentagon was effectively used as part of the means for wealth transfer with shipments of minted dollars flown into Baghdad which were disappeared. In the course of that episode the United States' main street press collaborated with the Bush/Cheney administration and only the likes of Ms. Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse the former chief oversight officer of contracts in the Army Corps of Engineers remained loyal to the nation.

Consequently, the present government shutdown debate is a breath of fresh air. President Obama, the Majority Leader Harry Reid, and the Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi are hanging on to their convictions to fight for the majority of the American people who voted for the Democrat party under the mantra of yes we can. The Republicans and Tea party reps have instituted a partial economic shutdown for the last five years after causing the recession under the Bush/Cheney regimes. They freeze the salaries of federal government workers; refused to pass infrastructure project development bills; introduced austerity/sequestration; whereas insisting on reducing taxes for their wealthy 1% backers. While they go about passing restrictive election laws to try to bully we the people and manipulate the economy, it is time that we stand up and say to them enough is enough.

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: republicanconference, John Watson)