What Do They Really Want?

“One faction of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to refight the results of an election”.

A brilliantly concise summary of the problem confronting the country. What it seems to so eloquently suggest is that the forces driving this "one faction" are limited to an extreme fringe wing of the Republican party that can, with patience, be broken. The growing body of evidence suggests otherwise. As reported on the front page of the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/a-federal-budget-crisis-months-in-the-planning.html?hp the strategy that led to the shutdown was born not by the lunatics who now stand in the well of Congress spewing into the Congressional Record nonsense about the dangers of the ACA but by their benefactors who have been planning the execution of this strategy for months. Most, though not all of the financing for the strategy has been provided by Koch Brothers whose resources are as limitless as their hatred for the President and the policies enacted on his watch. Precisely how far they and their cohorts are willing to go remains to be seen. The true test will come on October 17th when the debt ceiling requires adjustment. The ramifications of our failing to act, we are told, will be catastrophic to both the domestic and global economy and would, one would expect, cause the Koch brothers irreparable harm. I emphasize, "one would expect" because, to this point, the strategy appears nonplussed by the prospect of an economic calamity and the resulting impact on those like David and Charles Koch who, one would think, would be so damaged by the anticipated effect on the economy. Have the Koch boys "shorted" their interests so that they would actually benefit from a collapse of global markets? We  certainly seem to bystanders to a game of chicken playing out on a global stage that now has the feel of a runaway train running uncontrolled downhill with little chance to avoid the inevitable crash to come. One wonders if it is that crash which is precisely what the strategy contemplates.