“The Office of Government Openness–closed until further notice.”
“Sixteen days, and what do you get?
Another four months & deeper in debt.” –Tennessee Ernie Yugo
On this auspicious day in Dang, the two branches of congress got into a hissy-fit & piss-off &, largely thanks to an obstreperous P-party faction effectively leveraging its minority status to prevent funding the continuing operation of the government they supposedly served. Initially, pundits predicted they were “just making a point” (namely that they could sabotage the process if they really tried), but wouldn’t. Then, in the lead up to the deadline, it seemed the obstreperous faction was starting to enjoy their leveraged power so much, the pundits changed their tune, deciding the only way P-party members could really prove they could was to show they would. And they did.
At first, people thought it would last “just a few days,” but no one, least of all the majority of the senators & representatives, imagined what would happen next. Not that they hadn’t tried. At least they thought they had, having funded the military (& secretly, the security & emergency services) beforehand. The midnight deadline came, and the non-legislators went home to sleep. They hadn’t counted on inability to get back in the next day, so long as the government was closed.
Historians disagree on exactly who first gave what orders, but agree that those who showed up at the Dumdome (where legislative sausage was made), as well as at parks, monuments & national lavatories, found doors locked, gates shut & the way blocked by military guards. “The government has closed,” was all the guards would (or could) say.
Nor was there an initially obvious way for the ex-legislators to remedy the situation, having defunded their own roles, positions & facilities. They were no longer in business, though with healthy benefits & rich friends, few faced the difficulties of lower-paid government servants or of those would-be beneficiaries of the services no longer provided. These could be considered “collateral damage,” sacrifices to make the political point.
Contrary to mass media hype & public expectation, the well-being of the country & even its markets at first seemed to improve, at least according to the RSE Index, named for Richter-Sphincter & Evans–who merged the Richter & Sphincter scales with “Evans’ Even-handed Happiness Measure” (as expressed in the enthusiasm of both hands clapping). Even shares in large defense companies deriving most of their cash-flow from government contracts rose, along with the role of the military.
By squabbling themselves out of a job, the “anti-government” faction in government had (wittingly &/or unwittingly) escalated the importance of both the military & other federal emergency structures under executive control, necessarily expanding the emergency powers of the president, as Commander In Chief.
It was all the more ironic that this had not come about from a right-wing military coup or dictatorial usurpation by an over-reaching head of state allegedly acting out of their duty to save the country from some real or presumed internal threats. (Whether these threats came from radical progressive free-thinkers on the left, flaming sword religious fanatics on the right or congressional zealots on the zig zag might seem secondary.)
It was not uncommon for military & security officials (or corporate big-wigs for that matter) to use the threat of their power to restrain reform-minded civilian officials who might otherwise be inclined to hold them accountable after a period of “unfortunate excess” under a more encouraging administration. They were only doing what was wanted, what was asked of them. “You don’t like it, don’t ask. We’re here to serve. (But if you try to punish us, you’ll be sorry, too.)”
The irony is that this time the role was forced on both military & head of state by the congressional abdication, however inadvertent. Whether intentionally sabotaged or an implication of their “unenlightened ways,” they had locked themselves out of a closed government, leaving only the military (& its civilian “commander in cheap,” as he put it privately) to pick up the slack, exercising emergency powers made all the more powerful, it turned out, by hardly known secret provisions of earlier laws the president’s team “re-discovered.”
The ironies pile on top of each other. One was that those most responsible for the shutdown billed themselves as “penny pinchers” committed to putting a lid on runaway federal spending, yet the shutdown cost the country dearly, in added expenses, extra costs, lost work, investor anxiety, & pure waste. “It is hard to put a figure on it, or even to get one’s mind around the negative productivity, except in comparison to the tax system,” explained one economist, recently audited, who was “not at all sure” what the P-party motives were.
“Although they talk as if they above all others want a less wasteful system than the current tax code & large government represent, there is also the possibility they think the quickest way to bring down what they don’t like is first to make it worse, so bad that everyone else will start to feel like them. This is not such an uncommon approach, however backward, often employed by provocateurs who want the general public to experience a government’s capacity for cruelty & injustice,” he added.
If those who supposedly wanted less government intrusion into our lives & attention, along with more fiscal responsibility, were responsible for a surge in both pure waste & the executive branch’s emergency powers, it was not the best of worlds for many progressives either. As much as they blamed the P-party penny pinchers, they were not tickled pink to be ruled (including on issues of taxes, budgets & free expression) by a militarized federal structure, even one that seemed benign, hadn’t sought the power in the first place, & pledged to use its new powers responsibly for the benefit of the many, “& only as long as necessary.”{}
A sense of responsibility prevented NEAT/ the National Emergency Action Task-force from giving a congress that had proven itself self-destructive power back to do more damage, at least until the people had had a chance to throw out the saboteurs & start over. Until then, NEAT was given authority for all executive, legislative & judicial planning to maintain all essential civil functions & bring essential services back in gear (starting with a “Continuing Resolution” to maintain prior levels in most, but not all, agencies).
All federal offices & office holders were given 48 hours to submit a Relative-Emergency-Likely Importance-&-Economics-Evaluation Form (RELIEF), which the NEAT-force folks used to calculate funding levels (if any). Only agencies, offices & branches of government which could establish output worth more than input qualified for emergency funding. It was not surprising that the former carping, whining, & monkey-wrenching legislators fell very near the bottom of NEAT’s “objective-importance-priority list,” quite far under the Parks, Memorials & Recreational Facilities, which themselves fell rather far below Lavatory & Custodial Facilities, all these adding some “emergency relief” value.
It wouldn’t be fair to blame all the legislators equally, nor to blame some at all, but the institutional organization as a whole had “failed to pass the mustard.” Thanks to the efforts of the factional saboteurs, even citizens who had distrusted the military beforehand generally approved of the improvement, however reluctant to express that view publicly–& tentative, reserving final judgment for the transitional return to popular elections, starting over with a more enlightened bunch.
At least that was the hope–that no future congress would sabotage itself so readily ever again, at least in the immediate future–“even in the national interest,” said some; “except in the national interest,” said others. “So what else is new?” asked still others, forged in irony.
[Historians now know the first thing the “new & improved” legislature did when fresh elections were held, as promised, was to exempt itself from future government shutdowns, passing what was called “the unlocked legislature loophole special account provision” slipped in as a footnote to the “Emergency Stress Reduction Act”–over the president’s veto. Henceforth they’d not only keep full funding for their offices, staffs, & spa, with a raise & bonus for the extra pressure, but also insure certain committee chairs a place at the table on the next NEAT….
Moral of the story: Never underestimate the human potential for learning from prior mistakes, even if only in order to make the same mistakes more effectively the next time.]
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II. A few highlights of the Dang shutdown, clipped from UPPS (Unedited Press Post Service) dispatches:
“The Stopped Clock–with no one to wind it.” The National Time Bank may go bust as a result of the government shutdown, according to financial experts in investments involving duration, thanks to the fact that no one was there to wind the standard operating clock mechanism, the first time since the bank was founded….
Witchful Thinking, the organization that turns tricks to treats, has closed its government-funded Halloween Foundation & trimmed staff at its Haunted House Hotel chain to a skeleton crew in anticipation of horrors & doom…..
The National Zoo is closing, leaving the question still uncertain whether this means the staff will lock all the gates & walk away, or open all the gates & run. “Who needs a zoo when you have a congress like this?” asked one observer.
CSiii, the Center for the Study of Ignorance, Injustice & Insanity, the country’s leading experimental clearing house for intra-governmental research, has been forced to suspend all government-funded projects at exactly 11:47 A.M. yesterday, under orders to immediately stop whatever they were doing at that moment, leaving everything just as it was, “& walk away. Those lingering to tend to equipment, volunteers or human subjects in mid examination may be cited, fined, & imprisoned.”
UPPS PS’s (Unedited Press Post Service Post Scripts)
1. Ignorance, Injustice & Insanity are not restricted to our government, nor is the Center’s funding, so some projects continue, including some funded by hostile governments, mad venture capitalists & non-governmental organizations that thrive on mass chaos & failure. Some believe this offered those studying the three i’s in government a golden opportunity that was totally wasted by having the funding for such projects cut off by the shutdown. Others claim this is “business as usual,” just more visible & attention-distracting than average.
2. One high & previously respected expert in the organization suggested that CSiii should use the opportunity to study itself, since “ignorance often begins at home (never mind insanity).” He was then reportedly dismissed without pay, charged with various crimes (e.g., disloyalty, reputational sabotage, divulging of secrets), & incarcerated in a mental facility beyond the reach of relatives, the Red Double Cross & other independent observers, but “with a golden opportunity to study the injustice he brought upon himself.”
3. In the belief that ” stopped clock is exactly right twice a day,” the National Stopped Clock Museum was founded & now draws countless visitors every day, many of whom pay extra for souvenirs, including replicas. Among the centerpieces of the museum’s collection are the clock that stopped during the Dang shutdown, remnants of the country’s first two atomic clocks smashed into each other “to see what would happen,” & an experimental black-hole simulator in which clocks are not the only things stopped.
4. There is also a “Tardish,” modeled on the archaic British telephone booth used by the alleged time-lord/ charlatan (take your pick) operating under the name Dr. Whom, sued by Britty Telecom who claimed their booths were not designed for examinations, let alone Dr. Whom’s operations. They claimed the misrepresentation made people angry at the company when they found the actual telephone booths did not have more room inside than they looked, nor could they flip the bird at time-space constraints except as fiber optic lines, satellite bouncebacks & recording machines made possible.
5. Secretly telecom experts were pleased as punch cartoons made them out to be at the extra attention the show & their lawsuit brought to their booths, as later confessions made clear–just as booths were about to disappear, or morph into something else (like a cellphone in your pocket or a bug in your ear). Starting with the 1st miniaturized portable telephone boothlet you could take with you wherever you went, & finishing with every head containing its own connection to the cosmic web, the iTard now comes with aps for examining, operating & traveling through time, space & other dimensions.
6. iWitch, uWitch, oui-allWitch for goodWitch 4 gr8 Itch–are all rumored to be in one pipeline or another. The iWitch will supposedly not only cater to your every wish, but find water. (An advanced model may turn pumpkins into carriages.) The oui-all sounds like it’s from the French south. The goodWitch4 is supposed to be a 4th generation iWitch, whereas the gr8 Itch represents “a revolution in smart product design.” Said to come with its own marketing, gr8 Itch may also sport a service contract to radically expand the company’s scratch potential.
7. Skeptics have questioned the newness of such offerings, pointing out the various itches said to have been released from Pandora’s box, as well as the many alleged witches sold in bottles, lamps, & other rubbables over time. Nor were the two only recently conjoined. The witch’s itch, although variously expressed & interpreted in folklore & psychology labs, seems to trace back to a time before memory. (See “Call Me Hazel,” in the Witch-is-Witch Apothecary, if you can get your hands on one, for the history of itch unguents & scratching powders.)
8. “Of all the numbers one through ten, odd & even back again,
of those that I expect to rate, the juiciest is probably 8.
Two may spit & ten come late, the hungriest is probably 8.
One may hold its finger high, invite another in the eye,
stick a thumb in pumpkin pie, cross your thighs & hope to sigh.
Three’s a crowd & four’s still more, cornerstones for floor & door,
five’s a hand (whether in fingers or poker),
with six & nine & seven jokers.
Still when it comes right down to choose a mate,
. nothing beats an 88.”
–from “Eat What You Love, Love Whom You 8: the cannibal’s cannabis cookbook,” Dr. Whosits Whatsits, Tardy Press: any day now*
* In which the not necessarily good Dr. traces the love-8 relationship from the predator’s “prey, eat, love” to modern dating practices in which prospective mates are offered dinner & drinks as part of “the hunt.”**
** See The Hunt for What: in search of the elusive,” if you ever get the chance. Extremely difficult to find, let alone identify & describe, some believe it contains an account of “what they were really thinking” when trying to figure out what possible rationale was behind many policy decisions supposedly in response to vital national interests. Others think it contains more erotically inclined material, e.g., an account of “the search for & ultimate discovery of the elusive G-spot, famed among mariners & submariners alike.”
*** Although it was no Shakespeare who wrote “the quality of elusiveness is not strained,” it could have been someone almost as eloquent & articulate working for a modern advertising megafirm. If so, the credit probably went to his boss, who went on to win many industry awards as “the man who bottled elusiveness,” “the expert who made absence the essence of presence, pre-scents & presents”–“the genius who left his stamp on various absinthes, his touch on countless seductions, & his strain on puree of carrots.”
**** “Who was that masked man?” The man who liked to be called “Mr. Elusive” had a genius for attracting attention, even in a crowd, where he was usually the only one masked. (If other masked men arrived, it was said he either slipped away or took off his mask & went unrecognized.) It is believed he may have been the first person to use the name Alias as a first name, before it became almost as generic for Pseudonym as Anonymous or for a Pen Name as Red Ink, after which it was seen (like the mask) as calling too much attention to itself.
***** In “The True Elusive–the ghost within,” written for, by &/or about the founder of Ghostwriters Anonymous &/or its main competitor, Ghostwriters in the Sky, the former Dean of Day & Night Students in Absentia at UGS–the Unfamous Ghostwriters School–says “The famous elusive is not the true elusive. The true elusive is neither particularly proud, nor unusually shy, but mainly humble as dirt, easily blending in.”
****** By contrast, there was the famous photographer who had only himself as a subject, including, among his many self-portraits, a rather large collection of thumbs, although many more of flashes in mirrors, & others without flash of a body with a camera in front of where a face might once have been.