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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf It Happened There ... the Government Shutdown
By Joshua Keating
This is the first installment of If It Happened There, a regular feature in which American events are described using the tropes and tone normally employed by the American media to describe events in other countries.
WASHINGTON, United StatesThe typical signs of state failure arent evident on the streets of this sleepy capital city. Beret-wearing colonels have not yet taken to the airwaves to declare martial law. Money-changers are not yet buying stacks of useless greenbacks on the street.
But the pleasant autumn weather disguises a government teetering on the brink. Because, at midnight Monday night, the government of this intensely proud and nationalistic people will shut down, a drastic sign of political dysfunction in this moribund republic.
The capitals rival clans find themselves at an impasse, unable to agree on a measure that will allow the American state to carry out its most basic functions. While the factions have come close to such a shutdown before, opponents of President Barack Obamas embattled regime now appear prepared to allow the government to be shuttered over opposition to a controversial plan intended to bring the nations health care system in line with international standards.
Six years into his rule, Obamas position can appear confusing, even contradictory. Though the executive retains control of the countrys powerful intelligence service, capable of the extrajudicial execution of the regimes opponents half a world away, the presidents efforts to govern domestically have been stymied in the legislature by an extremist rump faction of the main opposition party.
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2013/09/30/potential_government_shutdown_how_would_the_u_s_media_report_on_it_if_it.html
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)That would be single payer.
This is an attempt to rescue the discredited idea of private insurance companies and individual/employer responsibility to buy health insurance.