The crazies in the United States House of Representatives would have you believe it were so. They say fix that budget before we'll raise the debt ceiling. If we don't get our fix, they announce, there's no deal. We'll just default until things get straightened out. (Image: George Romero) Let's see what would happen to you or me. We are unable to pay our bills, unless we tap a special line of credit that we've used in the past, one that has never failed us. We'll have to raise some money and cut some expenses too.

We're tired of paying bills and just want to stop for a while. We file for bankruptcy following all of the required procedures. The minute we file, we're granted an automatic stay on our debt. We are now protected, no bills to pay.

Then we get a few visits from creditors. They let us know that they know we can pay. Other people owed money show up also and ask, what is your problem? You owe us the money. You can pay and you will. The combination of angry creditors and recipients of our funds forces us to do what we could have done in the first place.

America's budget crisis has the world economy at the brink. Social Security, Medicare, aid for needy children, environmental protection and much more are being chopped.

Yet Congress and the White House may still want to use our money to fund atomic power.

Specifically, $36 billion in loan guarantees may still be on the table for building new nukes. Millions more are slated for "small modular reactors" and other atomic boondoggles.

A national campaign---including an August 7 "MUSE2" concert---is underway to help stop this. With your help, we can win.

Some realities:

• More US energy is now generated by renewables than nuclear power, according to the latest Energy Information Administration report, and the balance is continuing to shift to green sources.

The murder spree in Norway was apparently the work of a Norwegian, not a group of foreigners, and for various other reasons the comparison is not exact. Nonetheless, it's tempting to wonder how many people would still be alive today if George W. Bush or Rudy Giuliani had spoken after the 9-11 attacks as Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg just did.

You'll recall that Bush immediately spoke of a "war against terrorism," claimed to have been attacked for being a beacon of freedom, announced that we were all filled with anger, and decreed that we would make no distinction between terrorists and "those who harbored them." "The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" he promised.

Now take a 60-second tour of an alternative universe by substituting "the United States" for "Norway" in Stoltenberg's remarks:

Freedom is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America’s Struggle over Black Family Life from LBJ to Obama
By James T. Patterson
Basic Books 2010
216 Pages
Preface, Annotated Endnotes and Index

On May 22, 1964, the late President Lyndon Johnson challenged the graduating class at the University of Michigan to make not just a more rich and powerful society, but a Great Society “. . .where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.” In practice the Great Society came to be known as a set of domestic programs and legislative initiatives designed, in part, to lift Americans out of poverty and create a more just society. It was a giddy time in America. Finally the country appeared to be moving toward resolving its centuries old racial problems; indeed, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, sent to Congress in June 1963 by the late president John F. Kennedy, was signed just two months after LBJ’s speech later. The Economic Opportunity Act, the cornerstone of Johnson’s War on Poverty, was also signed that summer, and the morass that was Vietnam was not on the radar for most of the American public.

While an overused description, yesterday’s meeting of over 700 unionists at the Pipefitter’s Union Hall in Columbus, Ohio certainly qualifies as an historic gathering. Even in the sweltering heat, the huge, enthusiastic crowd poured into the union hall to hear Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga, national AFL-CIO Rich Trumka and others lay out, in detail, the wide program of mobilization organized labor and its allies intend to put into effect to win repeal of SB 5, the Republican sponsored bill that would end bargaining rights for public workers in that state.

Burga broke from his prepared speech opening the event to tell the cheering, chanting crowd that “it’s official, we’ve been certified! 915,000 signatures, the most on a referendum in the history of our state, have been validated to place the recall of SB 5 on the November ballot!”

Burga went on, with a blistering attack on the current Kasich administration in Ohio and corporate politicians nationally.