He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing

He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.
- Frank Herbert

The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.
- Paul-Muad'dib to the Guild navigators, at his confrontation with the Emperor Shaddam IV.

While I have enjoyed many of Frank Herbert's novels, I must admit Dune is my favorite. There are so many quotable phrases in Dune and the sequels that Herbert challenges the insight and wit of such authors as Robert A. Heinlein.

One of the plot elements I found most compelling was the plan by Paul Atreides, or Paul-Maud'dib, to destroy all the spice "Melange" on the planet Arrakis. Basically this would cause the complete collapse of the galactic empire by making it impossible to travel between world faster than the speed of light. Certainly only an act of desperation or profound ideology could compel someone to do such a thing, but having the capability of actually carrying out such an action makes for a very good bargaining point in a negotiation or confrontation.

As we are a week away from August 2, 2011, when the debt ceiling on the United States government expires, I cannot help but draw parallels to Dune. I cannot help but wonder if one or more persons in the republican party, or right wing establishment is intimately familiar with Herbert's insights exemplified in Dune. At stake is the US and possibly the world economy, and the right is using this threat to destroy it in order to gain control of it, and much more...

They seem to have reached a point where the right is not willing to accept any compromise with the left, or even the center for that matter. In fact, judging by the claims of many on the right they in fact want to see a collapse of the economy. So what is their reasoning, how can this make sense?

Over the last few decades the wealthy have become dramatically more wealthy than the middle class and poor. It can be argued that they are so wealthy in fact that they would not be seriously inconvenienced by the collapse of the world economy. After such a catastrophe they would basically be in a position to renegotiate society itself on their terms, as the majority of people would then be so desperate to settle for any meager claim to survival they could - even to relinquish democracy and freedom itself.

For some it may seem inconceivable that any such despicable conspiracy could be true, but crisis profiteering and shock doctrine are very conceivable. It is not hard to postulate that this is indeed the primary goal of the right, to abolish democracy for the simple fact that in a democracy the majority rules, and that is too big a liability to a minority of wealthy and powerful.

If the right succeeds in abolishing democracy in the United States and elsewhere, what would this brave new world look like? I suspect it would look like many of the dystopian novels I have read over the years, but mostly I think it would turn out like Rollerball by William Harrison.

On the surface it seems as though the right has a winning strategy - they win if the left capitulates to all their demands and they still win if the world economy tanks. In effect it would seem that the right has Barack Obama in a check-mate situation. The problem is that the president may just decide to stop playing chess (my metaphor for politics) and just man up and use the 14th amendment to the constitution "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." to force the treasury to do the right thing in spite of congress. If he really had some balls he would also declare the republican party an enemy of the state and have the justice department prosecute accordingly.