What Would The Archbishop Of Canterbury Have To Say To Paul Ryan About His Treatment Of The Poor?

Wall Street's monster is off the ranch

Stunned and bitter after his carefully crafted image as a "serious" public servant has been shattered, Paul Ryan has been flailing angrily. This week he's even flip-flopped on his previous opposition to driving the government into default by calling for a NO vote on the debt ceiling. Now the angry young man is turning on everyone and wanting to see the whole temple collapse around him.

Ryan has changed his tune regarding the debt ceiling significantly over the last several months. Back in January, Ryan admitted that failing to raise the debt ceiling was “unworkable.” “Yes, you can’t not raise the debt ceiling. Default is the unworkable solution,” he said during an appearance at the National Press Club. Earlier this month, he began to take a more radical line, saying that the ceiling wouldn’t be raised without concessions from Democrats. “It won’t happen, I’m serious about this,” he said. Now it seems he’s gone full-in with the fringe of his party in actually inviting a default.

So what's up with the bee in Ryan's bonnet? He's flipping out that the narrative about the profoundly
anti-Jesus foundations of his budget-- remember, what he calls his "cause"-- is starting to take hold. And sincere Christians are starting to question whether or not his God is Mammon-- or, worse yet, Ayn Rand. People are watching this video, including people in Racine, Kenosha and Janesville:



And the right-wing jihad against the middle-class, led by Ryan-Republicans in the U.S., which seeks to assign blame for the failings, avarice and turpitude of the ruling elites, is not unique to America. And the response from Christians isn't only a problem for Paul Ryan and John Boehner. This week Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, took a hard look at the Conservative agenda in the U.K. and warned that it is forcing through "radical policies for which no one voted."

Williams says the "anxiety and anger" felt by voters is a result of the coalition's failure to expose its policies to "proper public argument."

He writes: "Government badly needs to hear just how much plain fear there is around such questions at present."

...The archbishop challenges the government's approach to welfare reform, complaining of a "quiet resurgence of the seductive language of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor."

In comments directed at the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, Williams criticises "the steady pressure" to increase "punitive responses to alleged abuses of the system."

It sounds a lot like what serious American clergymen are saying about the Republican Party war against the poor and, particularly, Paul Ryan's extremist budget.