There's a battle waging today in America that will decide the future of the Middle Class.

On one side are those like Thomas Jefferson who believe that a free people can govern themselves and have the right to organize their government to create a strong middle class - which will, in turn, keep the government democratic. On the other side are those like Thomas Hobbes who believe that only a small elite can and should govern and that the people should be willing to pay the price of poverty in exchange for security.

Warning: in this diary, I am going to say things you may not like.  Things you might find offensive.  In fact, I can pretty well guarantee it.  If I don't locate at least one of your hot buttons, you've got to be pretty darned button-free.

I'd like to talk about how Republicans are working to destroy public education and how Democrats are helping them.  Mostly I'd like to talk about how we've got to make some radical changes, or watch the whole system sink into Grover Norquist's bathtub.

In this one diary, I promise to attack: one of the building blocks of our democracy, hard working public servants, ideas that have spawned many heart-tugging movies of the week, and the kids on the short bus.  Just let me get my patented too-tight Grinchy shoes on... okay, let me at 'em.

In the days before GPS, a ship approaching a rocky coast had to be careful.  Navigating toward safe harbor, especially on a dark foggy night, brought with it a very real chance of destruction.  No matter how powerful, graceful, or well-designed the vessel, it could be in a moment rendered into little more than flotsam strewn across the beach.

If the ordinary problems were not enough, ships had to also face a more devious opponent: wreckers.  For centuries, maritime salvage laws gave complete ownership of a wreck to those who discovered it.  The incentive generated by these rules brought the unscrupulous out on foggy nights to try and fool wayward ships.  They would start lights, sometimes several, or order to deceive ships into thinking they were spotting lighthouses, movements of carriages along a seaside road, or other ships in a harbor.  By this means, wreakers lured hundreds of vessels onto the rocks, killed any surviving crew, and made off with the contents of the wrecks.

Forgive me the extended metaphor, and I'm sure many of you can already guess where I'm going with us.  If the ships are legislation, the Republicans are determined to provide the fog in which they can lose their way.  And they're building up the rocks on which legislation can founder.   And they're setting the false lights.