Gee, boys and girls, all sorts of nifty-keen things have happened since we talked last. Let's see: Well, we've mobilized an assault on Fallujah in concert with the "Iraqi military" (including all fifteen troops and their five jeeps). Ostensibly, this effort comes under the direction of the equally dubious Iraqi government. Of course, if you listen to the right people, pretty soon they'll have you believing Zell Miller is a Democrat, the coal industry respects the environment and Elvis is alive and well and running a Kia dealership in
The counting of votes from election night '04 still goes forward in some locations. In addition, the analysis of vote tallies has become, in some places, a large element of the local economies. Apparently, these are cities located in some nearby parallel dimension wherein there is still some dispute over who won the election. As I've said before, no matter what the investigations turn up, the election is over. Even if you somehow manage to prove that George W. Bush is carrying on clandestine homoerotic sado-bestiality rituals with the founder of Diebold and three of the company's top shareholders, the result is much the same: regardless of who actually got elected, George Bush won, and we are substantially the losers.
In other news, those of you who haven’t left for Canada yet but still wish to avoid the coming draft, I'd suggest moving up your travel plans. President Bush just this afternoon, during a joint interview from the oval office with the head of NATO, reaffirmed his commitment to provide his military commanders with anything and everything they needed to fight this war. Last I checked, they weren't phoning the White House asking for cookie dough and nail polish. Oh, by the way, I checked, and Sealand is not offering any new citizenships at this time.
John Ashcroft is out. I’m sure terrorists the world over will be breathing a sigh of relief as they strap on the ol’ Semtex waistcoats tomorrow morning.
In these trying times, it is only to be expected that certain grave issues come to light from time to time: questions of morality, possibly, of mortality, most certainly, and let us not forget that issue which has plagued the great minds since the dawn of mankind: whether or not we should prospect for oil in Alaska. I’m normally the first to come down on the side of Mother Nature, particularly when the interests of Big Business are concerned. But right about now I’ve got far more important things on my mind than whether or not a bunch of Texans are throwing together a wildcat oil expedition in the Arctic. I don’t care, right at this very moment, if they are probing for fossil fuels inside the bodies of endangered owls. And yes, I do recognize that this is precisely the sort of reasoning that has allowed this foolishness to be resurrected in the first place. Frankly, I think the sooner we run out of oil, the sooner we’re all going to have to stop bickering like children and either get along long enough to find alternatives or destroy each other outright.
Either way, there’ll be quiet.
I’ve got a great deal more to say, but right now I’m tired and hungry and I have reason to believe that I’m becoming cynical.
End Communication
First of all, I know that my last couple of posts have been a hair on the long side, even for me. For those of you who actually took the time to read them, I appreciate the effort. I suppose, in a larger sense, I’m really writing to and for myself, but it’s always nice to imagine that something I say might eventually find its way into someone else’s mind, where it might come to some good. Anyway, I think at least for the present that I’ve said what I have to say on the subject of politics and of the demise of life as we know it. That sort of thing is all fine and good as mental calisthenics, but it’s exhausting. It’s also non-productive. The fact is that regardless of what lurks in the deeps of our murky little socio-political tide pool, life must go on. We’ve still got to drag our limp and wrinkled carcasses up with the sun every morning prepared to laugh, learn, get drunk, go to work, shop, fuck, fight, cook, gamble, and pray, and then totter home and tuck our children and ourselves back into bed each night and get ready to do it all over again. As I reflected on this notion this morning, something occurred to me. I cannot recall a time when I felt so adrift, so remote, so fundamentally disconnected from whatever it is that turns a long and meaningless string of events and circumstances into a life. I’ve been a great many things just lately: I’ve been an American, I’ve been a liberal, I’ve been a libertarian, I’ve been a radical reformist malcontent and a fumbling political commentator, and any of a dozen other things. What I haven’t been, for all this time, is a human being. If this seems an empty philosophic distinction, then perhaps you’re right, in which case you should stop reading right now and go switch on your television set. But I’m willing to bet quite a great deal that I’m not the only one to whom this sounds familiar.
I must own that I am not a particularly spiritual individual, and am not at all inclined toward organized religion. For good or ill, science and reason are my bosom companions, and mine is a God who slumbers not in Heaven but in
Frankly, I’m feeling a little filthy and a whole lot tired.
So I’ve got a little homework assignment for you, friends. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be playing right along with you, and we'll go over the answers in class on monday. This idea is the extension of an idea voiced to me numerous times in recent days by the omnipresent and insufferably self-righteous conservatives who cannot wait to smear the offal of victory all over me. Their advice, to paraphrase gently, is that we, the defeated and disgraced liberals, should sit down and shut the fuck up.
And that, my friends, is just what we need to do.
However, I don’t mean that we should pry our twitching, pre-RSI hands off our keyboards and cease our war vigil. What I mean for us to do is to really sit down, and really shut up. I propose that, at some point over the course of the next couple of days, we all set aside an hour or so, find a quiet spot, settle ourselves down, and stay that way until we find ourselves some peace of mind—or at very least an idea for a revolutionary new sexual position. Stranger things have happened. I know, you say that you cannot possibly find the time to find complete inner harmony. Well, bullshit. First, we’re not talking about journeying to Nirvana; just think quietly to yourself for a while, if you like. After all, the unexamined life is not worth living, isn’t that right? Your next complaint is going to be that you’ve got too much to do. Yeah, so does everybody else. But we all know that we’re not going to accomplish half the crap on our to-do lists anyway, and if you’ve got to skip the second half of
The worst that could happen is that you fall asleep. And who knows, you might just find a little slice of that elusive thing called enlightenment.
Here’s hoping.
Is this the big one? Am I finally about to cash in all those Big Macs in a stupefying display of cardiac pyrotechnics wherein my poor twitching heart breaks open within my chest and issues forth gelatinous clots of industrial-grade cholesterol the consistency of expanding foam insulation?
No, fortunately I'm not having a heart attack--at least not yet. I'm merely experiencing a violent psychosomatic reaction to the apparently unstoppable encroachment of the pernicious Right. Nor am I the only one feeling the chill of impending conservatism. The fiber has been a-thrum for the last two days with the reactions of liberal and moderate bloggers as we all attempt to process the lunacy which we must, perforce, accept as fact: The White House has been denied us, Congress is stacked against us, and, with the likely abdication of Rehnquist, even the judiciary will be closed to us. Responses have ranged far and wide. Some are still nestled in the gentle embrace of denial. Their cries of "Fraud!" and "Investigation!" will no doubt echo long through the luminiferous ether. Others say that the war is over, that we should gather our dead and our dying and make for the hills while we may. The future of
But for those of us who are left to pick up the pieces of our democracy and make shift for the future, neither of these outlooks is of much practical value. The first two are inherently without strategy--or hope--for redemption and the latter reeks of defeatism and begs one essential question: "So what do we do about it?" Let's take first the die-hard foul-criers. These are dedicated, stolid men and women who have stepped gamely to the plate to say what we're all thinking. The fact is, there is no way that we're ever going to know for sure whether or not there was any sort fraud involving the machinery--literal and figurative--of this election. Our tendency, bred of pattern recognition and a conditioned mistrust of those who control our political system, is to assume the worst. So let's play pretend for a moment. Let's pretend that, through unparalleled devotion to the truth, we spend the next weeks, months, and years pouring over the ever-cooling informational spoor trail left behind by Election Day '04. Let us, for simplicity's sake, disregard the fact that the electoral system is fundamentally engineered so as to make it difficult to keep track of absentee ballots, provisional ballots, and the increasingly prevalent "misplaced" voter registrations. Let us also disregard the fact that the mechanical logistics of the electronic voting system make it difficult if not damned near impossible to trace--or even perceive--vote fraud, let alone to prove conclusively that it occurred. All of these provisions taken, let's then say that we have accomplished our mission. Through our relentless efforts, we manage to lever back a tiny corner of the system and expose the whirring gunmetal watchworks of a vast Right-wing conspiracy machine. We have now in our hands proof incontrovertible that George W. Bush has usurped the leadership of this nation.
Now what? Who, honestly, gives a fuck? We more or less established that this is precisely what Bush and his henchmen did four years ago. Only a handful of people recognized that proof, and most of them didn’t really care. Sure, “Remember
Ok, so what about the trumpeters of destruction, knelling the death of the American way? They are, I am very much afraid, accurate in their forecasts. Look at the facts. First, morality and values have become the watchwords of our “objective” media. In and of themselves, all fine and good. The catch is that these morals and values are cemented to the fundaments of Christianity, a religion, I am sorry to have to inform you conservative readers, which is not representative of the beliefs of the entire populace of the
To these people I am forced to say: “No Shit!?” Yes, all of these things are likely to come to pass, and yes, they were likely inevitable from the beginning; if you hadn’t anticipated this nasty little turn of events, if you hadn’t gotten an inkling long ago that our leaders were more than willing to so thoroughly force their own personal religious code upon us citizens as to render citizenship intolerable—or even hazardous—to any who don’t hold the appropriate (read: their) beliefs, then we, my friends, are in deeper proverbial fecal matter than I thought.
As to the final group, the ones whose answer to
But as long as we keep arguing amongst ourselves, thirty million blind men debating the nature of an elephant, we can never put it to use. While you think about that, keep in mind that in all probability, there exists at this very minute, somewhere out in the uncharted wilds of Blogtopia, the future leader of this little island of dirt.
Right this minute, he or she is probably camping in a Star Trek chatroom, scarfing Ramen noodles by the forkful and listening to a Rush mix tape.
Edit:
Just in case you find this needlessly grim, I’ll leave you with some parting wisdom from Homer Simpson which should go a long way toward making you feel better:
“Stupidity got us into this mess, and stupidity will get us out again.”
As you must know by now unless you live in a deep-sea diving bell off the Galapagos, George W. Bush has officially retained the crown...er, presidency. Kerry made an honorable concession speech a little while ago, during which he expounded on his deep love and respect for the American people, laid out his philosophy for our future, and made clear his commitment to the future of this nation. The cynic in me wonders how differently things might have turned out if only he'd made this speech three months ago, but that's neither here nor there. Largely, I was heartened by his message of continuing liberalism. Frankly, in light of the coming 100-day hyper-conservative circle-jerk, wherein we are going to see the unveiling of what are likely to be the most aggressively regressive social policies to land in little steaming piles all over our civil rights in decades--to say nothing of a continued subscription to the John Wayne Correspondence School of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations and economic planning by Magic Eight Ball--we're going to need every such voice we can find. Anybody have Howard Dean's phone number?
I also want to extend a hearty measure of thanks to all my fellow Americans who braved the Democratic process yesterday. Granted, a majority of you voted for a man I personally loathe and fear: a man whose policies and actions are doing to my country what an industrial wood-chipper does to a gerbil; a man whose first administration has done more damage to our economy than OPEC and New Coke combined; a man who has single-handedly managed to lower the global opinion of the citizenry of this nation, a feat which some speculated was impossible; a man who amuses our enemies and incites fear in his own people; a man who we know for a fact to have all the rectitude of a diseased bonefish, and who has been proven beyond doubt to have perpetrated upon the nation and the world some of the most flagrant acts of deception attempted in recent history; a man who...well, you get the idea. Yes, in spite of all this, I want to thank you for actually taking the time to exercise your democratic rights. For all I know, it may have been your last chance. And to all of you useless heaps of semi-sentient protoplasm who couldn't even be bothered to tear your bloodshot gazes away from the torrential shit-sluice of pre-digested vapidity gushing from your precious television sets long enough to cast a ballot, I have another message: You do not matter. I'm not talking about those of you who, for one reason or another, could not vote. But as for the rest of you, the ones who simply could not manage to take enough of an interest in the future of your nation to vote, you are beneath the notice of the rest of us. I don't want to hear your opinions, I don't care what your problems are, and I don't particularly wish to be bothered with your existence. If it were up to me, you would have just forfeited what few constitutional rights you have left. You don’t want to participate in the processes of your government, you shouldn’t expect your government to give a hemorrhaging fuck about you. Don’t like it? Go fail to vote in some other country.
But to the rest of you, even you loveable conservatives, thanks for taking the time to play our little game.
If anybody needs me, I'll be under the sofa.
P.S.: Peace to the Fallen
Good news, everyone. In just over 24 hours, polling places throughout the
Since I have so prodigiously digressed, I'll restate my initial point, which was that the finalization of the 2004 elections process was good news. Why? Because I can’t even remember what in the hell I used to talk about. I’m violently, viscerally sick of being harangued by the over-paid, over-starched, over-blown partisan hand puppets in the media. I’ve been pursuing the finer points of the Philosophy of Social Fuckery for a year now, and I would frankly rather scratch my testicles with a chainsaw than sit through another week of it. I think it’s time I—and all of America—put aside all this foolishness and got back to doing what we, as Americans, are supposed to be doing, like stabbing each other over parking spaces, committing drunken hate crimes, and playing pornographic video games (caution: nsfw).
