Test II

If this had been a real emergency, this bog post would have been followed by explicit instructions to stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

Thank you for your cooperation.

If a Politician Falls in the Woods...

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 Newton’s Cradle. Therefore, it is none of my intention to foist upon you advice of a religious nature. Part of our problem these days is that we already have too many people telling us what we need to believe. What I do intend is to suggest that there is—for the sake of all that is good, there must be—more to life than the hell that is other people. There has to be something in life that makes it feel good, else why would we bother going on? Take a guy like Bill O’Reily, for example. I have a hard time imagining ol’ Bill being moved to tears by a piece of music, or going all warm and fuzzy at a sunset, or even simply sitting down and introspecting on what it’s like to be alive. I’m sure this is, to some extent, unfair and simplistic, but I think the point holds. After all, if you spend your entire professional life skipping stones over the open cesspool of humanity and shit-sticking the wretched abominations that slither up the bank, then pretty soon you’re bound to be little better than they are. And no matter how clean you manage to stay, your world is every bit as small and foul-smelling as theirs. That’s sort of how I’ve been feeling for a while now, although it’s taken until now to sort out enough of the English language to set it to paper. I (and a lot of people like me), not-so-innocent bystanders drawn into the vortex of social awareness and political activism, have spent the last who the hell knows how long bleating at the wolves that menace our fragile eggshell happiness, vilifying them, demonizing them, then weaving mantras and incantations to ward them off; distilling all the rage and fear which helplessness can breed and pouring it, 200-proof emotion of the blackest kind, down their grinning gullets and what we’ve done, at the very end, is we’ve built ourselves an army of monsters.

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 Sports Center in pursuit of a little relaxation and tranquility, then worse tragedies have befallen mankind. So let’s all stop bitching, find a quiet spot, chill out, have a drink if that’s what you’re into, pray if it gets you giddy, but mostly just keep quiet and sit there until we feel a profound connection with something, even if it’s only our chairs.

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.

My Left Side Just Went Numb

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 America, they seem to say, is someone else's problem. From still others--with whom I do not intend in any way to disagree--we hear the drums of doom ringing out the approach of pervasive theocracy and the demise of personal liberties. And do you know what, children? They're all right.

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 Florida” became a slick little leftist masturbation chant, but no one really gave a damn. Why should we think that this year—with its even higher margin of victory and groundswell of fundamentalist religious support--would see us meet with any greater success?

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 United States. Even so, I will be the first to admit that there exist in Christianity tenets which are fine and noble, and would moreover make exemplary keystones to social policy; these include the respecting of one’s fellow man, the praise and reward of generosity and kindness, and intolerance toward murder and cruelty. The problem occurs when the ruling party attempts to use their power to impose not just these admirable social rules upon the citizenry, but the sum and body of fundamental Christian doctrine as well. This is not only a clear violation of my—supposedly—constitutionally protected right to practice (or not) nay religion I choose, but also translates into an imposition on my other—again, supposed—American freedoms (take equal protection under the law, for instance: the legal statutes that allow me, as a heterosexual, to marry whomever I choose so long as the individual has reached the age of majority and is not a sanguine relation do not, in an increasing number of locations, apply to homosexuals. This is as clear a violation of the tenets of social equality as was that famous bus driver’s insistence that Rosa Parks take to the back of the bus, and I dare anyone to tell me otherwise). So the storm crows out there in Blog-Land shriek to us about how the religious Right are going to use their new-found political dominance to shore up their pro-Christian moral code cum legal code, and that *gasp* they will no doubt try to shove their well-meaning little tentacles ever deeper into the fabric of our supposedly tolerant society, so that those of us who survive the next few years are going to wake up in a thriving, bustling theocracy led by a man who, despite bearing a distracting resemblance to certain tree-dwelling primates, considers himself to be God’s go-to guy on earth.

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 America’s problems is flight, I don’t really blame you. You’ve got good reason to be afraid, and to flee is the first and most immediate response to fear. But, as appealing as that notion is, someone has to clean up this mess. We’re going to need every mind, ever voice, and perhaps, eventually, every pair of hands to set this place to rights. If we up and abandon this nation, our nation, into the hands of people like ol’ George, then we’ve failed, and we will have deserved that failure. No, my friends and neighbors—and I think all of us know this somewhere way down in the bottom of our bleeding little liberal hearts—there’s a lot of good in this country, a lot that’s worth fighting for. If we have to make an intellectual war of it, then so be it. Hell, if blog posts were bullets, we’d never lose. But one way or another, we need to stop cowering in our individual caves and holes in the sand and stand together. Whatever we say, it must be uttered in one voice: by air, by fiber optic, by paper, or by glyphs carved of soap, if that’s what it takes. We can no longer expect to achieve our ends by responding in the traditional ways (which for bloggers generally means furious link-swapping and semantic in-fighting, whilst the world spins on). What the established powers that be do not credit, and what we ourselves do not yet seem to realize, is that at the epicenter of this maelstrom of words and memes, there resides a force unrivaled in the history of human communication, a 100-million-megaton warhead of sheer intellectual ass-kicking the like of which no one has ever witnessed, and against which not even the prodigious powers of ignorance can stand.

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.”

1456 and Counting

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.

So now what? What do those of us who maintain something more than a nodding acquaintance with reality do for the next four years? Do we take it to the streets? Do we hide beneath our sofas eating Spam and blogging via Wi-Fi? Or do we take a cue from our leaders and simply disconnect ourselves from the rest of the universe and live out our lives in a self-centric alternate world all our own, and leave the rest of mankind to fend for themselves? I know that many of the fine people of this, our little blogtopia, are opting for one or the other of these options, and I can’t say I blame you. Most, however, seem to espouse a more adaptive, live-to-fight-another-day approach. After all, reconciliation is the path of least resistance. This being the case, there seems to have developed a trend of establishing ‘pledges’ to guide one’s behavior in the days and months ahead--some I would much rather sign my name to than others. This, naturally, is bullshit; I reserve my right, as a violent reactionary, to hate anyone I choose whenever I choose. But, hey, whatever gets you through the night.

If anybody needs me, I'll be under the sofa.

P.S.: Peace to the Fallen

Doh!

**Mumbles distractedly**
**Clears throat**

About that thing I said earlier: you know, the thing about the tide of political assent and mathematical death and so on?

Well...

You see, there's this whole thing going on; I have acid reflux disease; I was dehydrated; It was a grammar malfunction...

Ah, fuck.

Damned Giuliani

The littlest member of Dubya's apparenly growing fan club is on CNN right now mewling something to the effect that we're in imminent danger of further terror attacks; in fact, he--and apparently some vaguely alluded 'many others' I wasn't personally aware of--was convinced that we were due for massive attacks throughout the day, and only Georgie Boy's prime-grade leadership has kept us safe this long.

As if this wasn't infuriating enough, the Democratic machine seems to be stalling somewhat in the battleground areas. It is, of course, way, way too early to do any final counting yet, but it's still enough to give me indigestion.

Interestingly--if discouragingly--our friends across the pond seem to be taking a much less delicate road in their projections.

And Here Comes the Media

With the finalization of polling in Illinois, Georgia, Kentucky, and Vermont, the big outlets begin the opening groans of what is likely to become thirty-six-plus hour orgy of multi-partisan smoke-speak. On that account, I wanted to take this one last opportunity to discuss Election Day itself before all such concerns are overshadowed by the more immediate problems associated with surviving whichever of these clowns fine beauracratic specimens we drag into the Oval Office.
I spent approximately ninety minutes on queue in my home precict this afternoon--and, yes, I know that this puts me in a rarified minority when compared to those who camped out last night in order to get to the polls early. Therefore, I by no means intend to complain about the wait. More to the point, I was pleasantly surprised at the volume my little hometown turned out. So anyway, I had a great deal of time in which to reflect (I, being ever the acme of preparedness, neglected to furnish myself with any means of entertainment). The first thing I noticed was that, by and large, no one ever seems happy at a polling place, particularly those who work there. I've seen happier faces at the proctologist's office than I saw in that line. Of course, I'm sure there are some individuals who would be tempted at this point to offer some sophomoric turns of wit connecting political science and the lower end of the human digestive tract, but I think we are sophisticated enough to forego such puerile behaviour. Ok, in fact I most certainly am not, but, perhaps fortunately, I can't think of any good puns right now.
I also noticed that there are a certain species of individual--and I'm perfectly willing to believe that this was merely a function of the population of my particular precinct--who seem slightly...confused. Not just in terms of the actual mechanics of casting a ballot, but also as as concerns the philosophy behind the whole process. It might be something in the drinking water, it might be that these people are new to the practice of voting, or perhaps some of them were abducted by aliens back in the seventies, kept in cold storage, and returned to earth to cast a vote for Pat Buchanan. I overheard one older lady discussing with her friend the difficulty she found in distinguishing the Republican party from the Democrats. I almost intervened with an explanation, but I realized almost immediately that I couldn't really do any better, so I kept my big mouth shut. Let's face it: without resorting to dissections of complex economics theory and dissertations on esoteric concepts in sociology, there is no convenient way to discern a conservative Democrat--which Kerry certainly is--from a Republican. This particular revelation might be fuel for lengthy further discussion at a later time, but I'm going to get to the end of this post if it kills me.
The final--and most pleasantly surprising--thing I witnessed in my tour of civic duty was that there are apparently still some individuals amond the great unwashed who care more about their nation and its future health an well-being than about the rancid propaganda oozing from their television sets. I cannot express the pleasure I took in the lengthy conversation I was fortunate enough to have with the two gentlemen directly ahead of me in line. Both of these gentlemen were indicative of the rural geography from whence they sprang: honest-seeming, plain-spoken, and prone to rail against the impracticality and unfeelingness of their Washington leaders. We talked for a time about the adventures--and misadventures--of our youth (mine of course much nearer at hand than either of theirs) and of all the things which are to be loved about this nation, which is something I need reminding of from time to time. When my companions finally got around to expressing their immediate political leanings (which didn't take too long) I was shocked and very pleased to note that, among their very vocal expoundings, there were three words I did not hear: "War on Terror". And just to be clear, these gentlemen were old-school, hardline Republicans. But their political rationale was based not on the excreta of the Neocon fear machine, but on fundamental life-and-death issues like the economy and education. Now, I might not necessarily agree with their conclusion that G.W.B is the man to answer these pressing questions, but I applaud--loudly--their willingness to let these factors guide their consciences as they stepped into the booth. I find that my hope for this nation's people--regardless of who gets the win tonight--is somewhat restored.

That being said, back to the idiot box to watch the tide of Kerry/Edwards's political assent roll across the screen in all its cold mathematical beauty .