Category Archive

Had a mellow Saturday. Stayed away from the news for a day, for a change. Gave myself a break. Re-read an old book, an even older play; my old journal from my undergrad days, the days before blogs, full of memories and old letters pressed between its pages filled with sketches and bad poetry and the musings of my twentysomething self.

It was a good day. A day to re-connect with old thoughts, old ideals, old friends.

It took me back to Reagan’s second term. A time that seemed so dire at the time, yet now seems almost quaint in comparison to the troubles we currently face. Or perhaps things were just as dire then, but memory has softened them.

No, actually, I think they are far more dire now.

This madness of indifference, cynicism perhaps, seems to have infected so many it has become pandemic, impossible to stamp out. People think, “I am only one person, and one person cannot change the world,” and go on about their business, leaving only a few to try, so little changes.

I don’t think all have given up all hope of change. Perhaps this helps account for the Obama phenomenon. People see him as representing change, a new direction. Because change is something we desperately need.

Yet I find myself wondering this past week, after his reversal on the FISA matter, when he joined his Senate colleagues in their betrayal of the people and the constitution, will he really change all that much if we don’t force the change to happen?

We voted for change two years ago, and where has that gotten us so far?

We are still fighting an unwinnable conflict in a hostile land to protect the interests of Halliburton and Exxon-Mobil. Still killing. Still torturing prisoners and logic as we try to justify that which cannot be justified under any rational understanding of how the world should be.

Still sliding down a slippery slope toward a de facto dictatorship, an increasingly authoritarian society, run for the benefit of large corporations and the already sickeningly wealthy, with a president who ignores the laws of congress, the rulings of the highest court, and the will of the people while smirking for the cameras and mangling his prepared words beyond all recognition.

And we continue to think, “I am only one person, and one person cannot change the world.”

Can one?

Can you have a revolution with just one soldier, one rebel fighting for the cause?

Can one person be a revolution, freeing one’s mind so that one can perhaps help others free their own, until revolution spreads like a virus, a contagion of freedom?

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

But I bet it would be really fun to try.

-jane doe

A few days ago, I wrote about my fears that some sort of terrorist attack would be staged yesterday by people wishing to manipulate the public and Congress to further their own ends. I was actually quite on edge all day yesterday, expecting something to happen.

Nothing did.

I’m really glad I was wrong.

I still think it is likely that we will see either an actual attack or a very scary plot that is successfully foiled in a very high profile way sometime before the election, if McCain continues to trail Obama in the polls. I think the Republicans will need something to put a good scare into the American public if they want to have any hope of heading off the Obama express in November. And I think Bush wants an excuse to start a war with Iran. An attack or near-attack would help on both those fronts.

As I’ve said before, I’m not accusing the Republican party or any particular politicians of anything here. There are a lot of interests outside of the government (technically, anyway) that might set something up to ensure that things go the way they want them to, though. Big corporations like Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater. (Talk about an axis of evil.) And there are others as well. For instance, has anyone looked at how the Saudi economy has been doing lately, with all the chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan? Weren’t most of the 9/11 hijackers Saudi?

As we get closer to the election, I will probably start sounding increasingly paranoid again. Sorry about that. I’m just not going to be able to really relax completely until the current criminal in chief is out of office.

As far as other things I mentioned in my earlier post, I did go out for that drive into the countryside last night. (Recreational driving - that’s something that’s sure to become a thing of the past, with current gas prices. But sometimes, I just need to go somewhere, you know?) The corn in the fields around Redstatesville is green with almost glossy leaves right now, and it looks to be an excellent crop, based on my limited (okay, completely non-existent) knowledge of agriculture.

Turns out, though, I couldn’t really see the stars last night. Other things made up for it, and I’ll get to those in a moment, but first I just have to say this:

Apparently farmers are completely insane.

Maybe it’s the fertilizer, or all those pesticides they work with, but those guys are nuts. (This could actually explain a lot about local voting patterns, now that I think about it. But I digress.)

Imagine, if you will, the following scenario:

So here I am, tooling along a little two-lane road in Middleofnowhere County (which is the next county over from Redstatesville, where I live) in my much-abused ten-year-old Saturn, thinking, “Okay, I’m far enough from the city lights to do some serious stargazing. It’s almost completely dark out, I’ll just find a wide spot in the road to pull over so I can get out and look up at the sky.”

All of a sudden, there’s this big fireburst off to the right side of the road ahead.

Someone is lighting off fireworks out there in the middle of all that corn.

And I’m thinking, “Are these guys nuts?! Are they trying to start a fire and take out their whole crop?”

Then I look around and realize that they’re not the only ones shooting fireworks up into the sky. No, there are a good six or seven other people/groups out here in Middleofnowhere doing exactly the same thing.

Crazy, I tell you.

Of course, I grew up out on the west coast, in deepest, darkest suburbia, and don’t know much about crops. Out west, things are usually tinderbox dry at this time of year and fireworks are generally verboten except in a few specially designated areas, usually out over water. Maybe when the corn is this green, there’s not so much risk. I didn’t see any fires, so I guess they knew what they were doing.

It was pretty cool to watch, though. I’ll say that.

All around me, fireworks were going off in the night sky for about half an hour or so. And the fields were twinkling with fireflies, tens of thousands of them, flying around and blinking on and off like demented Christmas tree lights.

Smoke from the fireworks mostly blocked the stars, but all the other lights made up for it.

And aside from the occasional booms and pops from the fireworks, it was quiet. No politicians speechifying, no flag waving, no John Phillip Sousa.

Just a bunch of Americans, out celebrating the end of King George’s tyranny over the colonies, and the birth of our country.

Or maybe just getting a little drunk and making some noise, lighting up the night sky. That works, too.

-jane doe

Much to my displeasure, I’m going to be abandoning my “janedoe at inbox.com” e-mail address.

You see, some genius named Linda Dudley apparently thought that was a good e-mail address to use for websites that required her to provide an e-mail address in order to login or whatever, and now my mailbox is getting about 300 spam messages a day.

This wouldn’t be so bad, except that the inbox.com anti-spamware is a little overzealous in sending things to the junk mail folder, forcing me to scan through all the ads for easy credit and viagra in order to find the legitimate stuff that gets diverted by mistake.

Linda Dudley is very lucky I don’t have her e-mail address, because if I did, I would set up a filter that would auto-forward all the spam I’ve been getting to her before I washed my hands of the account. I figure sometimes it’s okay to act as an instrument of karma. Especially since I’m being forced to give up a nice, simple e-mail address in favor a more difficult to remember one.

Anyway, the new e-mail address is janedoe_tcandm [at] inbox [dot] com. Feel free to not send comments about the blog to that address if you’d rather not not post them directly as comments here, my dear non-existent readers.

-jane doe

P.S. If anyone has sent me a message lately that I have not responded to, please re-send it. It was very late when I went through the thousands of messages in the spam folder, and I may not have caught all the legitimate e-mail messages. Sorry about that.

If you are well into your thirties and you are driving around in a car that is plastered with stickers advertising your affiliation with your college fraternity or sorority, it’s probably time to get (a) a new car, or (b) a life. Possibly both.

Just a thought.

-jd

Can I just take a moment to comment on how much I truly loathe and despise the aural valium that is John Mayer’s song Waiting on the World to Change?

Every time I hear its opening chords, as my hand goes flying to the radio to make the pain stop, I just think, “Dude, you’re a successful pop star. People are pointing microphones and television cameras at you all the fucking time. You are not powerless. If you don’t like the way things are in the world at the moment, open your mouth and speak out! Don’t just sit there waiting on the world to change, get off your ass and change it.”

Then I pop a Billy Bragg tape into the tape deck (it’s an old car) and the pain magically goes away.

-jane doe

Well, my dear non-existent readers, I’m off to Chicago for the weekend. (Yes, I know it’s only Wednesday, but I like to use an expansive definition of the word weekend.) Looks like I may be driving through the set of Twister for part of the day, which should keep things exciting as I pass by all the cows and corn.

Exciting is a relative term here in Redstatesville.

I don’t know if I’ll be posting anything here over the next few days. The last time I visited the friend I’ll be staying with, she was still using a dial-up internet connection, so my blogging ability may be limited.

Have a great weekend, however you define it, and remember that War, Inc., is opening in new cities this weekend, so if you’re in one of those cities, go see it.

I’ll leave you with this — the only poem I’ve ever written that wasn’t too horrible to show to other people:

Roadtrip

I have seen you
driving down the highway at
just above the legal limit
in your
air-conditioned motorhome
complete with microwave.
Intent on reaching your
final destination,
you never see
the flowers
growing by
the side of
the road.

-jane doe

Whatever muse it is that provides inspiration to political bloggers has hit me hard, and I’m still working on that post about politics, hope, and fear that I promised last night, my dear, non-existent readers. It may be another day or so before I get it into shape to post here, because it’s turning into one of my huge monster posts.

Anyway, what are you looking here for? It’s Friday night! Grab a few friends and go see a movie! If you’re in New York or LA, go see War, Inc.! It’s opened in several more theaters in those cities (details here), and next week it’s opening in Boston, San Francisco, Berkeley, Seattle, and Chicago.

I’m particularly excited about that last one, as I already had plans to be in Chicago next week for the Billy Bragg concert. This is turning into quite the awesome road trip: Billy Bragg and War, Inc., in one weekend. Now if I can just get tickets to a Cubs game while I’m there, and maybe hit one of the Ethiopian restaurants they have in that town, life will be perfect.

Happy Friday, all!

-jane doe

It occurs to me, as I look back over the past few posts, that I’ve been spending a lot of time complaining about Hillary Clinton lately, instead of going after the people who really deserve it: Bush, Cheney, McCain, and all of their little minions. Obviously, I am not alone in this, as anyone who has watched a news broadcast in the mainstream media lately can attest.

In a way, Hillary Clinton has recently been the best thing that could have happened to our alleged president, his lackeys, and his would-be successor. Because if we’re all in a tizzy about what Hillary is doing, it leaves them freer to continue their crooked activities. Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain, folks!

Well enough of that. As of now, I am back in my usual mode of going after the corrupt bastards currently running the show in DC. I may not get another post up before tomorrow, but I promise to get back to fighting the good fight instead of complaining about Hillary.

After all, I still believe that Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

It was probably inevitable. Blame it on peer pressure, temporary insanity, or late-night caffeine-induced hallucinations, if you want.

I have set up a MySpace page.

But I have a good reason for it – honestly. It’s so I can keep up with certain political groups and musical artists that interest me.

Don’t believe me? Check out my rather anemic “friends” list. Am I actually friends with John Cusack, Billy Bragg, or Elvis Costello? Hah! I wish I were that cool. The sad reality is, I’m not even that cool in my dreams.

Anyway, I figured that as long as I was signing up for the free internet real estate, I would start posting a mirror of my blog there, as well. I haven’t figured out a good way to link directly to my real blog, so for now I’ll just post copies of my posts here over there.

So why am I mentioning this at all? Because there may be a few of you, my dear nonexistent readers, who are into the whole MySpace scene, and would prefer to get updates from my blog on your MySpace home page instead of via a bookmark or RSS aggregator. For whatever reason. So feel free to stop on by and add me as a friend, or, like, whatever. You can also check out what I’m reading at the moment, and see my countdown clock that is marking the days, hours, and minutes (still too many) until George Bush is out of office.

And you can also not post comments and messages to me there, just like most of you don’t post them here.

So feel free to check out my place over there. Of course, I’m dealing with the same anonymity issues there as I am here – specifically, the fact that I can’t have anything there or here that directly links my readers to my real life identity. Because I like my day job and would like to keep it for now. Thus there will be no entertaining pictures of your faithful blogger to make fun of, beyond a somewhat smaller version of the banner from this blog.

Anyway, stop on by and be sure to not leave a message for me!

-jane doe

P.S. As always, I still believe that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

Update: Okay, I’ve been doing the MySpace thing for a while now, and I have to admit, it’s pretty cool. I’ve “met” some really interesting people there, and I have to say that I’ve found some really good blogs there, too. So maybe, I was lame for thinking going there was lame. Or is that too recursive?

Sorry, folks. I am wrapping up a semester from hell. This blog’s normal operations should be starting up again in the next day or so.

Of course, normal is a relative term.

-jane doe

10:51 pm: Well, we are ten minutes away from the polls closing in California. At this point, Clinton and Obama are pretty much in a dead heat as far as the state count goes — how that will translate into convention delegates remains to be seen. On the Republican side, Romney appears to be picking up a few more states (Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, and North Dakota), though those states haven’t been decisively called yet and I don’t know what kind of margins we are looking at in the states. At any rate, it means Romney is still in the game, as are both Huckabee and McCain on the Republican side. And hey, did you know that Ron Paul is still in the race? You sure can’t tell from MSNBC’s coverage, but CNN at least includes him in the results reporting at the bottom of the screen.

Meanwhile, Hillary is currently on TV giving a speech, which I have muted. I may agree with her on a lot of issues, and if she’s the Democratic Party nominee at the end of the day I’ll vote for her, but I still don’t like listening to her give speeches.

11:00 pm: Polls in California and a few other states are now closed. But Hillary is still speaking. On and on.

11:01 pm: The Republican race in California is currently too close to call. Minnesota and Idaho have gone to Obama, and according to Keith Olbermann, I was too quick to assume that Clinton and Obama are currently tied in state counts: apparently, some of the states I was putting in Hillary’s column haven’t actually been called in her favor yet.

11:04 pm: Chris Matthews, whom I find annoying, is interviewing Mike Huckabee, whom I find worrying. But I didn’t unmute the TV soon enough after Hillary’s speech, so I missed whether there is a clear leader in California for the Democratic Party. Therefore, I am suffering through the interview so I don’t miss anything important.

11:10 pm: Unsurprisingly, California is too close to call at this point (addendum: and probably will continue to be too close to call for several hours). I see no reason to subject myself to more of this coverage for now. And according to my blog stats, no one is reading this tonight anyway (not that I have any readers on this blog), so I might as well stop talking to myself and crash for the night.

- jane doe

P.S. And since I haven’t mentioned it in this post, let me just remind my non-existent readers that I really think Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

Well, the snow is bad enough here in Redstateville that my evening classes were canceled, leaving me free to camp out in front of my TV to watch the results of the various primaries across the country. I won’t be live blogging, precisely, but I will be posting occasionally here as the evening progresses. I am watching MSNBC primarily, though I may duck over to CNN at times. Or maybe even Faux News, if I’m in need of a good laugh.

Let the good times roll, my dear non-existent readers!

- jane doe

NB: All times given below are EST.

6:18 pm: Chris Matthews just welcomed southern Africa to the MSNBC audience, which raises an interesting point: the outcome of our presidential election is of interest not just here, but throughout the world. Remember: it’s not just us liberals who are counting down the days until Bush leaves office!

6:25 pm: Why is it that the pundits insist on talking about Clinton in terms of female voters and Obama in terms of African-American voters? Last time I checked, there are still a few white males in the Democratic Party: Clinton and Obama can’t possibly be getting by just on votes by people who are demographically similar to them.

Random thought: Do you think the Bush administration is loving the primaries, since all the news coverage is focusing on the election instead of to the latest misdeeds of the White House?

6:40 pm: Several of the talking heads seem to take it as a foregone conclusion that McCain has sewn up the Republican nomination. I’m not entirely certain whether that’s appropriate at this hour — so far the only state that’s announced its results is West Virginia, which went to Huckabee.

6:42 pm: On MSNBC, Pat Buchanan’s sister, Bay, who is apparently with the Romney camp, is raging about abortion, illegal immigrants, and whether McCain is really a true conservative. What prompted them to put her on? She’s practically frothing at the mouth. I really hope they’re not going to keep going back to her all night!

6:51 pm: They just reported on a poll of Republican voters which found that 71% of Republicans still support Bush’s handling of the Iraq war. What I missed (if you saw this, please reply in the comments) was whether this was among actual primary voters (which would suggest that these are the hard-core Republican supporters) or among the larger group of people who are registered as Republicans. Is it possible that the Republican voters are that far out of alignment with the rest of the country? Or are these just the die-hard Republicans who won’t admit that Bush has royally screwed things up in the Middle East?

7:00 pm: The polls just closed in Georgia, and within seconds MSNBC called it for Obama. No word on what the margin of victory was — one of the pundits (sorry, can’t remember which one) said if he doesn’t beat Hillary by at least 10%, Obama is toast. Seems a bit excessive, but I suppose the pundits feel like they have to make pronouncements like this…

7:03 pm: Sorry, I really should also be mentioning the Republican results in Georgia…except that they are apparently still too close to call, with Huckabee a strong candidate along with Romney and McCain.

7:15 pm: Okay, apparently they are going to spend this entire hour riffing on Georgia because it’s the only state where the polls have closed. I’m tuning out for a while, and will tune back in when the next batch of polls close.

8:00 pm: More results:

• Obama takes Illinois, and Clinton takes Oklahoma among the Dems
• McCain takes Illinois, New Jersey, and Connecticut for the Repubs; Romney is forecast to win Massachusetts

None of these are real surprises. The big surprise seems to be Huckabee bringing in far more votes than anyone expected, due to those infamous conservative “values voters” (a total misnomer: liberals vote their values, too — we just have different values).

8:06 pm: Currently, Huckabee is actually in the lead in Georgia (that’s in terms of actual votes, not poll projections). The Republican candidates are still running very close in Georgia, though, so the leader may change several times over the evening as more results come in.

8:09 pm: Apparently, Romney and Huckabee are having a big old catfight. Romney is pissed because they think Huckabee is taking away more votes from Romney than from McCain.

8:15 pm: MSNBC just called Tennessee for Clinton, by a narrow margin…narrow enough that I would have thought they would hold off forecasting a winner. But what do I know?

Okay, time to check out what the other major news channels are saying:

8:19 pm: Holy crap! Faux News has Karl Rove commenting on the primaries. I don’t know what he’s saying, though, because as soon as I switched to that station, they cut to a commercial break. But it’s Karl Rove, and it’s Faux News, so it’s probably safe to assume that whatever he was saying would annoy me.

8:22 pm: CNN is actually giving results for Ron Paul, unlike MSNBC, which hasn’t mentioned him so far. His results are laughable, but they are actually getting coverage, so I guess that will make his fanatics happy.

8:26 pm: Apparently, Arkansas — unlike every single other state — closes polls on the half hour instead of the hour. Results to be reported shortly.

8:31 pm: Surprising absolutely no one, Clinton and Huckabee are the projected winners for the two parties in Arkansas.

8:36 pm: Interesting polling numbers on Evangelical voters: they are apparently dividing almost evenly among the three major Republican candidates. The other interesting thing: I don’t think anyone is asking the Democratic voters about their religious affiliation. No one is reporting on the religious affiliation of Democratic voters, at least that I’ve seen so far. It seems like they should at least be asking, instead of just assuming that the Democrats don’t get any Evangelical voters. Yeah, I’m sure most of them go to the Republicans, but I can’t help thinking there are at least a few Evangelical Democrats.

8:56 pm: NBC has apparently called Massachusetts for Hillary, by a fairly healthy margin. I was switching between stations, so I don’t know what the Republican result was for that state. Wait, are there any Republicans in Massachusetts?

9:00 pm: New York was just projected for Hillary within seconds of the polls closing. A bunch of other states just had their polls close, too, but Keith is going back over the states they’ve already called again, instead.

9:02 pm: Okay, Keith just rattled off a bunch of Republican results, but he was going too fast for me to keep track. Plus, it’s the Republicans, so I have no emotional investment in any of the candidates. Obama is apparently winning Delaware, though.

9:20 pm: Hillary wins New Jersey, apparently. And apparently McCain is winning everywhere. Except where he’s not.

9:33 pm: How the Tucker has fallen. Didn’t he have his own show on MSNBC for a while there? Does he still? I can’t stand the guy, so I’ve never really paid much attention. But they’ve got him stuck at one of the Republican candidate’s headquarters like a regular reporter/guest pundit type. He’s not looking real happy, either.

9:37 pm: Romney cannot be happy right now. He won Massachusetts, but everywhere else so far is going to either McCain or Huckabee. The Romney people are talking about Colorado, and I would imagine he’ll do pretty well in Utah as well, but he was probably not figuring on falling behind Huckabee in so many states.

10:00 pm: As predicted, Romney won Utah. Yawn.

10:12 pm: Huckabee is on TV at the moment, giving a speech to his minions supporters, but I am done for now. I may check in again after the polls close in California, but I’m sick of listening to pundits and politicians. G’night everyone!

I guess the ever-dwindling slate of Republican presidential candidates is having another debate tonight, which is being trumpeted as the “last Republican debate before Super Tuesday.” And if I were a good political blogger, I would be watching it. But frankly, I’m already feeling less than healthy, so I see no reason to subject myself to any upchuck-inducing displays of political…umm…well, not sure what the word I want here is. Acumen? Prowess? Oh, no, I remember, I mean bullshit. Yeah, that’s the term. Plus, I just sat through most of a Republican debate six days ago, and see no reason to repeat the experience. It’s not like any of the Republican candidates has a hope in hell of getting my vote.

Can we please just go ahead and impeach Bush and Cheney? Do we really have to wait until 1/20/09 to get rid of these constitution-destroying, power-hungry, warmongering bastards?

- jane doe

Okay, going to try to stomach the alleged president long enough to watch the SOTU this evening. As usual, here are my thoughts in more or less chronological order:

• Okay, first, I’m watching the coverage on MSNBC, of course, even though that means listening to Chris Matthews. Because, hey, it also means listening to Keith Olbermann, who, as I have noted before, is a god.
• WTF? Did the Republicans import busloads of frat boys to cheer for the shrub?
• We believe…blah blah blah.
• “Trust people with their own money” = “Let’s privatize Social Security”
• He’s tackling the economy first, and talking up his stimulus package.
• “This Congress MUST pass it as soon as possible.” Yeah, like you’re in a position to demand anything.
• Ooh, shot of the chamber there. Sure is easy to see which side of the room the Republicans are sitting on. One side just gave him a standing ovation (over making the tax cuts from earlier in his administration permanent), while the other side is sitting on their hands.
• $18 billion in budget cuts in the budget. He says they are from “bloated” programs. Like what? Would be really nice to know where these cuts are coming from.
• Oh my god, did you see that smirk? (at 9:16pm EST)
• “We share a common goal, making healthcare affordable and accessible for all Americans.” Yeah, which is why you vetoed SCHIP.
• Eliminating “tax penalties” for those who don’t get their insurance at work. Well, that helps some people, but many of the people who most need insurance are in the lowest tax brackets.
• Oh, jeez, now he is going on about No Child Left Behind. “And today, no one can doubt its results.” Well, newsflash: its results are terrible in urban schools. Jeez, and he wants to strengthen NCLB?
• $300 million “Pell Grants for Kids” to allow inner city kids to attend parochial (sorry, “faith-based”) schools? Rather than fixing the public schools? Yeah, that makes sense.
• “Purveyors of false populism” — which would mean, what, people in developing nations who are trying to make things better for the little guys?
• Chertoff is one scary looking dude. Just a thought.
• NEW-CLEE-ARR. Not nucular. Moron. (I refuse to believe he can’t get that right, and that no one on his staff has tried to correct him by now. He just continues to pronounce it incorrectly to be obnoxious.)
• Wow, lots of “empowering” in this speech.
• Ooh, “ethical medical research”
• Legislation that “bans unethical practice such as the buying, selling, patenting, or cloning of human life.”
• Whining about judges not being approved fast enough. Of course, we won’t mention how the Republican Congress did that to Clinton (to a much higher degree than the Dems are doing to Bush).
• Mentions “armies of compassion” which sounds positively ominous, even if he is talking about volunteerism.
• Ooh, foreign policy stuff, now. “Advancing liberty” — well, I suppose that’s one creative euphemism for our little war of aggression in Iraq (and the one certain administration officials want to start in Iran). Hey, we’re not invading, we’re advancing liberty!
• Wow, that’s some gross oversimplification of terrorism he is perpetrating there.
• Hey, we’re so successful in Afghanistan that we have to send more troops! Hooray for us!
• Wow, I am suddenly reminded of that classic book, How to Lie with Statistics. He is qualifying the hell out of his assertions that violence is down in Iraq — e.g., “high profile terrorist attacks” are down. But WTF is a “high profile” attack, as opposed to a low profile one? Are fewer people actually dying?
• And again and again, only half the chamber — the Republican half — is applauding.

Sorry, folks, that’s all I can stomach. I just can’t sit through the last fifteen minutes of the speech. The hypocrisy and the doublespeak is just making me gag.

- jane doe

• Oops, had to add something, because he is saber rattling on Iran again. “We will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf.” Okay, but what does that actually mean?
• Plus, he’s going on about terror again. Ah, here it is. He’s finally getting around to FISA now. We must pass FISA or we’re all going to die.
• And BTW, how is stopping terrorists on par with providing immunity for the telcos for laws that they have clearly broken with respect to American citizens? Can someone please explain that for me?
• Wait, I missed that — what is he saying about a “new war”??? I’m sorry Mr. President, but you can’t start any new wars until you finish the ones you’ve already got going.

Yes, I know. Once again, I have gone missing from this blog for an extended period of time without any good reason. Let’s face it — it’s not like there’s been a shortage of things I could be ranting about here:

• Gonzogate continues unabated, as does the quagmire that is the Iraq war.
• Politicians have been saying and doing all kinds of crazy and occasionally illegal things.
• The White House has continued its war against the constitution.
• The Democrats have allowed this to continue to happen.
• Fox News, the FBI, the CIA, and various other unsavory characters have been caught editing Wikipedia entries with malice aforethought.
• Karl Rove is leaving.
• Alberto Gonzales isn’t.
• It’s been revealed that the mine that has now caved in twice in Utah has been fined repeatedly for safety violations and that the Bush appointee who is supposed to be in charge of overseeing mine safety is maybe favoring mine owners at the expense of mine workers.
• The economy is teetering on the brink of collapse.
• Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was apparently driven to insanity through a combination of torture, isolation, and sensory deprivation, has been found guilty of something or another after a trial in which he was, by all accounts, too damaged and too terrified of the government to participate in his own defense.
• And, oh yeah, our alleged president has finally acknowledged parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, only to assert that they constitute sufficient justification for staying on our current path in Iraq.

See, that’s the problem. I mean, sure, part of the reason for my absence is that I have been busy with work and school, but really, that’s only a small part. The major reason is that there is just too much that is completely FUBAR about our beloved country at the moment, and I don’t even know where to start. I’m just numb. But at the same time, I am screaming on the inside.

How did things go from moderately screwed up to this nightmarish mess in just a few short years? Sure, some of it has been in the works for a while, but this is an unreal confluence of scandals, disasters, and catastrophes.

A perfect shitstorm, if you will.

I just don’t even know where to start writing. It’s all too much. Is this the Bush White House’s new strategy? Overwhelm the opposition (and the public) with an unending barrage of outrageous misdeeds and shocking revelations so they can’t grasp the full scope of any one scandal, and hope to keep everybody distracted until November ‘08?

Anyway, after a month of staring numbly at my television and wondering, “What next?” I am ready (I hope) to dive back into the fray.

Because as I have said so many times before, I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

And will be posting shortly. But since I haven’t said it for a while, I want to mention that I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jd

Yes, I have been gone for a while now. I apologize to you, my non-existent readers, for my absence. I could blame it on end-of-the-semester overload, but that really wouldn’t cover what’s been going on in my mind. The simple truth of the matter is that I have felt a bit overwhelmed by all the various revelations over the past few months about the depth of the malfeasance, corruption, and perversion of political processes that we are seeing in Washington right now. There were, quite simple, too many things to be writing about, and I felt like I was drowning in a rising tide of scandals. Talk about a target-rich environment!

So I have been delaying work on the blog till I could focus a bit. Expect to see more over the next couple of days, as I get caught up on Gonzogate, the looming presidential election (it really is looming, you know, like a monster in a gothic horror story), the whole Iraq catastrofuck, privacy intrusions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Yes, they found him guilty, on four out of five counts. Proving that occasionally, the jury system works in this country. Really, after all the testimony, was there any doubt that he wouldn’t be found guilty on at least one count? I don’t think so.

But the question is, now what? Everyone’s like, well, Rove this, and Cheney that, but are there going to be any consequences to either of those alleged gentlemen as a result of all this? I suspect not. Just a lot of sound and fury, which in the end accomplishes nothing. Sad, yes, but true.

In a just world, Cheney and Bush would both be impeached for their repeated, flagrant violations of the Constitution and their crimes against humanity (and yes, I have decided to use that term for their authorization of torture and other misdeeds), and they would be removed from office. But in the current environment, I don’t see it happening. I want it. I’ll scream at the top of my lungs that it should happen. But again, that is just more sound and fury.

I tell myself that the great big wheel-o-karma will eventually come swinging back around and whap them all upside the head — and I will allow that perhaps we are starting to see a bit of that already. But will true justice be served? And what would true justice look like, for these bastards who have stolen our civil liberties, violated the laws of man, waged an unjustified war that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of our own citizens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them civilians, and brought shame upon our nation? Is there a form of justice that can be administered in this lifetime that is sufficient to offset the crimes this administration has committed against our own citizens and the citizens of other countries?

It’s enough to make those of us of different spiritual/religious/philosophical bents begin to appreciate some of the appeal of the Christian notion of a hereafter where the good are rewarded and evildoers are punished in a manner that is suited to their crimes. The ancient Greeks told stories of Tantalus and others, condemned to eternal tortures that reflected the appalling nature of their acts. Dante wrote of the Inferno and the Purgatorio. These notions of punishment that far exceed what we mere mortals can do seem somehow fitting for the catastrofuck our leaders have wrought.

But then I wonder, what punishment for us, the American people, for failing to stop the bastards once the nature of their misdeeds became clear? Perhaps having to live with them as our leaders is our punishment? Do we not deserve to be shunned by the civilized nations of the world, for allowing such conditions to fester? I speak out, I write letters, I call members of Congress, but I feel as if I should be doing more — that I owe it to the other people of the world who are being harmed by our current administration’s actions.

And yet tomorrow, I will go to work, and to classes, and do the daily tasks of life that we all do. I will bemoan the state of the world with my co-workers and my fellow students. My day will be filled up by the little day-to-day things that seem to take up all my time, and at the end of the day I will once again wonder, what could I have done today that would help to fix things? And I will again berate myself for not having done something more concrete, and maybe hate myself just a little bit more.

Against all that, finding Scooter Libby guilty of a few relatively minor crimes really doesn’t seem all that important…

-jane doe

Just a quick apology to my non-existent readers for my recent absence from this space. Real life has had me busy, and the news has had me depressed. Between the two, I haven’t been posting. Sorry about that. Back now, for what it’s worth, with a lot of things I’ll be posting about over the next few days.

–jane doe