For What It's Worth

I started to answer Prof Marcus’ comment to the AP post below, but I realized it might be getting too long for a comment, so I’m just making a new post out of it.

As long as you’ve made this good point, please allow me to tell you about how I wrestle with this every day.

Instead of trying to chop off the stinking, rotten head of the snake all the time, as it were, I try to take a shot at it every now and then but also go after everything that gives the snake its phony sense of legitimacy so the snake is left to slither on its own.

That’s why I said what I said about that dumb David Espo “story,” and that’s why I chimed in against Broderius Ignoramus the other day and this insulting fiction of his about how everything is going to be so gosh-golly-bleeping-swell in the new Congress, and that’s why I slam the Repugs who support Dubya every chance I can get. I’ve got to mix it up – I can’t hammer Dubya over and over and over again because I’d lose my goddamn mind, to say nothing of the people who graciously take time to read what I have to say (which is actually pretty incredible when you think that anybody values my opinion or any blogger’s to any degree enough to do that, though I’m not trying to puff myself up by saying that).

Yes, it’s infuriating that more isn’t happening with impeaching this clown and his gang of crooks. Yes, it’s true that the fact that we’d be officially stuck with Cheney isn’t really an excuse for the status quo. Yes, it’s true that the attendant media circus of right-wing whores prattling on about that bad Democrat party again in the event that the impeachment ball got rolling for real isn’t a reason to let up either.

But I just want to mention something else about that, and I wish I could remember where I heard this first. You probably know as well as I that when the investigation of the break-in at the Watergate hotel began, no one had any idea it would lead to Nixon’s resignation. Even though Pelosi has said that impeachment is off the table, they are investigating this administration and Congress is FINALLY exercising its function of oversight. There is movement in the direction that may God willing one day lead to impeachment (including the Obama/Patrick Murphy/Thompson bill – even though the people of this country are way ahead of the political “leadership,” I can’t think of any other way to play this game).

I’m keenly aware of the fact that Molly Ivins, with her dying breath, was telling people to go out in the street and protest the Iraq war, and I never feel like I’m doing enough about that. I’ve also just about given up trying to persuade friends and family members by presenting the facts and trying to initiate a discussion. The latest example of head-butting on this was with a guy I was friends with for years, and I mentioned how Biden is such a rotten candidate because he supported the fraud bankruptcy bill and tort “reform,” and my former friend said, “Well, I support Biden on that. He’s trying to keep people from credit card abuse, and I believe in personal accountability.” And I got pissed and said, “Like I don’t?”

Suffice to say that it went downhill from there – I didn’t even bother trying to explain to him that the majority of people don’t lose their homes because of credit card fraud; people max out their savings and credit cards and lose their homes often because of health care costs or job loss…don’t even try to lay that stupid, AEI-approved “personal accountability” crap on me!

So what I’m trying to do here, along with many other bloggers whose company I am proud to share, is fight the ideological battle. Bushco wouldn’t have been able to acquire its power unless the vast majority of this country believed a whole boatload of ideologically-generated crap, and I’m just trying to do my part to debunk it a bit at the time. I’m chipping away at the façade in the hope that it will completely crumble one day. Given the usual constraints, I don’t know what else I can do.

I’ll get back to creating my usual content as soon as I can.