I'm Back!

I’m back! Yeah, I know, I have been gone before, but … wow. It seems like I’ve been gone for months. And apparently, I have.

It’s been a really busy summer-fall-winter. First of all, my wife and I bought our first house, which was a long process that kind of took up a lot of my time and energy. Between that and the move and work and whatever, my mental processes were sapped, and my body is not designed for too many more moves.

Besides that, I have been so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of horrible current events that I have a hard time digesting it all, let alone write commentary. I am not talking about simple bad news, where one can shake one’s head and say, “Oh, those darn politicians, they’re such scoundrels, with their earmarks and their good old boy networks and their selling out government to the highest campaign contributor.” We’re used to that old stuff, it’s been going on forever; it’s old hat. I’m talking about how America has become everything that I was taught, growing up, was wrong: We invade and occupy other countries that pose no threat, in order to seize their resources. We kidnap people, hide them away in secret and torture them. We torture people! Or we send them to another country and have them tortured for us! and our leaders are arguing over whether or nor that is okay!? Domestically, civil rights have been demolished. Worker’s rights have been demolished. All power has been returned to the richest of the rich, and taken away from the people whose fathers and mothers fought so hard to win it during the last century. Corporate power rules over all and masses of the faithful are duped by corporate/political con men that wear masks of piety and spew hatred in God’s name. Fascism, plutocracy, theocracy, all combined into the new American Way. Our leaders have learned their lessons at the knee of their masters; the Nazis, the Soviets, and if you dare criticize or dissent, you are branded an enemy of the state by the brainwashed masses whose ideas are formed for them by corporate shills through the right-wing media.

I remember when one of the first actions by the Bush administration, before the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, was to petition the world court and demand that America cannot be held responsible for war crimes. Again I point out, that was at the beginning, before the wars. How could anyone ignore such an action? How could people simply shrug that off and assume the Bush people had the best of intentions by demanding they be immune from prosecution for war crimes!?

I remember not long after that when they worked to eliminate workers’ right to overtime pay. What I do not recall was very much media attention paid to it and even less of a response from the workers themselves. And then there was all the lowering of restrictions on dumping poison into the air and water. The list goes on and on.

And it hasn’t stopped. It’s gotten worse and worse and worse. And the most mortifying reminder of it is the fact that the Democratic party screwed us all over by duping us into electing them to enact change and instead becoming the rubber-stamping enablers of the Republican fascists. I’ve said this in this blog many times before: who is worse, Hitler, or those who did his bidding? I am often inclined to choose the latter.

Depressing? Yes. So much so that I have a hard time maintaining a (generally) political blog. But, I promised myself at the beginning that I would keep forging ahead until this administration is out of office. I am aware that they may declare a national emergency and refuse to leave, but I intend to honor my vow and keep trying to make sense of it all.

So, I offer my happy-holiday wishes to all. I wish the best of luck to us all, as we ride out the eighth year of the most diabolically evil presidential administration in our nation’s history. Good luck.