Friday, September 30, 2005

Rant For a Dark Day

  

Ugh! It’s a dark day today. I’ve a feeling this is going to be our first taste of the winter rains. It’s one of those days when it never fully achieves daylight. Mid-afternoon, and I still have lights on all over the house just trying to keep the darkness at bay.

A day like this brings to mind America’s current political climate. Dark, ugly, depressing… I can’t seem to muster any excitement about Tom DeLay finally being indicted, or Bill Frist being under investigation, or the release of Judith Miller pushing the Rove/Libby/Plame affair back into the foreground. Or even the political car wreck of the hurricane Katrina response. The principals, along with right-wing media all over the country, simply wave their flags all the more feverishly and scream that the corruption, conniving, and just plain incompetence of the Republican elite are merely "political attacks" by their enemies. And the American people continue to swallow this hogwash by the (oil) tanker-truckload.

And I don’t see the Democratic party presenting itself as the solution, the calm voice of reason, in any of this. To my eyes, the Democrats either come off as needlessly piling on after the hit (**flag** Personal Foul!!) or petrified to just take the lead and go, in case no one follows. I guess they haven’t noticed that no one is following anyway… I just grind my teeth, shake my head and wonder what they are waiting for.

And the American people…what is our excuse? How many times do we have to hear Mr. Bush whine the word "terr’ist" when pontificating about the Iraq War (which does not now and never did have anything to do with the war on terror…) while conveniently forgetting to mention that we have not yet, nor have we even come close, to apprehending the actual perpetrators of the terrorist attack on our soil? Why is it that we sit and shrug our shoulders when the Republican National Committee sends out a memo calling for the"Daschel-ization" of the new Democratic Congressional leadership, but we cry out "Hey, no fair!" when Tom DeLay bawls about being persecuted by his political enemies? Why do we clutch our breasts in horror that the opposition party would dare "politicize a disaster" like Hurricane Katrina, but we slapped our hands over our hearts or snappily saluted our Commander-in-Chief when he and his administration did exactly that with the September 11th Terrorist Attacks?

Our intrepid president and his administration sit in their ivory tower and conspire to fully complete their agenda which has elevated Business, wealth, and the worship of the almighty dollar as the power that runs this country and will keep it running (so we all owe it our unfailing allegiance.) The thing at which they work the hardest, the task to which the most man-hours of the Bush Administration are dedicated, I’m convinced, is maintaining and increasing the divide between their "friends" and their "enemies." Making it all about winners and losers. Making it about backing the President and the Republican Party, because no one wants to be a loser. Blinding the American electorate with the emotional frenzy of the fight, so that they fail to see how they’re being manipulated. The real horror of all this is, how well it has worked so far.

Dark days, dismal days…no spark or glowing ember to flock around and fan to full brilliance, to drive the darkness back, to keep it at bay. The only way to maintain any sanity at all is to know that, without an iota of help from any human agency, Spring always comes around again eventually.

10 comments:

  1. It's so hard for me to picture rain and gloom when it is so sunny and beautiful here.  I find that so amazing that we are all in this world together but each of us is experiencing such different things.  I hope our country wakes up too.

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  2. What a great entry.

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  3. you write so well
    Marti
    http://journals.aol.com/sunnyside46/MidlifeMusings/entries/1946

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  4. The part in your second paragraph, "The principals, along with right-wing media...simply wave their flags all the more feverishly...and scream...'political attacks' by their enemies" makes me think of the Queen of Hearts in ALICE IN WONDERLAND -- "Off With Their Heads!"

    So don't despair.  They're nothing but a pack of cards!

    Lori

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  5. Gee, Lisa...I had been feeling pretty chipper today.

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  6. I think Maureen Dowd said it best when she said all of it is reaching "Slapstick."

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  7. Don't you just hate it when someone spams your journal like that?  Of course I knew what it was going to be but like an idiot I still clicked the link.  So much for AOL monitoring everything.  Get rid of it Lisa, before someone complains.

    Winter.  Over here, winter seems to last for much of the year.  Summer usually consists of a few hot weeks in June or July and that's it!  Dark, dismal days....ugh!  

    Yes, I didn't fall off the face of the earth, just pressed the pause button until I was ready to play again :-)

    http://undeniably-me.blog-city.com/

    Annie

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  8. I guess it'd be a sin if I said politics are *always* dark and dreary. :-P  Well, we all have our things. ;-)

    I can't believe it's cold and rainy there.  It was 90 degrees here today, and my air conditioner is currently running.  
    Donna

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  9. THE DEMS ARE A PARTY OF NO IDEAS ... THE GOP IS A PARTY OF BAD IDEAS.  so i may cut the soles off my shoes ... climb a tree ... and learn how to play the flute.    maybe that DROP OUT rubbish we heard in the 60s wasn't so outlandish.

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  10. Here's hoping your dismal Friday turned into a sunny weekend. I was having some of the same thoughts. Honestly, I'm finding it harder and harder to identify with either party. But, what is there to do? I'm a proactive person so....I'm not sitting on my hands anymore. Babysteps maybe, but I'm moving forward and getting involved.

    Hey, you know, kreamdkorn's response seems to say it all --- "we're screwed."

    Or, are they trying to say "screw it all." I'm not quite sure. ;-) ---Robbie

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