I know you are but what am I

We just love to pick sides, don't we? So much so that we lose the chance for decent discourse. I was struck by a comment left after my last posting. "Since fucking when are you a Republican?" I could hear the high end squelch in the words, the shock, the disgust. As if asking, "Since when have you beaten the crap out of old ladies?" "When did you become a pedophile?"

It's a sympton of our American sickness. We love to latch on to monikers and labels, slogans and catch phrases. We miss the opportunity for thorough discussion becuase key words get lodged in our ears and deafen us to any sort of reason. And Democrats and Republicans are equally guilty of this childish behavior. But we love it. We sink cozily into our armchairs and watch the mudslinging begin. It's full contact sport, and we soak up the injury report every day. We rush into the ring and take our swing - we are ignorant, deaf pugilists.

"Liberal," "Gay." "Taxes." "CEO." "Republican." Key words that set us off. It obviously had an impact on Cricket. My last posting was about the failure of the two major parties to do anything real. But the comment focused on my being a registered Republican. Too bad. We could have a good discourse on how the grassroots need to take control and restore a sense of decency to our political process. There is a growing number of Americans who want to have that conversation, who want to be involved in saving our democracy from the maelstrom of idiocy in which it is currently lost.

And we could be making some serious headway; if only it weren't for those wealthy fascists and coffee-shop liberals.

Limp Donkeys

I'm so sick and tired of this drive for the middle of the road, this constant search for vanilla in a store with 2,000 flavors, that has become American politics. For some reason we have come to believe that only with compromise is their progress or a spirit of togetherness. The malleable American public is so lost in the maelstrom of nothingness and meaningless hyberbole that we are failing at our duty to take charge of this country and demand more.

The Democrats are an amusing bunch to watch these days. Most registered Democrats have the backbone of a jellyfish and the forward thinking of amoeba. They keep playing this game of moving to the center. That's right, folks, America will surely respond to the next candidate who stands up with a vague, meaningless message which creates no real vision of anything. Good job, Asses, for searching for that middle of the road candidate who demands nothing of anyone and who uses a lot of words to say very little. That's what will inspire the people.

As a registered Republican I can say much worse things about the elephants. Their message may be clear, but their hearts are black. What a bunch of senseless greedheads. You want a very clear vision of what it's like to be absolutely removed from the real world? Don't look at Hollywood (they at least have to portray people from the real world), look at the men and women of the GOP in DC. What's beautiful, though, is that they really appear to believe the garbage that comes from their mouths. They really think they are conservatives. They really think they care about families. But let's face it, Charles Bukowski had more in common with Mother Theresa than the GOP has in common with the working class.

It's a wonderful game to watch if you have a strong enough drinking habit to get you through. And when you throw the media into the mix it gets even better. The upcoming campaign season will provide numerous opportunities for wagers to be placed - I wish you the best. It's too early to tell who will come out on top, but the Asses are the perennial underdog; and unless the people on the ground wake up and run from the middle of the road, they'll wind up spending another term with the dead armadillos.

*Speaking of the impotence of the Democratic message lately, check out this piece from TomPaine.com.

Gary Hart in 2008!