omgwtf!

Remember that Garrison Keillor article the other day that scared the shit out of me? You probably laughed it off.

Go back. Read it again. Read it carefully. Think about it. Imagine it.

Laughable idea?

Now read this.

Still laughing? I’m not. This stopped being funny a long, long time ago. The more time passes, the less funny it is.

Maybe it’s nothing. I hope it’s nothing.

I dont think it’s nothing. I think it’s just about as something as you can get, and I dont fucking like where I see it going. After all that has happened for the last few years, I no longer put anything past these guys.

For the first time in my life I find myself seriously wondering what it would be like to have to arm myself against my own government. Hell, we’ve been around a couple hundred years now without having the necessity to do so. We’re probably overdue for some good, old-fashioned, social revolution and government upheaval. Even the sixties will pale in comparison to having to deal with an administration that refuses to cede power. Cant you just see some “terrible event” happening on American soil that causes the Bush administration to regretfully announce in 2008 that due to the “crisis,” they’ve decided to “temporarily suspend elections” for the “good of the country” and in the name of “national security” so that we may defend the “homeland” against “terrorism?”

We’ve had it pretty lucky here for a couple of centuries. We’ve grown complacent. Things couldnt have gotten to this point if we weren’t dangerously blase about who we are and what we have. The vast majority of Americans have no idea at all exactly how incredibly good we’ve had it here all these years.

We take our freedom for granted in the worst way, and now it is being stripped from us bit by bit by bit in a slow and unyielding assault by the most corrupt administration in the history of this country as we know it, usually in the dead of night where nobody can see - or more importantly, raise objections. What’s more, half of us are either okay with that, refuse or are unable to see it coming, or actually support it. More than half, because I’m sure the majority of “moonbat liberals” would scoff at the idea as well.

Yeah, it is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous that we should have to be so concerned about a body of leadership that does nothing but spout how much it values freedom and national security.

Ridiculous. But so is everything else this administration has done:

The Patriot Act? Come on, it doesnt really give the government permission to do all those horrible things the panic-mongers say it does…does it?

Hurricane Katrina, and the government failing thousands and thousands of Americans - these are sainted Americans, remember, even if they are mostly only those poor Black folks who aren’t worth much effort to begin with.

These people suffered and died for days while the government, on every level, led by the feds, abandoned them to their abject misery, pausing only to admonish them for not having enough money to drive thousands of miles at the drop of a hat and fork over whatever necessary cash was required to live in hugely overpriced hotels or find relatives that will put them up basically forever.

And more than a year later, the government continues to offer little to no support or relief. But hey, look on the bright side. At least George got to have some birthday cake, Dick got to have some time away for a medical procedure, and best of all, Condi got herself some new designer shoes! Man, I love me some new shoes!

Secret, illegal, warrantless wire tapping.

Defending a child molester because they’d rather do that than admit they knew for years this was going on and covered it up it to avoid scandal. No child left behind!

Iraq.

Afghanistan - remember Afghanistan? Yeah, soldiers die over there all the time too, you know. Nobody seems to remember them. But all those folks who are so busy defending the war while forgetting that it’s actually happening sure do have enough energy to call me a traitor and a Communist and a filthy, unpatriotic, unamerican liberal bastard for wanting these folks Home. Now. Period.

Funny, you’d think those folks who purport to care about our soldiers so very much would actually want to expend that energy for something more worthwhile, like making sure our troops fighting these dirty, catastrophic little wars have the proper equipment and support, an efficient, committed, and concerned leadership (Donald Rumsfeld fails on all counts, and is psychotic to boot), and a way out of there instead of justifying keeping those guys in combat on no-end-in-sight schedule.

Instead, though, these curious “patriots” feel justified in attacking fellow Americans such as myself who actually understand that war is wrong, illegal war is a crime, our troops are in trouble and have been from the beginning, Middle Easterners - Muslim or otherwise - and people in general from countries other than the United States are really, truly actual human beings and really do exist, and that patriotism is not about mindlessly obeying and supporting and believing in every elected official but instead asking our government the toughest questions and then demanding satisfactory answers and action in return, and booting the bastards out and prosecuting them if necessary if they turn out to be unable or unwilling to get the job done.

I dont know about you, and maybe I’m just fussy this way, but that annoys the hell out of me, you know?

September 11.

Where is Osama, anyway? Man, that guy is worse than Waldo!

Rampant, egregious, ongoing, shameless, government-sanctioned homophobia.

Legalization of torture. Meh. Habeas corpus…who needs it? MIRITE?!?1!

Rampant religious fundamentalism that is destroying the very fabric of our society.

The most anti-science administration in history, espousing adamant opposition to legitimate - and incredibly beneficial - science, and Dubya citing his religiosity behind these decisions when neither he nor his religion have even a single fact straight and are utterly unwilling to accept the truth when it is laid plainly before them.

I could go on. And on. And on. And on. And on.

The folks who laugh this stuff off or deny it or even support it have forgotten or maybe even actively turned their backs on everything this country was founded on. They even forget the reasons behind the exodus to the New World. We wanted to escape being subjugated by a harsh dictatorship. We wanted the freedom to live our own lives, free from persecution and injustice.

That’s why we invaded this land to begin with, remember? It cost us so much to wage and win that battle. It cost us, it cost the British, and most of all, it cost the Native Americans who already lived here and who were brutalized and murdered by the millions because they were “in the way,” not to mention the slave trade that started almost immediately, which for the next few hundred years subjected human beings, mostly Black folks from Africa and many other parts of the world, to some of the most unthinkable, unimaginable torture and slaughter history has ever seen.

The soil of this country is soaked in the blood of innocent people, and people not so innocent. I’m surprised that when you put a shovel into the ground here a crimson geyser does not drench you, or that you do not hear the wailing of those countless millions, or that everything we plant and grow is not somehow tinged red with their lifeblood.

Why is it, then, that now, a mere couple hundred years later - barely a ripple in time, all things considered, even within the boundaries of humanity - are we so eager and willing to give up those hard-won rights to an administration that cares nothing at all for anyone but themselves?

Why?