I got to thinking about this reading this post over at JD's blog. Pointless torture? Nothing to see here, people, just move along... Another day in the U.S.A., circa 2008.
And it got me thinking about where I am now, personally and politically. And I realized that - and, mind you, I am a person that my beloved wife refers to as "clinically optimistic" - I'm burnt to the socket. I have no more outrage left. I am weightless, in free fall over a political horizon where, despite their egregious (and often criminal) failures, idiocies and betrayal of everything I thought my country stood for...there they are. The Rushes, Gingiches, DeLays, Feiths, Cheneys and Bushes. And their cybertruppen: the Drudges, the Blackfives, the Michael Yons. Unabashed. Unrepentant. Undeterred.I find myself unable to participate in the discussions about military minutiae and foreign policy trivia at places like abu muquwama and the new Intel Dump simply because a) all our wrangling and casuistry make not a hap'orth's difference in the actual policy, which I believe to be as fucking boneheaded as humanly possible and b) we're all frantically debating whether FM3-24 is or isn't making a difference in Iraq and whether engagement of the new Pakistan government is helping improve the military situation along the Durand Line while, in fact, we haven't the slightest idea what rough beast we've birthed in southwest Asia. In our Iraq misadventure, for example, we're in the same position as a bunch of Muscovites circa 1922 arguing about the virtues and vices of the Revolution. The immense political and social turmoil we, or at least, our dumbass leader Kommander Kodpiece and his neocon Legion of Doom in our names, have freed from their postcolonial and tyrannical confines may destroy us; would those sophisticated Kremlin-watchers have predicted the Stalinist horrors? And yet we natter on as if we knew, or could somehow contrive, the ends we desire.
In fact my government - which is to say, my people - seem to have reduced statecraft to the level of my five-year-old son: Gimme! Now! I want it! Give me nice streets and safe parks but don't tax me for them! I want Social Security "reform" but I don't want to raise the payroll tax OR have my benefits reduced!! My schools and highways and bridges may be falling but God forbid you ask me for some "sacrifice" to fix them...
In fact, the stupid seems burned into the panelling of America, and I just don't seem to have enough sandpaper in the world to get it out.
