Because my faith wasn't really in "Obama." It wasn't really about Obama.
And it wasn't entirely about the Democrats either. Yeah, OK, 59-60 seats and yet all they could do was quibble amongst themselves and make huge concessions to the right. They're about as useless as that option in PowerPoint to print your presentation without scaling the slides to fit the paper. (Which for some reason is the default setting! What's that all about? Given it's utter uselessness, that had to be the work of a future Blue Dog!)
What I was really put my hope in, what I really started to to believe in, as I watched them finally dump the Republicans, finally see the light on Bush, finally seriously support both a female candidate and a black one... what my faith was truly mistakenly misplaced in?
Was the American People.
That's what Losing Heart was really all about. The fact that for a... well, not even for a brief shining moment... for two whole years (!) I watched as larger and larger portions of America finally came to realize that which had been so painfully obvious to all of us: That Bush was stupid, Cheney was evil and the Republicans really, really suck.
And what really frustrates me to no end is that the things these people (the Tea Baggers) complain about? (Deficits, the Economy, Civil Liberties?) Are the things that, if anything? The Republicans were far worse on than the Democrats are or ever were, and yet they've positioned themselves, to the Right of them! For two whole years I watched as my country grew wise by the day. And for the last two it's been like watching them sink into the thralls of dementia.
Now... I've mentioned Erin Lindsey before: in Losing Heart, in fact. She writes a really fantastic webcomic called Venus Envy, or least she DID... she stuck a knife in the back of main character back in March and, so far, hasn't continued with the story. Which... kinds of sucks, actually. LOL. But one of the features of her comic that I really like are the times that the she uses her craft to make a personal statement on some critical political point. One of these that I've been hanging on to, bookmarked, now for a couple weeks, was this one, from 2006:
Now... at this point I'd be insulted if I still had to actually say that I agree, wholeheartedly with the sentiment being expressed, and that didso at the time. Shoot, it really all started with the Patriot Act, years before. So by 2006, it wasn't like I needed any convincing! That being said... Nazi's? I'll admit that even at the time, as a firm believer in Godwin's Law, I'd probably agree with the sentiment, but say that if you want to be taken seriously, you really have to avoid those Nazi comparisons. I mean... even Glenn Beck knows that! [/sarcasm]
But I've always been a bit more Chaotic than Lawful, and there are rather a lot of [non-felony] laws that I'm happy to bend so...
You know we're fascists when a serious Candidate, from a major party, has his hired goons handcuff a reporter to a chair and still have people take him seriously! One black guy with a "night stick "stands outside a polling place, saying nothing to no one and these people want to make a Federal Case out of it, even after the Bush DoJ decided not to. (But... he was Black, so of course it's Obama's fault now.) (Not that they're racists or anything.) But a reporter, heck even a private citizen for that matter, gets unlawfully imprisoned by the hired goons of a major party candidate and people still support him?! Applaud him even?!
And how about Fox's strong stance in support of Net Neutrality, huh? Now, you might think that I'd be A-OK with anything that means fewer people will be visiting Fox-owned websites. But if I can defend Fred Phelps at a military funeral, standing up for people's right to see Fox in this case is a no-brainer. Because this shows exactly what kind of power a company can have when we don't have strong Net Neutrality regulations and draconian penalties for companies breaking them. Apparently Fox thinks keeping some portion of the population for seeing some section of the Internet, due to a spiteful business dispute with their ISP is somehow appropriate. It's not. It's downright chilling.
Why does that make us fascists? Because I still hear people arguing that this is somehow just Fox exercising their free speech, while Net Neutrality is somehow some form of censorship! But hey, why not just censor huge swaths of the Internet?
It sure would make life easier for Sharron Angle, a woman I've already crucified, the parchment nailed above her head reading "IMHO," who apparently believes that the media should only ask questions that the candidates want to answer. Um... that's not how it works, babe. You see... It's the media's job to ask the questions we want answered and it's your job to answer them. And if you can't do that without either sounding like a blithering idiot, or alienating half of the country, guess what?
You don't get the job!
And yet people still support her, despite the fact that she's running a close second behind Joe Miller in the "who's the worst supporter of the free press" contest. Maybe they'd think that *Glenn Beck had a point when he called the *NEA, "adovcating though art" which is "propaganda" and that "you should look up the name, *Goebbels." But the thing is? Sharon Angle basically wants to be Goebells! She's not Goebbels. Goebbels wasn't as stupid as she is. But she seems to think that the only purpose the press serves is to carry the message she wants it to! So... she wants to be Goebbels!
I'm completely convinced that very few of these people have ever even read the Constitution, least of all, my favorite head case, Christine O'Donnell, who apparently thinks it's profound that the word "separation" doesn't appear in the First Amendment.
Firstly, I'd like to repeat what I said in my Religion Tab, because, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, I hold this truth to be self-evident:
The Constitution of the United States, the cornerstone in the foundation of the most prosperous and powerful civilisation the world has ever known, says it best:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Can you be any more clear that that? "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." IOW: We are not a "Christian Nation," you Right-Wing, un-American, Funny-Mentalist Morons! And... when taken together with, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," it is painfully obvious, beyond any shadow of doubt or debate, that this intends for there to be a clear, iron-clad separation of Church and State. Period. No sane person can read that statement and draw any other possible interpretation form it. (But when was the last time you met a sane Funny-Mentalist?)
Well... not Christine O'Donnell anyway. But I knew right away she'd fly to the top of my list anyway, once I'd read that she's strongly against Abortion, Contraception and Masturbation. Now, putting aside that she apparently has no problem with over population, I've said it before: No reasonable person can possibly be opposed to more than two of those things!
Secondly, I wonder if this stupid, stupid girl has any clue about some other words that don't appear anywhere in the entire Constitution? Words like...
Christian,
Jesus,
God,
Creator, [that was the Declaration of Independence, in case you forgot!]
Theocracy,
Heaven,
Hell,
or
Soul.
They're not there, Chrissie! Not one of them is, in a document of over eight thousand words!
Now I know she won't win. I know that. Delaware is a strong, Blue state. But... she won her primary. So someone was apparently taking that nut-bag seriously!
Erin, I know what you were saying, and I'm totally down with the message. But we weren't Nazi's in 2006. On the other hand, come November, we'll be electing several bonafide, jack-boot Fascists to the Congress. Not all of them, granted. But some of them. And the State-Run Media (as Rush Limbaugh refers to the Non-Limbaugh-based media, but which I more accurately will soon be calling Fox News) is primed and ready to carry their message. The first amendment is dead. And Fascism is coming because so many Americans would rather embrace it than comes to terms with the fact that we have a Black President, who's cleaning up the mess they made the last time they were in power.
Sieg Feil, America.
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***BTW, the Glenn Beck / NEA / Goebbels reference is in that same video I linked to, just after Erin's Lindsy's awesome polemic. And, yes, that is my YouTube Channel. At one point I had a personal video there as well; my response to a Tea Party Video. But... IDK... Once I'd made it and posted it, my heart just wasn't really in it anymore. The anticipation of doing it felt better than the result did, so I took it down. If anyone's interested in hearing it anyway, let me know and maybe I'll put it back up.
