Uncle

I feel exactly as I did in November 2004. My very first blog post is as relevant now as it was then. The feeling of impending doom is stronger now, as the end is that much closer. The Dark Ages I prophesied then are just about upon us.

Digby is among the many singing "Tomorrow." He even quotes stirring words from RFK who, need I remind you, was assassinated and didn't actually accomplish much as I recall. He has far-reaching influence and lots of readers; he is probably doing the responsible thing for a leader to do. I don't. I'm with one of his commenters:

It's over, folks. The democratic experiment is finished. The Democrats in Congress now are just trying to hold onto their jobs, and they see that the only way they can is to not get in the Republicans' faces too much. They don't want to call attention to themselves, they don't want to make trouble. They'll make a speech to the base every once in a while, "Yeah, ain't it awful what those bad Republicans are doing!?!", but once back in D.C., they keep out of the way. It's a paying job, with plenty of benefits, and they'll never have to face the people back home when they finally do leave congress. They don't go back to their home districts. They stay in D.C., become lobbyists or lawyers for lobbyists, or lobbying interests.

This isn't going to get repaired in D.C. by those in Congress. It's not going to get repaired at the ballot box come next election.

Are we really going to keep flapping our gums around here as if it's just a matter of getting more people to the polls to vote Republicans out? We did that already. At least twice.

Congress is taking the Patriot Act up again next week, and with the bounce that Bush is sure to get from the SOTU tomorrow and the high that Bush and the Repubs will be on from getting Alito through, new laws will be in place criminalizing all kinds of protest actions. Even what we're all doing here, "slandering" while not using our real names.

Once Alito is sworn in and the SC declares that a Pres can do anything at all in a time of war (self-declared, unending), we won't even be able march on the White House with torches. They'll be able to (they can do it now) pick American citizens up off the street, not inform anybody, not even our families, and ship us off to a black prison, no lawyer, no habeas corpus, no trial, just all torture, all the time. They've already done it; Padilla is an American.

I give up, at least for now. I need to take a few days to decide whether to keep fighting, folks. I look at the efficient evil that has taken over, and the incompetent, spineless and rudderless fools that I invested my hopes with, and I keep thinking of the old saying about wasting your time teaching pigs to sing. All these hours, all these words, all this passion. All for naught. And I feel dirty.

I was going to read Larry Diamond's "Squandered Victory" next, but it no longer seems important. At the top of my reading list now are more relevant texts -- "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and "The Myth of Sisyphus."

I can barely choke back the bile right now. We are indisputably, irrevocably fucked. The final FUBAR, in fact -- Fucked Up Beyond All Redemption.