I have been very sick for the last few days. Coughing up a lung or two, and spending a lot more time on the porcelain than I care to. I’d be in bed right now-except the cough won’t let me sleep. Have been to the doctor twice-his advice of “it probably a virus and you’ll just have to work out of it” just didn’t sit well with me. Drugs-and lots of them please!
Add to that the general malaise of having to watch the news these days. So many things to be disgusted with so little time.
Lets start with the feigned outrage from the hypocrites right wing bloggers ready to take up pitchforks and burn Paul Krugman at the stake for his Sunday blog post. And then when decided to revise and extend his remarks- it simply set these ignorant fools off a second time. As is the case for most of the red staters and aficionados of mil-blog land, they of course could not read what he actually wrote-much less understand it. They certainly seem to have forgotten a lot of the history.
Krugman’s timing was exceedingly poor-he could have waited a couple of days and posted the same thing. By posting it on 9-11 he knew it would set off anger, and he rightfully closed comments-especially when he would have to endure the bile that passes for “knowledge” among a certain set of ill informed readers.
Now if you read the preceding post by moi-I think I made it pretty clear, it is impossible to look at events of the last ten years in isolation. And the simple truth of the matter-like it or not, is that in our reaction ( or overreaction) to the events of that tragic Tuesday-we placed the nation pell mell on course that has done neither it, or the rest of the world, any real favors. An Afghan war that is going on for over decade, a foolhardy invasion of Iraq that accomplished little of benefit to the United States, killed a 100 times more people than were killed on 9-11, and left Iraq still a relative basket case; consider too, the total abrogation of Constitutional principles of freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable searches, freedom from self incrimination and freedom from cruel and unusal punishment-all of which the country-led by guess who-tossed to the wind, quite casually and with malice aforthought. That does not even get into the overall economic effects of the wars-which can only be described as the equivalent of a self inflicted serious wound. And yea-there is a lot to hang your head down and be disgusted about. The Grey Hair was the father of all this. Much as he and his minions-including the second worst SECDEF ever-try to explain it all away, they can’t. They brought this on the nation-and now most of our politics is about arguing over what is the right way to get out of the mess he created. If that is not something to be ashamed of-I don’t know what its.
But spare me the pious lectures and overwrought moralizing, you morons. Especially from a group that will turn around and cheer morally reprhensible ideas like the death penalty and letting somone die due to lack of health insurance. Your cries about you hurt feelings fall more than a little short. Your morality is selelctive-as is you compassion. Its the luxury only selfish people can afford I guess.
Similarly the execution of hundreds, while perhaps defensible politically and even morally (although I differ), is nonetheless a brutal, awful business. You don’t delight in it. And the same is true of torture. Even if you want to defend its use in limited circumstances, it remains an absolute evil, no humane person would want to do it, and no civilized person would brag of it or dismiss any moral issue with it at all. And yet that is what Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney have repeatedly done. They are positively proud of their torture record.
And it just keeps repeating. At the Monday night Tea Party debate, we heard more of the same drivel about any myriad of subjects. Bachmann reciting lies about the HPV vaccine-one of the few things Perry actually got right. All of the candidates blabbering lies about Social Security, which is actually relatively easy to fix-if we only had the gumption to look at the correct prescriptions ( and yes tax increases are in that menu-get over it stooges). Of course when it came to taxes in general they repeated the same lie we have been hearing for years: “tax cuts grow the economy”. Except when they don’t -like over the last ten years.
And of course there is the general reaction to the President’s jobs bill. I view it as too little too late, but even then its at least a start. Which is why our Galtian overlords are already sharpening their knives to chop the bill into little pieces. Do something about the economy? Not a chance. These pricks want it to get worse. They don’t care about the fact that poverty is now at its highest level, as is the number of uninsured. To the fat selfish pigs who wear tri-corner hats and whine about “moochers”, that’s a feature, not a bug-so long as it will get that damn guy in the White House out in 2012. So they can begin their own installation of an American theocracy-underpinned by war without end in 2013. I get so disgusted with these people-I want to reach through the TV and beat them.
Now that’s something to remember and mourn-especially as it plays out over the next 14 months.