Hateful Days

From a 'recommended read' by William Rivers Pitt on Things To Hate In Politics:

One cannot swing one's dead cat by the tail these days without striking something that makes me want to give up on this tepid reporting job and take up firebombing. Barring that, the only other reasonable solution would seem to be undertaking a deep and profound heroin habit. Just shoot up and float away, leave all this mad and awful noise behind and go chase the dragon for a bit. Why not? Thanks to our Afghanistan adventure, there is a glut of the stuff on the world market. It makes perfect sense, in a way; where is the fun in enduring a massive global economic and political meltdown and rampant joblessness without an ample, cheap supply of good smack?

Heroin is bad for you, I know. But so is politics. These days, both are equally poisonous to the body and soul.

What was it Mick Jagger said? "I'll be in my basement room, with a needle and a spoon..."

He gets it all outta his system and comes to his senses:

Hunter S. Thompson once said, "One of the basic rules of politics is Action Moves Away from the Center. The middle of the road is only popular when nothing is happening." Well, there is plenty going on today, and the middle of the road is now good only for long yellow stripes. Yes, I hate, with depth and passion, and have much cause to do so. But if those protesters at the Bush Library teach us anything, it is that hate must be channeled if it is to have any real effect. Theirs was an eloquent protest, and ours must be the same.

No retreat, the man once said. No surrender.

"They" want us to forget about politics. They want us not to vote. They want us to STFU. Then they win.

Yes, the whole political process should take place behind closed doors and we should be spoon-fed only what they want us to know by official 'press' releases. It ain't just the Repugs either:

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), this week called on the FCC to shut down Fox News and MSNBC. The senior senator from WV said, “There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox News and MSNBC, ‘Off. Out. End. Goodbye’. It would be a big favor to political discourse; to our ability to do our work here in Congress; and the American People, to talk with each other and have some faith in their government, and more importantly, in their future.”

That would be the end of that pesky 1st Amendment and the end of our nation. As messy as our politics is, it has to be closely watched and kept in the open or we're done.