wither in the light

Check out this article in which Garrison Keillor tries to explain (to people who most likely won't be able to hear what he is saying) that Bush and friends aren't Republicans, aren't telling the truth, and aren't doing anything but raping the country. He's obviously being charitable, because anyone with more than two or three functioning neurons should be able to see that what Bush says and what he does are precisely 180° out of phase. How Republicans (remember "smaller federal government" and "state's rights"?) can follow this guy as he leads our country down the shithole astounds me, until I remember that the majority of Americans now get their news from FOX.

(Choice of news source has become a good litmus test in recent years: if you think there's such a thing as a 'liberal media' on the television or in print, you may be a fucking retard. If you think that FOX News is 'fair and balanced', you are definitely a fucking retard. Their lack of objectivity isn't my opinion, it is a verifiable matter of public record... here's a recent example that made the list of the top 25 censored/un(der)reported news stories of the past year. Remember when people would argue about the relative liberalness/conservatism of ABC, CBS, and NBC? Today something like half of the country thinks all three of those networks are extreme leftist rags.)

Quoth Keillor:

...George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy - the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.
...
There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the "end of innocence," or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.

Once again, before you fire off the shitty hatemails to me: this isn't about Bush vs Kerry or Nader. This is about Bush vs America and the environment and common sense and honor and our place in the world and just about any other good thing you can think of, unless your definition of 'good' revolves solely around the lining of rich white guys pockets with money that your unborn great-grandkids will still be struggling to pay back, unless Bush spares them this fate by causing a Major 'Nucular' Shitstorm before then.

Personally I think that the rift this guy has driven into our society is irreparable; under his watch hatred and fear and ignorance have become a way of life (they were just popular hobbies before), and even if we do manage to get our shit together domestically the damage he has caused to our position in the world seems too great to repair in our lifetimes. I hope I'm wrong on this, I hope that things change for the better, but in the meantime I'm not holding my breath and I'm not travelling out of the country because I couldn't stand the shame and I don't feel like being the ambassador from Dipshit Nation.

Keillor is always writing about Wobegon, an cute and amusing name because it sounds like 'woe be gone', which seems like a good sentiment. This most recent article of his has an edge not often seen in his writings; I think even the indefatigably optimistic Keillor is starting to realize that unless things change soon, woe might be here to stay.