Even in the seventh year of the Age of Bush, I still don’t want to believe that my country is being led by an intellectual, ethical and moral lightweight in the thrall of dangerous power mongers whose views are inimical to what my mother told me that the U.S. of A. is supposed to stand for.
Then I wake up and realize that Our Long National Nightmare rages on.
I also have come to understand something else of perhaps greater consequence. I’ll cut right to the chase for those of you who won’t read the entire post, let alone the snappy joke at the end.
George Bush and his Merry Bunch of Enablers deserve the lion’s share of the blame for these toxic times, but let’s reserve plenty of blame for a feckless news media, a Supreme Court newly packed with justices who are conservative except when it comes to activism, a compliant Congress and emergent Democratic majority that has talked the talk but largely failed to walk the walk.
But you, my fellow American, share a big dollop of blame as well.
That is unless you speak out at forums like this one, write to your congressfolk, show up at the rare demonstration or plan to vote in the next election and encourage others, especially those who aren’t registered, to do so. Praying for America’s salvation also counts, even if you don’t do it in front of others.
But while one or more of the above certainly disqualifies you as a silent lamb by my calculus, doing nothing qualifies you as a “Good German,†as Frank Rich puts it so powerfully. Why? Because we are inching ever closer to the shocking realization that analogies to the silent citizens of the Third Reich no longer seem so extreme.
The typical response of Bush sycophants has been to accuse people like myself of suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. But with the destruction that the president has wrought as obvious as the nose on your face and his hard-core supporters dwindling to a lonely few, that pejorative seems as quaint as an archaic expression like “Gag me with a spoon.”
Let’s briefly recap some of the highlights of Year Seven . . .
Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House.
FYI, I plan to post here tomorrow on the appropriateness of using Nazi analogies.