Reflections at the End of a Dark Age
It's been fourteen years of darkness for the U.S. -- 6 years of dusk, followed by 6 years of ink-black night, followed by 2 years of moonlight. Now, the sky carries the glow of dawn. The damage will take years to undo, if it's recoverable at all. It's kind of sad to think that the best years of my life have been spent under the control of our taliban, in a nation who's founders properly recognized the import of separating church and state. However, it's clear that some recalcitrant segment of our population has never accepted that notion, and that faction has had their turn at the helm. I'm also compelled to remember the victims of this Fourteen-Year Night. I'm not referring to the dead and wounded, but the insane -- those people who, out of foolishness or optimism, tried to reason with the unreasonable; those who granted these taliban the benefit of honest dialogue; those who were hounded and persecuted for mentioning the obvious. Many such people have lost their sanity to some degree, and at fourteen years, it could be argued that we've lost a generation. As for "America's Standing", that portion of the legacy is ironically, the least-controllable. Simply put: if the rest of the world had useful leadership, whose position was something other than "leech off the United States", we would be no more than a bit-player by now. To this degree, the Bush administration's great 'crime' is the rebellion against European-led socialism, starting with rejection of the ill-conceived Kyoto Protocol. We conquered Iraq instead of Sudan (whose forces still haven't seen opposition outside the African Union), we assisted Israel against Islamic forces, and we've waged proxy war with Iran for the past several years. All of these steps are directly opposed to pan-socialism and its components, and to that end, we have been cast as their enemy. We were supposed to do the dirty work on Europe's behalf, allowing their leaders to implement schemes without reproach. We didn't go with the plan, and the state-controlled media have directed their citizenry against us. . This brings me to the next point: media. As an illegitimate regime, our taliban depend on one-way communications, and cannot tolerate actual discussion or reason of any kind. So, their M.O. has been to spam the airwaves with propaganda, deprive legitimate news and information sources, then crow about "market forces". From CNN in the mid 90's, to Creative Loafing's upheavals last year, to a hundred thousand anonymous forum spammers, the information war has been a one of our taliban's most egregious offenses, an mocking dilution of the First Amendment and its benefits. Another legacy of this period is the rise of domestic surveillance. After 9/11, the Bush Administration had to choose between attempting to track and interpret communications and economic activity on an international scale, and re-establishing the interrment camps of World War II, on a national scale. They chose the former. It might have worked, maybe we'll find out in a few decades. In either event, every commercial transaction recorded on a "preferred shopper" card or a B2B network, every person leaving or entering the country, every phone call and email, is run through a set of systems to gather and prioritize such information, in the search for ill will. And then, we have the legacies that were thrown under the bus. Colin Powell scotching his reputation at the U.N., in a mockery of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bob Woodward, referring to our counterinsurgency efforts as based on some kind of "Manhattan Project". The canonization of Ronald Reagan. The co-opting of John McCain and condemnation of the once-great Republican Party. Howver, the most heinous crime from our taliban has been the wholesale deprecation of reason and science. Every single department in the executive has been coerced, fund-starved, or restaffed outright, to the benefit of the Church and its doctrines. Justice Deparment and EPA were only the most widely-reported examples; FDA are only now getting spotlight, and it took a false bidder to even get BLM in the press. And here we are, at the end of this night, seventeen hours and change. The sun will rise at noon tomorrow; The Star-Spangled Banner has never been more appropriate. |
| posted at: 19:07 | permanent link to this entry |
Today's topic for discussion is:
| What happens when you combine California Prop. 8 donor lists to Google Maps? eightmaps.com. It's like a huge plate of win and fail spaghetti. |
| posted at: 14:40 | permanent link to this entry |
| If you're reading this, chances are you survived the eight years that were the George W. Bush administration. Get your t-shirt (or other cafepress item) here. |
| posted at: 12:29 | permanent link to this entry |
Celebrating the Rats' Departure
Another transition uprising story: Department of Labor staff threw a "good-riddance" party for Elaine Chao, who I'd completely forgotten was still around from her original appointment. |
| posted at: 12:22 | permanent link to this entry |