Back From Cali

Well, I’m back from Cali and Back online. I know everybody is expecting me to write something about all that’s gone down regarding the Vallerie Plame affair, especially about Karl Rove, but other the to say that it’s the biggest media story of the year, and that I’ve always said this administration was a bunch of liars and bullies, I really don’t have anything. John Stewart is covering it much better then I can (honestly, I don’t know why I write this page sometimes, he says it all so much better then me).

I will talk about this: Fred Thompson, actor and former senator from Tennessee, has been tapped by George Bush to spearhead the nomination of his replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor. Now this is a brilliant piece of media manipulation. Thompson, who looked like a good bet fro Bush’s job back in the 90s until he ended up running the senate hearings on Monica Gate, is best known to the public as the District Attorney on “Law and Order.” He is on screen and in real life a gruff talking good old boy with enormous appeal to TV viewers everywhere. When he gets up to defend Bush’s eventual nominee, and to attack democrats as obstructionist, and explain that said nominee is really a moderate no matter what his or her judicial record shows, he will do so with an air of authority that the democrats will find hard to match—unless they remember his brilliant turn as the snake-oil salesman turned white supremacist Knox Pooley from the old “Wiseguy” series—his best role by far—but nobody but me ever watched that past the first season. On the whole, I’d call this one of the most beautiful mixtures of entertainment and politics since America elected a liberal democrat and former president of the actor’s union as a conservative law and order president.

On the plane to Cali I watched *Million Dollar Baby.* What a great film! And no wonder the conservatives were up in arms about it. It starts out like a typical Rocky-like melodrama and ends up a movie about euthanasia. And it’s handled beautifully throughout. Not only is it well acted and directed, but the script is superb. It deserved everything everybody said about it earlier this year, and God himself had to have a hand in putting the Oscars up at about the same time as the whole Teri Schiavo affair.

But, honestly folks, I am getting so tired of the Right I’m finding it hard to watch these people talk anymore. Their lies, their bullying, their scorched earth take no prisoners the truth doesn’t matter if well yell loud enough tactics have finally pissed me off so much that I am not sure I can right about them anymore. I despair for America, because I can see no way out for my party but to adopt the same tactics (hence Howard Dean). Not only is discourse lost but so is any semblance of validity in government. And it will go on this way for a long time, I’m afraid. The public has responded and said “yes we like being lied to, led around like sheep, and bullied: give us more and we’ll vote for you.” Don’t let these poll numbers for Bush mislead you. Bush isn’t running for anything anymore. When his brother gets nominated, or Newt, or whoever else, they’ll come off as compassionate conservatives who are more in touch with the American people more then those stuck up East Coast elitist liberals, and no matter who the Dems nominate (even if it is Hilary) the fear card will be played along side the smear card and the Elephants will just tread on us once again. Gays, women, the environment, blacks, academic and artistic freedom will all suffer even more. The Christian Right with the Supreme Court more squarely on their side will really get a chance to build their shining city on a hill, and woe onto all the Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Rastafarians, and even Unitarians like me. With the grand inquisitor as pope and the Familly Council running the White House, can iron maidens, the rack, and stake burnings be far behind?

Hyperbole? Of course it is. But when the religious fanatics and the fascists start marching in step, they become a powerful force—especially in a frightened and weary nation with a shaky economy, which is undergoing radical structural changes. Read a bit about Italy in the twenties or Germany in the thirties and tell me I’m wrong to be just a bit worried. When they start taking adopted children away from Gay couples will you believe me that Kristalnacht is coming?