Thursday, October 16, 2003

I love rants like these...

This, by Beth Hunter, in Buzzflash gives me hope that more people are waking up.
    ...We are entering -- we already have entered -- a singularly dangerous and disturbing period in our country’s history. We have fallen down the rabbit hole, and are imprisoned within a political pod that is sucking the very life out of us, but we're dreaming, Matrix-style, that we're just going to and from our jobs, dropping the kids off at ballet practice, making chicken a la king, and then settling down to a satisfying evening of reality television before reading the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly in our comfy beds and nodding off to sleepy-land. (I am not including in this picture those in our country too poor to enjoy such "luxuries.")

    And we do these things, I believe, with the subconscious certainty that our democracy runs on autopilot; that all battles that were necessary to be fought in this country are now behind us; that we can now rest on our laurels, ruminating about what gizmo to buy next at Wal-Mart while chomping away on Ho Hos. And what's really happening is this: Bush & Co. are loving how we think democracy runs on autopilot, and loves even more the army of palace-court stenographers. And they have used just these weaknesses, these cracks in the system, to roll their fascist steam engines over our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our standing in the world community, and last of all, but most importantly, our collective sense of decency and goodness. And if the average American doesn’t start waking up and sensing this virus of mainstream news fakosity, governmental demagoguery, and corporate misogyny spreading exponentially across our great land, then we are doomed...
Now, how do I get my in-laws, my family, and my friends to get to this point?