Why go on?

There's really no point, is there?  I  mean I've been protesting and griping and occasionally exulting about things for over 50 years and although it sometimes seems I've been on the right side, sometimes on the winning side, the wins have been so slow to grow into anything and the losers so able to readjust their stories to define the losses as wins that perhaps it doesn't matter. Even angels have to fear the sticky epithets falling on the guilty and the innocent, fear to tread on the right and the wrong because right and wrong can't be discerned through the fog of politics of any denomination. Descriptions mean nothing when our language, our history, our morals are written in water and change with the tide. We are not saved by works, but damned at random.

I don't believe in protests any more. I don't believe in elections. I don't believe in the public's ability to pay attention, to be objective, rational or enlightened enough to do anything but make noise and make it all worse.  If  we actually feel we've been allowed anything like good government,  it's often really that we've been thrown a bone to distract us from seeing that the chuck wagon has rolled off  with dinner.  Take the amazing fact that Congress passed a budget rather than shutting down the country they pretend to love. Reading it you may feel like the patient who learns his illness is gone, but there's a disturbing spot on his lungs. The spot, the shadow, the tumor, the poison pills, are riders you won't hear about, unless the Fox decides they can blame them on Obama.

And of course the President will have to support it else we hear more of the chorus of  "he's a tyrant, an emperor ignoring the will of the people" even though there can't be a whole lot of "the people" who approve of allowing a huge increase in the amount of money one can contribute to the Republican Party ( up to 3 million for a married couple) and of allowing a return to the reckless bank chicanery with exotic derivatives that caused the recent recession. After all that protest and demonstration and passion! Should we just admit there's no way to control the course of events that involves democracy? 

And of course I've always been told that I hated America, because I opposed a whole shooting gallery of things, like the war in Viet Nam or segregation or torture or the end of probable cause or forfeitures without due process. I hated America, it's said,  for warning that paying  for our most expensive and lengthy war with tax cuts for the wealthy wouldn't work.  I hated America for making a fuss about My Lai 4, for the abomination of HUAC.  I hated it for not hating enough.

Perhaps now, with the voice of  evil, Fox News host Andrea Tantaros claiming that the only reason we finally admit to illegal and immoral practices like torture, is that Obama wants you to think America isn't 'awesome' ,  with the ability of  war criminals to define their crimes away,  perhaps now I can decide that yes, I really do hate this evil empire. This abomination of a country that dares screech about FREEDOM but won't let you leave, won't let you live abroad and wants to make you pay US taxes even if you're a foreign national and don't live in the US - unless you're a corporation of course.  I have to oppose it.  I can't do otherwise.

No, the center isn't holding. 

Yes, I'm a fool for protesting, for blogging, for hoping.  I can't change minds or anything else and even if I did, our country is a runaway train anyway because people do not vote, corporations do. It's a runaway train because no one can do anything without the permission of  the ruling party.  Even old John McCain who lost an election because he had to pretend his masters weren't evil, because he had to run with that Alaskan millstone around his neck must hate America for trying so eloquently  to hold it to a moral standard higher than the Spanish Inquisition. It brought tears to my eyes. Misery makes strange bedfellows indeed.

Are there enough of us to rebel, to force the money grabbers, the tyrants  out of the government?  Of course not and not only because only the worst of us vote. We can't unite because we truly are a small minded, self absorbed, uncompromising and gullible group of fractious fools and because it's too late anyway and it's all our own fault. The enemy is us. It always has been.

Democracy or Insurrection?

Let’s face facts. Democracy is a messy business, and competing stakeholders do not always get everything they want. Ours is a system of government designed to accommodate change – gradual or radical - through an orderly and prescribed process. We have elections; we have a balance of power shared between three branches of government; and we have a Constitutional amendment process. 

Although these structures are ensconced in Law, there are also unwritten courtesies, customs, and traditions that smooth the legislative process and keep governance a relatively civilized matter. Thomas Jefferson prescribed these rules of order in his Manual of Parliamentary Practice.

Pending bills originate in the House, move to Senate, are signed into law by the President, and - if highly controversial - are affirmed or overturned by the Supreme Court.  ObamaCare has passed all these benchmarks. Those who wish to modify, replace, or repeal ObamaCare must follow this path in accordance with democratic rules and procedures.

Frankly, the current impasse and government shutdown is NOT ABOUT OBAMACARE, or the Keystone Pipeline, or abortion, or contraception, or ANY OTHER PARTISAN CAUSE.  The government shutdown represents a despoliation of democracy by an unruly rabble.

Do we practice governance as prescribed by Law - according to time-honored traditions of parliamentary procedure - or do we conduct our affairs by ultimatum, blackmail, deception and demagoguery, defamation and vilification, fear mongering, extortion and hostage taking? Do we honor democracy, or do we conduct the nation’s business by insurrection?

Here is what the Constitution states:

The validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned [Amendment 14, Section 4].

"Shall not be questioned"  ... how do these words confer a right to surrender the validity of public debt to negotiation? To blackmail? Extortion? Hostage taking?

All presidents have a statutory obligation to preserve and protect the constitution, as do all office holders in Congress. If this or any president capitulates, our traditions of governance will be dealt a mortal blow; and the nation will suffer a slow and painful decline.  All citizens of all persuasions share this responsibility - and an obligation to pass down these traditions of representative democracy intact to future generations.

As far as I am concerned, the GOP is no longer a partner in participatory democracy. As Hannah Arendt states:

“A disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.”

By this definition, I consider the government shutdown an act of sedition and treason.

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Monday morning update:  On September 30, 2013, in the stealth of night, behind closed doors and hidden from public scrutiny, House Republicans changed the rules of the house and stacked the deck:

"The Rules Committee, under the rules of the House, changed the standing rules of the House to take away the right of any member to move to vote to open the government, and gave that right exclusively to the Republican Leader," said Van Hollen. "Is that right?"

"The House adopted that resolution," replied Chaffetz.

"I make my motion, Mr. Speaker," said Van Hollen. "I renew my motion that under the regular standing rules of the House... that the house take up the Senate amendments and open the government now."

"Under section 2 of H.R. 368, that motion may be offered only by the majority leader or his designee," Chaffetz said.

"Mr. Speaker, why were the rules rigged to keep the government shut down?" Van Hollen asked.

"The gentleman will suspend," Chaffetz interjected.

"Democracy has been suspended, Mr. Speaker."

Video here:

Reading the Trolls

Troll infections seem to come in clusters. Often frustrated trolls will assume multiple identities so that they can get in another word before they're identified and locked out or perhaps they enlist other trolls down at the International Brotherhood of Morons hall to join them, but they do arrive, each one confident and bright-eyed and sure that some totally irrelevant and baseless observation will cause great consternation amongst the 'Libtards.'  Sure that they can get away with posing as wise and informed and superior as a brown shirt in a beer hall.

I used to have a Shi-Tzu; 12 pounds and elderly, he never hesitated to go after pit bulls and dobermans, pawing the ground and snarling, leaving me to sort the matter out with the usually laughing owner of the other dog. He never learned.  He never could. He was a dog and driven by a dog's instincts. Humans could laugh and drag the animals apart.

But that was in the real world.  The blog world exists in the dark where both the bystanders and those who hold the leashes are invisible. Whence cometh our help?  Don't look up, there's nobody there.  So the guy who shows up under some assumed name, thinking himself a political lion, wearing his Tea Party Ghost Shirt and weighing in with a 97 IQ never has the opportunity to feel shame or hear the laughter directed at his idiocy. As far as the dog was concerned he won every "debate."

Even the pathetic 12 year old with a spray can and a backwards hat can, however briefly, see his initials on the boxcar or warehouse wall. The troll doesn't always have that pleasure unless of course we give it to him by making  the mistake of taking him seriously enough to explain why his treasured contribution is wrong. His only purpose is that brief feeling of significance he gets from making you angry. Reply and he wins. Treat him with dignity and respect and you lose. He's a troll.

Prove him wrong and his argument false?  That's usually, as the inimitable Arnold would say, a Big Mistake, because of course, you can't refute tags like "Obama is a turd" by any rational means, nor can one convince the Klansman or the village idiot that a spray painted swastika on a synagogue isn't just hilarious.  One can only delete, paint over the grafitti before the troll's friends get to admire the shit stains.

More problematic than the "taggers" are trolls who have bought the little red book, full of slogans and shibboleths, talking points and lies so rank and septic you just can't resist that all too easy seeming shot to the head.  They may appear on the surface to be amenable to an easy and irrefutable proof of their error, but it's a trap because one is, in essence, arguing with a zombie -- a mindless program consisting of  countless IF THEN GOSUB routines (for those of you who remember FORTRAN) which take each unassailable observation, every brass bound QED, every thermonuclear refutation and return some irrelevant reply that steers your argument out into the back alley by the dumpster where the thugs lurk.

"No sir, the Blue Cross policy you buy through the ACA does not have hidden provisions to murder your grandmother and prevent your doctor from removing that infected appendix."  Easy to prove, but suddenly you find yourself  arguing about how denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions is what Jefferson devoutly wished for America and how Hitler used guaranteed access to health care to gas the Jews and how Obama is a Muslim, Communist, illegal alien and you're in a labyrinth where every branch has a thousand branches and a Minotaur at every turn.  Health care reform is the worst thing ever to happen in America and worse than Slavery, and Obama will eat your children. They're hear to shout that and not to argue with you.

Annoyed and frustrated trying to prove that A times B equals B times A to a senile Shi-Tzu with cataracts and poor hearing?  That's what the Tea Party is all about; reading Doctor Suess to Congress and blaming the Democrats for not ignoring the law.  Losing the chess game and turning over the board.  Starting a one legged blind man as quarterback and then kidnapping the referee until he "cooperates" with your "negotiation."

The one reason I enjoy The Swash Zone is the comment section and the regular participants. The reason I want to quit, to move to some remote Caribbean cottage with no internet, is the comment section.

TV shows like The Walking Dead have become the metaphor for the Idiot's Crusade and worse -- at least the zombies are independently devoid of brains and full of destructive rage.  The Republican insurgents are being directed, used, sent out like biological weapons to destroy Democracy for a purpose. It's a zombie apocalypse and there are just too damned many of them and more all the time.  Reading the trolls, writing the same things after all this time, getting nowhere leads me inexorably to that one overwhelming question:  Belize or Dominica?

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Government of the people, by the people and for the people has perished from the earth and now lies decomposing in corporate boardrooms across America. 

It's my party and I'll lie if I want to

They're taking the girl from the streets of London to Ascot and passing her off as a debutante. A few weeks of diction lessons, some new clothes and they can pull it off, but for Chrissakes, don't let her say more than two words to anyone! No cameras, no audio, no reporters to observe what fork she uses, what diphthongs she distorts -- and be careful to introduce her to the Duke and the Dauphin so she won't mistake them for the Prime Minister.

Yes, you've seen the Broadway show, the movie, but no, this isn't a bet between two upper class gentlemen over brandy and cigars at the Reform Club. It's a bunch of thugs, goons, warmongers, Jesocrats, robber barons and Mafiosi trying to pass off the most unsuitable major candidate in American history as a statesman by pretending she's having substantive conversations with important people.

Palin's crew locked out AP and CNN from her introduction to Mohmmad Karzai today before they could catch her picking her nose on camera or asking the President of Afghanistan how things are in Australia. She will go through the same farce with other leaders tomorrow and her supporters and other damned fools will look shocked if we mention the absolutely unprecedented ( at least in America ) attempt to usher a candidate into office with no questions asked.

No, it's not a couple of tweedy old professors playing condescending games with the proles, it's the outfit; the wise guys taking over the country of the gleefully oppressed.