There was a time in my youth when Nixon was evil incarnate, a time when I honestly expected tanks to roll down the street and marshal law to be declared, a time when hair past your collar would be grounds for imprisonment or worse.

I am older now and supposedly wiser and I’d take old Tricky Dick back in a heartbeat. Jumpin’ Jackboots, Batman, there’s a plague loose across the land. Is this really America, the land of the free, home of the brave or have I, in my advancing addled state, fallen through some interdimensional crack into another reality?

First Dude? Are we seriously involved in an election where one side has picked a running mate who claims she’s proud to be a hockey mom and her husband refers to himself as First Dude? I swear, if I wrote a novel based around two such characters and circumstances, I’d be the laughing stock of every agent I sent it to. I could wallpaper a mansion with the rejection slips I’d garner. I mean, this scenario is beyond the pale of fiction. Stephen King couldn’t write this and get it published.

$750,000,000,000 to bail out a bunch of greedy, filthy rich, conscienceless, immoral assholes? People are losing their homes. The bridges in this country are falling apart. The roads are in severe disrepair. Our schools are hovels. Our children are being left way way way behind the rest of the world but lordy lordy can they take a test. We don’t have to jump on a plane and fly to Africa or South America to see a Third World country. All we need to do is walk out our door because that’s what we’re becoming. And I think those greedy, filthy rich, conscienceless, immoral assholes like that idea just fine.

$3,000,000,000,000 to blow up a country that was no threat to us just to kill a guy we supported when we thought we could use him. How many men and women, Iraqi and American, British and French and those from whatever other country foolish enough to involve themselves in Bush’s Folly, have died so Bush’s greedy, filthy rich, conscienceless, immoral asshole friends could line their pockets with weapon sales, reconstruction and oil money. And how many enemies have we made in the process. Bush’s Folly was perhaps the greatest incentive to join a terrorist organization ever inflicted on the world. We are going to be hated, HATED!, for a long, long time by people who have every right in the world to hate us. Way to go on winning those hearts and minds, W!

And where the fuck is the media when Johnny comes home in a body bag? Where is the media period? Bunch of fucking wimps. Freedom of the press my ass. We haven’t had freedom of the press since the Vietnam war. The powers that be learned a valuable lesson back then. Dumb down America, keep everyone scared and use the advertising dollar to effectively circumvent the First Amendment.

But there is a far bigger loss. Pogo said it, long ago, and it holds true today: We have met the enemy and he is us. Collectively we have more than enough anger and more than enough clout to bring these greedy, filthy rich, conscienceless, immoral assholes to their knees. But do we do anything about it? Do we take to the streets? Burn down the house? Refuse to buy their overpriced wares. Refuse to buy into lie after lie after bloody lie? No, we keep filling up our tanks and cheer when they scream ‘drill, baby, drill’ like that’s going to solve anything. Hate to break it to ya but if they started drilling today we wouldn’t see that crude make it to the pump for at least 10 years and by that time 4 bucks a gallon is going to seem really cheap. And here’s another little tid-bit for you to consider: We be running out of oil. Period. Gone. Nada. No more sticky goop.

We buy their genetically altered food, their hormone ridden milk, their overpriced goods and services, pay outrageous taxes and get nothing, NOTHING, in return. Our jobs are far from stable and if we get laid off we get squat, regardless of how conscientious we may have been. Some CEO totally screws a company, hundreds, thousands lose their jobs and he walks away with mega-millions in his pocket. We buy the politicos’ bullshit and vote for them only to be butt-fucked again and again and when the time comes round again for more lies, we buy into those all over again.

What the Fuck is wrong with this country and why is no one rising up to smite the greedy, filthy rich, conscienceless, immoral assholes that are running it into the ground.

This is definitely NOT my beautiful country.

Don’t piss off Wal-mart. Asda, a company owned by the giant conglomerate, persuaded Random House to pull the best-selling children’s book My Sister Jodie by Jacqueline Wilson after a reader found, oh my, a ‘dirty word’ in the story. Damn, being a writer and trying to write something that will please an agent, an editor and the publisher’s marketing department, not to mention Barnes & Nobel, is difficult enough. Now we have to make sure we don’t upset the delicate sensibilities of Wal-Mart.

Nor the sensibilities of anyone else, for that matter. In the same article linked above, it’s noted that Random House pulled a book about Mohammed for fear it would offend Muslims. If this keeps up, we’ll all be down to reading Dick and Jane books. No, wait, gender stereotypes. I’m sure that must offend someone so forget about Dick and Jane.

Man, the more I think about this, the more I see how far we could run with it. I say let’s don’t just pull them from the shelves, let’s have us a real ’save the world’s sensibilities’ book burning bonfire. We’ll be heroes!

We could start with all of Clive Cussler’s books cause I know for a fact they offend a friend of mine on Backspace. For myself, I would love to see all of James Patterson’s books burned because, really, they are all the same story over and over and I find his lack of creativity offensive. And I can’t be the only one who finds stories with long drawn out middles and no beginning or end offensive so pull Glimmer Train and other such post-modern literary mags off the shelf and toss them in the fire.

Might McCain supporters find Obama’s books offensive? Pull those puppies and burn em.

Ghosts, goblins, witches and warlocks, vampires even? We know these horribly satanic things offend some so off to the fire they go. Violence? Sex? Violence and Sex? Sex and Death? Death? Books about gays? Books about gays as normal, loving couples? OH MY! Burn baby burn and then superheat the ashes.

Mark Twain and Jon Clinch both used the *N* word in their respective books about Huckleberry Finn. I’m pretty sure that must offend someone so off to the bonfire with their work.

Richard Dawkins‘ book The God Delusion offended a whole lot of folks. Come to think of it, so does Dawkins himself, or so I’ve heard. Hell, throw em both on the fire.

I could go on and on but let’s face it, we already know it’s gonna be a tough job just as we know the job must be done. The really tough and important tasks in life are like that. And, as big and powerful as they are, it’s really too much and too important a job to leave to the likes of Wal-Mart and Random House alone. We’ve got lend our collective hand in this noble cause. We can start by burning down all the bookstores and public libraries, narrowing our objective to personal and private libraries once the larger objective is accomplished. We’ll remove all the people from harm first, of course. After all, these poor, misguided seekers of the written word know not what they do. We don’t want to hurt anyone. We’re just trying to save their delicate sensibilities.

Technorati Tags: Wal-mart, Random House, My Sister Jodie, Jacqueline Wilson, Barnes & Nobel, Mohammed, Muslims, Clive Cussler, James Patterson, Glimmer Train, McCain, Obama, Mark Twain, Jon Clinch, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

There have been times in my life when I was in no condition to find my house, or even my car come to think of it, this latter probably a good thing. In 92, while back in Detroit to attend my father’s funeral, I made a trip to the old neighborhood and found that the house I grew up in had been torn down and hauled away, along with most of the rest of the neighborhood. Good old Detroit. I put my house in California on the market a tad too late and fell victim to the mortgage meltdown, nearly losing the place before selling it for far less than what I was asking for it, a price that barely covered what I owed on the place.

But I have to say I’m thankful that I always knew the number of houses I owned, or more likely rented, at any given time.

Poor John McCain. Must be a real bitch not knowing how many houses you own. I mean, imagine the confusion that could cause. And think of the number of keys you’d have to carry around. I wonder if he color codes them?

Unlike the news media, which has pretty much ignored this, Barack Obama has been all over it. Not that it matters. This ain’t a pitch for Obama, though I’ll probably vote for him. Lesser of two blahs and all that. If he wins, it’ll just be more of the same old shit. A different texture, maybe, a different smell, but shit nevertheless.

As you might have noticed, I’ve grown a bit cynical about politics in this country. Hell, truth be told, I’ve been cynical about politics in this country since Nixon was king and for the most part the political theater of the absurd has gone down hill since. How can you tell when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.

Have you ever wondered why movies like Dave or TV shows like West Wing were so popular? I think it’s because such shows portrayed politicians as people with integrity and honor, people who actually gave a rat’s ass about the folks they represented, and not just the ones with money. And I believe we want that, really want that. Pity those shows were only fantasies.

Is there no one in this country with the balls, real or metaphorical, who will stand up and say what’s really going on? That the rich keep getting the gold mine while the shrinking middle class get the shaft and the poor get the toxic sludge? That our government is more than willing to spend billions, trillions even, to destroy another country and rebuild it again, lining the pockets of their cronies along the way, while our own infrastructure goes to hell? That the educational system in this country has become little more than a joke? That families have to pay more and more for the basic necessities while CEOs are paid in the millions regardless of whether their companies fail or make huge profits? That these same families are in a constant state of fear over the loss of their job, the house they live in, having to decide which meal to skip, which bill won’t get paid should they or one of their kids get sick and have to see a doctor?

Is there no one in this country with the balls, real or metaphorical, who will stand up and actually do something about it?

Why do I have my doubts?

It’s the same old same old. Empires rise and fall and this one sure seems to be in decline. But then, it’s always been that way, hasn’t it, and I see nothing that makes me think this election is going to change anything. Regardless of who wins, we the people lose.

Technorati Tags: Detroit, California, John McCain, Barack Obama, Dave, West Wing