Why I Drink

It's been hard to sit down and write, partly because time has been scarce, but partly because I've been overwhelmed with the surfeit of bad news, blatant pandering, and wagon-circling that's been going on.

Like the vicious murders of Judge Lefkow's family, which:

"...have generated intense chatter on the websites of white supremacists in the US.
Among the internet messages on the Vanguard News Network, which has a motto 'Uncensored News for Whites' was this one:
"There is nothing illegal or harmful in being happy about this incident. I can barely contain my glee".

And to stick the knife in a little bit more:

"Her husband was a labour lawyer who had argued cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of the poor and who had marched with Martin Luther King in the fight for civil rights in the 1960s."

We've had to suffer attacks on our liberties by the likes of John Ashcroft and watched as immigrants and dissidents were tossed into legal limbo while the Regime whipped up the country into a xenophobic froth of panic, all in the name of fighting terrorism, while the activities of real homegrown terrorists--nice white, conservative types--have pretty much gone unchecked. And this in spite of the Oklahoma bombing, after which, I may add, no one started freaking out and proclaiming that "everything had changed" and that steps had to be taken to start a war, create a new governmental agency, and turn our laws and lives upside down.

Or there's that slithering spokesmodel for Bush's Norquistation of America, Alan "I've got mine, Jack" Greenspan, whose been riding on his special status as the Oracle of Nuthin' Much to sow more panic, this time about the imminent demise of Social Security, just in time to give the flagging Bushco juggernaut a shot in the arm. Interesting, considering that less than a month ago he was saying there was no immediate crisis . But even then he was talking out of both sides of his mouth. The man has developed a record of manufacturing "expert opinion" to rescue his Master's economic agenda whenever the holes in it begin to show. It eludes me how he's managed to hold onto any credibility at this point, yet Wall Street goes to its knees and practically burns offerings to him every time he opens his mouth. And now, just to be sure no one mistakes him for human, he's suggesting a "consumption tax", i.e., a national sales tax whose regressive nature will always hit the poor the hardest. And to think there's a woman in the world who willingly sleeps with this ghoul.

Then there are those guardians of our welfare, the US Congress, poised to sell us out with the fabulous bankruptcy bill (but don't worry, to make it more palatable, Kennedy's pushing to add a bump in the minimum wage as an amendment). No one's talking about actually fighting this bill, which exemplifies all that's unfair about the current zeitgeist, and no one is countering with any regulation on the predatory soliciting methods credit companies and lending corporations use on the poor and the too-young. No, no, responsibility and austerity is fine for consumers, but hands off the executive cash cow. The Repubs and business interests are making the usual groundless claims that Satan will possess the economy if the poor schmucks at Wendy's get an extra 50 cents an hour. The Dems have their heads up their asses, searching fruitlessly for a reason for their existence (hint, guys: it ain't up there).