I have had it. I am limiting my time listening to NPR to "Click and Clack, the Tappet Bros," Forget TV, which I do not possess one of anymore for the past year. The "media" is toxic. It serves no good purpose. It has us living in a world where the prevailing, pervasive, but unexamined background assumption is "something is terribly, awfully wrong here, but nobody can claim to understand what, so we have to trust the sincerest people to guess what to do." This is patent nonsense.
Everybody understands exxactly what is wrong. Exxactly. But we're not supposed to remember anything that didn't happen on TV less than 48 hours ago, and nobody with a microphone or a vote in Congress will pay the slightest attention to anything else. They're all like those two TV comics (how come there's only two of anything left?) who only make jokes about what goes on in that tiny rectangle of bright light from the last 48 hours of video. That's why they pay them the big bucks.
What was the question? Oh yes: Which Candidate For The Office Of The Vice President (The Most Powerful Office In The World) Can Most Credibly Offer To Lead Our Nation? - Oh, um, right, In The (Heaven Forfend!) Event Of Their President's Death Or Incapacity? Oh heck, who cares about a President? He's just a sock puppet anyway.
She was just so much more unbelievable. I was driving, listening to the radio. I had to pull over. She was riveting. This person is actually a Vice Presidential candidate? Have we all lost our minds? I began to wonder how long the food in my house would last, starting tomorrow. What did Biden say? Who remembers? Who remembers a single word of the whole performance?
I can guess how she did it: T.R.I - Total Reagan Immersion. She spent the last sixty hours plugged into subliminal tapes of Ronald Reagan saying "Government is not the solution: government is the problem," and "There you go again." Smiling directly into the lens. Daring us to think a single rational thought in the face of such a torrent of sincerity. For Biden's part, the Bentsen line would never fly. "I knew Ron. Ron was a friend of mine. You're no Ronald Reagan." But I have to admit I was waiting for it.
Palin answered the questions she had answers for, not the ones asked, just like old Ronnie used to do so charmingly. She exuded a kind of chirpy Frontier Hockymom Woman conspiratorial sexiness, letting everyone know this was really all just a charade to appease those hand-wringing, sexist Liberals, but WE know who's really the prettiest, don't we.
And Biden got high marks for not making too many "gaffes" and not being a "nuanced" boring old windbag.
The verdict? "She did very well." This is what they tell you when your kid makes it all the way through his first ballgame without collapsing in tears in the middle of the field, after being coaxed to let go of the plastic bat and be carried around the bases. Good for you! See? That wasn't so bad!
Sure she did very well. Just keep smiling, kid, no matter what. Everybody admires courage in the face of impossible odds. And admiration is what its all about, however it's garnered, whatever it's for.
When Nixon was elected, I had said I would leave the country. I didn't. When Reagan came into power, I had said I would leave the country. I didn't. When Bush I took power, I had said I would leave the country. I didn't. When W. took power ("took" being the operative word here"), I had said I would leave the country. I didn't.
What will I do now, if McCain, so obviously a propped-up, sick, twitching, bumbling old fool with untreated PTSD who routinely forgets where he is and has to be led off the stage after a speech, ascends to the throne? With this vapid VP wolf-slaughtering ex-beauty pageant runner-up? Not that either one of them would ever be handed actual power by the people who pay their bills. But I mean. Really. Four years of that? I don't think the country can hold together for four months.
I'm dug in. It simply isn't realistic to pull up stakes and go somewhere else when Chief Justice Roberts brings his hammer down on the end of the Great Experiment. And where else is there to go? This is MY country! It's MY WORLD for that matter. But my country's been sold out lock stock and barrel, and it's time I admitted it, and stopped making these hopeless good-faith gestures. This isn't our country anymore. It's China's. They have papers to prove it, and we have the little shiny glass beads. We sold it to them for $24. America is always being sold for $24. it seems. History repeats itself.
No matter how much lipstick gets slapped on it, the bailout is still nothing but a bailout, and it only serves the interests of those who made it "necessary" by boring so many holes in our end of the boat. The Global War On Terra did exxactly what everybody knew it would, especially including that dick Cheney, and bankrupted the country. We are now a wholly-owned subsidiary of China. Ni Hau, y'all!
Nobody has said anything about food yet. Doesn't an economic collapse have something to do with the way we produce, transport and otherwise manage what we all eat every day? What's going to happen, bailout or no bailout (sorry, "rescue package")? We may be facing an actual famine. Imagine for a moment what happens if one of the giant food store chains (pun intended) suddenly can't pay its bills? What if all two of the vast corporate entities (what is it now, Archer-Daniels-Midland and Monsanto?) spiral in next week?
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