It's all over but the eschatology

By Capt. Fogg 

There's a point beyond which I can no longer pretend to be an open-minded or fair-minded person disposed to find reason in others' opinions, or at least to try to be tolerant of them. I think I reached it today, shortly after a flurry of last minute political calls from (supposedly illegal) robots delivering diatribes from Ann Coulter, Allen West and the NRA. Gun-grabber Obama? War-hero West? Seriously? Am I listed as Hatch, Booby in the phone book?

In another venue I joked today about inventing a Taserphone that one could use to zap annoying, if not felonious and even treasonous callers like these, but honestly that's only an attempt to cover up, to add mirth to the boiling volcanic eruption of rage that's been keeping me up nights; has been filling my dreams with violence and wondering if I really have enough ammunition in the house. I also joked about watching the election returns from my boat so that if things go all to hell, I could be in international waters within half an hour and in the Bahamas in three. But that would not be to protect me, it would be to protect others from a large, rude, green hulk stomping toward Washington in an uncontrollable rage.

But really, the level of criminal indecency to which the Republican Party has descended should sponsor far more rage than even this half mad writer can feel. If it had come all at once rather than incrementally over a period of years, I'm sure there truly would have been blood in the streets. Had we not had a multi-billion dollar industry soothing and rationalizing and reinterpreting the rape of reason and the murder of truth and the deportation of ethics, Republicans would have had to flee the country for their lives a decade ago, if not sooner. But as it is, stories like this one about an Arizona non-profit laundering eleven million for the GOP, which may be a true drop in the bottomless bucket of corporate money, offshore money and other somewhat less than sanitary money being used for things like starving public education, sure, but perhaps the straw that broke this old back. As God knows, and has the GOP has stressed, an educated public is a "brainwashed" public, an "elitist" and snobbish public less likely to buy into the raging idiocy they sell. So education is another beast the Tea Terrorists, the bar room brown shirts and the ruthless pirates of industry need to starve.

Will all these crimes ever be punished? Not likely, no matter which candidate wins and if someone is prosecuted, their soulless, corpse eating associates will manage to make it seem all political and public opinion will turn against that damned liberal press all the more.

I'm not ready to say "you can't win" or that it's all lost, but I'm afraid it's none the less true. Our debt problem isn't going to be repaired no matter who wins. Obama or the Mutt, even if all spending were to cease, it may take a lifetime for the debt to go away, unless it's through massive inflation we haven't seen the likes of in our own history. Think Zimbabwe, think Weimar Republic, think Third World America. My biggest worry isn't about the post-prosperous America, it's about the post-liberal America; an oligarchy of entities deriving their power not from the consent of the governed, but of global financial interests, of religious demagogues and corporate feudal lords.

So no, I'll likely watch the circus from the local Democratic headquarters, at least until it gets late, but win or lose, the difference is, I fear only in the nearness to the abyss toward which we're inexorably headed, and no, I'll probably not push those throttles forward and head for West End, no matter who wins Tuesday night, but I'm sure as hell not going down without a fight or go gentle into any goddamned Republican night.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)