Near the Heart of Darkness

I see I have not written for the last week. Partly because I got more involved in local politics and, mostly, because the the national news has been so distressing.

I have been skirting the edge of despair. I fear the bright and beautiful experiment in civilization that is America might be coming to an end. You know, that experiment in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, albeit, at first, we weren't big on the equality or fraternity buy in. All gone! All flushed down the toilet by our representatives in Washington.

I wouldn't post because all my rants were coming up as incoherent, like a big sob of anguish. I should have been perked up by the disastrous numbers of the President in opinion polls. But his party, even though in it's wounded, can still, and sure seems to wants to, cause damage to the weakest and most vulnerable amongst us. Like when the House votes to make cuts in food stamps, Medicare, and student aid to balance the budget all on the backs of poor. Yet they still push for tax cuts for the rich and are nowhere near balancing the budget. On top of that the find time to vote themselves a raise in pay. I'd like to hope that it's the wild thrashing, before death, of the Grover Norquist faction but that is not a foregone conclusion. Maybe this will be the last damage the GOP can do for a while, but it still strikes too close to home for due due to my brother's medical and financial condition.

The atrocities of war continue. More rumors of torture exposed while the Senate votes to restrict Habeas Corpus and then debates whether we should allow the CIA to use proscribed methods on our "enemies" and not follow our own laws on the matter. I can only imagine the Vice-President Cheney is arguing so forcefully for the CIA exemption so he will have a legal excuse to avoid prosecution of war crimes that, just so happens, is punishable by death under US laws. Sort of spread the guilt far and wide, as it were.

In the last few years our country is unravellings the fabric of progress that made America a beacon of light for the advancement of civilization - our claim to being the greatest country on earth. Funny that, my impression of the folks that still spout we are number one, have never live abroad; if they traveled it was with the "Let's Go" books clench tightly in their paws and never got off the the beaten path, all the while criticizing the places they visited because it wasn't like back in the States.

I guess I could go on and on. Who knows it might even be therapeutic to give vent (now this is funny idea: blogging as therapy!). However, there was also a sense of futility this last week. I believe I am a born optimist and it's the world around forcing me to be cynical. But when I look to future in the most hopeful way, when we get out of this mess and try and make amends, I see us tearing our country apart over necessary investigations and trials over war profiteering and war crimes. And maybe, just maybe, we can find our soul again.

That's the best I can envision at the moment...