The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Keith:

Ralph has truely lost his last marble. He should be building coolitions against Bush. If he had half a clue he'd encourage the Greens to vote Dean (or whomever the nominee ends up) being and then settle into the petty ideology after we have a sane government again. Unfortunately he comes off sounding like a petulant third grader, the last one picked for the dodge ball team. And that truely is a lousy metaphore.

Safari runs everything just fine...

There's a bit about a giant cheese roll in Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. I think it was Dixon who almost got run over by the cheese and that's how he met his wife. A very strange book...

Graydon,

I'm more than willing to do my part. I unfortuneately, won't be able to volenteer at my local polling place for the election as I'll be in Grad School and voting by absentee ballot. But I have been doing everything else that the system allows: emailing my reps, joining protests, sending letters. I talk to people all the time, trying to get a diologue going but other than my close friends, who are in agreement no one wants to put forth any effort. I hear from people all the time, "Sure it's bad but what can ya do?"

Complacency has become pandemic amongst Americans. We feel we are entitled to freedom but unwilling to work to ensure that we have it.

I don't mean to rant and rave, I'm just becoming increasingly worried that even those of us willing to work for change are fighting a loosing battle because we're working inside of a system that is corupted beyond the point of no return.

I too resent the way I've been made to feel like a tin foil hat wearing fool, especially since when I voice my concerns that the government is turning fascist, most people just smile and nod and pretend like I just told a mildly amusing joke. Then they go back to watching Fox news. The thing is, I'mnot making this stuff up, just talking about what I've read from legitimate news sources.

So what's it goping to take to get the majority of people to wake up and realize we're being hoodwinked? Fixing one election obviously wasn't enough. Neither was an illigitimate war for oil and hegemony.

Maybe if Bush were to grow a little mustache and fake a German accent at his next press conference people might go, "Gee there's sometghing funny going on in Washington... " But short of that, I don't know what to do. Other than run to Canada when they rig the next election.

I think what disturbs me about the people in power right now has as much to do with the way they slowly make me immune to cruelty and cynicism as it does with the cruel and cynical things they do.

This is how a fascist state functions, by deadening its citizens to the pain of cruelty. I see it happening to myself and those around me. And it's disturbing. But how do you stop it?

Lydia makes a strong argument for the realism angle. I tend to get carried away by flights of fancy, as do many people, including our leaders.That was my major point: they play like they are doing God's will in order to distract the people who go all glass eyed when confronted withflow charts and economic forcasts. Meanwhile, their goal is to make a fortune along the way, spread American Capitalism in the same way the Conquistadores tried to spread Spanish Catholicism. Religous hyperbole justifies the carnage to the masses while they fill their pockets with pesent gold (or oil in this case. I know, sloppy metaphore).

Lists are one tool but the best one we have is well trained,
observant security personel, the kind that can tell the difference between a suspected Al Quida opperative and an elderly nun.

So far it seems we've staffed security checkpoints with a beurocracy of Mr. Magoos who are using this list as our primary safety net. This is either the result of bumbling ineficiency (it is the government, after all), calous disregard (it is Bush's government, after all) or outright fascism (Gutan Tag, Herr Ashcroft). I don't like any of these options and would prefer some actual effort put into making us safe, not just a half assed effort to provide the illusion of safety.

Whow. Chad, little bit spooky there.

That the two of us seem to be hammering on the same railroad spike strikes me as a little uncomfortable. That and the knowledge that we're not the only two circling the same conclusions.

A Rational President in 2004, please!

And I wonder if maybe they know something we don't. Like maybe it isn't real. Like maybe they feel confident in pulling air marshals from flights because they already know which flights are going to be hijacked...

The problem is that they only think they know what's going to happen and that the apparent source of their great and terrible wisdom seems to be more along the lines of hens entrails and reading Bible passages backwards in mirriors, rather than from corporeal inteligence gathering.

Combine this with the dozen or so three and four star generals that are being retired from the Pentagon (See Eschaton for details) and the implications start to get very frightening.

Comaprring Catholicism with an RPG is apt; most orgonized religions in general tend to be structured like an old school D&D game. Personally, I think that is why the fundies don't like RPGs, because they're competition for modern humanity's limited pool of power to suspend rational belief.

There's only so many hours in the day that you can suspend rationality and if you spend it hunting for the dragon's eggs in the dungeon with your buddies after school, you'll be less inclined to offer incense and hymns to invisible sky fairies with the folks.

But honerstly, I think Patrick hit the nail on the head with his original assertion, that the Catholic Church has squandered its moral authority.

You can't fondle the altar servers with one hand while you bitchslap gay rights with the other. It's not only hypocritical but bigoted and illustrates the failings of many authoritive hierarchies to adapt to changing social mores.

Spelling is overrated as an intellectual skill.

As an aspiring author with a teacher for a mother who rode his back all through school about his spelling, I thank you, Patrick.

On Topic:

This little quote of Bush's, (along with the one where he whistfully longs for a US Dictatorship) should be plastered on bilboards, pasted up on walls and stuck to bumpers from now until election day. Tell it to everyone you meet this 4th of July who stares emptily while they wave their flags and blubber about how great a President we have.

This man is endangering not only the lives of our troops but us citizens as well. He must be stopped.

Knowledge, like how to build an affordable, well-insulated house or an atom bombis different from wisdom, which is personal, unverifiable and pertains only to why we should build one and not the other. You can have all the knowledge in the world but it doesn't mean you'll have the wisdom to use it responsibly. Hoping that a beningn Democratic-socialist government will have the ability to use the abundance of knowledge wisely is, frankly, unrealistic. I don't mean to be a pesamist but all one has to do is look at the Office of Homeland security and shiver when we realize that they are the ones who would be using all this knowledge to police us. And they are far from wise.

Don't apologise for voting Nader! I don't buy this argumant that if the Nader voters had cast their ballot for Gore he would have won. Gore did win. The Supreme Court canceled the election results. We had no idea then what the people backing Bush were capable of or willing to resort to.

Yeah, I voted Nader, too what of it?

And I'll vote Dem this time around because I want my government back. I want to have th eoption of voting for the wacky, rumpled seat belt freak of my choice without having to worry that someone will blame me for Shrub a Dub's coup.

In response to Alec's post:

I think it's a historical concept. Power and religion have always been linked, sort of like Jesus is the chocolate coating that makes the power pill go down easier. Naked Power moves spook people but if you convince them that they aren't really naked, that it's all for God then they feel like they're dressed to the nines even if they are just strutting around in their birthday suit, spouting gibberish and shooting googly eyes at a snapshot of Hitler-- that's the part that scared me.

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