Why all the fuss?

So....it turns out that NSA has been collecting a huge data base consisting of virtually all phone calls made in the U.S. Some profess to be outraged at this blatant violation of law and constitution. Remember, Bush told us that they only illegally wiretapped phone calls between suspected terrorists, not phone calls between U.S. citizens. Now we know this is not true. They wiretap illegally everyone. So, ho hum. Bush admitted previously he was illegally wiretapping. No one did anything about it. There is no reason to suppose anyone will do anything about this latest escalation of illegal wiretapping. Oh, yeah, Arlen Spector will make noises about doing something but he won't actually do anything. And Democrats will express some outrage but they, too, won't do anything. I mean, after all, what is this, the seven hundred fifty seventh scandal of the Bush/Cheney Administration? We have now apparently reached the point where nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to surprise anyone and there is simply no point in trying to do anything about it. As Democrats are powerless (but don't really seem concerned to do anything anyway) and Republicans control everything and have no intention of giving up power no matter how corrupt their administration, we can only expect more expressions of outrage and more meek surrender to incompetence and criminality. The big four, Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice, continue to screw up everything they can while demanding the rest of the world do everything they can to be not like us (be democratic, moral, upstanding, etc., etc.).

The Palestinians had a democratic election. No one has suggested it was anything but legitimate. Hamas won. The U.S. and virtually everyone else has now refused to support them. So much for democracy. We are witholding aid, including medical aid, to punish them for democratically electing their own candidates. While I am not certain of this, I believe using medical aid as a weapon is most probably another war crime. Oh, well, what's another war crime to this administration? Sanctions, that's the ticket. We all know how successful sanctions were against Iraq (some 500,000 innocent children dead) so now we will use them against the Palestinians and perhaps against the Iranians as well. Who cares if a bunch of children die, after all, we know from our own genocidal experience that "nits make lice."

One of the absolutely worst movies ever made was Waiting for Mr. Goodbar, starring one of the worst actresses ever, Diane Keaton. The interesting thing about this movie was that there was not one single character with any redeeming virtue whatsoever. This seems to be the case now with respect to our political situation. There is no Mr. (or Ms.) Goodbar. I fear my depression may be changing into hopelessness (and hopelessness is what we must fear above all). God, these are wonderful times, the first years of the 21st century, the NIGHTMARE YEARS.