State of the Lies

Big News! Just in! Obama is going to be in Boise on Saturday! Maybe Idaho does matter.

Bubblehead: I thought I might have lost you. But you're back and up to your old tricks. How is it you never speak to the point? My blog last night was not designed to specify precisely when marijuana was banned, or by whom. I know that some defined it as a problem before Nixon. Indeed I had the (dis)pleasure of seeing Reefer Madness probably 16 or so years before you were born. I do think the current mess with our drug laws are more appropriately traced to Nixon than anyone earlier, but that is beside the point of my blog, which was to say that our current laws, especially those dealing with marijuana, are stupid. You don't speak to that point. Similarly, in the past, if I say Bush/Cheney are war criminals, you always bring up some peripheral nitpicking point that is basically irrelevant. Do you think they are war criminals, or you just don't want to say? Your approach is always the same and always seems to avoid the point. I swear, if I said humans were creatures with two arms and legs, you'd drag out a one armed man just to prove I was wrong. I'm happy that you know so much about history and such. Be a bit more imaginative and a bit less picky. Or as some say nowadays, get a life.

Masochism. That's what made me watch the State of the Lies and Fairy Tales tonight. As I long ago gave up any hope that Bush would ever tell the unvarnished truth about anything, I can't say I was particularly disappointed. He didn't really say much about the actual state of the union (obviously he wouldn't dare) and spent a lot of time just saying what it is we ought to do (or, rather, what Congress ought to do). Mostly fairy tales. I always wonder if he actually understands everything he is saying (or reading), and, if he does understand any of it, if he believes it (which I find difficult to believe). Of course the surge is working (he says), the Iraqis are making progress (he says), we are going to win (he says), things in Palestine and Israel are going to be just peachy by the end of the year (he says), Iran is a danger to the world (he says), and so on and on, the same old drivel he's been giving us for the past seven years. And of course his Brafia members applaud and stand while the Democrats mostly sit on their hands. A wonderful show of bipartisanship (something the Brafia destroyed a long time ago lest you forget how they refused even to let Democrats use meeting rooms, acted behind closed doors, ran overtime to twist arms to get their way, and etc., etc.). How soon we forget these things. Are we going to forget the almost 4,000 American troops dead, millions of Iraqis displaced and killed, misery so widesspread it could not possibly ever be fully comprehended or measured, and all for a completely unnecessary "war" against a nation that was no threat to us? The only positive thing one can say about Bush's speech is that it was his swan song, the last one we'll ever have to endure. I thought for a while it would never end. Bush needn't worry any more about his legacy, it's already set in stone: the worst President ever, an absolute disgrace to our country, a pathetic loser apparently too dim to even understand how terrible he has been. Good riddance.

I must say I was surprised, as was everyone, when Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama, and even more surprised at how enthusiastic he is about it. People can say endorsements don't count but I bet this one will, and probably just with those people Obama needs to reach out to: Hispanics, young people, and the elderly. I like Hillary and Bill, and I think they have not been treated fairly for years, but I also think they represent the past and the status quo, and I believe Obama is a hope for a better future.

LKBIQ:
"It is the preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly."
Bertrand Russell