I need you guys. Right now, I need you guys and I'm not kidding.

[tzikeh]

I originally thought I'd be able to maintain two journals - one for fandom and one for politics, because so often people don't want to see politics on their flists and I don't want to bring people down who come to lj for fun. But for some reason, all having two ljs has done is kept me from making any political posts at all. So, I'm going to delete politzikes, and go back to posting political stuff here, but always with an icon which clearly warns of oncoming politics, and always posting under an lj-cut.


Let me warn in advance that this might be a tad over-emotional because I got my period today and it's a very, very bad period indeed.

W gave a speech in Australia. He couldn't remember what country he was in, he couldn't remember what the speech was for, and once he finished babbling incoherently, he nearly took a header off the stage. A recounting of THIS GODDAMN FUCKING TRAVESTY, with video (if you can stomach it), is here.

Usually, when I use a lot of capital letters and exclamation points and curse words in my lj, it's not me being angry -- it's just me being my usual hyper self; over-excited, or hyperbolic, or waving my arms over my head like Kermit. Not this time.

I can't take it. I seriously can't take it one more day. I am sitting on my couch and weeping in absolutely incoherent rage. I cannot fucking take it one more fucking day. I want to purposefully seek out people who voted for Bush and PUNCH THEM IN THEIR FACES, because they fucking voted for this vile mass of vomit and all of the fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fuck that came with him.

I want to commit violence because this man exists, and because other people like him exist around him, and because 30% of the citizens of this nation still think he's a good president, and because 40% of the citizens of this nation still believe Saddam was behind 9/11, and because my countrymen have had fucking bullshit shoved down their throats for six-and-a-half years, and so many still don't care. And the fact that some people are finally realizing the truths which many of us had been shouting since the beginning does not make up for the fact that they have never given any of us a GODDAMNED FUCKING APOLOGY for calling us traitors and treasonous and "just as bad as them A-rab terrorists."

All we have to show for six-and-a-half years of being hated by racist ignorant fuckheads is the taste of ashes in our mouth and a Pyrrhic, I-told-you-so "victory".

Soothe me or join me in my fury; give me hope or scream in concert with me -- but someone please talk to me.

ETA More from Wonkette here.

Comments

[grace-om.livejournal.com]

Red wine, chocolate, and a nice bath (preferably with jets) go well at these times.

I know. What I hate about him most is that his reign has shaken my belief in democracy. Government by the stupid. Why yes, I am an elitist, over-educated snob, and proud of it too.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

:nod: shrift gave me chocolate (really good chocolate) and was angry with me too for a bit, so that helped a little. And I do have a bath with jets. So maybe that. No red wine, alas.

[silveraspen]

I would say something, but I'm a little busy banging my head against the desk in frustration, please forgive me.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

My head hurts way too much to bang it. I just. I'm incoherent.

[thelastgoodname.livejournal.com]

I just read that most people, if told X three times, even if the second the third times they are actually told Y which refutes X, will then be completely unable to shake their acceptance of X as truth.

So: Saddam was behind 9-11. No, Saddam was not behind 9-11. Saddam and 9-11 in the same sentence.

There. Everyone reading this comment will forevermore connect Saddam and 9-11 in their minds, and be unable to actually think about what the connection actually is.

I'm still pissed that somehow people think Iran is someone else's fault, when it is so clearly our fault and has been for over 50 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat).

Last November, I posted that we usually forget that this country is an experiment in democracy; democracy is still largely unproven as a method of rule, unlike monarchy, for instance. And it seems that in the US, at least, our democratic republic is not a success. Something rather severe has gone terribly wrong with our experiment, and I'm not entirely sure how to fix it. I don't doubt it's possible to fix, I just have no idea how to actually accomplish the change.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Iran I can't even get into without more headaches.

And as far as what has gone wrong -- well, I could start with the stranglehold on what can be included in public education, and then there'd be 100 other things, and then I'd explode.

[thecomfychair.livejournal.com]

I can see (if not understand) the 30% because, well, I've lived in a conservative part of the Midwest, and I've seen how people can glide over his complete dumbfuck inepitude as long as he keeps saying what they want to hear. I've given up hope for change on that account. But this: 40% of the citizens of this nation still believe Saddam was behind 9/11 I can't wrap my head around.

I realize that I've spent the past four years in an academic liberal bubble so I'm not really in touch with most of the country but--seriously? I'm sort of speechless.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

41%, actually.

[xenacryst.livejournal.com]

I'm with ya. Right there with ya. And I don't know what to say except for the red wine and the chocolate and the bath. Except ... I was watching some B5 the other night, and we were remembering how we thought it was believable, if cynical, for the time. It ain't cynical no more. It's here, and President Clark is sitting in the veep chair, ready to take the reigns...

Now, ya'll 'scuse me while I go start in on some Blakes 7...

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Bill Maher is opening his monologue with this story tonight. Oddly, that makes me feel better.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

It's fucking embarrassing. This administration has worked very, very hard to make sure nobody thinks of America as the good guys for a long time.

[delle.livejournal.com]

absolutely. we had the entire fucking world in our fucking hand after 9/11 - and we went after Bin Laden and the fucking Taliban and the world CHEERED.

And then our President decided to wave his e-penis around and took us into Iraq and destroyed oiur credibility, our standing in the world, killed our soldiers adn put us back into horrific debt.

That *anyone* can still support him makes my head hurt. And they do, they do. I lived in fucking Tennessee: they love him (speaking in generalities, natch)

[lcsbanana.livejournal.com]

The sheer enormity of the gap between reality and what people believe just...defeats me. I literally can't even talk to people--I physically cannot get the *words* out because they're operating from such a wildly different set of assumptions that I don't even know where to START. Bush, Iraq, Republicans, the environment, healthcare and education and the really-truly-literal corporate takeover of every major government--any *true* statement about what's actually going on has been neatly defined as radical and crazy and nutty. It's just too much, I don't even try anymore and I have honestly really given up hope on humans as a group. I think we're not inherently bad but once we discovered capitalism and electricity we were doomed. (Note total lack of humorous exaggeration in previous statement.)

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

The problem really is the lack of words, isn't it. Nearly 990,000 words in the English language (at last count) and we don't have words for this. None.

And no one ever learns from history. Ever. Conservatives have not ever, ever been right about what "should be" since Caesar was assassinated, and no one learns. The "loony left" is always right, and when the truth "comes out" twenty years later, some of the conservatives like to do the historical ret-con "we were at Woodstock" bit of claiming they knew it all along, and had *always* said that and believed it. And then they go on to the next fucking mistake and believing a crock of bullshit and calling everyone who points out the truth "the loony left" and here we go again.

Good riddance to the human race, I say.

[southpaw526.livejournal.com]

I can't do much, but I can say I agree with every single word.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I can't do much either, which is why I'm screaming with rage.

[amilyn.livejournal.com]

I couldn't possibly say it any better.

WHEN will they impeach this incompetent embarrassment? And is there any way to save the world from the nightmare and encroaching threat that he has built our country into, marching the earth to destroy and convert all in its path...and using our names on their banners.

Upsetting in every way and I have NO comfort, only shared rage to offer.

I mean...isn't anyone going to NOTICE that the man is drunk or drugged? Because that is the only explanation that makes ANY sense to me for the Oz debacle and the massaging of the German Kanzler at a political meeting...

This is SO beyond fucked.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

Karl Rove is gone so there is no one to prompt Shrub thru his earpiece any more.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

He's apparently planning to bomb Iran in October (so says the leak posted in the Daily Kos and some UK newspapers) so it's going to get a lot worse.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Worse is a relative term.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever." Thomas Jefferson

I say: Go God.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Since I have no God, just or otherwise, all I can say is "Go Decline and Fall of the New Roman Empire".

[cereta.livejournal.com]

Five years ago, a student wrote a paper on why W was a hero (I ditched that assignment for other reasons after that semester, thank God), and one of his reasons was that he was a morally upright man who had never succumbed to the temptations of drugs. I may have flailed a bit in much purple ink that one of Bush's talking points was that he'd been an addict but found God. The thing is, this kid hadn't run across faulty information. Just, in his head, Bush was a hero, heroes didn't do drugs, ergo...

(BTW, one of his other points was that Bush had defended his country by serving in the military. I may have cried.)

A year after that, my mother, whom I love dearly and who was valedictorian of her high school class, but whose approach to life these days is not to think much about things beyond her day to day life, expressed the sincere belief that we ought to re-elect Bush because he was already President, and we just shouldn't change horses midstream even if we didn't like where the horse was going. I couldn't bring myself to ask her why she thought we had four year terms at all, then.

It just doesn't surprise me anymore. Depresses me, yes.

[iko.livejournal.com]

(BTW, one of his other points was that Bush had defended his country by serving in the military. I may have cried.)

I think I would've too.

[vass]

Wow. I live in Australia, and I totally missed that.

Probably because when I woke up to the radio yesterday and heard him giving a speech, I listened for a while to him mispronouncing the name of our capital city and saying what a wonderful ally and friend to the US our prime minister is, it just was shitting me off so badly on so many levels that I told myself "Why are you listening to this?" and stopped.

*screams with you*

[lamardeuse.livejournal.com]

Think we might be able to clone FDR from a DNA sample? Because you guys are about due for another good one.

[greywingnut.livejournal.com]

Some (hopefully) soothing thoughts...

We will get past this man and what he has done the country and our standing in the world. We have done so before (Nixon, Hoover, Harding, etc), we will do so again.

It is almost a mathematical certainty that the next president will be better by at least a couple orders of magnitude.

The owner of my company, a man who worked for Nixon, has said he is sorry he voted for Bush. I have heard others say the same. More apologies will follow. Those who don't admit the error of their ways are self-identifying themselves and can be dealt with accordingly.

Any leader is guaranteed support from 20% of the people and resistance/rejection from another 20%. Depending on which poll you look at, this means Bush is hovering somewhere around 90% disapproval from the swayable.

His power is waining and has been for some time. It has done so much faster than in a normal presidency. Nothing he can do will bring that power back. He becomes more irrelevant with every passing hour.

[iko.livejournal.com]

Hehehe. I'm an "old school" Republican (old school meaning quite old school): smaller government, the government has no business in people's private lives (citizens should have a high degree of personal freedom), fiscal conservatism (anyone who thinks our current government is run by fiscal conservatives are deluding themselves, the way that they spend currently is incredible), opportunity support over financial support, etc. It really is old school and I know people give me a bit of a double-take when I identify as a Republican (given that I do not identify as a Democrat).

I didn't vote for Bush and I'm pleased to say that I've written letters in protest to the Republican party against the direction of the party. My parents, die-hard Republicans, couldn't get themselves to vote for Bush because they think he's an idiot (they voted for alternative parties because they couldn't get themselves to vote Democratic, while I'm ok with voting for what I consider the "lesser evil"; I did eagerly vote for Gore though).

I hate the whole hypocritical attitude that this administration has. They want democracy in the middle east but only democracy on their terms. In other words, an election that independent watchers say is fair but with a result that they don't like is Not On and a problem for this administration. It pisses me off to no end.

I want the government out of my bedroom and out of everyone else's bedroom. I want a genuine separation of church and state. (Nothing wrong with having a leader who is religious so long as the tenets of the leader's religion are not being dictated as policy to the rest of the nation.)
I want a government that is not involved in a foreign civil war. We really should not be involved in nation-building unless it is a truly international effort.

Unfortunately, most of this country is not politically aware. Many only care that, at the end of the year, they have more money in their bank accounts. I think most voters are one-issue voters: they have their pet issue and votes for the party that fit that issue, regardless on that person's position in other issues. Thinking about politics these days makes me all very *woe*.

[ratcreature]

It's so depressing to think about the damage the US continue to inflict worldwide, and the face of it isn't even competent profiteering (or anything with rationality really that you could work with), but this bumbling idiocy now. Somehow stupidity makes everything worse. In flights of fancy I sometimes wish your horrid government could restrict itself to ruining just your own country (where people voted for it after all, or well, almost voted for it anyway, and could get rid of it in theory), but there's the whole superpower thing and of course all large environmental damage always has impact worldwide anyway. *sigh*

[katrimae.livejournal.com]

Last night, Fred Thompson had one of his first official "I can act presidential!" appearances across the street from my library. That was special like... well, like something of barely any specialness at all. The really fun part was all the fans who couldn't figure out that even though most of the parking was in front of the library, Fred himself was nowhere in our building. "Nope. Across the street, the big cementy blocky building over there. Yep. Over there. Go out the door. Look west. Over there/i>." I tell you, the IQ level was not encouraging.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I feel your rage. I feel it so much that I had to sort of surgically amputate my personal rage center recently, because it was making me miserable every goddamn day.

Two things to do: activism, and breaks from activism. That's how I manage. I'm on a break right now, but when I come back, it's about fighting: giving my money and time and voice to causes that will oust this fucker and his ilk.

Sometimes when the rage gets too much, it's good to find a local protest and join it. Any anti-war marches happening in your town soon?

[furies.livejournal.com]

heavens, don't even get me started.

there are many reasons i am no longer in politics, but largely? i blame bush and his idiots. i spent every day so infuriated that this man was ruining so much of what other people had done, so easily, so carelessly, that this idiot was supposed to be representing me and my interests on the international stage, that this idiot was reelected because the opposition party couldn't draw enough of a difference between the two - umm, exhibit a) idiot. exhibit b) actual decent IQ.

or, even worse (for me), all the people that just didn't give a fuck. that they were all going to move to canada or europe anyway, so why bother? the great experiment failed and they were moving elsewhere (except of course they haven't). i just want to beat people over the head sometimes. i want to ask the people my age who sincerely support bush where they got those powerful blindfolds. it disgusts me how all of a sudden republicans are about national security (oh yeah, love the missile defense system and the fucking WALL - cause you know, that worked so well for china) and everyone else just doesn't understand the danger we are in.

you know, i lived through 9/11. my parents were in munich at the olympics. SHIT HAPPENS. what you don't do is turn it into a media game and reason to go attack people you wanted to get rid of anyway. you might actually want to try to make the country safer, instead of making more enemies. because that's the thing that really, REALLY pisses me off - this illusion that we are safer now than we were six years ago.

TRY AGAIN.

[apathocles.livejournal.com]

It never fails to astonish me that this man has managed to find work at all, let alone a job as ruler of a fucking country.

The thing that's been really shitting me off about APEC is the truly ridiculous security measures, and the way that the police have been going on about how these security measures are there because of the dangers posed by protesters. (Yes, they've also talked about the dangers of assassination attempts and terrorists, but 90% of the interviews I've seen with the police have been about protesters.) And I just... what. Large parts of Sydney are locked up tight; people can be arrested for going into certain areas without what the police consider 'good reason'.

Which is why I'm so damned glad that the main protest went off with only minimal arrests. HA. The police were trying to talk it up beforehand, going on about the huge number of people that would be there (thus justifying the truly ridiculous size of the police presence); now that it's over, of course, they're saying that hardly any protesters turned up, because to say otherwise would demonstrate that there's actually widespread opposition to Bush and Howard and their cronies. Oy.

Some of the protesters were chanting 'OPEC out of Austria', which amused me greatly. *g* And I'm wondering if you guys've heard about the Chaser stunt (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/09/07/1188783496428.html), and its sequel (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/09/07/1188783497265.html). And also Bums for Bush (http://www.bumsnotbombs.org/), which (IIRC) did result in a performance of the twenty-one bum salute. And also George Bush dress-up (http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/bush_dressup/index.html).

I... am taking positives where I can find them. Because, when this (http://www.smh.com.au/news/apec/jailed-for-jaywalking/2007/09/08/1188783554892.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1) happens to someone who crosses the road in from of the APEC convoy? I just want to cry.

[apathocles.livejournal.com]

Semi-relatedly: this (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004892.html) just popped up on my friendslist.

[mtgat]

Remember before the last election, there was a website for punching the candidates in the face?

Someone needs to code a script where we can kick a virtual Bush in the balls over and over and over and over ...

*gets lost in a fantasy of testicular smashing*

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

This is why you're on my f-list :)

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Word, sister.