And on that Frostian note...

I've always felt the whole "personal/civic responsibility" bugbear is something of a straw man. Sure, the case for increased activism makes itself; but when we're talking about the elected, it's more to the point to accuse both parties of acting openly and vigorously against the interests of the American people than to accuse them of failing to take responsibility for those actions; the latter is an afterthought. Besides, the alternative shown here, blaming the other party, is exactly the kind of drama our televisions have trained us to expect. How are we surprised?

This kind of commentary further lets our gubmint off the hook by acting as if they are blind followers of trend or fashion themselves. They are not. The decision to side with Capital and corporatism is not an idle "Oh well, might as well back the stinking rich horse" choice you make over lemonade; it's a decades-long program to dupe the overwhelming majority of citizens (i.e., the stupid ones). And it's been swimmingly successful.

I'm never one to shirk the decrying of humans as fucking idiots; but you gotta admit, the evil scheme was choice: Take all the neocon goals and themes—trickle-down fairydust; demonization of the most vulnerable populations (bootstraps, baby!); deregulation; corporate welfare; civil rights as anti-American values (no, seriously! up is down!); and the inevitably pernicious influence of a liberal education—and inextricably link all these in the propaganda machine to the two things about which the peasantry will feel most violently protective: GOD and GUNS.

(1) God says this and god says that and god sees you in the voting booth and god will bring you coal this Christmas—er, I meant send you to hell to suffer unspeakable torment for all eternity, my bad—if you so much as utter the phrase "women's reproductive rights".

(2) In the Great American Dream, "Get off your land or I will shoot you" has evolved slightly to "Get off my land or I will shoot you"—but not an inch ferre.

I saw it coming at age 15, observing my grandmother's pavlovian response to the suddenly political messaging of her fuckstick televangelists. Even my parents—half-hearted "let's sleep in on Sunday" evangelicals at that point—bought the hype to some extent. Years later, my formerly anti-establishment dad embraced W.'s "regular guy" anti-intellectual, pro-gun bullshit loudly and proudly.

And what do you know? The terrorists have won.