Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well

I'm feeling kind of apocalyptic-y tonight. In general, barring periodic hormonal issues and too deep forays into political blogs, I'm a pretty cheery person. But the last few days have been rough.

It's hard, when you read things like this, to stop from thinking that it's so bad, we'll never find our way out from the bottom of this well. This mean and stupid and accountability-free political environment is sending us hurtling towards the Thunderdome.

I have to remind myself that things have been a lot fucking worse. While there might be some John Birch types out there with hard ons for trying insufficiently conservative thinkers for not loving America enough, it's not actually happening. And it did. And even if mainstream gubernatorial candidates feel comfortable arguing that we should stop feeding poor, black kids, I don't see Jim Crow coming back. And even if a New Hampshire GOoPer thinks gay adoption is just another name for governmental child chattel, I can take solace in knowing that the breakout stars of a smash new sitcom hit are a gay couple who've adopted a kid.

And then just right as I'm shaking off the funk, I think about how dysfunctional our senate and congress are and how Barack Obama just does NOT seem to want to take the wheel on this one and we might AGAIN piss away our chance to reform healthcare and not even Modern Family can cheer me up.

And so I must take the advice of the song I named this post for and bat it down. Remind myself that I'd rather live now than any other time on earth and that, in the immortal words of the late, lamented Molly Ivins:

Things are not getting worse; things have always been this bad. Nothing is more consoling than the long perspective of history. It will perk you up no end to go back and read the works of progressives past. You will learn therein that things back then were also terrible, and what's more, they were always getting worse. This is most inspiriting.

It really is.

Loudmouths

It has gotten LOUD out there, hasn't it?

Think of those dimwits screeching about socialism and how Barack has six letters in it and so does Hitler and A HA STALINISMCAKES!!!!! This leaves me wanting to stand on a chair and scream "WHYAREYOUSUCHAGIANTDOUCHEYDUMMY?" You can see how I might be concerned about the productivity of such a move.

I admire people who can coolly and calmly address issues. Once I saw Molly Ivins, Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken on the same panel. O'Reilly was typically red-faced, incoherent and furious. Franken kept interrupting him, trying to correct, as O'Reilly laid slander and stupidity upon stupider stupidity and slandery slander. Molly Ivins just sat there taking notes and then, when called upon, revealed herself as the smartest, savviest one there. Hold back, take notes, and then destroy them with the force of sheer logic. Franken was delighted. O'Reilly had on his "Fuck it! We'll do it live!"face. It was awesome.

Barack Obama seems to have driven the right completely bananas. I mean, Rush Limbaugh is up on his show telling his audience, who, let's face it, probably ain't the sharpest tacks in the toolshed, that if Obama gets his way, it will be the end of representative democracy and that a bunch of men in black (or black men, which sort of seems to be implied) are coming to kill your grannies.

So, is yelling back helpful or not? I keep waiting for Obama to pull a Molly Ivins (she would have loved him, I suspect, and also been wildly disappointed in him. There are no words for how much I miss her hilarious, kind and trenchant analysis). The problem is that there's no moderator. No one seems to be calling on the folks who've held back and taken notes. It's all heat and no light and it really sounds like the leading conservative voices in the media are dog whistling some pretty heavy shit.

I'm kinda freaked out. But I also remember during the primary, when K.O. did a special comment about how Hillary Clinton was dog whistling an Obama assassination. Dude, I fucking HATED Hillary Clinton during the campaign, but even I thought that was pushing it. (Hillary will, I'm sure, be glad to know that I once again love her and have left all that primary craziness behind). Are we lefties freaking out over nothing? Surely there can't be that many people who really think that Barack Obama is a stalinist, muslim, kenyan usurper who hates old people and mentally disabled babies, right? Right? RIGHT?