Folks may have noticed I'm not exactly Miss Chattypants right now. I'll be making up for that right now.
I'm alternating between this impenetrable ennui and an honest to god "Bring the Revolution, I'm ready to tear shit up!" anger like a wolverine with a
rapid-cycling bipolar disorder. I'm not just "blog about it" mad, I'm bring-the-house-down mad. I'm furious that a man who, as governor of Texas, allowed 152 people to be
put to death without intervening and who wrote in his autobiography that it was not his job to
"replace the verdict of a jury" has the unmitigated gall to commute Libby's entire sentence because "The verdict was wrong, harsh and vindictive."
I've spent the last several days writing in places where I hope it will do more good. Letters to the editor, letters to my congressional representatives. I wrote to the members of the
House Judiciary Committee over the holiday, begging them to take seriously calls to impeach these scoundrels.
I've seen many people complaining of "outrage fatigue" and I feel it too. I keep struggling against it because that's what they want, these people who think they're too good for the laws that govern the rest of us... they want us to feel fatigued, to give up fighting against their dirty tricks and end-runs around the Constitution. Throwing my hands up and giving in because I'm tired gives them what they want. I can't bear it.
It's a harsh coincidence for me that this most recent display of asshole behavior from the President falls across both Independence Day and the Origins convention. You might ask what the hell the Origins convention has to do with malfeasance in the White House, and I would freely admit it's probably only meaningful to me and perhaps a handful of other people who were part of the so-called "mostly bloodless coup" of GAMA three years ago. The unfortunate timing of having Origins going on right now has served to stir up all those feelings from
that horrible year, the vicious personal attacks launched by the so-called "Fair, Firm, and Friendly" faction, the way they campaigned on a platform of outrage and howls for "transparency" and then before they'd even been in power a week
showed their true colors by making staff changes in secret and without even courtesy consultations with long-serving volunteers, admissions that new board members were secretly accessing the private communications of the prior GAMA board members. After storming in, preventing the platform of necessary changes, and perverting the process to their own ends, they have all left to go on their merry ways... selling real estate, "consulting" in non-gaming business ventures, retiring from the game industry in various states of disgrace after being used by their faction cohorts. Just like George Bush, just like Cheney, they have their post-election lives all planned out and leave behind a trail of honest, hard-working, decent people who got in their way. Finally, after their little power play had played out, after they slandered and threatened and harassed the people deemed to be "against them" the real work of cleaning up the things that needed to be cleaned up three years ago has fallen back on the shoulders of the few remaining people who still care enough to serve. Finally, after they grew bored enough to stop screwing up the works, GAMA has implemented the by laws changes that the organization so desperately needed.
GAMA's bitter political history is like the national fight in miniature. The people who so viciously ripped down the board of four years ago gave up when they found out that it really was just a bunch of hard work and not some sort of gravy train where we were all enjoying perks and kickbacks. The White House behaves in the same shameful manner and I see the people of the country growing weary of the fight, confused about what the fight is even about. Unfortunately, the people lined up to support Bush/Cheney (unlike those who supported Dancey/Stever) find the arrangement very, very profitable. There are plenty of perks, plenty of kickbacks, plenty of no-bid contracts and "friendly" legislation that make it worth their while to keep running this country into the ground... as long as it puts money in their pockets, as long as they know they've got a Get Out of Jail Free card, they're not going to get bored and go off to run a strip club in Vegas instead. That's why I'm worked up and why I can't give in to the outrage fatigue.
I can, however, take a breather from the outrage which is exactly what I intend to do tonight. First, a little
Live Free or Die Hard to blow some shit up real good and make the bad guys PAY. Then off to the
Can Can for some
Heavenly Spies and as many Bella Rouges as I can down before closing time.
Labels: politics, rant