This morning, a double-winged brown bird cheered me up
I confess, I’m feeling discouraged.
* The Democratic presidential nomination contest is likely to become a nasty fight .
* The House Democrats are expected to roll over and vote for telecom immunity.
* The true cost of the invasion and occupation of Iraq is likely to be at least three trillion dollars.
* It’s going to be a messy election in 2008. The statewide voter registration lists are highly likely to disenfranchise thousands of people.
I could go on, but my focus was changed this morning when my friend, Pat Denino, sent me a photo of a double-winged brown bird.
Pat has blogged for several years at Wondering Wanderings. Pat encouraged me to blog and helps me with technical problems. The bird photo encourages me to turn off my computer and go outside to enjoy the real birds that are chirping up a storm this spring morning.
(photo by Pat’s brother, Bob Fister)
3 comments:
In this moment, the prospect of the "nasty fight" is most depressing. I can deal with tough, but when it becomes untruthful and ugly, we have become our own enemy.
The Republicans are too far gone to save. But the ethics and values of Democrats should be salvageable. As Greenwald says, we wrongly assume they care more about American democracy than Republicans, but by now it's pretty clear that this was all just wishful thinking.
Let's face it ... the Dems are the problem. Disinterested Democratic onlookers, not Republican muggers, are the most contemptible villians here – because they witness crime, and just don't care enough to stop it. Being a viciously anti-democratic neocon is bad enough ... but those Democrats who hold the same corrupt neocon values and ethics while pretending otherwise are liars and cowards in addition. Without the Democratic Party to oppose the march of Bushite neocons, what will stop them?
America is an idea that no longer lives in the United States. I have. It's stunning how little the average person in this country knows or cares about democracy.
Hopefully, the idea that is "America" will manage to survive elsewhere in the world. Imagine this: a wave of American political refugees leaving before exit visas are required by the Homeland Security Department.
If I was young and unattached, I'd be gone in a flash.
Anonymous who posted at 12:44 pm (above):
I tend to blame the citizens because they refuse to support public funding of campaigns.
Those who are elected,whose salaries we pay to do the business of governing, are forced to spend a substantial amount of time dialing for dollars.
It doesn't make sense to pay elected officials' salaries while refusing to fund their campaigns.
In California, it would cost each adult the equivalent of one muffin and a latte per year to fully fund all elected offices from the legislature to the governor.
The CA Senate Dems killed the bill in committee and only 25% of the voters supported the clean money initiative when it was on the ballot about a year ago.
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