I just went through a bunch of my old posts from George W. Bush's second term. I have not forgotten how bad I felt this time two years ago, when we were facing another four years of his rule. I will never forget the day after that election. George W. is responsible for a lot of other memories of mine that will haunt me till the end. Memories of Shock and Awe, Abu Ghraib, Katrina, Fallujah, Samarra, Baghdad, Baghdad, Baghdad...For six years, he and his worked overtime to turn my country into something I couldn't even recognize. I think the best description I ever came up with of what George W. did to me and to all of us during his six years of more or less unimpeded power was near the end of a DU column from October 2004 called
The Immoderator, in which an imaginary debate between Bush and Kerry, moderated by an imaginary me, becomes more and more ludicrous and sadistic until Bush's protest finally sparks this outburst from the imaginary me:
No. It's not right. I'm not right. I've been treating you as if you weren't a human being with rights and feelings just because you're my enemy. I've denied you the opportunity and the ability to make your case to the public. I've framed this event so that all your responses are overdetermined and you'll never be able to persuade the audience no matter what you do or say.I'm not right. I'm taking advantage of you because I've got you in my power and I'm fanatically committed to taking you down no matter how foul my methods have to get. I've manipulated everything I can manipulate and I've badgered and belittled and tormented you any way I can because I'm terrified, I'm desperate, I'm unbelievably angry, and I am ruthlessly protecting the last tiny piece of safe territory left to me like the cornered animal that you have made me. I have been treating you since you showed up here without mercy, without compassion, and without any respect for basic human dignity. I know perfectly well that even you don't deserve to be treated that way, but after four years of living under your rule I can't even remember why that's true. You've been pumping your hatred and lies and selfishness and filth into my country's veins since the century began and now I am as polluted as you are. I am the Swift Boat smearers, I am Fox News, I am the shifting pretext. I am pre-emptive war. I am Guantanamo. I am Abu Ghraib. I am your America, George. How do you like me? I don't know how George W. liked his America. But I know that this Thanksgiving, one of the main things
I am thankful for is that it's not his America any more. Not all the way, not all the time. It is going to be a long fight. But we will get it back. Our country is going to be ours again.
It is so strange, after six years of going from bad to worse to beyond your worst nightmare, to finally have hope. But I do; and that is a miracle for which I will never get tired of thanking people. Every day when I check out the DU front page and see that one of the Congressional Democrats has proposed something that will roll back Bush's executive power-grab or restore habeas corpus or start investigating shit that should have been investigated years ago, it reminds me afresh how miraculous this is. We are not stuck any more. We are not traveling inevitably toward the darkest regions of hell any more. We may still be floundering in the
black river but at least we have turned the boat around and are headed for the shore. Things have changed. Things are changing. Things will change.
I saw this morning that Speaker-to-be Pelosi has announced that the House of Representatives will be in session as soon as they get sworn in, instead of waiting for Bush to trot out another mendacious, pathetic, poorly-delievered
state of the Union address. Great. I love that. It cheers me up just to know that from now on, the news will be capable of surprising me. In a good way. And to know that no matter what happens during the next two years, one thing it will
not be is business as usual. Thank God for that.
You keep trying, no matter what; you fight without hope, just because you have to fight, just because you can't stand to just let it all go to hell without at least trying to stop it. And for years, it seems like it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. And then, finally, it does.
Two Thanksgivings ago, my despair over the election results was so dark that the only thing I could do to make myself feel better was amuse myself by writing a hatchet job on Lynne Cheney's
curiously revealing novel Sisters.. I was surprised to find that the lesbian sex angle had been severely overblown. From my point of view, the
really dirty parts of her novel were not about sex but about power--specifically, the kind of power her husband Dick knows so well and wields so crassly:
At the end of the day, folks, Lynne Cheney is just not about sex; she's all about the money and the power. Specifically, this novel about how the smart thing for a woman to do is to get her hands on as much money and power as she can have without exposing herself to the dangers that threaten all the women who challenge the capitalist/patriarchal system. Sophie sums it all up a few pages after she's done having sex with her cattle baron:
Sophie pondered a moment why she had been able to remain a member of polite society despite having violated so many of its rules, and she decided the reason was her position. As head of Dymond Publications, she could impose her will on others, and as long as she could do that, the world could not entirely cast her down with its opinions. An insight came to her: this is what men have always known. This is why they can behave privately in ways that violate the public morality and not be ruined. Because they have power. (115)
This is what men have always known; well, this is what Lynne's man has always known, that's for damn sure. You can behave privately in ways that violate the public morality and not be ruined as long as you have power.Well, they don't have absolute power any more. And I cannot wait for them to finally be ruined.
Not just because I will enjoy watching them fall, though there is that. But because their rule has been disastrous for the country and for the world, and the sooner it is brought to an end the better off we all are. And now it looks like that is finally happening. And I cannot express how thankful I am for that.
Since 2004, in a lot of ways, I have been mourning the death of hope. This year, I feel it reborn again. And I feel how much I have missed it, how much I really need it.
Happy thanksgiving to all of you, especially all of you who have done so much to make this change possible. I am grateful to everyone who helped fashion this turning point. And I hope the change will be swift, and that it will reach everyone who has suffered unjustly at the hands of these bastards, before it is too late to do them any good.
Happy Thanksgiving,
The Plaid Adder