"And I can't see anybody else who even comes close," Bush added, drawing laughs from the assembled scribes in wrinkled navy blazers.
Then the president spied CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, pointing at her Benetton suit with pink pinstripes. "Suzanne, I take that back," Bush amended with chivalry. Moments later he bestowed on her the day's "best-dressed" honors.
"Kevin and I coordinated," she explained.
CBS News's Jim Axelrod was feeling left out. "My best suit's in the cleaners," he told the commander in chief.
Bush eyed Axelrod's slacks with disdain. "That's not even a suit," he said, before chalking up the whole thing to "high-priced news guys."
God. I just want to puke every time I read that.
Anyway -- this isn't about Gottlieb's post. I just felt like including my reaction to that sickening bit with the suits because... well, do I actually need a reason? Surely one of the FEW advantages to this being "my" blog is that I DON'T have to explain myself and my frigging whims, eh?
So, it's been an illuminating couple of days, to say the least.
Is a metamorphosis always painful? Because I feel like I'm having my goddamned limbs torn off my body, during this phase of "growth" I'm undergoing.
And I have to say, I am SO not looking forward to being even further on the margins than I already am, politically speaking. I have seen what they do to people who think the way I've been thinking and will likely continue to think for the rest of my life -- and it terrifies me.
I mean, look, I'm someone who needs CONSTANT validation, for chrissakes -- and not only am I headed in the direction of a political belief system that will deprive me of THAT, I am headed straight for NADER territory, insofar as will be perceived by the likes of those who've had at me these last 2 days.
You dig? I'm fucking petrified -- I don't WANT this. I want to BELONG. I want to be LIKED.
But it just cannot be. I see the writing on the wall and it says, very clearly, "You, MSOC, are becoming one of those "fringe" people who are loathed by the establishment, regardless of its position on a fake spectrum that runs the gamut from A to B..."
Fuck. I want a cigarette. I want a Dewars and soda. I want some fucking Ecstacy.
Barring that, can I PLEASE have a viable third party on the liberal end of things in this motherfucking godforsaken country?
The Republicans ARE THE PARTY OF THE RIGHT.
The Democrats ARE THE PARTY OF THE CENTRE.
Who speaks for the LEFT? Who represents the LEFT? Which candidate will the LEFT field for President in 2008?
It makes absolutely no sense for a nation of this size to have only two viable parties in its political system. NONE.
But of course, that's just the way they want it. "They" being the tiny fraction of the American public (hell, it's too small to warrant a fraction -- we're talking about a microscopic number of people) that benefits from having only two parties, both utterly beholden to corporate entities and the handful of people who control almost all the wealth in the world.
I can't STAND it. I HATE having my eyes pried open to this shit. I miss my ignorance, I miss that CONVICTION, that HOPE, that CERTITUDE of the basic feasibility of the existing political system in the United States... Don't EVER let anyone try to tell you ignorance isn't bliss. It may not be over-the-moon, orgasmic, joyous FULFILLMENT bliss -- but everything's relative, isn't it? And comparatively speaking, my ignorance prior to these past several years was fucking BLISS.
So. What now? Banishment to the hinterlands of political relevance? Fuck that shit. Nader blew it, man. If he weren't such an asshole, personally speaking, he might have capitalised on his influence and increased it, come back again and again, really STRENGTHENED the Green Party... Hell, he didn't do SHIT after 2000.
We need a viable third party. It's the only salvation for this foundering "Republic." My problem is, I don't have the slightest idea what to do. How do you create a viable third party in a system so obviously and skillfully designed -- or altered -- to quash any attempt to do so?
We need leadership on the left. People respond to leaders -- they always have. Al Gore is an obvious choice, really. I wonder... will he ever give up the ghost of the Democratic Party, or does he sincerely believe the left can retake it? If they ever really had it, which they didn't, except for a few brief moments in our young history.
But even if Al Gore does accept the mantle of responsibility as one of the saviours of the left, it seems clear to me we need more than one. We need a CADRE of them. Al Sharpton comes to mind as someone who can fire up the crowd at any given event. John Edwards, well, he's entrenched in the status quo, despite his esteemable, laudable positions on one of the most important issues facing us as a species: this constant struggle of the majority to barely survive while the minority thrives and writhes ecstatically in its excesses.
Anyway, you see my point, right? We need leaders if there's going to be a revolution, and there HAS to be a revolution, because things as they stand are INTOLERABLE to too many people. We face an untenable situation in this political system; what remains is the appropriate course of action to take. It is OBVIOUS, at least to ME, that to do nothing is tantamount to perpetrating the ills and evils our nemeses themselves already do.
Don't think I don't realise just how easy it would be to turn into a "terrorist" at this juncture; it's perfectly clear that this is precisely the fork in that road.
In my opinion, only lazy, unimaginative and essentially selfish people resort to violence to be the change they want to see. But it's a perfectly apprehensible decision. Demented and SAD, but apprehensible... Hat tip to John Hughes for that one -- and, while I'm at it, the title is a reference to C. S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It would take too long to explain it if you haven't read it -- but if you have, remember Eustace's description of peeling off his enchanted dragon skin at Aslan's behest...
Aaaaaanyway. Hmph. I've certainly increased my output -- perhaps there's something to be said for just type, type, typing away until finally, hopefully, you write something worth reading. This one definitely won't be winning any Koufaxes -- but there it is.
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