There's No There There

Torture. Poverty. Governmental debt in the trillions of dollars. Thousands of dead American soldiers, and an Iraq that is moribund and full of horror. The rich get richer, and the poor pay taxes for both. Not one of these stark realities is treated with any seriousness by the news media in this country; ninety percent of our elected officials seem to pretend that nothing awful is happening here. The reason is, I believe, that we no longer live in a serious democracy. We live in a hard-hearted, soft-headed simulacrum of one. The presidential primaries are analyzed (in every sense of the term) and discussed endlessly; faces smile and glad-hand, while the bullshit continues: Nothing grave or presssing, or even informative, is touched on. When are we going to unite and tell those bastards who own our lives that enough is enough, and kick this rotten system to the curb?