The Bush administration checklist of disgrace lengthens faster than the penis of a minister on crystal meth. I won't go into my Cranky Liberal rant, moving down the list with a grease pencil, ticking off each egregious offense against the gullible, too-trusting American people. Instead I will offer my Cranky Liberal response to those who have said "Yeah, you're mad. Big deal. What do we do?" And keep in mind I have just finished a cool glass of white wine, so make of that what you will. Fuggit. It's five o'clock here. I'm an adult, dammit. Here goes:
So what to do? First, triangulate your news sources. Since most of the news services are owned by Thomas Nast-like caricatures of swollen carpet baggers and cigar-sucking plutocrats, one must sift through the news like a grizzled miner panning for the bleak glitter that, once refined, can be turned into an ornate broach on the freckled bust of an aging dowager. Check and double check.
Next, if one must watch television news, don't be cowed by the finger wagging, bespectacled conservative spokesmonkies with their pinched nostrils and pursed, disapproving lips. They hold intimidation close to their hollow bosoms as a sacred tool to be used upon inferior creatures such as myself who give two or more shits about what happens to the planet and the people who scrabble across its surface looking for--dare I say---a roof over their heads, enough to eat and a better world for their children and themselves. Icky Liberal drivel, I know. Add grenadine and you've got a recipe for diabetes. As I said, fuggit (I could say "fuck it" but there's something James Jonesian about the euphemism "fug", wouldn't you agree? Just go with me here. I recently drank white wine, you know). Now, that said, don't be so sure that the hip, cool progressive pundits are so pure of heart either. They're all part of the same machine. They're just not as flinty as their tight-assed counterparts. And also they occasionally like to listen to Joan Armatrading.
Next, read a couple of volumes of what I think is pertinent literature, stuff that bears an uncanny resemblance to what's going on in our country. Not dry encyclopedic recitation of dates and cities and whatnot. I mean the history THEY don't want you to read ("they" is written boldly, implying an Orwellian application of the third person pronoun. Hint hint!). Read The Grapes of Wrath, goddammit. Lots of love for fellow man, desperate people driven to desperate acts, even desperate acts of humanity, something rarely given any space in the media these days. Then read 1984, of frigging course (I used "frigging" there, not "fugging". I'm a little drunk. I had some white wine). THE Neo-Con blueprint. Clearly Irving Kristol used to read it to little Billy by the light of a campfire stoked with an andiron made from a human femur.
Then, mount a local production of Paradise Lost by Clifford Odets. "Socialist drivel!" the Repooplican Conswervatives will cry. But guess what? It's about poor people who are pissed off and articulate and who are given a platform from which to rage a little before going gently into that good night, the same good night that Bush, Cheney and all the Boys in the Bund seem to forget they will be going into as well. Odets's characters speak passionately about life and love and pain and fear in long, mellifluous sentences as opposed to curt, cute sound farts that stick in one's brain until one needs to drink copious amounts of white wine to quell the Moebius bummer-loop of bullshit. Did I mention I myself recently had a glass of white wine? And that I'm wearing a bib?
Then, armed with that small amount of counter-culture, observe and react. Be mad. Be glad. Whatever. Express yo'self. Talk it up. Create a groundswell of progressive opinion that surges over the rails of the Neo-Con yacht and sinks it for good (or at least keeps it marooned on a coral reef as a future attraction for scuba divers and tourists interested in early 21st-century Conservative arcana, the yacht having an Anne Coulter figurehead: eyes popping, teeth bared, forward-thrusting clavicles slicing through the nesting krill like Ginsu knives through tomatoes. Jesus. I'm getting dizzy.).
And lastly, and I might be foolish for saying this: TURN OFF THE TELEVISION. At least for a day or so. Let the absence of radio waves act as a soothing balm on your battered brain.
Ponder.
Chew your food.
Toss everything around and see if makes salad. God evolved you into having a mind, dammit. Use it!
Okay. I'm done now. I said I wouldn't rant but I guess I just proved how sloppy even a well meaning Cranky Liberal can be. And you know, Ive had a teensy taste of white wine. I even forgot the apostrophe on the previous "I've". I am feeling no pain. Pull up a glass and join me, won't you?