So, Alito is a shoo-in for the Supreme Court?
I really don't care.
Because Shrub could have put Pat Robertson on the Supreme Court, but by the time I get done organizing the American people over the next few years Robertson would be in such holy dread of an aroused and angered electorate that he would meekly check out DailyKos for his instructions before he dare utter or write a single word of legal import.
I never added a comment, nor rated a comment, nor recommended a diary, about the Alito fight. Why? Because of what is happening, and what is about to happen. Alito is nothing, not even a ripple, compared to the tidal wave of deep doo-doo headed our way.
First, what is about to happen. Sometime in the next few months, almost certainly well before Shrub's (mis)occupation of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue lurches to its well-deserved end, the U.S. economy and financial system will be reeling under the weight of the sheer mismanagement and stupidity of the past four decades.
Free trade has not delivered the goods. Do a search for diaries by Sterling Newberry for the details. Deregulation has tilted the playing field in favor of crooks, thugs, and Republicans (and it's damn near impossible to distinguish between the three anymore). Search for diaries by Bonddad to read the details. The Enron trial is about to reveal a lot more juicy details. The Post-Industrial society has been revealed to be the anti-industrial society, with rabid environmentalism making it almost impossible to build a new industrial facility. But that does not matter either, because there isn't enough funding available to rebuild our industrial base: the returns are so much, much higher in unchecked financial speculation. I'm going to start tearing at that issue in the next few weeks. We as a nation have run up a staggering deficit in infrastructure of an estimated 1.5 TRILLION to 2.5 TRILLION dollars. Why do most city dwellers sit and stew in traffic jams for 45 to 90 minutes a day? Because we've starved the highway system for funds, we haven't built mass transit systems, we haven't revitalized our city centers, we haven't spent the money needed to deploy artificial intelligence systems that can better direct and organize urban traffic We've got kids going to schools that were built before their grandfathers were born. We've got city water and sewage systems operating with physical plant that in some cases is over a century old. Some Americans literally get water slightly tainted with sewage when they turn on their taps. Go read some of the annual national infrastructure reports of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The U.S. economy is like a wheezing 98-year-old hooked up to life support, and the whole world knows it. Big bets, multi-billion dollar bets, have been plunked down against the U.S. dollar, and not just by Warren Buffet and George Soros. When Shrub slithered into office five years ago, 49.6% of $5.883 trillion in international bonds were denominated in U.S. dollars. By the end of 2004, only 37.0% of $13.588 trillion in international bonds were denominated in U.S. dollars. In 1982, 17.0% of U.S. government debt was owned by foreigners. By the end of last year, that percentage was 49.8% and you can bet it's over 50% soon, if not already. American banks used to own 18.2% of U.S. government debt in 1982; by the end of last year they owned only 1.7%. Bankers may often act like the most bone-headed creatures in God's creation, but believe me, when the handwriting appears on the wall, they know how to read it.
People are starting to connect the dots. And they'll do the dot thing a lot faster if I help them. And if you help them. Once we get them to understand, they're going to be angry. Really angry. In fact, a lot of them already are.
Now we're into the part about what is happening. We see the signs and read the reports here on DailyKos every once in a while. Conservative co-workers who once glowed with the euphoric stupidity of electoral victory, now scurry past with the sullen look of impending doom. Former Republicans who have struggled to retain a working amount of gray matter, have been watching, silently watching, noiselessly reading these blogs (probably wishing all the time, like me, there wasn't so much fucking INFANTILE profanity; see how unnecessary, even out-of-place, profanity is if you put a little effort in your writing?). Every once in a while one of them finally works up the nerve to post their own story of how they freed their minds and souls from the deadening hand of Rethuglican fear mongering. Right now, in my neck of the woods, there's a special election for a State Senate seat, and there are more people out ringing door bells, putting up signs, making phone calls, than I can recall in any of the Presidential elections of yore. People are frustrated and angry, and they are looking for ways to express their anger and frustration, and to effect change.
Bush and his merry band of miscreants have been on a full-fledged public relations drive for over four weeks now, but they can't cajole, persuade, convince, push, pull, or drag the Shrub's approval rating out of the low 40s. This is the most despised, hated President in modern American history. They know it, and they also know what's coming: a Katrina of the currency, an end-game of the economy, the financial fart to end all financial farts. And they look out the windows and past the fence, and they can see the angry mob starting to form.
Angry? Bush and Cheney and Rove and Alito and the rest of them don't know the true meaning of the word yet. Oh, they surely have some sense of it; that's why they're in full flight forward trying to expand executive powers way beyond the worst nightmares of the Founding Fathers. Let them tear the Constitution asunder and use the scraps to wipe their fear-fluttering butt holes. Let them run their web spiders and track my ass down and haul me off for a Cuban suntan at Gitmo. Let them unleash their unthinking automatons, let them arm and send forth their prettied-up and prep-schooled version of the Hitler Youth, to sputter and rage about hanging traitors and force feeding rat poison to cranky old men. The worst they can do is kill my body. They can't kill my soul, and I swear by the Eternal Almighty that my soul will personally visit and haunt their every dream. I will grant no respite, I will give no relief, they will have no rest. I shall shatter their sleep; they will drop every mid-day from the sheer exhaustion of their own psychic terror. I know that already the accusing ghosts of servicemen slain march nightly through their bed chambers.
They can take aim at the howling, screeching mob and pull the trigger and slay only so many before the mob gets the idea and begins to organize itself into something more. They can pull the trigger again and again and again, but they'll find that the mobs never really get any smaller. There's always more people, angrier than ever. Then one day, they'll stop and realize there's silence, and they'll look wonderingly out the windows, out past the gates. And feel the historic stab of fear. Because it's not a mob anymore, it's an organized, disciplined army. And it has come to kick their ass and take their name.
History's on my side. I just want to help hurry it along a little, to try and get past the mob part as soon as possible, and forestall any of the really bad, bloody things that usually happen. Want to join me? Yeah, you, I'm talking to YOU. You ready for a little discipline? You ready for a little organizing? Well, a LOT of organizing. Are you READY? Then stop the whining and get back to work. Before the big financial fart comes floating over the horizon.