Speaking of Cement

So much has been going on, I hardly know where to focus. I suppose I should focus on the most important thing, it looks like the Bush administration is imploding. I’m swinging almost hourly between giddy exhilaration at the spectacle and morbid dread of how much more damage will be inflicted on my poor country before this nightmare plays itself out and we can begin the recovery process.

It is so hard to wish ill on my own country, but the past five years, ever since Bush was first appointed to the presidency, I’ve wanted something to happen just bad enough that the populace would wake from their media-induced coma and be forced to recognize the devastation that Bush and his cohorts have wrought on us, beginning with that first stolen election.

It is too bad it could not have happened before so much damage was done, before 9/11, before so many soldiers and Iraqi civilians died, before Abu Ghraib, before Valerie Plame-Wilson’s CIA career was destroyed, before environmental laws hard won over thirty years were blown away like so much dust and our national resources, our children’s legacy, wrapped up and handed to oil and mining industries, before we borrowed our way into crushing debt that our children will spend their lives repaying, before the rest of the world, even old friends, grew to hate us, before we became the laughing stock of the world.

I’m especially disgusted with the mainstream media. They could have done their jobs, asked the questions and demanded answers and hung on like pit bulls if that’s what it took to tear the truth from those who thought they had a right to hide the workings of our government from us. If they had done that, we would never have found ourselves in the place we are now. Instead, they’ve spent the last half decade licking the boots of the bastards in the White House, grateful for the daily press briefings that reveal nothing of the truth but save them from having to actually get out there and do any kind of investigative journalism. It would have been better if they had all just gone home and said nothing; no information would have been less destructive than the lies we were offered. Enough people believed those lies that it is now that much harder to get them to admit being deceived.

Now the press can’t ignore the flashing red facts that daily come tumbling out of every corner of the world, so they’ve started reporting things that those alternative media folks, the bloggers, the activist groups, the environmental guardians, the judicial watchdogs, the people that all along cared enough about this country to challenge the fake news, to sniff it suspiciously while the mainstream media just lapped it off the floor, have been reporting, have been shouting, for five long years. Yes, they are finally beginning to get those stories out into the mainstream media, pretending it is all new, like it all just happened this past week. So proud of themselves; they feel just like real journalists. They are trying to be careful to not reveal in the process that they were apathetic at best, complicit at worst, and that curtails how much they are even now willing to say. But it is a start. It is good to see them doing this because it will finally force these stories into the consciousness of those who rely on Fox for their “news,” but it sure is irritating to see them taking credit and acting all journalistic about it. I am glad they finally got around to saying something true, but I will never trust them again.