Head in the sand

[pecunium]

I've spent my online time, for the past two-days, ignoring the elections. Rather I played at Blogshares.

Why did I, a political junkie, avoid them?

Because it was too late for me to do anything. My comments, rants, pointers and elucidations are all pointless this close to the election. Those whom I could persuade, I did some time ago.

And the whiff of diminsished hope, out there in the world, was both pathetic, and depressing. When the confidence of Karl Rove was used to say that the side of freedom and liberty (that is to say, those folks who are against torture, and for habeas corpus, the right to trial, face one's accusers, know what the charges are, etc. i.e. not the present Republicans, or any of their fellow travellers) was going to lose... I couldn't take it.

Maybe the people had been so hornswoggled that they could believe, somehow, that the party which screwed the pooch in Iraq, made torture legal, in the guise of preventing it, is for wiretapping anyone, anytime, for any reason, without any oversight, lists Quakers as terrorists (which includes Maia, and lots of my friends); saying it has the right to declare them unlawful combatants, and throw them in the clinkl indefinitely, etc., etc., etc..

Maybe. If so, I didn't want to know. It was depressing enough to see Bush beat Kerry. This time I wasn't up for following, in painful detail, the train wreck that losing would have been.

But the American people didn't lose. Not so many as I might have liked came to their senses (Lieberman won Conn., and 20,000 idiots voted Green, in Va. which means it's a squeaker there. Webb may be a right of center {and slightly reactionary}, but he was running as a Dem, and unlike der Leibermouse, his campaign wasn't funded by a Republican party which refused so support their own candidate).

Right now, the prediction is 32 seats in the house, and a 49,49 1,1, (Dems, Repubs, Socialist, Liebercratican). But the Senate is tight (Virginia is almost certainly going to be a court case, esp. if Webb gets the call).

There are four wonderful words to be said tonight, and then tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Speaker Pelosi. I don't think she's the best we have, but she has one cardinal virtue, which shines above the rest. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rush, Savage, Coulter, Hannity, Mehlman, and all the rest of that lot, hate her, and are driven crazy by that hate. It muddles their thinking.

The other two words are more wonderful, sweet on the tongue,and dulcet on the air...

Subpoena Power

Comments

[urox.livejournal.com]

Subpoena Power

It sounds so sexy when you type it. ;P

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Doesn't it just make you feel warm all over?

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I put myself on a no-politics diet for the past few days, too, and I think it was really good for me; it let me come to the returns tonight (via NPR and the Web, *not* television) refreshed and cautiously hopeful.

It's not roses. There was no single candidate for whom I could stir up a strong passion on my ballot. It felt ... weird ... to be largely voting *against* a regime.

But all in all, I'm pround of the American electorate, who managed to rise above the flood of lies, dirty tricks and ugly campaign tactics.

And yes: Subpoena power. If nothing gets accomplished over the next two years but holding some people accountable for the clusterfuck of the Bush administration, that will be more than enough.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

We can't rest. There are no laurels yet. This was the qualifying heat. The real race is yet to be won, and those whom we have now elected need to have their feet put to the fire.

There has to be be a quid pro quo here. This was the mandate that we've not seen handed out in this country for some twelve years, and those who now hold it, have to be made to use it.

TK

Two beautiful words, indeed

[waterlilly.livejournal.com]

I was afraid to watch, and afraid to hope. I'll confess I drank rather a bit to keep my courage up, and then was sorry for being slightly befuddled while watching what, after 2004, I could only call a miracle.

I cannot wait to watch how this plays out.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I told my daughter that there was the first time in my lifetime there'd been a female Speaker. She grinned and said "What took so long?" (I like Pelosi on a LOT of grounds other than her gender. But it doesn't hurt...)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the R's have lost the house and am hopeful about them losing the Senate.

However, in the NPR quotes from random voters, *none* of those I heard mentioned torture or civil liberties, and I wish those were more important to the public.

[antiquated-tory.livejournal.com]

At the very minimum, this should mean no more free ride for the WH. No more unchallenged trampling of legislative perogative by the WH. This might be technical and it's not as sexy as subpoena power but by God it will be nice to make those gobshites justify their legally dubious, authoritarian, cockamainy behavior.

Quakers? <i>Terrorists</i>?

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

The current administration called the Quakers terrorists?

Ye ghodz. I hadn't heard. Unbelieveable.

Re: Quakers? <i>Terrorists</i>?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yep. It came out in the '04 elections, they put various Meetings and Committees on watch lists. They have kept them there, or added new ones in the time since.

TK

Re: Quakers? <i>Terrorists</i>?

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

The mind boggles...

[karl-lembke.livejournal.com]

(Virginia is almost certainly going to be a court case, esp. if Webb gets the call).

I'd be willing to bet money there will be no court case if Webb gets the call.
That's one big difference between the two parties.