We have retired military officers pushing the party line in the media.
We have agent provocateurs infiltrating our vegan potlucks in order to quell dissent.
We have a congress falling all over itself to protect the companies that helped Bush and Co. to commit multiple felonies.
We have a “Justice” Department that refuses to enforce any subpoena that Congress hands down.
The same “Justice” Department also seems to have colluded with the White House to jail Democrats for political reasons.
I have been aware of these stories for some time. They are just the tip of the iceberg. I really don’t know what to say. I could post every day on these subjects, but yelling, “WHY THE FUCK DOESN’T ANYONE CARE THAT CRIMINALS ARE OPENLY COMMITTING CRIMES AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT EVERY TIME?”, whilst bashing my head against the keyboard and dreaming about the sweet release provided by a nice cold, hoppy IPA does not good reading make.
I recently was acquainted with the idea of fuzzing an investigation. Basically it means to blur the details of something by cutting the information up into little bits. Each bit needs the other bits to make any sense, so by isolating parts of the information from the other parts, the truth gets fuzzed up.
I think that is kinda what is going on. There are so many things wrong with our government right now that it is impossible to grasp the big picture. Every day we hear of a new scandal, or a new investigation, or a new tale of malfeasance and woe. There is no way to worry about what happened yesterday, because we are just hearing a new bit about a new scandal. The avalanche of these News Bit Sound Bites paralyzes our sense of outrage. Mine is pegged constantly.
The result? I freeze up. I am at a loss. I fail as any kind of instrument of change because I am simply overpowered by the deluge of wrongness.
Or, as my wise friend Wilson puts it:
Inch by inch, life’s a cinch.
Yard by yard, life is hard.
Hard to count the inches when the outrage stretches to the moon.
Donkey Punch 
I don’t know what to tell you, because I feel the same way. I have made a post or two at my place that say about the same thing as yours, although not with your depth of outrage and fatigue… I wish I had words of encouragement, but words of encouragement coming from a cynical person just sounds really contrived and stupid.
Try to concentrate on the good things you do have, and you have some good ones to be sure…. Maybe things will work out eventually. Not that I am terribly convinced of that myself, but maybe… If nothing else, I get a certain amount of satifaction knowing that these crooks know what they have been doing and they are embarrassed to have all their dirty laundry aired in public. I love how Bush and all his enablers and minions are just absolutely BESIDES themselves over Scott McClellan’s new book. Who would have thought he would have had it in him? Anyway, just to watch all these people squirm is providing at least some small amount of satisfaction. If they were REALLY proud of what they have been doing, I don’t figure they would get this frantic….
Anyway… There’s always tomorrow. Ya never know.
Comment by zeppo — May 28, 2008 @ 9:16 pm
like i said.. nobody cares. they’re just waiting for the end of Bush…. It will be up to the few insiders who actually give a shit. Popular outrage is passe. I’m not saying I’m happy about it.
Comment by grindchopblend — May 28, 2008 @ 10:39 pm
“Caring” and “feeling powerless to do anything about all the injustices going on” are two very different things, GCB. Many of us have families to care for, lives (with all their complexities and weirdness) to live. And what would you, pray tell, have us regular people who have absolutely no say in anything, other than every few years at the ballot box, to do? Go up and egg Bush’s motorcade, which would accomplish nothing but get us arrested? That is what Toby is saying, I think. Not only is almost everything going wrong with today’s society, we feel powerless to affect any of it.
Myself, I am pretty convinced that this globe is on the edge of a catastrophe. Maybe not for the globe itself, as it has survived through many interesting epochs. But things are going to get pretty dicey for humans in the next couple hundred years. Is there ANY possible thing that I can do about that? No. Societies around the globe are not going to make the changes necessary, en masse, that are necessary to stop this slow moving crisis. Heck, a lot of Americans think that global climate change is still some sort of “liberal plot”, just because they cannot bring themselves to believe that the people they have designated “their enemies” (meaning us) might be right about ANYTHING.
So, you who “give a shit” can go out and do… whatever it is that you want to do to make yourselves feel like you are accomplishing something.
And, I got news for you, you couldn’t be more incorrect when you say “popular outrage is passe”. That’s bull. Many of us are outraged. Don’t you read the blogs? (If not, how did you end up here?) The problem is the enormity of the problems make it feel like that we are trying to stop a tsunami with a wall of sand made with a plastic pail and shovel. Personally, I think depression and dispair are perfectly understandable.
Comment by zeppo — May 29, 2008 @ 5:48 am
I hear you, Zeppo. and don’t take Choppy too seriously. She’s one of us, she just has her own way of putting things.
I think we need to start tightening our circles, expanding our networks, and encouraging more local community. Community will be all we have if all hell breaks loose, and it probably would do us good to have the systems already in place.
And the next couple of hundred years? try the next couple of decades…
Comment by t4toby — May 29, 2008 @ 6:45 am
ouch zep…. i AM one of the outraged. The few to whom I refer as “giving a shit” are the ones in DC and around the country who are actually trying to bring criminal charges and consequences to the thug Bushies… But I would like to toss a few eggs at Bush’s limo if given the chance…
Comment by grindchopblend — May 29, 2008 @ 9:41 am
You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet…
Comment by t4toby — May 29, 2008 @ 9:43 am
Sorry…. I get really riled up at times. I also have a friend, who was also supposed to be a contributor to my blog but doesn’t get there very often, who gets on me when I start feeling powerless and disaffected. “Go out and do something!” What?
Anyway, I apologize if I misread that.
Comment by zeppo — May 29, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
Don’t worry. Choppy is hard to understand if you don’t understand that she is almost always snarking/being sarcastic/being a smartass.
Its how she rolls.
Comment by t4toby — May 29, 2008 @ 1:43 pm
I for one want an end put to those “vegan pot lucks”. It gets the vegans all energetic and I have a harder time catching and cooking one for dinner.
As to the rest, you know who has been bitching a storm and fighting the power elite dogs FOR DECADES.
All ya gotta do is vote for him.
BTW, always cook your vegan medium rare. They get stringy and flavorless if overcooked.
The scientifically impossible I do right away
The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer
Comment by ClapSo — May 30, 2008 @ 1:27 am
The worst part is, the whole police infiltration thing isn’t even secret anymore. They can do whatever they like, as long as they announce it first.
To counter this, something cool I saw today: by Bryant Park the NYPD had a recruitment table set up. No less than 20 feet away, two young people with shirts and fliers reading “We Are All Sean Bell”. The cops looked SO annoyed.
P.S. if this was the USSR, we’d all have free health care.
Comment by Travis — May 30, 2008 @ 6:22 am
Dammit, Travis.
Thanks for reminding me.
Clapso-
I hear the corn fed vegans taste the best.
Comment by t4toby — May 30, 2008 @ 7:42 am
Not to mention, the easy access to all those Russian brides….
Comment by grindchopblend — May 30, 2008 @ 11:32 am
I prefer to fatten up my vegans with tofu. This seems to be their natural foodstuff.
Tofu is also an otherwise completely useless, tasteless byproduct of an unknown agrarian industrial process. Feeding tofu to edible vegans is therefore very efficient.
The scientifically impossible I do right away
The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer
Comment by ClapSo — May 30, 2008 @ 8:54 pm
It is my sincere belief that tofu is wallpaper paste that has gone past its expiration date. They have to find SOMETHING to do with it.
Comment by zeppo — May 31, 2008 @ 5:15 am
heating tofu with soy sauce and extra sharp cheddar cheese melted on top, when served on whole wheat toast with a teeny bit of mayonaise (and possibly sprouts and avocado) seems to be pretty decent something to do with it.
Comment by sarah — May 31, 2008 @ 9:34 pm
I was just letting the carnivores have their fun.
I like it fried.
Comment by t4toby — June 1, 2008 @ 9:35 am
Ma-Po tofu FTW. Mmmm.
Of course, most vegans aren’t gonna be too hip on the whole tofu-with-pork-and-oyster-sauce thing, but hey… more for me.
Mmmm. Sweet, sweet, glorious pig.
Comment by protected static — June 2, 2008 @ 10:12 am