I've been wringing my hands over what's happening to this country for so long - since the Nov. 2000 "election," really - and it's time I quit wringing and started doing something. Not being sure where I'd put a barricade but being quite sure it'd look pretty silly for one short, chubby, middle-aged woman to be "manning" it, I look around for what else I could do...well, the internet makes it easy to send outraged emails to Congress and the White House and the State capitol. So I've increased my rate of doing that.

I've spent all these years since the Occupation of the White House reading and listening (radio), trying to understand how things work, what's happening. I surprised myself by beginning to perceive people's motivations behind their actions. I could be wrong, probably am sometimes, but if it's true that "by their deeds you shall know them," I think Bush & Co. have painted a pretty clear picture by now.

What baffles me now is how ANYONE with ANY intelligence whatsoever could believe a word t/he/y say/s. What baffles me is how so many professional news people - who are *supposed* to be the world's most cynical human beings - continue to take Bush Administration utterances at face value, with no follow-up questions - and there are dozens of follow-up questions BEGGING to be asked whenever one of those sociopathic liars speaks in public - and how true political investigative journalism seems to be completely missing from television news these days. They're all "personalities" (hairdos) or celebrities.

Even people with decades of experience don't seem to realize who they're dealing with. They ask questions AS IF there must be some benevolent reason for the outrageous acts of this Administration. AS IF Bush & Co.'s systematic destruction of The Bill of Rights could maybe be a reasonable approach to anything, if only the interviewee would share the reasons with us.

I'm really really sick of the media acting as if the current Administration is anything other than a fascist regime in power due to a coup achieved through the rigging of national elections. I'm sick of the "President" and his cronies marching us lockstep off the short dock to turning the USA into another Third World dictatorship suited only to serve the wealthiest with underpaid manpower and stolen natural resources. I'm sick of their pandering to fundamentalist lunacy, beating our science and social support systems down, back to the Dark Ages.

At the same time, like everyone else, I have a mortgage and look ahead to the likelihood of increasing medical costs as I get older. I can't quit my job and take to the streets - well, I could, but what would that accomplish? Living in a box under a bridge isn't a very effective political statement.

Well, I'll start with what I can do now. I've got this blog, that some people read (not many, but I have Statcounter, I know people visit here), so instead of using it only as the not-very-interesting personal diary it's been, I'm going to sound off here when I need to. Will it help? I don't know; not much, probably. But it's a record that one more person is not buying the bullshit.

Road Through Kurdistan: Travels in Northern Iraq - Another book I'll have to find, Powell's review linked below. In reading The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia, I'm finding out that NOTHING we've been trained to think about that part of the world (which is, essentially, nothing, except maybe that they're "primitive tribespeople" and it's very mountainous, which is half true) has any relationship to reality.

It's discouraging because it's such a complicated mess and has been for so long, and there are so many powers vying for ascendancy over there, and have been for over a hundred years, that I don't think there's ANY honorable alternative to what we're doing (which I don't believe is honorable for one nanosecond). It's fascinating reading, but then glimpsing the truth always is.

But it's disgusting that we are so ignorant of what keeps our precious "free market democracy" running. As usual, the people at whose expense we thrive have no such illusions about us. We're in Afghanistan and Iraq, we're dealing with the butchers in Khazakstan and Uzbekistan etc, we're ignoring what Russia's doing to the Chechyans, for the oil. Period. Full stop. They know it. *I* knew it by September 18, 2001 - the minute I heard the word Afghanistan, I thought, uh oh, primo excuse here we come. Why didn't everybody else know it?

Why do I ask? It's deliberate, cultivated ignorance. Everybody just keeps on being good little patriotic consumers.

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Today's Review From
Times Literary Supplement

Road Through Kurdistan: Travels in Northern Iraq
by Archibald Milne Hamilton

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Read today's review in HTML at:
http://www.powells.com/tls/review/2005_03_27

Woo hoo, now I've done my 15 @ 15 twice this week. This is a major improvement from having done NONE for MONTHS. I even did some stomach crunches the way my Doctor advised me. They sound weenie but they HURT. Man, I'm out of shape. But it amazes me every time how much better I feel right after exercizing! (Is that spelled right? It doesn't look right.) Anyhow, here I go, trying to get back in the habit of working out again. I had that danged flu two weeks ago, for like 8 days, and it's just so nice to feel alive again!

I took a book down there to read on the bike, but I also had M. Ward's next-to-last CD playing in the headphones, and I quickly dumped the book to pedal (and sing, if singing is what you call what I do) along with M. I want his new CD!!!

Not a very exciting blog, but one, at least.