100th Post

Yes, that's right, I've arrived at the magical, meaningless, 100th post. If I were to collect all these rantings and bind them together and try to sell it as a book, that book would be called:

100 innane little comments about nothing in particular.

However, I think we're going to have to use this post to draw attention to something a little more terrifying.

The U.S. is engaging in torture. There's really no other way to put it. Over the past month the President has engaged in an active campaign to 'define' torture. Put another way, he's engaged in an active attempt to 'redefine' torture. In fact, according to the Geneva conventions currently in place, George W. Bush could be prosecuted for crimes against humanity just based on information he's released to the media!

How did we get here?

9/11. Before 9/11 the Bush administration was rudderless, almost without any popular support, surviving on the basis of a Republican congress, and likely on the way to becoming recognized as a dismal failure.

Enter 19 terrorists. Chaos follows.

Uh...hello? The terrorists won. They got everything they wanted. Our government is slowly destroying everything that made America the envy of the world in the first place. We have no solidarity, we secretly kidnap and imprison people for no reason without even telling them why, we have needless instigated wars in foreign countries, spawning a new wave of hatred.

Let's be clear. After 9/11 there was only 1 rational response: Shrugging it off.

Yeah, close to 4,000 people died, all at once, on national T.V., in the biggest city in the country. I'm not saying we forget that.

But let's be clear, if someone hits you in the face you hit back.

You don't pull out a hand grenade.

There isn't aspect of America that is better now than before 9/11. We're less safe, we've got less rights, and we've got a lot of dead soldiers. We've got a country that is so strongly divided that we can't even talk to each other about certain issues.

I blame Republicans. They could have easily maintained a comfortable lead in the polls of public opinion and in Congress without putting the country through this hell (although they probably couldn't have held the White House).

I blame the Democrats. Throughout the process they never suspected that the Republicans would take things this far. Illegal wiretaps? Torture? Secret prisons? The Democrats have been so shell-shocked by the continuing revelations that they've never organized themselves enough to stop anything.

The country is a mess, and it wasn't 6 years ago.

Remember when our biggest problem was a President with a sex drive?