Nothing Else To Do

It's all very disturbing, quite terrifying, he said.

They were sitting around the table, drinking coffee and admiring the sunny day. It had been a long time since the sun had been out.

What is terrifying?

The people don't care who leads them. They just want the borders closely watched and the flag waving in the wind. They're a mostly unprincipled lot who yearn to be told what to think by the loudest buffoon on the stage.

Oh my. I do believe that you're beginning to show your age. There was a time when the view of the 'people in the street' would have been all that concerned you.

You don't understand.

Enlighten me.

So they sat there thru the afternoon. They spoke of the news of the day. The spoke of idealism. They complained about the demise of principle and of the rise of plausible deniability. They talked about liars and lying and why it seems to come so easy.

They sat there and in the end nothing was resolved. They still has a sick feeling in their guts and a feeling of helplessness in their hearts. There was nothing he could do but talk. Nothing to do but complain. Yet after talking for hours, they felt just as bad as when they started.

So they decided to call it a day and say good night, and as evening settled in they went their separate ways. There was nothing else to do.

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Originally composed in November 2002. No such conversation actually took place, although it certainly could have.

10:12:15 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Things Aren't the Same Anymore

Soon after 9-11, it was common to hear people say, Things aren't the same anymore, in response to concerns about due process or civil liberties or fears of a growing police state.

Things aren't the same, alright, but the way in which they are turning out to be different is probably not quite what most people had in mind.

Here are some good comments by The Left Coaster on how we have changed things in ways that might be with us for a very long time.

[LeftCoaster/When The Means Corrupt the End]: Such is the honor and glory that Bush's war of choice has brought. How could we have allowed such a small-minded man the power to be Yazid so that he could destroy the honor and the souls of our soldiers based on the lies he planted in their hearts? Bush lied about Saddam's threat to us. He lied when he said Saddam supported bin Laden or al Qaeda. And he lied when he said Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. The Bush crew believe the ends justify the means. But what they have proven is that the outcome is guaranteed to be as corrupt as the means that were used. And we will rue this for generations.

8:44:02 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []