I will never stop being grateful to Keith Olbermann. He was a beacon in the times of political darkness, made me feel like the media wasn't 100% owned by the junta.
He was a general in the drive to 2008. It's even possible that Obama wouldn't have had a chance without him, though I have no information proving that.
He helped Rachel Maddow, a remarkable liberal sensibility, become a relevant star in our world.
But I won't be watching their shows anymore, as of last night. They have become irrelevant to my life.
Here's why.
It comes down to this: you waste too many segments wasted reporting the Republican Side Show. When the GOP was running our country off the rails, Keith and Rachel's nightly reports were a significant part of the 'constant vigilance' our liberty demands. The Blue Two kept me armed with information we could use to wake up others and keep myself motivated.
Then we won.
Now it is no longer patriotic to devote two of my precious daily sixteen hours to hearing about the latest brainless insanities of the GOP. That's no longer constant vigilance. That's obsession.
As entertaining as K&R were, watching them wasn't about entertainment. I was constantly disgusted by the way the GOP turned elections into trivial episodes of American Idol. The appalling and profound failures of Bush and his party during their years in power was never entertaining. But I had to know what was going on and nobody else on TV was reporting. K&R made the lessons easier to take, but their lessons were unomittable.
However, now K&R waste too much of my time with stories about the cancerous writhings of the GOP, who are a small, irrelevant regional party searching for a way to package their empty, baseless, destructive philosophy. Whether they're screeching about the president who might actually be able to save our country, or acting out the famous circular firing squad, nothing the GOP does means ANYTHING to me anymore.
I don't want to be entertained by Michael Steele's moronic experiments in hip-hop republicanism. Watching them squirm, hearing their ugly, anti-patriotic rants, was fun for a few months because I dig schadenfruede as much as the next person. But it has become a waste of very precious and limited time, in a time of dire emergency.
It's a grotesque, ludicrous waste of time. Pissing away two of my sixteen waking hours focused on the totally irrelevant GOP was evidence that I wasn't taking our national calamity seriously enough.
We won. But we won a world in a great depression. It's as though the GOP was a suicide bomber. They blew it up for all of us, and now, instead of focusing on the task at hand, of how I can contribute to cleaning things up, I have been spending two hours a day thinking angry thoughts about the suicide bomber, who is dead and gone.
It's not a question of 'looking forward instead of looking backward.' Let's get the world back on track and THEN kick the criminals' asses.
I need to be focusing on finding out what I can do to help - and then actually executing.
Those two hours can be better used accomplishing what I can to help Obama save our world.
THAT'S what our truly wonderful, brilliant and entertaining Keith and Rachel ought to be filling their hours with, Stuff We Can Do. Along with Stuff That Is Being Done. That's two segments per show right there, probably more. Imagine how effective, how brilliantly useful, that would be. K&R have proven that the liberal outlook doesn't have to be boring. They can make Stuff We Can Do entertaining with just as much grace.
Further, in that there is a large psychological component feeding the recession/depression, how about a segment or two every day on Evidence That The Stimulus Is Working? At this juncture such stories wouldn't be happy-talk. We need to hear the positive stuff every day, and we need to keep it circulating.
It may not be easy to fill up five segments every night, but why not put that effort into keeping us focused, positive and activist?
Everybody who watches them would not only discover a way to contribute, but they'd know how to advise others on this utterly vital matter. People want to know what they can do. K&R should be Information Central.
How about just one single segment every day (or two or maybe three) wrapping up the news of the enemies of democracy, so we constantly know what we are fighting against while we are fighting FOR recovery and a liberal democracy? I don't need more than five minutes per day, really, really, really. Less'd be even better.
I don't need the Bushed segment anymore, or Worst Persons, or what brainless shit Rush and Bill-o are spewing today. I don't even need to hear about truth commissions and Rove testimony.
Let congress go about the job of learning how to prevent this from happening again for another 50 years, I'll read about it in the newspapers and their websites.
K&R: Let me know when I can contribute positive reinforcement to the White Hats in congress. I don't need to focus on it full time.
K&R: You believed in your power to focus the left on winning. Don't become irrelevant sideshows now, believe in your power to get us focused on How We Can Help. This is your great moment, greater than the one in the dark days. Seize it.
I'll check in now and then to see if K&R are once again relevant to me. What Can I Do?, is what I care to know, not what Sean Hannity said last night.
It really isn't not a question of 'looking forward instead of looking backward,' I swear.
That is, the fucking house is burning down and right now we're all needed to pass buckets of water.