It is time, my friends, to name the beast

Tonight my daughter and I drove down a street in our town where a small bog has developed on a rare patch of spare land. The weather is warm -- the first warm day in two weeks -- and the bog is alive with the sounds of crickets, and frogs, and other creatures of the night.

We roll down the windows and slow to a crawl, my eyes peeled to the rear view mirror. We'll move when a vehicle approaches from behind. In the meantime, we soak in the sound. "Listen," I tell her. "Listen and memorize it. I'm so afraid you're going to be trying to explain this sound to your children and your grandchildren."

My daughter doesn't say a word. She just listens. To the sounds, I hope. She is tired of listening to me -- I have become the voice of sadness, and of loss, and of fear. I can keep the tears from coming if I make light. "Well, you have those CDs," I say to my daughter. "You know, the ones with the night sounds, and the one with the dolphins."

"Yeah, I still have those, Mom, don't worry," she says.

Car lights reflect off the mirror and I press the gas pedal, and we drive away from the sounds in the bog. The tears form pools in my eyes and I feel like my heart is going to break.

I can remember a time when I wasn't so damn hopeless and histrionic. I didn't used to drive around rolling the windows down and swooning over frogs croaking in the night. But I am scared shitless and growing more hopeless by the day. The smartest people on the planet are being ignored and ridiculed while crap governments continue to abuse, swindle, and pollute like there's no tomorrow.

Today is Earth Day. I haven't slept all night. I've been awake through the entire day before Earth Day, and into Earth Day now, and I can't seem to sleep. I'm exhausted, but not ready to sleep. I check dKos, I go to google. Google's Earth Day image shocks me: a graphic of melting ice caps.
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Only two years ago, it was an image of an oak tree, a squirrel, and a bird.

I watched the film "Bobby" tonight. In the movie, there's a segment -- from a campaign commercial or a program, I'm not sure -- with Kennedy talking to school children about how much we pollute and what we need to do immediately to stop it. That was 1968. Today, we have an administration that silences scientists, has corporate friends who pay propagandists to deny global warming, and refuses to take any role in reducing emissions of any kind. No, it has friends in the "friendly coal" industry, and the big SUV industry, and the oil industry, and ...

I read other diaries on dKos. Like Maccabee's recap of Frank Rich.

What’s being lost in the Beltway uproar is the extent to which the lying, cronyism and arrogance showcased by the current scandals are of a piece with the lying, cronyism and arrogance that led to all the military funerals that Mr. Bush dares not attend. Having slept through the fraudulent selling of the war, Washington is still having trouble confronting the big picture of the Bush White House. Its dense web of deceit is the deliberate product of its amoral culture, not a haphazard potpourri of individual blunders.

http://www.dailykos.com/...

"Its amoral culture." Amen. On Earth Day and every other day, we have an administration that is entirely criminal and lethal to the people it purports to govern. It is not a government of mistakes and blunders. It is a government of crooks and creeps, entirely staffed by authoritarians, criminals, propagandists, and shills entirely financed by our tax dollars.

The voices we respect the most -- Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Bill Moyers -- are trying to say it. Why can't any of our elected representatives say it? For chrissakes, they're in Washington, they see it, they know what is going on, and it's time to say it.

What would happen? A meltdown of government? Pardon me, but we've already got that. What, New Orleans would still be a mess, the war would drone on, our kids would be abused with NCLB, our food would be tainted? We're already there, kids. You say our elections would be screwed with, our tax money would support charlatans, our rights of habeus corpus, free speech, and free assembly would be curtailed? They been there and done that. We'd be a nation in a state of civil emergency, a country entirely bankrupt and confused, citizens spied on and oppressed? That is our daily bread.

I can't take much more. I gave as much money to good candidates as a single mom can, and I've helped fund moveon commercials, and "Iraq For Sale," and god knows what else and I'm drained and broke. I need to buy CFLs and solar panels, and an acre of land to grow food on ... I need to do something besides worry and cry and drive slowly past bogs.

Almost everything I am doing is useless. I call my representative's office: "please hold Bush to a timetable for withdrawal." They take my name, my address. They'll use my money to send me a dumb letter. Printed on paper they chopped down a tree to produce, all so they could blow smoke up my ass on official stationery.

My city is not doing anything right (build more shit, destroy more wetlands, support more polluters, encourage factory farms, elect faith-based politicians), my state isn't doing anything right (it's Indiana -- say no more), and the federal government isn't doing anything right. NOT ONE THING RIGHT. That is huge, that is monumental, it is obscene. NOT ONE THING RIGHT. And a great, great many things that are wrong, wrong, wrong.

And where would one turn for redress? The highest court in the land? Now a joke. U.S. attorneys? All bought and paid for by Bushco.

I have no idea what this administration thinks the end game is. More and more, I believe they either envision a world with a much smaller population of like-minded folks, or are nihilists to a degree heretofore unfathomable. If you want the earth to survive, and most of its peoples to prosper, you do not behave this way. However, if you believe in survival of the fittest (even while masquerading as a Jesus-loving faith-based politician), you grab the goodies for yourself and your tribe and tell the rest to go screw themselves. That's where we are at, I think. Corporations are now buying up water sources and all the arable land, and telling poor people in third world countries they cannot store seed or collect water in rain barrels (Bechtel tried to pull that one on Bolivians) -- are you kidding me?

Yes, sure, I try to stay focused. Maybe if we elect more Democrats, maybe if we give more money (the money, frankly, is a big part of what's wrong with our terrible system of government and if we don't fix it soon it will destroy us).

The truth is, I never drive by that bog and think about RaceTracker or who's running in District Whatever. I think about how far we've come that this is our response to wholesale catastrophe. The world is going to hell, and Mall of America wants taxpayer subsidies so it can expand. Obviously, in the scorched and starving future, there will be a need for some more stores and another skating rink.

Each of us struggles with the question: what can I do? Some days I want to run for office, some days I want to go to my own Walden Pond, some days I want to light myself on fire on the capitol steps to make somebody goddamn listen (that would be worth three and a half minutes in the MSM schedule -- it would be four, but I am neither blonde nor young, nor have I ever worked in Hollywood). None of it seems the least bit helpful.

Is this because we will not name the beast? The beast is our own government. Not just one person, not just one policy, but the whole reeking thing, top to bottom. Scandal after scandal, story after story, hearing after hearing -- no one thing is going to do it, because it's the biggest, worst mess this country (and the world) has ever seen. A country so corrupted, misguided, and weaponized that we have lost every friend we ever had.

I'm so tired. So utterly tired. Six years of tired. No, 50 years. Government has been mediocre at best my entire life, and corporations own my life. Reagan made me ill, and Bush I did, too, and there have been very few bright spots. I work to pay my bills and buy life insurance so my kids can carry on the cycle of work and death.

I told my daughter we should take a tape recorder out to that bog. We should record those sounds. It's Earth Day and that's what I'll celebrate: that maybe I have some time left to do that.

•  I'm going to have to stop doing this

  In the dead of night, when you're all asleep, I still keep talking to you. May you hear a frog today.

  by JuliaAnn on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 05:20:34 AM PDT

  •  Peepers

    The peepers were out yesterday evening not far from my home, making their joyful noise :-)

    by figleef on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 08:42:20 AM PDT

    •  Joyful Noise

      Yay!  I found a link to the peepers' joyful noise for those of you who don't live around peepers :-) :-)

      While I'm at it, my second favorite singing frog that I've heard in person (though it doesn't live near me), el coquí.

      by figleef on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 08:52:17 AM PDT

•  I heard a wood thrush this AM

  and I understand your angst. I don't pretend to have an answer to any of your concerns. To celebrate Earth Day today, I will clean up all the winter branches, maybe prune the hollies, check out the perennial bed.

  I hope that more Americans become aware of what has happened in the last 6 (or 30) years. I hope that a majority of Americans realize that we have been sold a bill of goods: it ain't working anymore, we ALL fear that our children's lives will be much harder than what us as baby boomers have faced. So WE feel guilt, for what we have colluded for our children and grandchildren. We just didn't know how badly things could turn out.

  I am still optimistic that things can be turned around. It will take decades, probably, and if you are the same age as me, we will probably not live to see the fruition. We still must try, on a personal level, as well as a civic one, to wrest back control of our country from some very powerful groups.

  Peace, enjoy a pretty day, if that is what it is where you live.

  From a former Hoosier.

  by riverlover on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 05:37:55 AM PDT

•  all is not lost

  I just went outside to check on my young mango tree. It was planted less than three years ago, and will bear fruit for the first time this spring. It will be a small crop, but I'm ecstatic because I didn't expect the tree to produce fruit for several years.

  Little things like this let me know that there is hope for the planet. Yeah, Dubya is doing his part to tear things down. We must continue to see the world that we want, and bring it forth.

  by CocoaLove on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 05:52:19 AM PDT

•  You have so harshed my mellow.

  Well, you would have, except that (like you) I haven't had a mellow in a long, long time.

  by UntimelyRippd on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 05:54:39 AM PDT

  •  Yeah ...

    ... it does something to you after a while, doesn't it?

    by JuliaAnn on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:00:23 AM PDT

•  I listened to the birds at sunrise, this morning,

  and it comforted me.  Mother Earth will right things in the long run but it may have to get rid of a few fleas first. Where does the circle begin or end.  It doesn't, it just goes on and on. I may not be here to see it but that is less important than that it does. I agree with you that our children will face the pain of all this.  But in the end they will learn a very valuable lesson.

  by Owllwoman on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:05:28 AM PDT

•  Thanks for a great diary.

  Remember this: you're not alone.  Check this out.

  by davidseth on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:06:36 AM PDT

•  More seriously ...

  ... your diary is without flaw.

  Nothing more perfectly illustrates the vast class divide between the American citizen and the American politician than the refusal, year after year after year, of the Democrats in office to stand up and denounce, in plain, uncompromising terms, this gangster administration.

  Even the ones I respect -- Feingold, for example -- can't bring themselves to break through the little box around the comic strip, and speak starkly and frankly about the sociopath-in-chief and his entourage of profiteering enablers, filling their pockets with gold extracted from corpses. (Yes, Godwin's law almost got me in that sentence.)

  A scary, messed-up college student runs amok, in a festival of death. The nation hangs its collective head, wrings its hands. The self-appointed nannies lecture us that this is the wages of liberalism. How can they fail to make the connection to the butcher-in-chief? Do they not hear the echo, in Cho's mocking contempt for his victims, of the smirking murderer's merciless mocking of the pathetic Ms. Tucker? Do they not perceive that Cho's rampage in Virginia Tech and Bush's rampage through Iraq are of a coin?

  Meanwhile, incomprehensibly, "Republicanism" and "Conservatism" have somehow morphed into an bizarre philosophy of hedonism, of all things. They tut and shake their fingers at the rest of us, but their entire political edifice is founded on a desperate need that the party must continue. Few have yet asked the obvious question, what is the connection between conservatism and a willful disregard for observable reality? The only answer I can find is "Darwinian Evolution," the rejection of which (itself founded, not in scripture, but in pathetic egoism) sets the cognitive stage for a delusional existence predicated on wishful thinking.

  Damn!

  by UntimelyRippd on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:15:42 AM PDT

  •  They are like children

    ... very badly-behaving children. They are selfish, impulsive, ignorant, lacking in wisdom. They think wishfulness and made-up stories are a good substitute for reality.

    These are not the qualities of maturity. These are not the people who should be leading our nation, our world, our family.

    They should be having a time out, a little quiet time before their bath, and then off to bed. We are the adults here, we need to take charge.

    by DBunn on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 07:13:16 AM PDT

  •  Madison Avenue and Wall Street have warped...

    our national sense of reality.  You are quite right that Virginia Tech and Iraq are connected.  What Cho did was terrible and tragic.  We are all sad and outraged for the victims.  Why then are we not outraged and sad about our 3300 servicemen and women who have died in this foolish war?  This is the equivalent of 100 Virginia Techs.  Or the Iraqi people who, according to Johns Hopkins, have suffered 660,000 deaths-- the equivalent of 20,000 Virginia Techs.  This is not to minimize the pain and empathy we should and do feel for what happened in Blacksburg, but to ask that we also feel the pain of those who have suffered through the misguided policies of our shameful government.  

    by djohnutk on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 08:32:54 AM PDT

•  Goopers consider Indiana a role model, Julia

  Michigan Republicans, who are a mixture of religious fundies and "starve-the-beast" absolutists (the two categories overlap), constantly hold up Indiana as a model of good government. They want Michigan to become a low-tax, low-services state--except for an ever-expanding prison system.

  by Dump Terry McAuliffe on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:31:58 AM PDT

•  The beast is "We the People"

  We have settled for mediocrity. The TV has lived up to its old moniker "the idiot box" and produced a nation full of self-indulgent, uninquisitive, unquestioning, consumers of corporate products.

  The government is a product of the people and the corporations that control them.

  by FishOutofWater on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:34:00 AM PDT

  •  This gets close to the nub.

    How the [insert shrieked profanity] do you get Americans off the damn couch, or at least get the remote in their hands replaced with a keyboard rattling off daily screeds to reps, sens, editors, etc.?

    What are we going to do with a population that doesn't know the first thing about how their government is supposed to work, let alone how it's being used by their "leaders?"

    Myself, I wear a provacative shirt every day and prepare myself for calm discussions in single-syllable words with those who object.  I can't get an LTE published or get on the radio every day, but I can make it clear with my clothes how I feel about the scum at the top of our current pond.

    

    Back to the practical question:  how can we move our fellow countrymen to throw the bums out and fix this damned country?

    by Crashing Vor on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:51:49 AM PDT

  •  word

    by subtropolis on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:52:32 AM PDT

•  take a trip...

  ...to the skagit river when eagles are hunting salmon, or the oregon coast when winter storms are pounding the beach, or a hot pool in idaho's bitterroot mountains, or any part of vancouver island, and it will help remind you why we fight.

  nice diary, and thanks for the work.

  by fake consultant on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:35:01 AM PDT

•  burn out

  every once in a while we all go on overload. I did back in Dec. when I wrote this as part of my diary titled Burnt Out.

  As I sit here reading Dkos, PBS is talking about Diana, and the Ct surrounding her death. The New Super Duo of McCain and Lieberman, while on their first campaign trip to Iraqi, called for a troop increase of 30,000. Bush is putting off telling us that he too plans on sending more troops. Both the Marine and Army heads are telling us both services are broken and need more men. The Iraq Study Group has completed it's job of distracting for a month or 2. The Justice Dept. is still telling Judges and the rest of us that black is white. To be fair, Chertoff is still telling us white is black, by letting us know we need a guest worker program to control immigration at the same time DHS hands out it's report saying it needs more money since it only has control of 15% of the borders. Rush is going on and on about the size of Baracks ears while loudly saying at least he isn't bashing him for his middle name. Hillary is wining and dining with Murdock.

  Even now the BBC is saying 10,000 American scientist are tired of Bush telling them to lie, or hushup. Not seen in the American press tho. Lou does a townmeeting in Tampa. Tons of great questions, asking for answers. Many more tons of spin on our future being the children and education, but not a word about how to pay the Ins. or Taxes to provide that stuff.

  MediCareD is falling apart. While everyone is talking about the drug prices, the Ins. companys have done away with the Gap coverage for everything but generics, if you can find a company that still offers the coverage at all.( I couldn't )

  It all goes on and on to the point of seemingly endless scandal and destruction, some time I just have to go hug a tree or walk on the beach to, just as you, listen to the world. Hang tough. Some of my best pieces have been written since I burned out .  ; )

  by OneCrankyDom on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:40:24 AM PDT

•  I put my breakfast in the solar oven today.

  And I'm going to spend most of the rest of the day in the garden.

  It helps me to take control of some things like that.  I know they are small gestures, but it helps my brain to cope.  There are lots of days I feel like the melting ice....

  by mem from somerville on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:49:26 AM PDT

  •  Find your own way to survive...

        In the end it is about survival and making your life, short as it is, revolve around as much joy as we can find. I, too, find myself in these thoughts more and more. Like JuliaAnn, I also watched "Bobby" last night. It wasn't so much about RFK as it was about that time in our lives and how it parallels today. The clip from S&G's "Sounds of Silence" was worth the rental.
        JuliaAnn, you write one mean diary. Passion exudes with every sentence. Keep your chin up and your eyes bright because we have to make a better place for our kids.
        I'll go out now and dig a few hosta that need dividing. I have two passions that often take my mind off the Bush created problems in the world. I brew my own beer from scratch by grinding the barley to the finished kegged product. The other passion is gardening. Today, I'll probably plant 10-15 hosta along a garden trail in the back of my lot. By late afternoon, it will be time to combine the fruits of my two labors. I'll pour myself a cool pale ale, walk with my two English Springers, Sierra and Nevada (I told you I was a beer nut) and make sure that the newly planted hosta are tucked in for the night. Oh yea, and if I hear the sound of the frogs or the owl that often visits with me, I'll say a little prayer that you sleep well tonight. Thanks again.

    by NC Dem on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 08:15:03 AM PDT

•  "Almost everything I am doing is useless."

  forget influencing the big picture politics-wise.

  I've tried to explain to folks for years there's only one way to bring the giant down-- but folks aren't interested in real collective efforts.

  the best you can do is run for local office, the school board, things that can have a tangible, positive impact on your children.

  and I suggest preparing for the worst, i.e. stock up on food, medicines, etc.

  by Superpole on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 06:53:42 AM PDT

•  It's good that you're fighting...

  ...but if I may add that always being down or conveying a feeling of helplessness might not be the best thing for your daughter. Show her that there are many things she can do to make this world a better place.

  by Motor City Canuck on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 07:00:10 AM PDT

•  Two random notes

  For those who've been considering "doing something big" to reduce their own footprint and wondering "Just how much would it cost to go solar?" Home Power has a pdf of a current article answering that question (grid-tied system, two lattitudes, 25% or 75% of power use replaced).  The pdf is downloadable at the Home Power site.  Now you can get a general idea of how much it would cost you to do something big.

  Secondly, recommended big time.

  by Crashing Vor on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 07:03:48 AM PDT

•  I wonder the same thing

  I love this time of year-I have a cardinals nest outside my kitchen and birds who return to thier nest on my frontporch column to thier nest (every year for 5 years now-the same birds). I hate to think I could not hear them. After all the bee diaries-I worry that birds could be next. So sad the way our government has put money over nature. I'm doing my part in my own little way. I am determined to see change, in policy concerning the environement. I, like you will teach my daughter to respect and appreciate nature.
  Happy Earth Day weekend!

  by bethincary on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 07:10:43 AM PDT

•  It's more depressing

  to realize the government is of our doing.

  We still move to exurbia because the inlaws expect us to have a minimum 2400 square foot house.

  We still drive SUVs because they are safer for our kids.

  We stand by while the labor movement in America is dismantled by the Reaganauts, because we find the disruptions untidy.

  We watch our schools turned into prisons.

  We call Israelis commandos, and Palestinians terrorists.

  The government is we.

  by le sequoit on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 07:46:10 AM PDT

•  the other beast

  That was a very good piece for this morning thank you. I want to invite you to crosspost at one of my new sites if you will, I think the farther we can spread our message the better. It's new and not polished but have a peek if you like? www.organicamerican.com

  I am doing all I can too, full time for almost a couple of decades now. I am exhausted too, and not optimistic ... but a little hopeful - because the other beast, not the one you named but ...Public Opinion ... is groaning a little, shifting a little, thinking a little about real stewardship, more this year than it has for a very long time. We will keep on :-)  your daughter and my sons and all the others out there, and yet to come, deserve it. :-) R

  by grassrootsbloggerdtcom on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 08:19:02 AM PDT

•  Sad

  But beautifully written.

  Thank you JuliaAnn.

  by chumley on Sun Apr 22, 2007 at 09:14:34 AM PDT