It's just a heckofa party, right?

It is unwise to discuss politics in polite company, for fear that your company will cease being polite and become your sworn enemy. Religion used to hold that distinction above all other subjects, but things have changed of late; what, with Scientology making a wacky parlor joke out of a once solemn (yet still hysterically entertaining) subject. Proliferation of information services and outlets – web 2.0, megalo-media outlets, news channels dedicated to 24 hour spew, and simplification of access and delivery from podcasting to RSS. A rare confluence of super-partisan, mouth-wagging punditry couched in rock star wordslinger hooliganism that ranges from Big Daddy O'Reilly's inability to form a simple sentence without feigning apoplectic shock over “their” bad guys who screw up publicly and raining down super-yummy apologist smooches upon “his” bad guys who screw up publicly; Bozo the Beck's puerile, goggle-eyed, circus clown imbecility presented as truth and patriotism, convincing far too many viewers he is in possession of both while clearly trading in neither; and curiously watchable train wrecks with a slimy cowlick of political pedigree masquerading as Those Who Have Ideals, like Hannity.

I've never liked political television anyway, all that pointless bickering. But I mean, please.

So what, these are charming times for advertisers and media outlets, yeah? Playing roughly on the minds of a tattered and torn lower and middle class viewership that cannot pay it's medical bills and mortgages but have a few hours in their day, like me, to watch a little television and contemplate super-sized, all-new, best-of products with the message that buying any of this shit will make me not only feel better, but be better.

I seldom watch television, except for cooking shows.

So it was with no sense of surprise whatsoever that I found my thoughts on a blog while perusing Reddit. They were my thoughts, exactly those which I think, perfectly poised, limned with the tactile care and proper phrasing which I, evidently, have never been able to muster, or simply haven't ever bothered to.

I have to digress: I was a Republican, you know. Not really, that's not true: I was told I was a Republican because even though I voted for Clinton (the alternative was ungodly and unthinkable), I had previously voted for Bush 41 (that alternative was worse than Clinton's), and God forgive me, I voted for history's most terrifying Brainless Psychotic Savant, Bush 43. Do you remember his campaigns? He didn't sound like a half-stoned goddamn nitwit until after he took office, 'cause damn, they groomed him pretty well for the trail, yes they did.

Boy, was I pissed later. And as the years went by I became more and more enraged at the abject failure of “my” party – meaning, in this case, my choice of candidates – to apply themselves and achieve the goals they were supposedly elected and sworn in to achieve, all the while stepping neatly into pile after pile of political dog shit every time they stepped anywhere at all, then spattering it with chocolate sprinkles and selling it off as “leadership”. Did we all savor the taste of “Mission Accomplished?” Well, some did. Yummy stuff, that chocolate-sprinkled political dog shit.

I did NOT vote for Bush to serve for round 2. I'd long since given up for fear every human on the planet would suffer a catastrophic cerebellar implosion simply by listening to that blithering asshole trip over whatever simple monosyllabic tripe they plastered to his TelePrompter, I imagine in Crayola. Meanwhile, the best the Democratic party had to thwart him was John Kerry. Like sending a puppy dog in to do brain surgery. In Florida.

In my voting there always seemed to be a balance needed, tipping the scales from party to party. I always tended to vote about issues anyway, regardless if I understood them, and regardless the fact I have since come to know that politicians are like Nascar drivers: check their corporate sponsors if you want to know their politics, because the lobbyist has usurped elected talent as the most powerful force in the land.

Ah, la. I now will present my reasons for giving up on a party I was never a member of, but supported on occasion anyway. A very bright person named Andrew Sullivan penned it, seemingly just for me, and I am thoroughly jealous that it wasn't me. This is a summary collection of various arguments laid out by individuals over the years but encapsulated in a final, wonderfully erudite “fuck you” to the vicious and blustery remnants of the Republican party, a political entity I have not considered viable since I was forced to watch Gee Dubya “Heckofajob” Bushie alongside his party's congress and senate, his cabinet, and the vast majority of Washington's elected human filth at his vapid and blubbering side, cheerfully and indecently fuck everything up for everyone.

Please click this link and read Andrew's work. I invite you to come back after and comment.

Ciao,

STC =^oo^=