Gigabytes have been written about this or that transgression of the Bush Administration. But the hard, cold truth is this:

You did it to yourselves.

You were afraid of Al-Boogeyman and so you let George do whatever he wanted.

Everything flows from this.

Those of you who voted Republican were explicit about it. Those of you who were more Democratically inclined, made sure that only empty suits and hobbled weenies got to run against him--even if they were men of character and conviction before and after the presidential campaign, when it wouldn't matter.

I do not have the words for those of you who did not vote at all.

"Oh, but nine-eleven, the tragedy that changed everything, it was like it happened to ME... blah blah blah." Hey, get this: 9/11 killed about as many Americans as three weeks'worth of traffic accidents. GET OVER IT.

Yeah, that's right--I said GET OVER IT. With the exception of those who directly lost someone on 9/11, to whom I extend exactly the same sympathy and consideration to anyone who loses a loved one for any reason, I am telling the rest of you to GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR COLLECTIVE ASS.

Good Christ, if this is what happens when three thousand people get killed, what will you let the President get away with when something major happens... like an unsecured nuclear weapon in a shipping container coming into a major port?

And don't blame Dick Cheney or Karl Rove or Fox News or even Diebold. Bush could have done nothing without your continued support or at least silence. He couldn't have stolen the elections unless the totals were close enough to be in stealing range.

"Oh, but I didn't know! I didn't think it would get this bad! I had no way of knowing!" Bullshit. You had time to watch American Idol and Survivor but not to do some basic research, freely available on the Internet, about who the various people in the Bush orbit were and, by extension, what their plans might be once they got into power.

What did you THINK was gonna happen?!

Only now that everything is falling apart, does everybody repudiate the administration. "Keine Nazi hier! Keine Nazi hier!"

But now here is what happens whenever the issue of the Democrats and their strategy comes up:

1) My neck and shoulders knot up like it would if I were preparing to smash my head through a wall.

2) My body goes into these abortive little convulsions--like I'm about to haul off and punch somebody, and then catch myself when I remember I'm sitting in a chair in front of a computer.

3) My throat and jaw clench, as a physiological response to keep myself from screaming at the ether:

YOU GODDAMN WORTHLESS ASS LICKING COWARDS! GODDAMN IT! GODDAMN IT YOUS STUPID FUCKERS!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? YOU STUPID, STUPID GODDAMN IDIOTS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? COME ON ALREADY, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!!!!!! GODDAMMIT YOU FUCKIN FUCKIN SHIT GODDAMN SHITHEAD FUCKIN SONOVABITCH...

Exactly like you would if you were at a boxing match and you had bet a million dollars and your childrens' kidneys on the guy who now. Apparently. Is taking. Another. DIVE!

... but as someone with an outlook and situation very similar to LW's, I am painfully aware that other peoples' fuckups often become my responsibility, whether I accept that responsibility or not.

A bunch of idiots voted for George W. Bush (or didn't bother to vote at all, which amounts to the same thing) and so I have increased mercury in my environment and a war in Iraq that affects me. Everyone thought they could keep driving cars everywhere, forever, and so I am stuck in a godawful suburban-sprawl world where you can't walk anywhere. Everyone else decided it was really important to save a few bucks buying cheap-ass Chinese goods at Wal-Mart and so I no longer have the option of shopping at a local retailer selling goods made by people paying a living wage.

A defining trait of the modern world and, I would argue, of Americans in particular, is a total obliviousness to the idea of consequences and/or of responsibility for one's actions, especially as they relate to other people. (In this respect, both the lefty-hippies and the economic neoliberals are identical.)

Hey, let's kill all the passenger pigeons and exterminate the buffalo--it's fun to shoot stuff! Let's burn all the oil--fuck the future, they'll come up with something. Hey, I sure like Ronald Reagan--his policies may be completely shortsighted and fucked up, but I just can't resist that warm, grandfatherly demeanor. Let's make him president and dismantle the New Deal and maybe I'll get an extra hundred bucks on my tax refund. Other peoples' problems are other peoples' problems.

... except to the extent that the destabilization of Cambodia and the ensuing civil war and rise of the Khmer Rouge were a result of Henry Kissinger's illegal secret carpet-bombing of the country.

Is homosexuality a choice? Put it another way:

Do you know anyone who gets to choose who they're attracted to?

Ninety-nine percent of the music ever recorded is about "Is she really going out with him" or "Why won't he look my way" or "My baby done gone away and I feel so bad."

Would any of these songs resonate with anyone--would anyone have bothered to write or record them in the first place--or write the novels or make the movies or paint the paintings that are all about forlorn, frustrated desire--if people could just decide "Oh, okay, guess I just won't be attracted to that person anymore."

Wouldn't that be nice.

Anyone who's ever had their heart smashed into jagged little bits by the lantern-jawed captain of the football team, or the cute brunette with the Louise Brooks cut and the librarian glasses, knows that this is a ridiculous question.