Speaking of folk tales, as I did upthread-- we've all heard variations on this one:

A snake asks a passerby to please carry it across a stream; when the passerby demurs, noting that snakes are notorious for inflicting fatal bites, the snake promises that it won't harm the passerby out of gratitude for being carried across the stream.

The passerby decides to take the snake at its word and carries it across the stream-- upon which the snake promptly bites the passerby. When the dying passerby complains that it trusted the snake, and asks why the snake bit him after all, the snake replies, "I'm a snake, and that's what snakes do."

As an independent who has carried Democratic snakes (perhaps "weasels" is more apropos) across many a stream, I am not impressed by process-wonk Democrats who urge, and typically excoriate, those of us who are sincerely, bitterly, and appropriately outraged by the Democratic political elites who shamefully capitulated to the warmongers this week. The fact that the Democrats-- especially the ones elected in the hope and expectation that they would work aggressively to halt and reverse the monstrous Bush juggernaut-- now shrug and protest that they are only warmongers by default does not improve my opinion of them.

I don't think I'm alone in saying that I've been down so long that I'm beyond the criticisms of Democratic lesser-evilists to stop being such a Big Baby and instead redouble efforts to hold warmongers' feet to the fire, regardless of their party affiliation. And to work all that much harder to oust the disappointing Dems in favor of "true" anti-war representatives.

I just don't see any indication that we hapless travellers can breed the toxic treachery out of political predators.

In the spirit of a recent Howard Zinn article (linked to my signature here), I believe that the above-cited process-wonk Dems go too far in urging citizens to think like politicians, i.e. to evaluate and judge politicians primarily by how the politician manages to support positions within the sophisticated 3D-chess game of modern politics. I haven't seen this here as much as at, say, trash-tabloid cyber-rags like the Huffington Post, but I'm referring to "inside baseball" aficionados who turn from their field-level seats to sneer and scorn at us boo-birds who clearly don't understand the nuances of the game. I only know that my ticket pays for Democratic bums who aren't hustling and who seem just as ready to throw the game if it helps their chances of staying on the team.

I hate to flout the convention of ending on a positive, constructive, or otherwise upbeat note. But I conclude that the political process is so corrupt as to be broken beyond repair. I consider clapping harder for the poor put-upon Democrats just as futile as clapping harder for Victory in Iraq.

PS: On a technical note, does anyone else find that the "Greasemonkey" script to display multiple comments pages isn't working any more? The script is checked "enabled", and there's a bar across the top of the screen reading "Greasemonkey active on a letters.salon.com page"-- but the page displays normally. [?]

It doesn't advance the discussion at all, but having chanced upon this latest post after a break, I am approaching awe. I typically eschew gushing about a blogger's work, but this latest analysis has a carillon-like ring of truth.

I haven't formed much worth writing about, but this phenomenon seems part of a disturbing race for the lowest common denominator of human coexistence. The depredation of war and a reason-proof myth entwined in a double helix bores like a drill though our national heart. This is of a piece with the maladministration's relentless shredding of the protections embedded in our Constitution, the deconstruction of enlightened government itself, and the authoritarian manipulation of communication to impose the Executive Branch cabal's preferred reality upon its citizens. All to most efficiently extract an endless torrent of power, wealth and the natural gas of fear from the body politic-- a Fountain of Youth for the Ruling Class.

Speaking of boring, I will stop now to recover a modicum of cheer.

I've never actually been to Glox, so by all means take this with a grain of dilithium:

But could it be that the true motive for the Gloxian litmus test of faith for sentients campaigning for Supreme Leader is an unconscious realization that the decadent political process on Glox, such as it remains, has devolved into a belief system fueled by acts of faith? And that a sentient who is unable or unwilling to flout its capacity for blind faith to the exclusion of reason will be perceived as too alien to be trusted with supreme power?

If I'm right, this is a good cautionary tale. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that here on Earth, advanced cultures govern according to the dictates of benevolent reason and common sense!