What will it take to end this madness?

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I ask this as a serious question.

One that requires more than a cry for impeachment, or calls for inherent contempt as a response. Or boycotts, more investigations - even total election domination, for that matter (although that would humiliate the republicans and would be oh-so-satisfying in a schadenfreude kind of way).

Pretty much everything is broken. The electoral system, checks and balances, healthcare, the government, our military, infrastructure and any semblance of fairness for at least 75% of the American public. Each day brings more news that is so outrageously disgraceful yet it is met with “just another fucking thing” and a shake of the head.

Where to even begin? What is more important – getting out of Iraq or affordable healthcare for the tens of millions who don’t have it? Election integrity or restoring the Constitution? Keeping the United States adequately protected from natural disasters (let alone terrorism) or reversing the environmental standards that have declined over the past few years? Helping the middle class or dealing with the declining overall health of this country’s citizens or making sure that Medicare will be able to take care of all these people? Fight the lies and hatred of those on the right to shine a light on reality or keep up investigations that will shine a light on the crimes of the past six years but will probably not result in the removal of anyone from office?

You get the picture. The foul rotten stench of modern day republicans and its alliance with corporate money as well as fundamentalism and neoconservatism has so thoroughly permeated this country’s culture, economy and government that nothing short of a full house cleaning would do the job of ridding this cancer from America’s system. The healthcare industry, Fox News, partisan convicted criminals or idiots passing for “pundits” or experts. Our electoral system, Justice Department, judiciary, K Street and Wall Street. $1,000,000 entry fee just to run for Congress (a pretty big number), a tax system rigged towards the lucky and insanely wealthy. And so on.

There is a crisis of unimaginable levels emerging here – as a result of just about every decision (most of them willful) over the past seven years and much planning in the previous ten years or so. It is a cancer on this country, a cancer that has grown and spread. Every area is important – and there are many more areas which need addressing. I’d love to see Gonzales impeached. But what will it do in terms of his Justice Department anyway?

There has to be more to hope for than we better not fucking bomb or invade Iran. That shouldn’t be a wish. That should be a given. But with the way that some Democratic candidates are talking, even that isn’t a given if we see a Democratic President in 2008 (I’m just sayin…).

Obviously, all of the things mentioned above are of utmost importance. Do we want a republican President to have all of the powers that the Bush administration usurped gave to themselves? Hell, do we even want a Democratic President to have these powers? Unless there was an expiration date on the Executive Orders, that is a reality. Of course, all children should be able to get healthcare and elections shouldn’t be rigged from the inside.

I don’t have answers to many of these questions. I have ideas on how to do some things, but even if I (or we) were to come up with the best answers to these issues and questions, how would I (or we) get anyone to listen? Certainly, the “total electoral domination” would be a big help (and a lot of fun). Maybe it is a start. A mediocre Democrat is nearly always better than even the most reasonable of republicans. I’d take either Nelson over Snowe, Collins or Chaffee pretty much every time (but never Holy Joe).

Self-identified “independents” are trending towards these issues in pretty big numbers, but not necessarily always to the Democrats. Even ½ of the “undecided” independents could make 2008 an electoral landslide. Which means that they need to be made aware of the crimes, robbing of the treasury and middle class as well as the hijacking of our Constitution that has been done over the past 7-10 years. Which, I guess, leads back to investigations and countering the lies of the right. And so on and so on and so on.

Some of these are intertwined, and maybe it isn’t as daunting as it seems. And yeah, this may be a bit rambling, but sometimes when you stop to look around, the initial (and most logical) response is, man, things are really fucked up...”

For me, today is one of those days.