Feed them well and let them rue the day.

The Future
These are our children. This is what’s happened to them. And this is why. We are a fat, stupid people. We elect maniacs, support their failures, spoil our children, and taunt the world with our inexplicable good fortune. We are the proudest of fools.

The Past Weak
I had a bit of a debate with a coworker about who to fault for the passage of legislation we disagree with most. Can we honestly fault our senators and legislators for those poorly constructed, narrow-minded, ultra-conservative measures passed in this past week’s elections? My opinion is that the blame should fall squarely on the fat heads of the American populace. She believes that a dirth of respectable, forward-thinking legislators results in a constant ‘lesser of two evils’ ballot. They are governed by politics and not policy. It’s an old argument and, if not worded carefully, can sound terribly naive. “There can’t possibly be that many senators who honestly supported the USA PATRIOT Act,” she reasons. Shit. that’s true.

It’s fair enough to say that if there are no leaders, there can be no followers. But what becomes of a senator who flies in the face of both conventional wisdom and his own constituancy? He’s probably not long for the Senate, and what good can he do once ousted from the system? Is there something to be said for ‘playing the game?’

The Cultural Divide
I think it’s time to stop screaming about our leaders being behind the times. It’s time to accept that the majority of the American people share those same seemingly outdated ideals. We, the educated few who think so little of the flyover states, are the minority, and we have been bested. Not because they were better organized or devious in methods… But because there are more of them than us.

Another idea we need to let go of is the ‘cultural divide.’ This country is an oozing mass of confused ‘grey area,’ shamefully lacking in grey matter. The undecided and the uninformed come together with the unmotivated and the uninterested to become a massive albatross around our neck. We have informed and opinionated citizens on both sides of the ‘divide,’ but it’s the grey area that keeps us weak.

The Damage Done
As a people, we have chosen an aggressive, intolerant, christian facade. One of pre-emptive wars and sexual inequilaity and who’s bar tab is in the trillians. We have excused our leaders for mistakes made, and encouraged them to move forward with mistakes in the making. Accountability has been forsaken in favor of a fake cowboy with a folksy charm. Even the south forgets that he’s a graduate of Harvard and Yale and hails from Connecticut. The American people have done this to themselves and their fat children will keep the banner flying high.