Yet another New Year’s Eve

And so, here we go again… another year shot to hell!
For the remaining detainees at Gitmo (the vast majority of whom did nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time), another year of Kangaroo Kourt extensions of their indefinite sentences without any due process, as set forth in this lengthy Grey Lady story. For other pawns of the Bushmen’s machinations, like the families of the nearly 3,000 3,000 American service personnel who have been killed in the Iraq campaign, or the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis… and God knows who else… it won’t even have been good as that. For the rest of us… it may have been a mostly good year, or a bittersweet year, or some variation… for next year, we’ll try to do the best we can.
I’ll try to restrain myself from ongoing predictions or resolutions or wrap-ups; my post of a year ago attempting to do that missed some big ones this year: I (happily) failed to anticipate Foley-gate or Macacalypse Now, and expected the outright fraud and thievery exemplified in the Florida 13th House District to be much more widespread, and incorrectly figured the GOP would, by hook or especially by crook, hold Congress… and (happily) they did not. Didn’t matter: this was the year I didn’t limit myself to throwing a few bucks at Democrats. Even I got off my tush to not merely bitch about the weather, but call prospective voters (thank God for MoveOn), and monitor polls in a swing state. I also, incorrectly, figured we would start the draw-down in Iraq… looks like I underestimated the Bushmen’s resistance to that suggestion… even as the Bush-family-retainers came up with the very same suggestion. Had that prediction been accurate… who knows what would have happened re: Congress?
As to the Congress thing and getting off the tush, I obviously wasn’t alone. Enough of us finally realized that our government is not some cynical atavism that exists only to tax us peons to give cash to friends and cronies of government officials and to screw the rest of us, but exists to actually perform critical services and to solve problems. And, God damn it, that’s what we’re going to do.
And oh, do we have problems. For one thing, there’s that Iraq thing, and all that we have wrought. For another, our Constitution and our freedoms are under attack. And I don’t mean by OBL, or by anyone who resides somewhere other than Washington, D.C. (or perhaps Crawford, TX). BTW… notice that we began the year with the President on vacation… and it appears we will end it that way as well. Quelle surprise!
Oh… I should also mention that our planet is under attack, oddly enough, by virtually every member of our species (to some degree, though we Americanos are 24% responsible, all by ourselves, despite being only 5% of the planet’s population) and this issue actually dwarfs any and every other, because if we fuck it up, we will condemn our children to live in a world of drought (and its companion, famine), endless heat waves, more widespread diseases, and more vicious hurricanes, all where ever more of us compete for ever more limited food and water. And we can (hopefully) stop this nightmarish descent into a Mad Max hell with a few relatively minor lifestyle changes… if only there were the political will to do it (Shorter TD: “We’re Probably Fucked.”)
No matter. I had no idea at the start of the year that by the end, I would have amassed twenty-two of my interviews… but there they are, on the side-bar. Regular readers are, hence, fully informed about the issues covered, probably as well or better than they would be informed by virtually any other media, because the “source” is the horse’s mouth, given a full opportunity to present his or her perspective. Hence, you know all about the war on terror and especially the circumstances of our detention policy, and you know all about “meta-politics” (and meta-journalism)– the very mind-sets underlying how political messages are presented to you for maximum effect, including how the concept of fairness has been perverted from “everyone is entitled to an opinion” to “all opinions- now matter how lame or transparently wrong must be presented to the public as if they were of equal value“, in the interest of “balance.” (Worse still, well-reasoned, well-studied and documented expert opinion is not merely “just another opinion”, it is entitled to even less weight because it comes from “some secular elitist who doesn’t share our values.”)
Needless to say, we’ll keep going here. We’ll try to continue to find relevant, interesting and important interview subjects, and mostly, to keep those eyes and ears open… and you’all do the same. Apologies to Orwell, but ignorance is not strength… not, say, for more than for some short nightmarish “Orwellian” periods (say, 12 years of GOP House rule for example). Knowledge is power. Wisdom is power. Good sense is power. Reason is power.
So, best wishes from Mrs. TD and the Loquacious Pup, and me. Peace. Good day, and good luck. Hope to see you’all next year.