The last, best hope...

Read the whole damn thing. Not half, not the first few lines. The whole fucking thing. It's that important (well, maybe not the Kenny Rogers stuff).
So, it's been a very politcal past 24 hours. I saw V for Vendetta, which I'll describe in a bit. I also saw Jarhead last night. Some of the views put forth in the movies were good and relevant, particularly given what today is. It's the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Three fucking years. Shit, man.
So, my boy woke me up at 4:45 and wouldn't let me go back to sleep, so I'm running on two hours of sleep; as people who've ever run on that amount of sleep knows, I'm fairly grouchy.
I tuned in to CBS Sunday Morning, which is a pretty good morning news magazine show, covering a range of topics, including an interview with Anne Rice and something on Kenny Rogers in a bit (damn, Kenny's released 63 albums. Damn, and he's on his fifth wife. Heh, and they showed some footage of Kenny and the First Edition singing "What Condition My Condition Was In"). However, it led with a piece on Iraq, as should be expected in this day and age.
First, it ran down exactly what three years has brought us, and them, too. For us, 2300 soldiers dead, 17,000 soldiers wounded, $230 billion gone (6.4 billion a month. Imagine what good that would do actually in America, or, specifically, in Katrina Land), and 70% of Americans think Iraq's been handled wrong. Fun numbers. For them, the bad is 30,000 dead, untold wounded, oil production (which was thought to be able to sustain them and rebuild them) is way down, electricity in Baghdad is on for eight hours a day. On the good side, millions have phones (cell phones, to be exact. Yay, Nokia.), a load of new schools have opened up, kids are getting vaccinated, the rest of Iraq is getting about 12 hours of electricity (which is way up from before the war started), and some of Saddam's horrific SOPs are no longer being carried out. So, yeah, some good news, some bad news for the Iraqis, pretty much all bad for the ole U.S. of A.
That's not what got me.
This is.
They then had pre-taped statements first from Dem. Rep. John Murtha and then from former drug czar and Sec. of Education William Bennett. Murtha went through the long list of bad stuff we know about Iraq. Fairly good, fairly strong (actually, he said a fact I hadn't heard before: the first-ever survey of troops in Iraq found that (approx.) 74% of soldiers felt America should leave Iraq within a year), but the man said nothing to write a blog post about.
Then Bennett started up. God damn.
First, some background. Dwainker, read this and understand why the job is so fucked up. Bennett believed in the following things and backed them while working for Ronny Reagan:
# Competency testing for teachers
# Opening the teaching profession to knowledgeable individuals who have not graduated from "schools of education"
# Performance-based pay
# Holding educators accountable for how much children learn
# An end to tenure
# A national examination to find out exactly how much our children know
# Parental choice of schools
That actually comes from his book De-Valuing of America, published in 1992. Anyway, that was just a personal aside. In my opinion, the man's a fucktard. He graduated with a philosophy degree (which, behind business, is the field you go into if you've no fucking clue what to do with your life. English is third). He then got a law degree from Harvard. I can find no record of his ever having been a teacher, or in education at any level. He worked for Reagan as chairman for the National Endowment for the Humanities for term one, and then as Sec.Ed. for term two-the sequel. Never a teacher, just a thundercunt (that's a shout out to my homey De-Wain. Yo yo yo).
So, anyway, back to my bitch session. There's Bennett on Sunday Morning, giving stats on how fast people died in WWII (dude, I did that months ago) and blah blah blah. He ended with the following:
"You know, it's true that [America is] the last, best hope for Earth."
"You know, it's true that [America is] the last, best hope for Earth."
I heard that and my stomach seized. I had to fight back vomit. This isn't just some trite little statement. This is too fucking far.
"Last, best hope?" First, that's from fucking Babylon 5. Don't fucking steal a line from fucking science fiction. Reagan tried naming his space defence initiative Star Wars and it got laughed out of Congress. Don't fucking try that, dumbass.
Second, don't you think we need to get our fucking act together before you say that?
Third, for a political figure, even a former one, to say that, that's fucking Nationalism, man. That's not being part of a world community. That's not even being the world's policeman. That's fucking elitism. That's fucking national purity. That's fucking Nazism, man. You fucking started a speech talking about defeating Nazis, and then you end it by basically becoming one yourself. Dumbass motherfucker.
This past week, Bush started ramping up the rhetoric about Iran, stating that parts for the roadside bombs are coming from Iraq's friendly neighbor to the north. Sure. So? Parts of those fucking things are from fucking US! US! Do you honestly think that they're not taking technology we sold them and are currently giving them and using it against us? Goddamn it.
i just want to scream all day
i cant take it anymore
There was a line in V for Vendetta that struck a chord with me. I'd actually been considering leaving the country and not coming back for a few years. Seriously, it's gotten to that point for me. There's Canada (seriously, what big, bad issue is Canada facing) or Great Britain to start with ('cause they speak my current lingo) and then figure out where from there. The last week has made me seriously consider it.
So, today, I'm watching V and Portman's character is talking about her parents and that her mom wanted to leave the country at one point (which wasn't an option in the book). The dad tells the mom that they can't do that, because then the government would win. The decision eventually leads to the parents' death.
That's right. That's why I can't leave. Even if it costs me my life (which I doubt it will), something needs to happen. It needs to fucking change. People are way too laid back about this fucking situation. Iraq, Iran, torture, wiretaps, Patriot Act, hurricane relief, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney shooting somebody, No Child, gay rights, immigration, socail security, energy and oil. The list goes on and fucking on. You can fucking poll people all day to find out their opinions on this or that, but that doesn't change jack-fucking-shit. Vote in the damned midterm elections. Vote every fucking Representative out of the House. Replace the whole damn lot. Do the same with the senators up for election this year. Change the system by using the system. Get career politicians out who vote along party lines and accept golf trips to the Bahamas from lobbyists. Get rid of fucking assholes who threaten to use the "nuclear solution" against the party that's just fucking doing their jobs. The two parties are supposed to fight and differ on issues and filibuster if they fucking feel it needs to be done. That's why it's fucking possible. Eliminate lobbyists. The system needs to change. The system needs to change.