I'll be the judge

I am down to one cigarette. One fucking cigarette.

On the one hand, I am elated with the progress I've made so far. I'm really proud of myself. I really feel as though I'm doing a good thing for myself and for my family.

On the other hand, I want a fucking cigarette so bad that if your hair had nicotine in it, I would smoke it.

The answer to all this is of course to keep yourself busy, which is relatively easy to do because I'm totally scatter brained at this point. Nonetheless, blog time:

Jason tells me that I should not worry, that things are getting better, that Katrina has brought the incompetence of the Republican party to a head and so the country is beginning to ask the hard questions again...like why Carl Rove would sell out the identity of a member of the CIA.

I agree with Jason in principle. Things are getting a bit better. Note the supreme court justice that's been nominated. She's a darling with the democrats, as if Bush was making ammends or something. It seems like he's stopped singing GOP uber alles, and finally realized that he's leading a country of various kinds of people. Well, good for him.

However, I can't for a second, agree with Jason on this whole shit coming to light thing. I've watched the opening to Law and Order too many times herr Drivler, and I know that there is a fine, yet definitive difference, between being investigated and being prosecuted. Honestly, investigate all you want, but if you don't prosecute, it's all just pointless hoolabalooh on the part of Washington investigators who like to look like they're doing something.

The problem as I see it is, all avenues for prosecution rest in the hands of agencies controlled by Republicans. In other words, republicans are responsible for determining the guilt of other republicans.

Oh, but surely my fears are unfounded. Surely these people are noble citizens first and members of the republican party second, right? I mean, if they knew that a republican had done something wrong, they would act outside their parties concerns in order to do the right thing, right?

Wrong.

That's where my hopelessness stems. From what I understand, from what I've seen, and believe me, the republican party has made no attempt to conceal any of this, republicans are out to get jobs for republicans. That's there goal. You fuck up, you're fire--if you're a democrat. You fuck up, and you're a republican, you're promoted. The entire organization seems to me to be value-less except that they watch each other's asses, and get each other off the hook when need be. They are an organization of fall guys, yes men, and cronies--the worst sort of nepitism because the family resemblance between these guys and gals is their willingness to surrender their principles in order to keep the GOP in power.

So, yes, I am hopeless. I don't think you can bring any of these guys in front of a republican body and expect justice. All you can expect is a public, and obvious, denegration of truth, justice, and the American way as the goon squad feeds us a group of lies, but worse yet, they don't care whether we believe them or not. It doesn't matter as long as they aren't prosecuted, which they won't be.

So, what's the upshot of all this? In a few years, people will have so little trust in republicans that the democrats will control everything. Great! So, we'll replace one crime family with the next. The greatest injustice the American people have sufferred, I think, will be the loss of our two party system. It will slip from one to the other without check or balance.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is hope. I don't see it, but I sure hope there's hope--if that makes any sense at all.