This is how it works.

It’s not abstract. It’s premeditated, relentless, intimate, and vicious. But the Republicans insist that it’s a good idea. And the President insists that it’s his prerogative to order it done to anyone, anytime, anywhere, for any reason, without recourse, forever. He is one of the most evil people ever to walk this Earth. We knew he was evil, many of us. But we did not know just how evil, partly because he hid it so carefully, and partly because we just literally could not imagine it. Ordinary decent people have a hard time grasping malevolence on this scale. We tend not to think that anyone could possibly be this bad. But they can. They have no conscience, no shame, no soul. They are the ruin of the world, and they know it, and they do not care. I can’t imagine how we can turn this around anymore. This may be the end. The Republicans have raised pure evil up on their shoulders and the Democrats have shrunk back in fear, holding tight to their careers and abandoning civilization. Well, soon their careers will mean nothing. There will be no Congress, neither Democratic or Republican. Only the Executive Branch will be left. The American experiment will be over. You will support the Republican machine, or they will destroy you.

It is still conceivable that the tide can be turned, if just a few powerful individuals take a stand. But they would have to risk their careers and even their lives and this doesn’t seem likely. I haven’t seen a single senator or representative do this. Not a single one. None have said what needs to be said. None have said the plain, honest truth. Everything is moderated, calibrated, centrified. None called Bush a war criminal, which is not a theory or an opinion but a simple fact. None pointed out that “the treatment of detainees” means in this case “the torture of innocents”; that, not only is torture not called for in this case, it is never called for in any case; that no civilized person contemplates using torture, ever; that Bush and Rumsfeld and Rice and all the senators and representatives who voted for this obscene legislation are despicable barbarians, deliberately destroying the moral foundation of the United States of America. This is not a theory or an opinion, it is a simple fact.

I never thought anything like this could happen. I am dismayed and despairing. But my feelings are not important. The prospect of this whole great country being ruined by a few disgusting selfish criminals – that’s important. And no one who can, seems to have the guts to at least try to stop it.

I write in my blog. That accomplishes nothing. I send money to Democrats running for office. That probably also accomplshes nothing. They will be mowed under like all the rest of us. It would have been nice if they could have mustered a little gumption over the last five years, but they didn’t, and now, in all likelihood, it’s too late. If you have two people, and one of them has a gun, and he’s willing to use it, he wins. Game over. The other person is fucked. 51% of the people of the United States voted to give G.W. Bush that gun; almost all of our elected representatives voted to make his authority permanent. They have let us down. They may in fact have let scores of generations of our descendants down. I hope it’s not true but I can’t rule it out. Why didn’t the people who could have done something about this see it coming, and fight it? I wanted to live in a democracy and they have thrown it away. I don’t know what to do anymore but write. It can’t possibly make a difference but it’s all I have.