Off With Their Pants

Because The Revolution Gene is Dormant

I have been reacting to one outrageous news story after another for so long that I can't really remember the last time I was able to take a step back and coherently contextualize the forest and the trees. In 2004, before the last election, I guess I was able to step back then, because that's what presidential elections make us do. The people have to compare one guy to the other guy.

About half of them shrugged and said, "I'm stumped," and forgot all about it.

The other half voted and no one is quite sure what happened there. It's hard to steal an election convincingly. These guys didn't pull it off. It wasn't convincing at all. A little probing and it's perfectly clear what happened, but with an assist from the media and the lack of curiosity of the masses--half didn't even vote, so why would they look into whether or not it was stolen?

So, enough people went to a ballot box, after four years of Bush, and said, "Gimme some more," that tipping it came down to only ballot-jacking Ohio.

Three more years have past and now, there's no way that Bush could beat Kerry, who in turn couldn't beat anyone else in the Democratic primaries. Three more years of this administration has brought down a resounding judgment. Bush couldn't steal Ohio or any other battleground state if this thing were re-done today.

Still, though, thirty percent of Americans remain loyal Bushies.

So I ask, are the Americans walking this continent today the same as the ones that took it from the Brits in the eighteenth century?

Is there a John Adams in the house? Thomas Paine? Anyone?

Where did our courage go?

In a speech Al Gore gave two months after the 2004 election, he pointed out that the threats our leaders faced as a country during the revolution were great. If they had been caught or if the war went badly, they all would have been hung.

Yet, these were the ones who came up with the foundation for the very rights that the Bush Administration are stripping away based on a threat that falls far short of the British Army burning down the White House in The War of 1812 or the Soviet nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.

Clearly, the actions of the Bush administration have no legitimacy and reek of authoritarianism. But we do not revolt. Why?

Well, for one thing, many people feel that we can wait them out. Term limits dictate that even the worst president will be gone after eight years. For most of America to wake up it took about six years. So do you have a bloody revolution in the streets to remove a guy who's out in two years?

Our blog is kind of defined by two symbols, one is visual, the guillotine, one is textual, taking off someone's pants. We have two suggested remedies for crimes against humanity--petty embarrassment and death. Clearly this is a brilliant ironic configuration created by SbT which implies the answer is somewhere in the broad realm of possibilities between those extremes.

Admittedly, the guillotine looks more and more appropriate. But the blatant insults to the American people--the ones paying attention anyway--continue to pile up.

In a country that's on fire with rage at its leaders, how many times can the news anchors smile and lead with Britney Spears before even one more year of this is just too damn much?

By the way something, Britney, keep your pants on.

RELATED: Author Naomi Klein: America is succumbing to fascism.

TAGS: Revolution, Bush Era, Al Gore, Constitution