So . . .

Yesterday, Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) introduced a Motion of Censure on the floor of the US Senate, to formally take Our Commander in Cheat to task for violating the Constitution and the law in his illegal domestic wiretapping program. Astonishingly enough, the main response from the Republican leadership (specifically, Dr. Bill "I've seen the videotape and in my medical opinion she's conscious" Frist) was they they couldn't support the motion on the grounds that -- and this is a direct quote -- "it would send the wrong signal around the world."

This is the man, by the way, who wants to be the next Republican President of the United States.

None of these idiots seems to comprehend that invading a nation which has not attacked us, killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians (the current best estimate, which our Pentagon continues to suppress, is 25-30,000 Iraqi civilians died in the actual fighting, and the bump in overall death rate from all factors, comparing pre- and post-invasion, suggests that the invasion of Iraq was responsible, by the end of 2004, for 130,000 Iraqi civilian deaths. And we wonder why they hate us . . .), kidnapping innocent citizens of friendly nations and shipping them off without trial or even the faintest shred of evidentiary review to be tortured -- not to mention maintaining our own officially-sanctioned torture chambers in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan, and having an executive banch of government (Constitutionally charged with enforcing the our nation's laws) openly declaring that our nation's law does not apply to them . . .

I mean, how much more wrong can our fucking signals get?

Ahhh, anyway.

Anyone still wondering about the actual legality of the domestic wiretap program might want to check out the details here:

www.nybooks.com/articles/18650



All this goes toward a problem I've been facing with my work lately (in addition to the recent space-monkey attack). All of you who've stuck with me this long know that I'm not interested in merely producing entertainment. Not that I frown upon "mere entertainment" -- in fact, I admire it, and enjoy it immensely when it's produced by others. I just don't do it myself. Because, I guess, I have adult ADD, and I just can't keep myself interested in something unless I'm grinding away at something resembling truth.

The problem I had during this last attack was that the space-monkeys kept whispering in my ears "Look! Look at the world around you! Look at the country you live in! Don't you get it? Truth is irrelevant . . ."

Nietzsche wrote, in one of the early passages of BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL, that a philosopher makes a leap of faith as profound as any priest's, when he decides to believe that truth is worth more than a useful lie.

There is no evidence for the intrinsic value of truth.

In fact, as Mr Bush & Co. have shown, the opposite has become the case.

This makes it very hard to believe in what I do. However, having escaped the space-monkeys for the nonce, I do have at least the answer sergeants have been giving to uncomfortable questions since before there were sergeants.

"Soldier, shut up and soldier!"

I am not, never have been and never will be a soldier. But I know how to shut up and soldier nonetheless.