This election is putting me on edge. Sarah Palin's out there for the Tea Party, backing her pack of government-wrecking Mama Grizzlies. The Right, thanks to a mind-blowingly bad Supreme Court decision, is outspending Democrats by around nine to one, and if I hear one more time how we all need to adjust to "The New Normal," I can't be responsible for what I might do.
Consider the irony. The economy gets wrecked by a bunch of selfish rich bastards who act like it's all one big casino arranged for their personal benefit; Americans lose their jobs, homes, and savings while those responsible profit outrageously; and then these same selfish rich bastards pour millions of dollars into the elections to mobilize public fear and anger so that they can do it all again.
Eventually, the peasants are bound to catch on.
And then there's the state initiatives. Every half-hour or so an ad comes on TV saying I-1098 will lead to more taxes on the middle-class. Rich people love the middle-class when they're not trying to make them poor. Even so, given that Eyman will almost certainly get his tax-increase supermajority, the middle class is looking pretty safe at the moment. Until they don't have cops, schools or roads, anyway.
It's too damn bad we won't have the new census numbers for the mid-term elections. A clear snapshot of the past decade's rise in inequality would be a timely reminder of where the money went: to the fortunate one-in-one-hundred of us who is doing better than ever. We need that money back. The sooner the bottom 98 percent of us get clear on that, the better off we'll be.
If I-1098 doesn't pass, I'm going to collapse into a boiling mass of despair for humanity, and then I'll get up the next morning and start organizing again, because that's what we do. We do what we need to do.