A ZOMBIFIED RICTUS OF APPALLED INCREDULITY

Have you ever had your cognitive abilities completely shut themselves off without warning? Have you ever experienced the sublime discomfort of watching what little capacity for reason and logic you might have had -- in always rather limited amounts, even at the best of times -- suddenly disappear? Have you ever been so inundated by the turd-choked, disease-bubbled, untreated sewage that masquerades as the phenomenal world, your psyche has no choice but to declare bankruptcy and head out on an impromptu vacation? Not surprisingly, this week I find myself in just this sort of condition, a kind of zombified rictus of appalled incredulity, precipitated by too damn much corrupted reality compressed into much too short a period of time.

Actually, those who know me could probably make a fairly convincing case that I'm in a condition similar to this all the time, but whatever.

This past week started out ambiguously enough. It's difficult to argue that Hot Tub Tom DeLay's decision to split Congress isn't good news, of a sort. But honestly, what difference does it make? True, DeLay has been, quite possibly, the most vile and loathsome degenerate ever to befoul the US House of Representatives (at least in recent years), which is no small distinction in an institution not particularly notable for upright behavior and moral and ethical rectitude. The problem is, evil little pufftoads like the Bug Man don't actually need to be official members of Congress to work their merry totalitarian mischief on the dumb, deluded masses; he'll still be spreading his Neo-Con miasma everywhere he can, for whatever corporate-shill lobbying firm that waves enough cash beneath his pesticide-scarred nostrils. So yeah, DeLay gives up his House seat, which very well may be taken by the Democrats come November, and this would be -- and is -- a positive development for the inhabitants of Texas' 22nd Congressional District. But for the rest of the country ...? Minister of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment Karl Rove, as well as his Gestapo enforcers at the RNC, evidently aren't especially concerned about losing DeLay's seat. In fact, it's obviously just another calculated political move to help shore up the teetering, wobbling, over-reaching, Nazi-wannabe Republican dictatorship. By inducing their (arguably) most overtly corrupt member to quit, it allows them to bleat incessantly about their "values" and their thoroughly bogus dedication to such quaint notions as constitutional law and responsible governance. In tandem with their continuous procession of divisive and cynically exploitative wedge issues, not to mention the never-ending search for new "enemies" to drop bombs on, this is pretty much their MO for maintaining their deathgrip on the levers of power. DeLay, as an individual in Congress, doesn't matter -- he'll be able to inflict his ill-will just as nefariously from the posh confines of K Street, and make a few bucks in the process.

OK. So this business with DeLay breaks early in the week, and while it isn't really as important as some on the liberal-democratic end of the spectrum seem to believe, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and take it at face value nevertheless. After all, here in year six of the Age of Bush, upbeat occurrences -- not to mention "victories" -- are ridiculously few and far between, to say the least. However, the thin veneer of perspective surrounding the felonious activities of the Bug Man is easily peeled away, and placed in an appropriately wider context, when even a little bit of light is flashed on the much more comprehensive criminality of the Bush regime as whole.

This is where my meager store of rationality starts to evaporate, in trying to keep track of the rapid-fire onslaught of scandal and corruption that's just exploding out of this regime: whether it be the fact that Bush, the Great Un-Elected Shithead himself, turns out to be responsible for the Plame leak; new revelations of DHS appointees being child molesters, sexual predators, manifestly incompetent self-enriching assholes, liars, and outright thieves -- often, all of the above simultaneously; or when details emerge of continued war-planning that targets the adversary du jour, Iran, plans which include the impeccably pithy logic of threatening to use nuclear weapons to forestall Iran's use of nuclear weapons ... which they don't even have (just a few examples of fun and frivolity from the past week alone). Well, for fucking crying out loud, how are you supposed to maintain some sense of balance, an intellect-fueled, even-keeled equanimity, in the face of such non-stop awfulness? Little wonder, then, that a quasi-catatonic state seems so appealing -- after an entire week of Repug horror, stalking around and feeling like a stiff-limbed blood-drenched brain-chewing zombie not only appears to be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but is also inevitable and completely predictable. What else is left, when your sensibilities have been pounded into pudding by these bastards?

Thank God for beer, which is about all I can add at this point.