ABOUT A HUNDRED POSTS TOO MANY

...This is, in all likelihood, not a controversial proposition. But then, I’m not on the receiving end of this sad waste of electro-chemical energy, so I don’t really know.

In any case, this is the 100th post of this infuriating joke of a crock of a multi-faceted chunk of virtualized toe-jam. Big fucking deal.

***

Now then.

Where were we? Oh yes: going nowhere in one hell of a god-awful hurry. Actually, I had something or other to say -- more shallow wisdoms and pithy worthlessness, certainly -- but I’ll be dipped headlong into a bucket of hogsnot and chimp-rot if I haven’t plum forgot what it was. Such laser-like intensity and sense of purpose have really made this blog what it is. I’m sure you all would agree.

“You all” -- that’s a good one. Hope springs eternal, don’t you know.

***

As the supreme court picks up steam, intent on doing its dingy and nefarious part to transport all us hapless wastoids to some dim, over-sized, over-surveiled version of an antebellum plantation; and as Cheney The Man-Sized Safe Man and his wind-up toy minions accelerate the process by which a deeply flawed, error-prone, violence-plagued, but nevertheless full-of-promise experiment in self-government is irreparably altered into ... whatever it is their stewed brain stems can conjure up, I’ve arrived at certain conclusions, or merely observations, or whatever.

Perhaps the only one that matters is that, for all intents and purposes, representative government -- however one might choose to define such a thing -- is as dead as stone. Or at least as dead as stone is reputed to be, which is pretty damn dead. In any event, there’s hardly any room for argument on this point. Cheney’s below-the-radar subversions, coupled to Bush’s programmed buffoonery and the “opposition” party’s astoundingly inept weakness, blatantly underscores the process by which the hollow shell of “self-rule” has been effectively hogtied, beat to a pulp, and (almost) smothered to death, as well as dishing up an ugly gray-washed preview of what the future could have in store. Of course, the body politic has been in critical condition for quite some time -- uncontrollably bleeding from the ears and rectum, splashing the antiquated life-support machinery with ever-diminishing supplies of various other sticky fluids and assorted viscera. The only new wrinkle in this sad tableau is that the Neo-Con cabal has its grimy hands on the plug, ready and oh-so eager to pull it.

And herein lies the hairy crux of the matter: maybe letting the helplessly diseased, near-cadaver officially expire is precisely what should happen. After all, employing artificial means to prolong the life of a terminal patient is never successful in the long run, as desirable as it is to entertain contrary expectations. I know, from personal experience. Dispensing with the medical metaphors (a difficult proposition, after having seen Sicko), it seems to boil down to two equally distasteful choices -- either bamboozle ourselves into believing that what is plainly happening to this country is, in fact, not happening, perpetuating for as long as possible the fictitious shadow-play of the “land of the free” and other such hyperbolic bullshit; or we accept the cruel reality of our precipitous situation, particularly when said reality is luridly glaring at us with its one dripping eyeball while simultaneously humping our collective leg and robbing us blind, preparing as thoroughly as possible for the radically-altered material circumstances awaiting us when, mercifully, the oily Bushist epoch comes to an end.

Ah, well -- more speculative gut-rot for everybody to wallow around in. I’ll tell you, though, that it’s a bit easier to at least try to accept the inevitability of what is to come, than to be completely immobilized by anger 24 fucking hours a day.

(Imagine -- it only took a hundred posts to rise to this level of advanced incomprehensibility. At least I finally found a use for that scanned East German 100-mark bill ...)

LOTS OF TALKING, NOT MUCH LISTENING (ANOTHER IN A LONG SERIES OF PATHETIC POSTS)

Everybody’s talking, nobody’s listening.

At least, that’s the feeling pressing down on my bloodshot brain these days. Doesn’t anyone else get that impression? A quick, random stroll through the blog-spew and web droppings out there seems to leave little doubt that everybody’s just shouting past everybody else. Our reactionary buttons are all being pushed by the same NSDAP-inspired madness machine, and the nearly uniform response sounds like an especially off-key choir of the damned, bleating and squawking in all directions, blazing new trails through the conceptual undergrowth of pitch and harmony. Everything sounds oddly similar, though -- a cantankerous caterwaul of modulated outrage and carefully channeled (and largely co-opted) anger; everyone barks out the same pissed-off tune, more or less, paying little attention to anybody else, and the world of humans continues to fly out of control regardless.

I don’t know about any of you all out there -- if there are any -- but it’s starting to bore the hell out of me.

Now, I’ve had a rather obvious attitude of blatant skepticism towards this blogging business from the very beginning. No shit some might say, in an inelegant ode to the readily apparent. Really, it’s true. Honestly: what sort of cheesehead truly believes that the huge wash of atomized opinioneering that is the “blogosphere” -- insipid, inane, and badly written as most of it is -- really means anything or has a measurable impact on the course of things? Is Cyborg Cheney, Mr. Man-Sized Safe himself, likely to experience something approximating an epiphany-driven conversion to the side of goodness and light, simply because a gaggle of infuriated bloggers bloviate over his egregious bullshit? Maybe Bush will impeach himself, if only we, the upright ones, complain about it enough.

Oh yes -- been down this road before. Many times, in fact. Still searching for a reason, still looking for the critical point of it all ... vainly, it would seem.

***

I attended a sneak preview of Sicko this past weekend, and the experience was a concrete illustration of the debilitated nature of society in general; the feeble, echoingly empty virtual world of the blogs is a reflection of this as well (which is, obviously, the only reason I’m bothering to bring this up). Anyway, Michael Moore definitely has a knack for filling up a movie theater, and this largely unadvertised early showing of his new film was no exception. Packed to the rafters, it was, with well-intentioned individuals thoroughly convinced of their righteousness and sense of purpose. And therein lies the bur-infested, hairball-wrapped rub: a big movie auditorium full of individuals, momentarily galvanized by an extremely well-made movie that covers an issue of overwhelming importance, to be sure, but still really only a dispersed and scattered mob; the unmistakably warm, liberally-minded atmosphere generated by the serendipitous gathering of hundreds of correct-thinking people popped like a flaccid balloon once the film was over and the lights came up. A brief flicker of time when our shared humanity seemed actually palpable, as much more than merely a nice amorphous theory, was over all too soon, leaving us all in our little self-contained individualities and going our own separate ways.

The strange phenomenon of the blogs strikes me in much the same way. Divided and compartmentalized, incidentally “united” over some issue or other, but nonetheless pushing and pulling in our own disparate fashions -- and largely irrelevant and ineffective as a consequence. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been much of a “joiner,” in any sense of the word (excepting the military, but that’s not quite the same thing), so I’m hardly advocating the submergence of individuality under an ill-defined rubric of “common cause” or any such similar bat-squeeze. Hell, if that was the sort of thing I had in mind -- a vision of lock-step automatons mouthing slogans of undying loyalty to the subhuman scum who’re toiling so diligently to turn everybody into dog food and rat bait -- then I’d be little better than the insecure mouth-breathers who pump out mountains of pious bullshit in praise of the power apparatus and its enslavement tendencies. However, that being said, there must be a way to harness the gobs of latent and dissipated energy inherent to this end of the blogosphere, aiming it like a monstrous virtual sledgehammer against the chains and shackles of our corporatist massas and their disinforming whores and shills, while simultaneously preserving the individuality of each weird and quirky snark-monger. There has to be way.

Well, if there is some way to do that, it’s certain that I won’t be the one to figure it out. As a matter of fact, somebody surely has figured it out already, which is precisely (or not so precisely) my whole point: we’re all running our mouths off so much, we’re not actually paying much attention to what anybody is really saying. *Sigh*

(“Snark-monger”? Clearly, I was thinking of myself when coining that term. My apologies.)

RAGE FATIGUE, #2

Still pissed; still encased in the wrought-iron rat trap of impotent fury; still stupefied by a debilitating rictus of extremely foul and ugly anger; still -- still -- overwhelmed by a sick, almost pleasurable desire to tear the living crap out of something, anything ... The quickly degenerating, adrenalized blur of an overly-energetic temper, exhausting and depressing as it is, is still obscenely tickling the reptilian sections of my unraveling brain sack, even as I mightily combat the nearly irresistible need to just take a nap for the next year and a half.

Oh well, at least the two praying hypocrisy-mongering dorks aren’t in my rapidly diminishing field of vision this morning, here at the groovy midtown coffeehouse. That’s something. Not much, but I’ll take what I can get.

***

Then along comes something like this, and the brief respite from destructive thoughts -- generated by the absence of the two religionist retards -- swiftly evaporates, not unlike campaign promises the day after an election. A headline from this morning’s Sacramento Bee:


Bush rejects secrecy limits

White House, like VP, says it’s exempt from oversight


Not that it’d serve any useful purpose, but let’s make at least a rudimentary attempt to understand this particular circle-jerk of hubris and misapplied ambition. Cheney the Cyborg isn’t subject to the rules regarding the handling of classified material because his office isn’t really a part of the executive branch; the Chimp now declares that the executive order he signed doesn’t actually apply to him, so the Congress, the Democrats, the American people, and the rest of the world’s population (outside of Albania) can all just go pound sand and fuck itself ... Umm, OK. Sounds about right. I suppose if they can establish that the executive branch of the Federal government isn’t, in real terms, a true branch of the government -- a secret, rogue agency, perhaps, responsible and answerable to no one -- maybe that’s an argument saying that they can’t be impeached or otherwise removed from office, under any circumstances ... Oh hell, I don’t know. I’m too tired and angry to figure out any of this crap.

Anyhow. I finagled a ticket to a sneak preview of Sicko tonight; maybe that’ll cheer me up. Ha Ha.

RAGE FATIGUE

Rage Fatigue ...

Infuriated exhaustion seems to be much in fashion these days, at least among the more “enlightened” and able-to-think sectors of the great bulk of the American mass. Rage Fatigue. Over-inflated anger; flaccid fury; dissipated distempers and enervated disapprobation ...

I suppose it’s the price that decent people are expected to pay, just for giving a shit. I wonder if it’s worth it.

***

Just when it appears that it can’t get any worse, when the reserves of energy and purpose are at their lowest ebb, when the congenitally-defective twins Hope & Optimism drop their pants and make fools out of us one time too many, when the two nitwits in the far corner of this funky midtown coffeehouse start praying (yeah, praying) so loudly you want to pound them over the head with the wobbling shillelagh of their own phony piety ...

Just when your Rage Fatigue finally induces the blessed relief of sheer numbness, along comes a rude reminder that mere escapism is not really an answer to anything. From Rediff News, via Guerilla News Network:


Get Your Ringside Seat to the upcoming financial implosion of the USA

The skew in the global financial system—commonly called ‘global imbalance’—seems to be fast spiraling out of control.

For some time now economists have been engaged in the mother of all debates: whether the U.S. dollar would collapse by as much as 40% when compared to other currencies (some are even betting on the U.S. dollar going belly-up) or whether there would be an orderly devaluation—that is, a gradual revaluation of other currencies vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar.

In effect, the question that is confronting us is not ‘whether’ but ‘when’ and by ‘how much?...


(Read the whole thing here)

It’s sort of the toxic glue that binds together such travesties as the end of Posse Comitatus and habeus corpus, Halliburton concentration camps, and The Chimp’s recent directives gathering dictatorial powers to himself in case of a “national emergency.” Rage fatigue, indeed.

A RELUCTANT (AND SLIGHTLY BUZZED) FATHER'S DAY POST

Thanks to The Prissy Patriot for providing a ridiculous drunk such as myself a picture-perfect image to so unashamedly swipe ... It actually induced me to order another beer, here in the wonderfully gloomy confines of this midtown Sacramento brewpub.

Happy trails, people!

UNTITLED POST, #95

Hot weather in the Sacramento Valley during the summer -- and, often, before and after -- is so boringly common as to be completely unworthy of mention. Like humidity in the South and twisters in the Midwest, the dry blast-furnace of overheated smog that this heavily populated geomorphological oddity becomes for upwards of half the year is dully prosaic and inescapable; like it or loathe it, this is what it is. The only way to avoid the hot, seething vulgarity of it all is to live somewhere else. It’s perfectly simple.

Why, then, do ambulatory vegetables who’ve spent their entire useless lives here, rarely displaying the requisite initiative to travel as far as, say, San Francisco or Tahoe perhaps, always complain in lock-step regularity when the weather turns the least bit unpleasant?

Appearances and expectations to the contrary, this isn’t merely one of those I Piss On All Suburban Blockheads sort of posts, although the ubiquitous contempt that is such a critically important component of my rather ragged weltanschauung always seems to be percolating just below the surface of things. Anyway, it’s a valid enough question, this completely bewildered bewailing of the modern American predilection for pathetically whining about the vast panoply of stuff you really can’t do anything about -- in this case, the past week’s minor heat wave. Of course, the pointless tendency to constantly reiterate the obvious dovetails nicely with the overflowing sump of desperately vital muck and goo that some so studiously avoid, or of which they live in bland ignorance: the ongoing debacle in Iraq (soon to be expanded to Iran and elsewhere), the slow lingering death of representative government in the US and its replacement with an iron-fisted Cheneyist dystopia, Guantanamo, election fraud, Gaza ... and on and on, ad nauseum.

Well, duh. Clearly there’s a direct relationship between what people choose to pay attention to, and what they stay away from. How original.

Among the assorted collection of mouth-breathers, sycophants, gold-diggers, pinheads, consumerist geeks, and miscellaneous fucksticks whose awfulness is general and undifferentiated -- specifically, the majority of people I’m forced to associate with at work -- a spell of hot weather provides the perfect opportunity to see who, of all these stellar examples of DNA gone horribly wrong, obediently spends the most time, blank-eyed and slack-jawed, in front of their electric tee-vees. Bidding their credulity a hearty goodbye, giving no quarter to their common sense or whatever amount of native intelligence they might theoretically possess, they dutifully absorb the disinformation and misinformation and hollow entertainments relentlessly cooked up in the fly-blown kitchens of the corporate media combine. Properly programmed, brains thoroughly pickled by the poisonous brine transmitted through their telescreens, they parrot the lines provided for them; in this particular instance, the well-groomed blowholes who tell them that it’s going to be a bit hotter than normal, for a few days. This less-than-startling information becomes the existential pivot around which their miserableness rotates, the locus of ennui that -- until it’s replaced by something else, in a day or two at most -- trumps all other cares and concerns. They make themselves feel as terrible as possible by worrying themselves into a frenzy over the inconsequential, as the rest of the world goes up in a puff of smoke. Pure madness.

Oh well. Just another manifestation of the collective unconsciousness, this adamant insistence by the majority to be as stupid as possible and to actively -- enthusiastically, even -- participate in their own intellectual impoverishment and, indeed, the elimination of their very capacity for critical discernment. What’s the answer to this dead-ended puzzle? One response (I would never refer to it as an “answer”) is to madly dribble out interminable blog posts that go absolutely nowhere in a hurry; another is to explode in self-righteous anger, whenever some idiot in an air-conditioned office whiningly complains about how hot it is outside, and issue an aggressive question like How fucking hot is it in Baghdad, you dumb asshole? I toss around queries like that all the time, and usually the only thing I get in return is a sometimes wild-eyed look of utter confusion, frequently tinged with a verdigris of fear. As much as I enjoy eliciting such reactions, I understand it offers no solution to anything, unfortunately.

OK -- everybody together now: *SIGH*

(By the way, for anybody who cares -- and why should you? -- today’s forecast for Sacramento: 89 degrees)

***

A FATHER’S DAY NON-SEQUITUR: My father hasn’t the time for such sentimental hogwash as a “holiday” inspired by greeting card companies; he’s nearly 77 years old, and is in Nevada playing golf. Good for him.

FEINSTEIN POLLUTES MY INBOX

Several days after signing one of those what-the-hell online petitions (yeah, I know, I know) -- this one about impeaching Cheney, which I frankly forgot about -- and having one of those canned letters sent to my two Senators, I get this today from that noted war profiteer, Dianne Feinstein:

Thank you for your letter concerning impeachment proceedings against Vice President Richard Cheney. I appreciate the time you took to write and welcome the opportunity to respond.

In our most recent elections, the American people expressed clear disapproval with the path this country was on. They are tired of partisan politics and of an Administration that pays little heed to the wishes of the American people. They want-and deserve-a Congress that holds the Administration accountable and fulfills its Constitutional responsibility to check and balance the Executive branch. I share this sentiment and am determined to work hard and across party lines in the United States Senate to promote issues that are of real concern to most Americans, including the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, homeland security, global warming, and lobbying and election reform.

At this time, however, I believe that impeachment proceedings against President Bush or Vice President Cheney will only divide the country even further, frustrating our hopes for a meaningful change in direction, while having little chance of success.

I have been deeply disappointed by many of this Administration's actions and have been outspoken in those instances. Nevertheless, given the challenges our country faces I believe that we need to focus on constructive and cooperative steps that would lead us in the right direction.

Again, thank you for your letter. If you have any further questions or comments, please contact my office in Washington, D.C. at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.

Sincerely yours, Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator


It speaks for itself, I guess. At least it almost seems like a real message, in comparison to the bland form letter I got from Boxer.

*Sigh*

CRINGING BULLIES AND PINHEADED BABOONS

It’s an amazing world we’ve built for ourselves -- a cacophonous brain-squonk of hollow stupidity, dominated by cringing bullies and overbearing cardboard cut-outs of simulated humans wallowing in the steaming, stinking puddles of their own pathetic servility. A microcephalic baboon cage most foul.

(Anyone who’s attempted to shop at a 24-hour Safeway at 5:30 in the morning, then followed up by having the shitheads with the pierced faces at the groovy midtown coffee house disconnect your wireless internet connection and change the channel on the electric Muzak machine to some “death metal” noise pollution, and then topped that off by unwittingly biting into a blueberry scone covered with mold, all the while being harassed by the largest mosquito you’ve ever seen ... knows exactly what I’m talking about.)

***

Seriously. The less-than-pithy term “cringing bullies” suddenly popped into my leaking brain-bag the other day at work, as I re-witnessed a modern ritual for what must’ve been the 10,000th time: over-officious demi-supervisors, scowling faces freshly removed from the nether cracks of their immediate boss/masters, “inspecting” the personal belongings of departing employees. Two things about such a scene immediately jump to the fore, competing to see which one will finally trigger that long-anticipated terminal apoplexy: that an employer assumes it has the right to poke around in your stuff, whenever the hell it wants; and the incredibly meek and subservient manner in which most of the nitwits and birdbrains submit to such outrageous perversions.

The deeply closeted Stalinists by whom I happen to be employed obviously assume they have the legal authority to violate the privacy of anyone they wish, under any pretext or circumstance, mainly because no one has officially challenged them on it; they do it because they can, as the old joke about a dog goes. Anyway, they claim that this police-state activity is necessary for reasons of “security,” which actually means, in their warped and twisted corporate view of the world, “security” for themselves and the “company” against their own employees -- since, as we all know quite well, any poor unfortunate scumbag who gets paid by the hour is simply not to be trusted. They’re thieves and liars and contemptible lowlifes, by definition.

I’ve always viewed these rather penny-ante control mechanisms -- which include, in addition to the “inspection” regimen, such gems as electronically-controlled locks on all interior doors and a “biometric” time clock -- as little more than a pale reflection of the times, inspired by the disinformation and carefully modulated paranoid fear-mongering so well practiced by the Neo-Con elite. It’s interesting to note that none of these artificial “security” measures were deemed necessary during the 1990’s; they’re a 21st Century innovation.

But getting back to the “cringing bullies”: as a term of derision and contempt, it’s applicable in a 360-degree circle, as it were. I pin it unreservedly to the morons who submit so willingly to all sorts of employer-sanctioned indignities, mostly swaggering twenty-something punks who wield their car stereos like bludgeons and who can’t seem to complete a sentence without artlessly tossing in a half-dozen superfluous f-bombs and other choice expletives. Wearing that assumed tough-guy attitude derived from the most egregious excesses of pop-media culture, they bravely turn into compliant piles of servile jello when confronted with each successive violation of their privacy, and their human rights in general. It’s difficult to understand, really, since the Junior Gestapo Enforcers who so gleefully sniff around in the darkest and most obscure recesses of various handbags, knapsacks, and lint-filled trouser pockets, are themselves the most ridiculous and pathetic “cringing bullies” of them all. The young, slave-mentality blockheads would be surprised to learn, probably, just how effective the judicious use of angry invective can actually be, if used intelligently -- just a couple of carefully-timed “Get your fucking hands off my laptop” and “If you place one finger on me, I’ll break your goddamn arm” and the ambitious mediocrities in their supervisor suits tend to sag and wilt, and pretty much leave you alone. At least, that’s been my experience with these dirt-suckers.

Is there some kind of lesson lurking around in the middle of this badly-written and typically amorphous screed? Perhaps, perhaps not. There might be something to be said for the idea of rudely calling the bluff of incredibly pretentious employers who lack the cojones and fortitude to back up their police-state proclivities; it’s something else entirely when trying to apply that to the desperate situation our constitutional republic has been, and is, facing these days. But, as somebody somewhere has surely said, one can always hope -- which is a statement that doesn’t come very easily to a cynical windbag like myself; maybe, at least as a catalytic starting point, all we need to do is shout “Get your fucking hands off my civil liberties” and things just might work out OK after all ...

Yeah, right, and I guess I’ll order another moldy scone and wash that mess down with a warm glass of beer and get stuck in another traffic jam with SUV-driving baboons who want to transform me into a biological speedbump. That seems much more likely.

WE NEED TO BE ATTACKED IN ORDER TO FEEL MORE SECURE ... OR SOMETHING TO THAT EFFECT

Just the sort of hollow-skulled bullshit to kick off another dreary work-week, infusing it with all the extra gooey layers of eye-rolling despair and hopelessness we've grown to love ...

I'm sure everybody's seen this by now. Via Raw Story:

Arkansas GOP head: We need more 'attacks on American soil' so people appreciate Bush

In his first interview as the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan told a reporter that America needs to be attacked by terrorists so that people will appreciate the work that President Bush has done to protect the country.

"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001]," Milligan said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country."

Maybe tonight, when I shuffle home after another pointlessly trying day producing profits for my corporate overlords, I'll be able to say something about this fucked-up untermensch.

What I want to know is: where do these people come from?

JUST TURN IT OFF

I’m right there in the middle of the great heaving mass of the angry and conflicted, disgusted by the appallingly spineless performance of the Vichy Democrats in Congress, plumbing new depths of cynical loathing and contempt for just about anything and everything. Sheer desperation seems to have reached a new high in recent weeks, corresponding as it does to the completely expected -- but still thoroughly infuriating -- Democratic capitulation on the “war supplemental,” or whatever the hell it’s called. Between bouts of hair-ripping and garment-rending, the small “d” democratic consensus seems to be coagulating around variations of the question, What the fuck do we do now?

A good question. A really good question, in fact.

What sort of plausible answer can you dish out to (perhaps) a majority of the public who feel, rightly, that the party they worked so hard to return to the leadership position in Congress just pathetically piddled down their collective pant leg? Leaving aside the slightly obvious fact that relying on any establishment political machine to do the right thing is suicidal, about the only answer I can come up with is that I don’t have an answer. Nobody does, not really. Working to reform the system from within? Oh, come on. Electing third-party candidates, as a form of punishment for the Democrats’ blatantly crass betrayal? Well ... that might be feasible in the long term. Rapidly retreating as deeply as possible into the hollow excitements and phony promises of the mass-consumption culture? Seems to work for the sad majority of numbskulls I have to deal with on a regular basis.

What what what?

Like I said, I don’t have any answers to the pukefest we find ourselves wallowing in. Except ... well, perhaps one thing we could do, one tiny and modest “anti-protest” we could indulge in, would involve doing as little as possible. I know -- it sounds as if my beer-softened skull has finally, mercifully, caved in on itself, terminally vindicating the self-indulgent crudity of my decrepit weltanschauung. But anyway, the notion that miraculously popped into my tired head was this: just turn it all off. Turn it the fuck off. Rampaging consumerism provides the economic/political apparatus with its misbegotten reason for being; we are, in effect, the financiers of our own intellectual debasement and -- increasingly -- our physical restraint and coercion as well. Is it so ridiculously naive to think that refusing to participate in the consumerist meatgrinder, to whatever extent one can, would truly alter the tragically misfired azimuth this country is being prodded along? I don’t think so. Turn it off -- stop playing along with this empty charade, stop being the oh-so-willing and over-enthused monetary engine that’s propelling us all right down the proverbial crapper. Simply do nothing -- don’t spend, don’t consume, don’t do anything; bring the whole foul and stinking machine to a halt by ignoring it as much as possible, and make a far more impressive impact than any under-attended protest march or insipid online petition ever could.

Yeah, whatever. As passively silly as all this probably sounds, at least it’s no more absurd than waiting breathlessly for Reid and Pelosi to swoop down and save us, representative government and all.

Remember: just turn it off. The moneybagged bastards just might pay attention then.