LET'S PRETEND IT DOESN'T MATTER

If only life would mirror our grand illusions! How happy we'd be, how fulfilled. Of course, that would be at the expense of other people who don't share our delusions, but so what? Let them get their own damned fantasy life. If we want to proclaim the war in Iraq a success, well, who's to deny it? Our army beat their army and we hung their boss by the neck until dead, right? We won, we won! Pay no attention to that puny little man behind the curtain, we are the Great and Powerful Oz! We won and we were right! Right?

Well, if it's right to invade nations with whom we had no quarrel, then okay. If it's right to disable every oil gauge so that no one knows how much crude is being stolen every day, well, sure. If it's right to lie to the American people about dire threats from a 3rd rate military power, then by golly we were right as rain to go in and steal their oil and kill untold thousands of their people and dismantle their government. Hell, wasn't it "right" to own slaves here in America until it wasn't right anymore? Youbetcha! So until we decide it's wrong to be the new Roman Empire we're right and we're winning and we're going to keep it up!

And this is how the Republicans are running their campaign to get daffy old John McCain in the White House, another clueless bumbler who picked an intellectual and political featherweight for his running mate. They're probably figuring that will ensure at least four more years of Corporatocracy, with the president deep in the pocket of business interests. This in effect gives corporations their own army, navy, air force and if need be, a nuclear arsenal. Who needs sound business practices when you can call in the Marines? And when all that stolen oil flows, you can still raise the price like there was some sort of shortage! What's not to love?

Well, that's where this fantasy reality conflicts with the rest of the nation and the entire world's reality, a reality grounded in, well... reality. We've had eight years of this Wizard of Oz crap and it's time to ground the flying monkeys. The results? An America despised and scorned, a working class under direct attack by a ruling elite, a major city drowned and abandoned, the tinder box that is the Middle East up in flames, home foreclosures approaching the levels of The Great Depression, an education system leaving all kinds of children behind, the million and change homeless being joined by 200,000 homeless war veterans forgotten by their country, corporate princes looting the pubic treasury to add to their already obscene wealth, the Bill of Rights being under constant attack from those who swore a scared oath to uphold it, American spies exposed by American government officials and the continued freedom and flourishing video career of our only avowed enemy, Bush The Younger's former business colleague Osama bin Laden.

Damn those facts! They are sad! They are negative! They are disgraceful! These are not Fun Facts and they are spoiling our fancy party! Best to ignore them. Good strategy, eh? And while we're ignoring facts, let's put the blame on the opposition party for all these disasters and call them unpatriotic to boot! It's worked before, with a little leg up from election fraud, so why not trot out that old horse again? The American people really are a bunch of decent, amiable dunces, God love 'em. They'll dance to our tune again, right? Right?

Well, let's not put the cart in front of that dead horse here, boys. The rest of the nation has it's own version of fantasy reality, one that involves honest government living up the the U.S. Constitution, working hard to solve the nation's problems and not starting any wars just for the hell of it. Maybe making the big kids share the toys with the rest of us, things like that. Nothing major, really, since this is America, a place that you'd think would be awfully hard to screw up had you not just witnessed it with your own eyes for eight bizarre years. When you think about it, it's really hard to blow it in a great place like this. You really have to be trying, shoveling the shit with both hands.

So have your party, blow up your balloons and your egos and pat each other on the back for a job not-so-well-done. Tell us all how great you are and all you've done for us. When you tell us how the economy is growing, maybe you could sort of point out where that money is going, 'cause we're not feeling the love here, fellas, if you catch the drift. Not too many crumbs trickling down from the banquet table, boys, and we dogs are starving down here. If we're missing something, please, show us the error our thoughts. Remind us again how great if would be if we gave you four more years to screw the pooch. Tell us that America is strong, tell us that it can easily withstand the severe beating you've been giving it like it was a rented mule. Soon the party will be over and you'll have to explain yourselves to the voters. Think it over and get back to us.