Reading notes

I was already agog with poetic amazement at Garrison’s term describing the Republican Party earlier this week, “the Christian party that conceals enormous glittering malice” (alt). Man, that’s so right on. The irony is that “Christian” and “malice” can exist in the same clause, but for now, to my deep sadness, they do. Jesus weeps.

Now I see We’re not in Lake Wobegon anymore. Go, man, go:

Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. …

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, … Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous. …

The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few [being accomplished by Republicans through deceit and distraction] is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good. …

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. …

This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.

Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader.

Amen, brother. It is a brilliant, unexcerptable rant. Check it out.

One of the reasons I think this election is such a Big.Deal on a personal level is that a decision to vote for Bush is one quite likely to haunt for the rest of one’s days. This voting decision must be made with full knowledge and conviction, with no coercion, because the cost of a mistake lightly made but that can’t be undone is astronomical: a self-revealing choice that will not be forgotten by friends and family, especially not by one’s children, a regret not likely to be dimmed by the years.

[via peter]