Blurp blurp blurp

Something that has nothing really to do with everything that's going on right now in my life/the country/the world AND YET has everything to do with it all:

W.T.F. is going on with the freakin' comments over at Common Dreams?

Has the Left gone bugfuck crazy recently, or are they just attracting the weirdos?

I have to restrain myself sometimes from clicking on the comments link just to see how nuts it gets, and then when my lowest opinion is confirmed *bang* there goes what little faith in humanity I've been able to muster.

It's like a fever swamp (is that a phrase?) over there, what with the predictions of doom and the Illuminati culling the population and the cynical blathering and Dems & the GOP are just exactly alike, working under the commands from The International Banksters (yoooo know whoooo) and how the only response left to us is apathy/violent revolution/signing an Internet petition/meditating on sweet peace and light/a vegan diet/the hemp economy/abandonment of society in favor of small mutual-interest groups and THEN it gets insane, what with the posters whose contributions to rational political discourse make your average bog-standard schizophrenic look like William Fucking Buckley, i.e. "ARG BLARG AmeriKKKa under the thumb of ZIONI$T$ OBUMMER OBOMBER the downfall of our EKONOMY has been planned by THO$E IN POWER wake up $heeple chemtrails CIA MYND KONTROL HAARP Bilderberger$ gleep wurp OPERATION NORTHWOODS KKKON$PIRA$Y KIL YR TV argle bargle USS LIBERTY blurp blurp OBamBI's comin' to TAKE YR GUNS we must resist watch thse Youtube videos they will reveal truth NEW WORLD ODOR CAN YOU SMELL IT?????" And don't even go near a thread that might have anything to do with Israel or 9/11.

I mean, christ on a cracker with sharp cheddar, THIS is what the Left amounts to these days? What, we've been abused by the conservatives for so long we're now willing to swallow the same kind of yahoo conspiracy bullshit that the Birchers tried to peddle 30 years ago? The best we have to offer as a counter to the pro-plutocrat wankers of the Right is a circle-jerk of hip cynicism, hatred of the working class ("lazy sheeple watching American Idol"), and excuses for apathy ("don't vote, it just encourages them")? And when someone writes an article for CD the best we can expect is a chorus of "YOUR NOT EXTREEEME ENOUGH FOR US YOU ARE A GATEKEEPER!" "WAAAH WAAAH you are not really LEFT you are not addressing MY CONCERNS how much money are the KOCHs giving YOU!" And that's not even counting the would-be bomb-thrower posts that might be right-wing agitators... or might not! (New flash: The whole violent revolution thing? Didn't exactly work out so well last time.)

Yeah, I know I've been paranoid, especially after 9/11 when it really seemed Bush was going to do anything he wanted. I haven't exactly been your one-stop shop for solutions to our mutual problems. I've been cynical and have called politicians stupid names (though if you're going to act like a clown don't be surprised if someone laughs at you). But JEEZUL, at least I feel like I TRY. At least I feel like I think things out a bit instead of reaching for the "oh our leaders are unprincipled and will do bad things so THIS BAD THING must therefore be true" trope. Just because Bush et al were willing to exploit 9/11 for their benefit doesn't mean they were behind some massive conspiracy. Just because Obama's been a total disappointment to those of us who didn't take one look and expect a repeat of the Clinton administration doesn't mean he is a tool of our SEEKRIT KKKORPORATE MA$TER$. And just because things are going to shit doesn't mean the Iron Heel is upon us.

We might be on the road to a repeat of the 1930s. Well, then. The Thirties gave us Fascism and Nazism, but it also gave a lot of people pause about where the capitalist system was going and what it was about, and caused them to think about what the alternatives might be. And some of those people were brave enough to say "fuck you" to their own government and sneak into Spain to fight Fascism years before the invasion of Normandy, because they could see where THAT road led. And maybe this all has nothing to do with us; maybe history DOESN'T repeat itself. But it's worth keeping in mind, I think. And knee-jerk cynicism and conspiracy mongering and denunciations of political incorrectness and generally being little more than willful embodiments of the conservative stereotype of leftists aren't going to help any in what we're facing.