I woke up at 2pm.

I wandered downstairs to make allspice & nutmeg pancakes.

I sipped some spiced tea.

Fall is almost here.

A Mythic Reality
by Paul Krugman
September 7, 2004
New York Times

Political commentary that I found quite worth the read.
Thanks to sed_non_satiata for the link.

The best book I've read about America after 9/11 isn't about either America or 9/11. It's "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," an essay on the psychology of war by Chris Hedges, a veteran war correspondent. Better than any poll analysis or focus group, it explains why President Bush, despite policy failures at home and abroad, is ahead in the polls.

War, Mr. Hedges says, plays to some fundamental urges. "Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours," he says, "is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is able to deliver." When war psychology takes hold, the public believes, temporarily, in a "mythic reality" in which our nation is purely good, our enemies are purely evil, and anyone who isn't our ally is our enemy.

This state of mind works greatly to the benefit of those in power.

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I agree with the bulk of this commentary completely. I find it completely distasteful that the president is largely campaigning via scare tactics and propaganda. Let's distract from the open wound that is our economy. Let's distract from the 1,000+ lives lost in Iraq, the bulk of which were lost after the war officially ended. Let's all exploit those who died in 9/11 so I can have a heroic image (this, I find egregiously unforgivable). Let's muddy the waters-- casting shadows on Kerry's record to distract from the fact that Bush drank his way through Vietnam, never serving at all. I did some reading about this Swift Boat nonsense. The bulk of the kerfluffle? Was the enemy firing when Kerry helped pull a comrade to safety? Some (on Kerry's boat) say yes. Some (on the sinking boat) say no. This is ridiculous. Regardless, people were plucked out of the damn river and lives were preserved.

This is dirty politics at its filthiest, and I cannot fathom another four years filled with the absolute horseshit that is the Protection of Marriage Act and the Patriot Act and... well, just about every piece of legislation Bush has proposed that is aimed at narrowing the freedoms of others.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin.

Our ammendments live on. Peaceful protestors being arrested? Taxpaying citizens being denied equal rights? Womens' rights to control over their own bodies being threatened? This is not America. This is a dictatorship in training.

I need a political icon. The election draws nigh. People, if you haven't registered to vote, do it. Time is running out, and in this election, every vote will matter.