I've been having a lot of trouble concentrating at work recently. And both July and I are having trouble falling asleep at night.

Why?

There's just too much badness going on in the world right now. It's not the threat of terrorism or fear of an attack from a foreign nation, it's what's going on here at home that's keeping me awake at night.

I wonder if I'm just being silly. It is really that bad? I suppose that's what I thought when Bush first took office back in 2001. How bad could it really be? I didn't agree with any of his policies when he was campaigning, but it's just one politician versus another. The true variation in impact on everyday life is close to nil, right? And yet, from the get-go, I'd wake up in the morning and hear something on the radio that would really worry me. Or anger me. Or scare me. Every day. And it wasn't just the same old news being rehashed and overanalyzed ad infinitum by the commentators, it was always something new, another policy, another public comment, another scandal.

The current turmoil is being caused by the recent landmark ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The ruling itself is a good thing. "For no rational reason the marriage laws of the Commonwealth discriminate against a defined class; no amount of tinkering with language will eradicate that stain..." No, the problem is the response to it. Both the Massachusetts Governor and House Speaker are opposed to gay marriage and are pushing for a constitutional amendment to explicitly exclude same-sex couples. A constitutional amendment to discriminate. The response from Washington is the same -- the White House is advocating the passage of a constitutional amendment at the Federal level.

Many use the argument that the courts have overstepped their bounds. "Judicial Tyranny" they call it. I'm aghast when I hear that. As some, but clearly not enough, point out, the purpose of the judiciary is to protect the rights of the individual from the tyranny of the majority. But I guess some people forget that, either never having been on the outside, or perhaps desperate to never be left out again.

Anyway, that's just the big one. There's also a new chapter in the CBS/censorship controversy. Apparently, there's a new ad being developed to sell the new Medicare bill that seems to amount to nothing more than new election year propaganda. Moveon.org is trying to get another call-in campaign going to highlight CBS' hypocricy, but it's interesting to note that I can't find a single news article on it. More indication of media bias or the first symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia? I did find the original article about the ad itself. But here are Moveon's own words about it:

Dear MoveOn member,

We didn't think the hypocrisy at CBS headquarters could get any worse. But it just did.

As you know, CBS refused to run MoveOn Voter Fund's "Child's Pay" ad -- perhaps the most tasteful and uncontroversial advocacy ad in history -- during the Super Bowl. CBS executives claimed they had a blanket policy against all so-called "issue" ads.

Yesterday, we learned that the network plans to broadcast an ad promoting the Bush Medicare prescription drug law. This is part of a $13 million taxpayer-financed TV campaign to take the heat off the White House for pushing through a drug plan that benefits drug companies and insurance companies more than Medicare recipients.

The White House ad features the tagline "Same Medicare. More Benefits." But a report by Consumers Union last month said that most people covered by Medicare will wind up spending more for prescription drugs, as a result of the provisions in the law which favor drug companies. According to the Washington Post, the campaign is intended "to counteract Democratic criticism that changes to the (Medicare) program will harm older Americans."

You can read about the questionable politics behind the ad itself here. Yep. Oh yeah, and then there's the hand-picked commission to investigate the intelligence on Iraq, reporting back well after the November elections? (Here's a Reuters article) Which doesn't even begin to address the whole thing with the Patriot Act's erosion of rights to privacy, fiscal irresponsibility and pandering to business interests. (Oh wait, I just covered that, sorry.) "Uniter not a divider?" Liar, lair, pants on fire. And what ever happened to that investigation into questionable behavior on the part of John Ashcroft? (briefly mentioned here)

Y'know, I never followed politics that much. Sure, I've voted in the national elections, but it's otherwise been pretty much a quiet buzz that's flown under the radar. But it's pretty hard to ignore. I see flashes of George Orwell everywhere. Maybe we really are headed towards Armageddon (and most of those links just reinforce how bad things really are -- mostly in their prejudice and bigotry)... and saying it makes it that much worse. Because it's not even like I'm joking about it anymore.

*sigh*

There's more. There's always more. But I really gotta get to work.