"Carpe Diem, Progressives"

[GreenPartyVoter]

Can you feel it? This, finally, is our moment.

We may not have spent forty years in the desert, but the twenty-five since Reagan the cardboard cowboy rode into town have been plenty long enough. And, anyway, the last five have been like five hundred for anybody with a brain or a heart.

But the good news is that today, without question, the movement of regressive politics in America (also known – wrongly – as conservatism) is crashing up against the shoals of its own inanity, and the American public is finally beginning to sober up after cutting loose on a quarter-century’s bender, fueled by the frightening fantasies of the right. Just the last two weeks alone feel like an attitudinal sea change in America.

Unfortunately, it probably took a war to achieve this effect. And, even more unfortunately, not just any war, but a losing war. And not just any losing war, but a losing war with significant American casualties. I’m delighted beyond words that reality is now catching up to the Bush administration, but the awful truth is that if America had invaded Iraq and actually won the war back when our dress-up-doll-would-be-fighter-jock president announced that we had, we’d all be cruising along, wallowing fat, dumb and happy in our private puddle of mud, and he would be a hero. Similarly, the American military could probably get away with decimating a hundred thousand Iraqis (and quite possibly already has) and the affair would still be seen as a success if few Americans were likewise consumed by the war.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1129-31.htm

[harlinchi]

1. I can't be delighted.

I know your delight was expressed about reality catching up with the administration but for me, the phrase was positioned too close to the descriptions of reality. I'm sure I'm being over-sensitive and nitpicky but I wouldn't have put the 'I'm delighted' after the significant US casualties.

I'm sure there will be some misguided ones who will assert that you are delighted that there are significant US casualties; I wouldn't give them the ammo.

BTW, I'm delighted reality is catching up to them, too!

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. That was an odd phrase to be sure. This next one really caught my eye tho

"As one American officer in-country recently put it, the US now has two options remaining. We can either lose the war in Iraq, or we can lose the war in Iraq and our army both."