High-Minded Editorializing

Powell’s largesse left me feeling uninspired, so I wandered over to Reading Frenzy, the local independent bookstore, for that feeling of sacred in-ness that only a small bookstore can make you feel.

While I was there I ran into a copy of the Philadelphia Independent, a bi-monthly newspaper put out by some nuts from Philly. The newspaper has a sort of The Onion feel, except that when you get out from under the snarky titles (Reverend Rove’s Red Rubes Rock Rickety Republic, Righteous Rabble Ratifies Rogue Ruler’s Reign), the editorials are actually quite poignant, if somewhat self-indulgent. (What is it with the whole McSweeney’s-esque self-indulgent thing anyway?)

The copy I got a hold of was their early winter issue, so the “news” isn’t really news any more, but still I like what they had to say. This is from A Note to the Reader, on the re-election of Gee Whiz:

…so pay no attention to self-appointed surveyors who try to divide the provinces of belief and doubt, the country and the city, the interests of you and your countrymen. What better way to subjugate a nation than to split it along invisible lines? The commentators trying to divine the nation’s heart with a box of Crayolas are the same ones who sat hushed and rapt when Colin Powell told us about the weapons of mass destruction, the ones who remembered the infamy of Abu Ghraib for all of a fortnight. Now they have set themselves up as mapmakers, and wish to make every person beleive that he alone inhabits an island of good sense in a rising sea of savagery. They are correct to say a civil war is taking place, but its fronts are not so easily drawn. The United States is not a jigsaw of fifty states or a purple scrim of variously shaded countries, but a collection of individual consciences. It is within these borders that common sense is doing battle with fear, and we maintain that common sense will ultimately prevail.

Nothing changed on November 2. George Bush is still the president. We are still aligned against him, as we are compelled to by our beliefs in peace among nations, equality among men, and the obligation of the govenment to be honest with the governed. For a time, John Kerry was a vessel for these beleifs, but his defeat does not equal ours. Fifty-six million Americans have had enough of this failed president, and so long as each of us remains bent on seeing his agenda defeated, it is he who should be afraid. We stand ready to do whatever it is in our power to do to erase the awful mark the president intends to leave on history. With time, our rights and alliances will be restored, the wealth of the land returned to the people, and the world will no longer have to live in fear of America. Our work will not cease until history forgets this little man who rose too high, and there is plenty of work to be done.