Apparel for the Immobilized

Re-Hab Will Be Painful

It's been "hard work" mounting a quick comeback from this surgery. In the moments where my previous 24-7 blogging routine is triggered, I have felt myself recoiling in pain. Keyboarding is painful and full of errors and the mouse-movement even more so. Soul-searching has satisfied me that my quietus is not about avoiding issues which earlier had impelled my writing. In those recurrent sleepless 2:30 a.m. moments, ideas come to me and the spirit says, "Yes! YES!". But the flesh protests in favor of comfort and procrastination.

I find some consolation in my confidence that I have said in these pages just about everything I can say or that can be said. I feel tempted to say that just as I have had my fill of Busheney, I have also just as fully had my say. Having spoken up, I could now shut up and sit down. Spend some time and energy on physical rehabilitation and reconditioning: maybe say nothing more and let politics take care of itself.

The facts are that our nation is locked into a policy immobility over Iraq.It's similar to the immobilisme of Algérie française which eventually nailed the 4th Republic and to our own political paralysis during the Vietnam War which eventually nailed LBJ's 2nd term. In all these cases the sides - pro and con - of the debate were long-settled and well-rehearsed. But the politics were not adequate to forcing the debate into a timely cloture. The resultant costly and slow bleeding continued onto the threshold of Fascism in the case of French-Algieria, into the aborted Nixon administration of the 70's and, in our current circumstances, toward continuing irresolution of our prospective Clinton administration.

I have been gifted by friends and relatives of the reverse Bush countdown gags such as the reverse clock and the EndOfAnError 01.20.09 sweatshirt. They are treasures only in that they signify that people feel my pain. These do not amuse or encourage me; in fact this shirt is discouraging every time someone asks me what happens on 1/20/09? How can any one be oblivious? But more than that, these novelties are for me merely brutal reminders that in exactly 414 days Bush and Cheney get to blow town with their legacy assured because their Overton Window will be firmly in place. Preemptive pardons, maybe. But no indictments. No impeachments.

For me to stop posting at this point could be misconstrued as being patient or passive. I'd rather be accused of being repetitive or redundant.