Below is a diary I posted on DailyKos. I’m amazed at how much energy goes into the posts, diaries and comments on that site, and yet I feel like it could all be harnessed to much greater actual effect on what our government actually does. See what you think:
The OTHER real scandal: Distracted by Fitzmas?
While endless yards of analysis of the Rove/Libby/Plame affair werespun out this week; while we all hit "reload" a thousand times waitingto see what goodies we were going to get for Fitzmas; while we indulgedin Schadenfreude that we haven’t enjoyed since Gingrich and Livingstongot taken down…
The Senate voted this week not to boost the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program by a few billion dollars. To put it in perspective, the Republicans have already given $14.5 billion in tax breaks to oil companies in the energy bill passed three months ago.
Look, I love DKos, I love the community and the energy, and yes, I love the Schadenfreude. But we can’t actually doanything to make Fitzgerald indict Rove, or throw Libby into theslammer for 30 years, or hold Dick Cheney’s head in the toilet. That’sin the hands of Fitzgerald, the lawyers, the judge and jury.
But this stuff — the food stamps issueand the heating oil issue — who knows, we might have done somethingabout it, if we had anywhere near the amount of diaries and action andattitude and energy directed towards issues that affect many many realpeople, maybe even people you know. Up here in the Northeast, there maywell be people dying from not being able to afford heat. Did we do allthat we could to prevent that from happening? I don’t mean to behypocritical — I implicate myself in all these questions.
What’s the next big thing coming down the pike that we’ll ignore, orgive insufficient attention to, because we’re consumed with rage atBushCo?
The Republicans never, ever let up in their zeal to destroy protections for the middle class and poor. For them, everythingis an opportunity to push their callous agenda, making life a littlemore rotten for thousands or millions of people. And so, maybe we can’tallow ourselves to be distracted by beautiful shiny objects, or theprospect of a merry Fitzmas.
What do you think?
