God Bless America

You make me sick.

Because I'm finding BitchPhd to be such a good parable for America right now, here's her latest:

I'm cheerful, I've done all my grading before finishing my morning coffee, I've banned three tiresome trolls, and comments to the previous thread are now closed.

Now I'm going to go find various checks that I've gotten recently paying me for my fruitful labors, swing by the bank to deposit 'em, take my bike in for a tuneup, send Ding the money I owe her, and buy myself a goddamn iPhone because I want one. So there.

What is it about this kind of behavior that grates me so? Is it the fact that buying things to distract you from the rest of the world is a matter of pride? Is it the fact that sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich is the same?

Or, is it the fact that this behavior occurs without any shame, from the same people who stick their fingers in the ears to the howls of the dead at the same time they're on the sidelines cheering Barack the quarterback as he lobs another moab into a civilian neighborhood?

Don't annoy her, damn you. Don't get in the way of her new goddamn iPhone. Of course, make absolutely sure you don't bother her with the dead. Because if she had to think about things like what happens to people blessed by our military, it would just, you know, ruin her day. It would ruin her next caramel swirl iFrappuccino, dammit!

By all means, buy your crap. What the hell else are you going to do? There's little you can do, before they cart you off to razor wire land. But do you have to dance around like a madman while you do it? Do you have to cheer it on, for decency's sake? What's that? You can't even stand to be reminded of what your saints are up to?

Your mindless quacking is why these killers are going to keep killing. You won't brook criticism of them. You can't even be bothered to talk about them. Go ahead and cleverly critique Palin's latest gaffe; go ahead and whine about McCain and the marginal percentage changes he's going to make in your tax structure.

It is so absolutely sickening. Let the record show that while the killing fields were laden with fresh bodies, Americans had their fingers in their ears, screaming shrilly, LALALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALALA.

I guess I can at least take some relief from the fact that Bitch PhD's busy schedule required her to ban three terrorists, excuse me, three communists, excuse me, three Others, excuse me, three trolls (ah yes, that's the popular internet term for nonconformists) before she could breathe easy and go back to willingly distracting herself.

Is it the hopeless death and destruction of the place that turns so many of the inmates into willing captives? Does it break their spirit in youth, and turn them into this? Or is it in their nature, and there's no hope for the species?

I still believe in empathy. I think that's why Bitch PhD needs to go out and buy crap--because she needs something shiny and new to distract her from her conscience. So I guess I should take hope that she, and the rest of America, keep needing to dangle carrots in front of the donkey: if they have to distract themselves from conscience and empathy, it at least means there is still conscience and empathy left to repress.

So, there is hope. Enjoy your new iPhone, Dr. Bitch. I know you can't stand to think about what it is going to look like when Obama escalates military intervention in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But really, enjoy the iPhone. It gives me hope that there are still finer qualities in you that you are trying to repress.