I think the thing is, Kevin, that it is not each other we so despise it is the hard cold rain of voices from the media and Washington DC we must weather each day that leaves us so irritable and filled with discontent. That is partly what this fired US Attorney thing is about. Never in the history of our country have we had an administration in the executive branch of our government that has endeavored so unabashedly to divide the people of our nation. Say what we will about Reagan, Bush 1, or Clinton, they all made efforts to unite the two parties whenever the opportunity presented itself. Dubya ran on that platform but from the moment they took office, the doors closed and the discussion ended and Karl Rove took over. He delivered a strategy of potent disharmony and division that could be used to the advantage of the RNC.

The internet is an amazing tool and for someone like Rove, or any political operative, it is also a fantastic annoyance. The amount of information now at our fingertips is overwhelming. Anything we want to know more about is just a few key strokes away. This means we can be our own fact checkers, do our own research, we don't need to read the papers every day or watch the news because we can catch up on things just by sitting down at our computers. This means the role of television and radio news has changed drastically. They need more of a hook to get us than they ever did before. So the rules there changed. As pointed out on this space already the Fairness Doctrine was destroyed. Fox News was created as an openly partisan network and talk radio turned vicious to get our attention. A general distrust of the media was always part of the plan and to sell, sell, sell the idea that there was a huge liberal bias in the media and we were not getting the "truth." Once that little feat was accomplished then the idea of having an openly partisan news network would be accepted as fair because "hey, the liberals have all the rest of the media in their control."

Never mind that this idea is absurd and that the major media outlets are owned by conglomerates that typically are chaired and operated by big time Right Wingers. The idea was to turn it all into a playground and by the tenor of the general discourse we get can anybody deny that they have succeeded? The cacophony of vile and deranged voices pouring out of our radios and televisions is deafening.

"First, you gotta get mad!" -Howard Beale from "Network"

Get mad we did, furious in fact, and the voices keep urging us to attack each other. We are not the policy makers. We are the workaday stiffs that put our nose to the grindstone and try to make a buck, feed and care for our families. It's crazy for us to be at each others throats. We need each other and we should be working together.

United we stand, divided we fall into whatever line they wish to put us in.

So, you're on the right, I'm on the left. I'm liberal, you're conservative. You are against abortion, I'm for it. I'm against the war in Iraq, you're for it. I like blue, you like red. I hate 80's music, you love it. I like boxers, you prefer briefs. If I don't like what you like I must hate what you like. If I hate what you like I must hate you. If I hate you I must be out to get you. If I'm out to get you I must be stopped and any means of stopping me is justified because I'm a danger to you and your way of life.

Do you see?

This is what guys like Karl Rove want to turn us into.

Divide and conquer. If they divide the people, they have conquered them.

They wish to turn your best intentions against you. You want to decrease the number of abortions in this country. Ok, noble enough idea, nobody would argue that is bad thing but a guy like Karl Rove wants to foster the idea that there are people out there that want to stop you from doing this. He wants you to think there are people against you and he wants to do this to get you to do what he wants you to do, vote Republican.

He does this in a very straight forward and simple way. Even though your abortion idea is something we all agree with Rove and people like him examine the idea and find there is a way they can use it against us all.

They simply promote the idea that if someone on the "left" wanted to slow or stop abortions in this country they would create and support legislation that banned it. Sounds pretty simple and clear right?

In fact what this does is it uses the best intentions of people on the left against them as well. So now he's got your best intentions and mine and he has turned them against us all for his own benefit. We lose, he wins.

See the people on the left are not against slowing the number of abortions and would love to see that happen too but they feel that it's not the place of the government to create legislation to control the population and that once you start down that road you are headed for big trouble. This was not the intention of our founding fathers either and so this type of legislation is at its heart very, very Un-American.

We end up screaming at each other across the great divide. We don't disagree on the original idea but now you see anyone that won't create legislation to stop abortion as a "baby killer" and people on the "left" see anyone that wants to create legislation designed specifically to control the population as Un-American. We both had good intentions at the start but those good intentions have now been used to pave our way to Hell. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

(Please note here that I'm using Mr. Rove as an example and he is by no means alone in this and there are political operatives on both sides but Rove due to an unprecedented level of freedom granted him by this administration has achieved things mere mortal political operatives could only dream of. Within his profession he is a hero but he is a true enemy of the people of this country and in reality the world.)

Communication, as we have seen here on this board, breaks down and we give in to our worse instincts. You accuse people on the left of being "baby killers" and people on the left accuse you of being a "brainwashed buffoon out to destroy our country."

There is no truth to either accusation and as you can clearly see no longer any discussion of the original problem. The voices on the radio and tv poke and prod us along and fuel the flames. The abortion argument is blown up into a major fist fight and solving the problem is forgotten in a tidal wave of bad feelings.

The idea is to get us to stop talking and get us to feel like all we can do is fight for our little piece of turf. I despise the fact that this is where we end up.

I know I typed up a long explanation of this situation but I felt it was worth talking to you about, Kevin. If you think what I'm saying is crazy...well...so be it.

Oh, yeah and my worst moment on this board came in my exchange with Pat about the child rapists in Texas. I did apologize to everyone here for that though and if Gene had not slapped me, my next post would have been so horrific it would have been as close to nailing Pat to a cross as you can get with some words on the internet. Pat had said in another post, and completely off topic I might add, that what was important to him was protecting children while at the same time implying that people on the "left" did not care as much about children as those on the "right."

So, having just read the story of what had gone on in Texas, I put it up on the board fearing the worst from Mr. Brown as a response. Well, thankfully Pat did not post anything horrible but he did pretty much what I expected. He posted jokes about Cheney and Rove to make fun of my concern with a justice system that allowed child rapists to walk and weaseled around his guys having any responsibility for this. He never once expressed any concern for the boys who had been being raped regularly. I wanted to smash my computer and throw it out the second story window when I read what he said. He had just admitted that he cared more about defending corrupt Republicans than he did about these boys who were getting repeatedly raped. He also made it clear that he was just making stuff up as he went along...which has always seemed to be the case with Pat but this time he drove the point home. I got the message loud and clear - don't bother - I could have video tape of Bush, Cheney, and Rove beating an old woman to death and Pat would say she had it coming. I didn't see what Pat was doing as hypocrisy, it was pretty much "Hey, if you blame a Republican for anything I'll deny it."

I just always try to cool off before writing some of the stuff I do here because I am certainly not perfect. So to answer that question...yes, I have my moments but the advantage to writing a response is I can reflect on it a bit first...plus there was a doctor in the house to slap me before I lost my shit.