Because what is there really left to say about BloodGorge W. Cush and his Traveling Travesty of War Crimes? What is there left to say about the fact that every important tenet that supposedly props up the American Dream is being rotted through, or shown to be as fragile or fake as the idea of Preventive War, and yet we carry on as normal?

Is there much else we can do? Is linking going to do it? Is calling elected officials? Signing electric petitions?

You never know. It has to be better than not trying at all.

I remember, after the WTC planecrashes, asking in my blog (not this one, we're going way back) in September of 2001 "how can I go on as if nothing has changed?" I sat in my apartment on the Upper West Side, glued to CNN, a station I never really watched before. I watched my relationship fall apart, and I watched my job go away, and everyday I couldn't get it together to try and mend these things. I could not lift myself out of the surreality of The Day My Town Got Bombed. I felt like someone had tapped me in the forehead with a metaphysical bat. I did nothing but blog and watch CNN and sleep to the sound of CNN. Afraid of the Anthrax that had riddled the local post office, I didn't even touch my mail anymore and it stacked up outside my iron-wrought door.

That was almost seven years ago. And Bush is right, it sure changed a lot. But not in the way he pretends to mean. I'm not, at this moment, going to go into all the ways that I see that violence and continually-aggravated and untreated trauma changing and affecting so many types of people and areas of society. Deception and exploitation and fear and sadism do trickle down, you see. Through all levels and roles of this national community. (Related, see E.L. Doctorow's The Unfeeling President re: the "moral compass.")

Today (well, a few days ago) the Judicially Installed Junta Head of this country admits that he himself has approved the use of torture. He has given the Sticky Hand Thumbs-Up to methods that any sane and humane person living in the modern-day developed world would declare horrific for not only a person to enact, but especially a nation entire to endorse.

The sounds I hear in the wake of this bald and cocky declaration of national shame and seemingly-proud refutation of the Geneva Convention and basic human (as well as Nuremburgian) morality as most of us know it?

Children playing in the next room. Birds outside my window. The hum of my hard drive. A truck clanging outside. Cars stopping at the light. Cars pulling away when it changes.

Has anything really changed? Aside from the stoplight? I mean some of these things continuing in the face of such terrible reality is very reassuring. But the thought that disturbs me the most is that the beast is proving to himself and all of us that his small and sad and sick visions of humanity are true. (For now.)

We cannot let that stand, to paraphrase little george's dad. In a few days, in a week, Bush will still be snickering into his eternally lotion-pampered hand, satisfied that once again he has proven the ugliest, saddest, most shameful parts of the human condition can be roused and reified again and again and again. Making his own mental malaise play out upon the world he so despises. Using power he unfairly wrested away from the system he now abuses.

Is nobody brave enough and strong enough to show this rather unimpressive though sick and foul shape of a human-ish character that its ideals are not, in fact, the Truth of this world? Are we not, together, strong and fearless enough to confront this demon in a human form and demonstrate that Fear Does Not Rule; that Bullying Will Not Win Out, that Compassion and Intelligence and Conscientiousness Are More Powerful Than Greed, Lies, and Self-Interest?

I am not surprised that Bush wants as close to the stains as he can edge his pathetic and trembling frame. I know his type, I've known sadists, heard them speak, watched their eyes, felt their grip. I recognized this creature in a few minutes. Mocking the dying repentent, dismissing a million deaths, racking up executions like a doll collection, sneering at the pain others express, face lighting up when dominating or ridiculing anyone at all—he is not in disguise to my eyes. Of course he approved the torture. No shock. Expected, in fact. And I expect he is dirtier than that. I promise you that in some way he has even witnessed it. I don't know if on tape or DVD or closed circuit. But as a storyteller and student of psychology as well as fiction narrative, I say this character needs to consummate his carnal and repulsive hunger. It would not be enough for him to just wave a hand and know it's done. That's my guess. But time will tell, qué no? If this "bush" thing is anything like I see him to be, you don't want anywhere near his little daydreams for I promise you they are not the glory-drenched visions of amber grain, such as his speechwriters would have us think, but in fact are nothing grander than the dark and depraved and desperate dramas of a small and sadistic and essentially impotent soul. In fact, the one thing I thank Tucker Carlson for is that unwavering glimpse into the chasm that the supposedly-elected sociopath keeps between his nature and his polished cracking public image.

Pervertius George the Rectal-Minded, your name is anathema. George Bush the Forever-Second, your legend is crime. You are the broken, chattering puppet with rusty hooks for hands. And I say that Justice is inevitable. I hope you shiver watching your fate ride up from a long distance. And I pray yours will not be gentle. This world and all her creatures ought reject you and your works violently and with great relish. As if flinging away a septic and ulcerated clot with the passion and fury of a person fighting for their very life.

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*You Got A Fucking Problem With That?