NOTE: I originally posted this late last night (September 28, 2006) over at Daily Kos with a cross-post at My Left Wing. I wasn't going to post it over here because it's really meta - for those of you not consumed by the progressive blogosphere, "meta" has to do with blogs and blogging without necessarily being about a universal issue. The diary was posted in response to another diary (linked below) imploring readers at Daily Kos and My Left Wing to calm down over the issue of the Torture Bill, passed yesterday without vitually any meaningful protest and without one rights-protecting amendment. What came out of me was pure rant. I posted it at 10:30pm EST last night and it remains on the dKos recommended list at this moment and has over 700 comments.

I decided that, although it's meta in that it's a response to another diary by another diarist, the topic is essential as well as universal so I'm cross-posting here.

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(Cross-posted at Daily Kos and My Left Wing)

I won't.  My anger is righteous and I'm entitled to it.

Now let me say right up front: Not calming down doesn't mean "I'm abandoning the party" or "All Democrats can go fuck themselves", so all of you who want to hop on in here and and point your little judgmental fingers at me and accuse me of hand-wringing in the extreme can just keep on moving, because you're dropping your admonition in the wrong place.

But I will NOT calm the fuck down.

You know, it's about more than the torture bill - I know that much.  It's such a dusty, static-filled white-noise dominated clutter right now, though, I won't be able to list all the reasons why it is more.

I appreciate Thereisnospoon's recommended diary enjoining me to calm the fuck down.  For the record, I met spoon in person some months back and find that he's a wonderful and bright thinker, inspired writer, and dedicated activist.

But I couldn't disagree more with his argument.  I'm not saying that what he is arguing is wrong - What I'm saying is what the fuck kind of argument is "they were torturing anyway"?  What.  The.  Fuck?!

And do you know why, in part, that is the only argument left to Spoon by way of counterargument?  It's becuase we've rolled over so many goddamned times that it's become the FIRST course of action rather than the last gasp of salvation.  We are placed in a position where a fine thinker and writer such as Thereisnospoon is left only with "they were torturing anyway".

I'm sorry, Spoon, and all the Kossacks who think that I am hysterical or that I am making too much out of what amounts to public validation of long-standing private actions (torture).  But now, for however long, this act will be willfully and openly done in my name.  I will NOT calm down.

I wasn't asking for much, here.  You need to understand that.  I understand that a filibuster was not necessarily the best course of action and if you look back through my comments on the subject, you'll see that pushing for a filibuster was not among them.

What I was asking for was once - just once during this travesty that has been the Bush administration - that Dems get a fucking clue and realize that not winning doesn't mean they have to lose.  They lost today - they lost BIG TIME.  Not one amendment to that bill went through.  Not one.  And the thing is, the Dems can't stand there and say that they tried.  Because they really didn't.  Trying, in my book, would have included an effort to stand together, publicly, and clearly lay out their reasons for opposing the then-proposed legislation.  Not Harry Reid making a brief statement that no one in the press really paid attention to, let alone ran on cable news... Not Nancy Pelosi spending what little airtime they gave her arguing that she's not giving "aid and comfort" to the terrorists (and thereby legitimizing Hastert's outlandish statmeent in the first place).

They needed to pick one person - then line up all the other Dems behind them, and let that person talk about the press release they just handed to everyone on the steps of the Capitol.  And they should have done that weeks ago - and then done it again.  And again.  And THEN if they failed, they did their best.

Let me ask you something - would you, at this point, want any one of these people responsible for taking care of something that was a matter of life or death to you? Oh - we tried - well great, except now I'm DEAD.

I know this will wear off to a certain degree, but what the Dems did (or didn't do) to prevent this legislation or at least LOOK LIKE they wanted to prevent the legislation for Christ's sake pretty much killed my will to give a FLYING FUCKING SHIT.

I'll work for Dems - I have been, and I will do it.  I'll live with this impotent, disorganized pack we have and I'll even continue to support their re-election.  But when it's within my power and it's one of my Dems who let me down on this, I'm going to work to replace them with Dems that know what it means to represent a constitutuency.

Update [2006-9-28 23:22:31 by RenaRF]: If you're still not feeling calm on October 5th, why don't you join the nation-wide protests. CRome3 was kind enough to point out that there /will/ be protests at all and provided a link in the comments.

Update [2006-9-29 0:27:5 by RenaRF]: I am still livid. I will remain livid over this - did you ever have something happen to you where the anger never truly dissipated, only receded? That's what this is like.

Having said that. I want to thank each and every one of you who added something to the comments. This is one of the most respectful discussions I have seen here, particularly when the topic is so emotional, and you are each a testament to why this place is, at the end of the day, a great place. Even (and sometimes especially) when we disagree.

With that, I'm on the East coast, I have a job, and it's after midnight. Therefore I am off to bed. For a pissed-off, fitful sleep.

Update [2006-9-29 9:53:41 by RenaRF]: Wow. Although I didn't sleep a lot nor did I sleep well (I had a weird dream where I was in a lunch meeting shouting at Bush - huh), I was pretty surprised to see this diary still hanging out on the Rec list. Thanks to all of you - almost 200 new comments came in since I went to bed last night and I have been able to read about a 1/3 of them... so far, the excellent and respectful tone seems to have continued, and I thank you for that.

I have not calmed the fuck down, though. I was replying to a comment from RF in this thread and said the following, which I think is worth excerpting:

I haven't CTFD. I don't think that has to be a bad thing, RF. Essentially, I've done what people do every day as they gain experience with other people - they make judgments. They determine who is on their side and who is not, and who is working against them. The vast majority of those decisions and realizations do not involve a withdrawal from life or society or work - rather, they engender a different, more educated and savvy approach. That is precisely what we need. A canny awareness of the goal, to include remaking the Democratic party in the image of its members.

I will not CTFD. But I appreciate your comment.

And this is how I feel this morning. Uncalm, still pissed, but ready to do something useful with it.