I haven't been writing much lately. I have been reading and observing and thinking and getting angry. I think that our country, and by extension the world, is at a very dangerous crossroads. The path we take is in large part going to be determined by what happens in tomorrow's election. There's a great deal at stake.

I want to be optimistic but it's very difficult. The simple power of Republican electioneering and Democratic incompetence makes that impossible. If you listen to the pundits, they'll tell you that Democrats are likely to pick up enough seats in the House to take over. They need 15. They'll likely get 20-30. The pundits will tell you that the Dems have an outside shot at capturing the Senate where they need 6 six seats, but pretty much have to run the table in Rhode Island, Montana, Missouri and Virginia. I don't know. I'm not so certain.

What I think is that Republican suppression efforts combined with their indefatigable get out the vote drive in an atmosphere poisoned by hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the most divisive negative advertising and pestering "robo-calls" could prove the pundits wrong, make a genius of Karl Rove (yet again), and undermine the pre-election polling suggesting a Democratic wave across the country. I hope I'm wrong.

It comes down to this. If the Democrats can take over one or both houses of Congress, the people will be able to hold this current administration, an administration that came into office promising humility after being installed into office by the Supreme Court, an administration that lied to launch a pre-emptive war against a country that did not threaten us, an administration that has flushed the Constitution down to the toilet, to account. That's all we can really hope for. The Republicans are doing everything to hold on dear life. There's nothing they fear more than having to answer to the American people for their actions. Nothing.

Pundits will tell you this election is a referendum on Iraq or on George Bush or the economy or whatever. But this really is a referendum on the intelligence of the American people. If we, collectively do not kick the Republicans out of office after Iraq, Katrina, Jack Abramoff, endless fear mongering, Mark Foley, Tom DeLay, Don Rumsfeld, signing statements, ending Habeas Corpus, Abu Ghraib, Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham, tax cuts for the rich, subsidies for oil companies making billions in profit, ignoring science, unilateralism, defense of marriage, denying global warming, ballooning deficits, abstinence only education, outed CIA agents, undermining the media and politicizing everything, then we are the fucking backward, retarded faith-based country that everyone outside our borders thinks we are and we deserve whatever our fate is to be. We deserve to be locked up without charges. We deserve to be hated, feared and derided. We deserve to be a debtor nation. We deserve to be addicted to oil. We deserve to be fucked.

The fact that more than half of Americans will not even bother to get their obese asses out of bed and go to the polls tomorrow and vote says much about this country. The fact that many of them will vote Republican despite what we and the world have been subjected to the last 6 years speaks even louder.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope my pessimisism is missplaced. I go to sleep tonight dreaming of defeat for Santorum, Burns, Allen, Talent, Corker, Kyl, Musgrave, and dozens of other self-righteous cocksuckers who currently run this country into the ground. Nothing will make me happier tomorrow. I will also dream of the dozens of Iraq War vets who returned home only to run as Democrats elected to the House. If anyone can set this country on the right path, is they.