With six days to go til mid-term elections it's time for all of us to really start strong-arming our friends and relatives into a) going to the polls and b) voting our way.
Things are getting pretty ugly all over. Some guy in Virginia got the crap beat out of him for having the temerity to ask Senator George Allen (R-VA)why he had "spit" on his ex-wife. Mike Stark, a student at UVA and a former marine,was assaulted at a public event by a couple of Allen's campaign goons and has vowed to not let his country be taken away by “thugs.”
One interesting thing that could arise out of this election is that if Mr. Ford pulls off a win in Tennessee I may, in my lifetime, be faced with the prospect of having to vote for a black, gun-toting, bible-thumping Dixiecrat, over a white, gun-toting, bible-thumping Son-of-a-bitch for President of the United States.
Which I'll do, but only if Hillary runs for Veep.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (noo joisey) that Stinky-Pants Mr. Menendez seems to be holding a slight edge over that Poopie-Brained Mr. Kean. It turns out that some rich guy from Texas (where else?), who was behind the Swift Boat ads against Kerry in '04, has poured about 4 million bucks into the negative ads against Menendez in NJ.
Nice thing about money. You can send it wherever you want.
But niceness rears it's ugly head now and then. I understand that Alec Baldwin is seeking an injunction against some documentary filmmaker to have his voice-over removed from a film about The Governator (Ahnold), which portrays him as having Nazi tendencies. Well, isn't that a step in the right direction?
I think it's important to remember, as we're bombarded with political rhetoric over the next couple of days, that even Tony Soprano doesn't think he's a "bad" person. He thinks he's just a businessman, trying to make a nice living for his family.
And although the Republican Party does some remarkably hurtful, stupid and disgusting things, and it's heavily populated with a bunch of self-loathing, closeted, homosexuals who'd happily sell "the base" the bullets to get themselves shot with, if it meant a Republican victory next week, I doubt if any of them are really Lucifer, Goldfinger or Lex Luther at heart.
No, that would require thoughtfulness and planning.
Rather, they are more like Adolph Eichmann, dutifully fulfilling what they see are their obligations to the Reich, er, Party.
They are, in fact, personifications of Hannah Arendt's shocking characterization of Eichmann as being nothing more than...
The Banality of Evil.
"The deeds were monstrous, but the doer ... was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous." Hannah Arendt, The Life of Mind - Thinking - Willing (New York-London: Ed. Harvest/HJB Book, 1978), p. 04.
Mindless. Uninformed, unquestioning and determined the remain that way. Meticulous, dogmatic and staid. Unfeeling and prudish. Good citizens. Good bureaucrats. Good soldiers.
The Banality of Evil.
Of course I could be wrong.
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