Politics as Usual

I sometimes browse Alternet, Common Dreams, The Nation's website and ZNet for news articles of interest. I can't help but notice many of these sites compare the tea party movement with the rise of fascism. Does the movement contain a lot of nuts? Yeah. And I'm sure 80%+ of it is just angry republicans and all their talk of fiscal responsibility and limited government (pragmatically good things if actually practiced) will turn to smoke if they are elected. But brown shirts? Probably not.

I have seen parts of Glenn Beck's shows, for example, and he does a similar thing. Beck seems to have devised an entire mental complex about the evil "progressives", a nebulous and sinister group that seems to contain everyone to the left of himself, and supposes that if we don't rally behind the candidates he supports it's game over for freedom. Beck is hysterical.

America has a lot of problems. High obesity, child hunger, poverty, unemployment. Highest prison population, highest defense budget, fifth highest number of executions. None of these problems will be helped by voting. And an election probably won't make them much worse either, as they are endemic to our entire economic system, which remains unchanged from election cycle to election cycle. I am far more excited for Batman and Robin #16 coming out on 11/3 then any election prospects from 11/2.