Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Good riddance to 2005

Maggie says while STILL in NC:
Reading the local News and Observer on New Year's Eve, I was struck by this opening to a Dennis Rogers column:

The year 2005 began with the nation at war against a deadly enemy. It ends tonight with the nation at war with itself.

There may have been more dispiriting years - 1968, for one - but for sheer nastiness, historians should relegate 2005 to its own corner of hell.

I can't say I disagree. Massive death and destruction in Iraq. A great city imploded less by a hurricane than by our nation's own missteps. Outrageous political pandering that turned the death of an invalid, Terri Schiavo, into something ugly rather than something merely sad. The list could go on and on...

Even progressive "victories" feel tinged with dread. It's hard to applaud our country's ban on torture knowing that it only happened because a politically threatening Republican demanded it. Thank goodness it did happen, by the how and why is troubling, given that the bill should have been a given all along. In the House, John Murtha's courageous calls for an end to the war were undeniably timely, but soon overshadowed by the continued appeals to patriotism at any cost, such as today's new defense of the Patriot Act.

To me, tonight, this seems to be a time when getting things right the right way just doesn't happen anymore. We may have some victories, but they won't happen cleanly, clearly, or decisively, and to the broader public, all of those elements must be in place to see true change happening. I can't help but place blame for this year with the Democrats, who were nothing more than the party of silence when they should've been on the offense all along.

I'm usually much more positive than this, but now and then a night like tonight hits, when I find it hard to breathe with everything happening around us. There's so much to do and to change, and those of us trying to make a difference work small because it's the only way to stay sane, but who is going to work big? Who is going to get in people's heads and shake them out of their complacence, out of the talking points they've been fed for years and years? Who, and when? Sometimes I feel like I'll drown in the news of the day if it doesn't happen soon.