When considering levels of poopadoodle futility, the only thing worse than a liberal Democrat is a moderate consensus-building Democrat. I don't say this because I believe that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat, because that would be untrue, because I don't believe anything, and even if I did, what difference would it make?
Granted, liberal, moderate, and conservative Republicans all look pretty much like roadkill these days, considering the idiot zombies they summon forth to scream and issue vague threats against anyone who suggests that even well-dressed idiots are still not a convincing argument upon which to base a decision-making process involving whether to have cream of wheat or grits for breakfast, much less whether to care for the sick, whoever the fuck they are.
My favorite Vonnegut book remains Sirens of Titan. Granted, it is not The Brothers Karamozov, The Growth of the Soil, One Hundred Years of Solitude, or The Day of the Locust, but it is every bit as entertaining and enlightening as Paradise Lost or Post Office.
This is not to say I don't like Timequake, Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle (which Mrs. Faustroll says inspired Tommy Pynchon's Against the Day), Mother Night, Rosewater, or even the Kevorkian pieces, but Sirens for me addresses the fundamental problem that our congenitally idiotic me-me culture will never overcome, because idiocy is by nature idiotic.
During my ludicrous lifetime, I have read many great books and met many great people, but I have read many more shitty books and met many more shitty people. The fact is evil usually cancels out the good. Sorry. You can choose to be surprised or entertained. Neither choice is going to change anything. Even Douglas Adams knew that.
The Pareto rule argues that 80% of all value is generated from 20% of all activity. America prefers to focus its energy on the 80% of activity that generates the least return. Consider the war on terror, recent town halls noisemakers, Glenn Beck, Rush Hindenberg, Sarah Sirhan Palin, and many of your family, friends, and neighbors.
In Sirens of Titan, an invasion of Earth is launched from Mars. The invaders are horribly disadvantaged and wave after wave are destroyed by the planet of miserable fucks (POMF™).
In the last wave, the invaders send unarmed women and children to face the overwhelming firepower of the POMF, and they are all killed. Suddenly, after thousands of years of vicious sectarian and poopadoodle violence perpetrated by those who have the weapons upon those who do not, the people of Earth learn the lesson that the Church of the God of the Utterly Indifferent has been teaching for 15 million years.
Geez. I just realized this post was supposed to be about Senator Max Headroom Seacaucus Jim Baucus and his attempts to make the world safe for palatably dead poor people.
The man is an asshole. People like this shithead are the reason that people fly planes into tall buildings. They are the reason it will take a total annihilation of human life on the planet for God to get on with the business of doing what God does, which is punishing bad behavior by destroying all the good shit that you occasionally enjoy.
Mark my words. Or don't. Don't mean jack to me.