Gazing idly at the carnage

The Beast 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2004. Definitely an equal opportunity shit-list, as Al From ("Responsible for the inability of serious people to fully respect the Democratic Party"), Dan Rather ("has given the rabid right enough fuel to maintain their bogus 'liberal media' charge for years), and John Kerry ("Didn’t even have the balls to show up during the Ohio election challenge in the Senate") get dissed thoroughly along with the requisite paleocons, neocons, and popmonsters. But my favorite is who comes in at #3: You (or rather, Us).

You gaze idly at the carnage around you, sigh, and go calmly back to your coffee and your People magazine. You can’t stop buying useless crap, though you’re drowning in a deepening pool of debt. You think you’re an activist because you bitch all day on the internet, but you reelect the same gangsters at a 99% rate. You consider yourself informed because you waste a significant portion of your life watching the same three news stories cycle over and over again on your gargantuan, aerodynamic television set while you eat processed food. You really thought everything would be okay if Kerry won. Not only do you believe in an invisible man who magically farted out the universe, you also excoriate and marginalize those who disagree. You have a poorer understanding of your country’s foreign policy history than a third world peasant, but you can’t wait to see what Julia Roberts will be wearing at the Oscars. You cheer as Ukrainians challenge an election based on exit poll data, but keep waiting around for someone else to fix your problems. You can’t think, you can’t organize and you won’t act. This is all your fault.