I'm afraid for my country. As I usually do when I turn on the computer, I checked the news. There was mention of the Democrats' use of the filibuster and the Republicans' threat to change the rules (229 years after the fact) to suit them. It was disheartening. All of the stories that I came across mentioned the accusations that Democrats are using the filibuster to obstruct President Bush's nominees. Well, they are. That's kind of what the filibuster is for; a tool for the minority party to still have a check against the abuses of the majority party.

Republicans can beat their chests all they want to, but they've used the hell out of the filibuster when they were the minority party. None of the articles I came across seem to mention that. Nor do they mention that the Republicans did something far more insidious. They didn't filibuster President Clinton's nominees. They simply refused to let them come up for a vote. For example, in 1999, Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch refused to hold hearings for almost six months on any of 16 circuit-court and 31 district-court nominations that President Clinton had sent up. When President Clinton left office there were more than 100 vacant judgeships.

Ironically, near the end of the Clinton/ Gore administration, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said: "There is no vacancy crisis and a little perspective clearly belies the assertion that 103 vacancies represent a systematic crisis." All that changed when President Bush came into office. Suddenly, when the number of vacancies had already been reduced the same Republican committee chairman sounded a shrill alarm. Because of the outstanding vacancies, he said, "We're reaching a crisis in our federal courts."

So in essense, the number of Bush nominees held up by the Democrats pales in comparison to to the number of nominees held up by the Republicans during the Clinton Administration. But you wouldn't know it according to the articles that are out there.

That's why I fear for my country. We live in a time where outright lies, misinformation and distortion are such a part of the popular political culture that our very Democracy has been poisoned. Quite simply, most Americans do not know what's going on. They don't understand the history behind many of the issues that their talking heads prattle on about. They only know what they're told be the media. What the media is telling them is bunk. And a dangerous percentage of the American public has stopped thinking for themselves. And even those who still try to be informed are being fed a steady stream of misinformation. This thing with the judiciary is a perfect example.

The most disturbing thing is that people have mixed their religion into this. Many of my relatives believe, in child-like simplicity, that Christians are Republicans and Atheists are Democrats. So this is turned into a battle between God-fearing Christians and godless Atheists. They really believe that. So how do you explain to them the realities behind something like this judicial question and point out that their party is full of lies and deceit; that they've been terribly mislead and should hold their leaders responsible?

Well, that's just it. You can't. It doesn't matter how much information you bring them. They won't believe it. They'll put their hands over their ears and hum a loud tune to drown you out. To them you're a modern day Delilah, just trying to sway them from the Anointed Path. And because of this our Democracy is literally being dismantled by a bunch of Right-Wing Neo-Conservatives who have nothing whatsoever in common with the average American.

How can America survive when war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength? Everything has been turned on its head. The only parallel that comes to mind is the early days of the Nazi party in Germany prior to World War II. No, I'm not talking about gas ovens and concentration camps here. What I'm talking about is the cult of personality that arose around Adolf Hitler. None of what followed could have happened unless the public went marching along. And no matter how many people tried to warn the German public about what was going on, no one was listening.