Dog Days

The dog days of summer are upon us. Yesterday even Seattle endured stale air and record-setting 100-plus-degree temperatures.

The dog days of politics are upon us as well. Thanks to congressional Democrats we are now going to get watered-down, immensely complicated, mostly meaningless health-care legislation to go along with Obama's continuation of the Mideast wars, warrantless wiretapping, and imprisonment of foreign detainees without charges or trial.

Having blown this last opportunity to redeem themselves, the Democrats can now unmistakably be seen for what they are -- completely useless tools of the corporate establishment, totally undeserving of anyone's loyalty or respect. Their only function, other than carrying water and chopping wood for health insurance companies and others like them, is to serve as a damper on the ever-louder craziness of the fascist party, kind of like acoustical tiles. They eat out of the same dish as their howling fascist colleagues.

There's no hope for any progress in this country until somebody comes up with a way to overthrow the regime of the lobbyists. Until then, I don't plan to think about it much. The current rotten and corrupted system will invariably produce the same kind of rotten and corrupted legislation.