My name is Steven D. I am an outrage-aholic. But now I am going cold turkey.

I spent years being outraged at the actions of the Republicans.

Just check my history of "stories" published at my profile page at TOP.

Two of my most often used "tags" were Republicans and "George W. Bush."

I posted hundreds of stories during the Bush years documenting, among other things, the following: torture, misuse of national surveillance, war crimes, GOP attacks on healthcare and social security, GOP attacks on the LGBTQ community, GOP scandals of every kind from sex scandals to cronyism to killing US soldiers in Iraq for profit, conservative hate talk, GOP denial of climate change and even the damn war on Christmas.

My most recommended diary at TOP ever was this one (link to non-TOP site that republished my diary): What Do Conservatives Want When They Say "I Want My Country Back?"

There were days I felt I was the engineer of the outrage train, I was so angry and upset at what Republicans did to our county. But then a miracle happened. The Democrats took control of the Presidency and Congress. Oh happy day. I still played the outrage game, but now I played the hope and change game, too. But while I saw a lot of talk of hope, as time wore on I saw little idf any real change.

I kept telling myself that President Obama and the Democrats were playing the long game, even as they came in with a defective health care reform law written by a Republican think tank. I ignored the failure to close Gitmo as Republican deviousness and demagoguery. I ignored Obama's expanded use of national surveillance of American citizens and his expanded use of the war powers allegedly granted under the AUMF, even as justification for his "play station" drone assassination program.

I remained silent far too long regarding regime change in Libya and Syria and our failure to do anything to protect the people of Gaza from war crimes by the Israeli government, or our support for genocide by our "Saudi" allies. I laid low and avoided criticizing Democrats for the same things for which I had castigated Republicans, like when they cosied up to Wall Street, helped out the MIC, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Tech and Big whatever, because at least the Dems talked a good game. Because Obama was in the White House, I ignored the federal government's complicity in the beat down of Occupy Wall Street, and their failure, time after time, to do anything to prosecute either killer cops or killer Wall Street criminals, the largest organized crime syndicate in the world.



Because in the outrage game you can only be outraged by one side. Just as my Republican family members reserved all their outrage for Democrats and ignored the crimes and mistakes and harm done by their party, I saw the world through a dark and twisted glass in which the only light that came through to bounce upon my retinas portrayed the Republicans as the spawn of Satan. Help me Barrack Obama, I chanted daily, your our only hope. Oh, what a fool I was.

Well this last two years have opened my eyes to the evil of our so-called democracy. It's a con game both parties play, with a big assist by the media, the MIC, and of course all their greedy, soulless corporate sponsors. Bernie Sanders and alternative media ripped the blinders from my eyes.

So forgive me if I don't jump on the "Trump just did/said what?" bandwagon, and the new axis of evil centered on Russia, the Donald and the latest, greatest constitutional crisis in our nation's history. Actually, I don't give a damn if you forgive me or not.

Because real people are suffering while the media and the parties play their "Look squirrel" games with us. Climate change is crashing down on us literally from the skies and the seas, scorching and flooding and killing wherever it chooses like some angry misbegotten godling from out of an ancient mythology. The poor are getting poorer. The most vulnerable are being ignored and shunted aside. Drug abuse and suicide is up and life expectancy is down. War grinds on though no one ever talks about it except to bludgeon "the other guys" who are always the "greater evil" because they sold out to (a) the terrorists or (b) the Reds (i.e., Russia).

Selective outrage, and its concomitant ally, fear, the tactics that have divided us for over a century for the benefit of our home made aristocracy and their well paid servants, the "upper middle class" (an oxymoron if I ever saw one) no longer holds any appeal for me. When the whole system is rotten, why pick one of of the sides of the same coin as the your champion?

Enjoy the bread-less circus of the Trump/CIA/Media spectacle if you wish. I'm choosing to opt out.