Yeah, shit happens.

[Cyrano]

But who could have predicted the tsunami of shit we’ve been drowning in for almost seven years now?

Actually, we should have seen it coming. The Republican Party spent more than three decades building an infrastructure with which to grab and hold onto power. And it paid off for them big time in the stolen election of 2000.

But they didn’t build their politically malignant machine in some dingy backroom. They did it right out in the open. Corporate America bought up the major media conglomerates while we just sat there, watched them and did nothing to counter it. And they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams with The Republican Broadcasting Network – otherwise known a Fox News.

They founded right-wing “think tanks” – an oxymoron if ever there was one – for the purpose of grooming future politicians, talking heads, “experts” of various stripes, and tactics for framing issues and winning/stealing elections. In short, they built highly sophisticated schools for spewing and spreading venom.

And let’s not forget our homegrown Taliban. If religion is “the opiate of the masses,” the Republicans have spent the past few decades as the dope peddlers.

While we were trying to reestablish our FDR-New Deal roots, they were honing the madness of their three Gs -- God, Guns and Gays. Sure, it was all hypocrisy and opportunism, but you’ve got to hand it to them. They sure as hell knew their audience.

Many moons ago, a famous reporter for the Baltimore Sun named H. L. Mencken said, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” We are living with the incredible accuracy of that statement today. Even with stolen elections, what sane, thinking person would have gone along with the madness that’s engulfed us ever since the first day the current maniacs took office claiming that the Clinton administration had removed the W’s from all the computer keyboards in the White House?

Compared to the villains of the 20th century, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Pol Pot, and their ilk, Bush-Cheney & Co. seem like second-rate, would-be tyrants. But that’s not so. They have committed momentous crimes.

The United States has long been considered, by many in the world, to be a bastion of freedom. (And if you don’t agree, think how your forebears must have felt when they sailed past the Statue of Liberty.) The criminals now running our country have destroyed that image. Put another way, they’ve destroyed the hope of a better world for countless millions who may have viewed America as an island of sanctuary in an unjust, unstable world.

Assuming our next president has the will to start rebuilding, he or she is facing a monumental task. It took many centuries for civilized, socially and scientifically advanced societies to come into being. Given today’s weaponry, it can be destroyed in an hour. And given the “intelligence” of the human species, it might be.

So yes, shit happens. But we can’t let it happen to this country again. I believe that it’s our moral imperative to adapt the vow made by Jews who survived the Holocaust – “Never again.” And what I mean by that is that never again can we allow ourselves to be lulled into being ruled by those who know nothing and could care less. The world won’t survive it.