Loving my country and hating my government

I'm not a flag-waving nationalist, but hell, I did write a dissertation on the Constitution and the flag. I really do love America for lots of reasons too complex to detail here. Walt Whitman, James Dean, Thoreau, the vastness of the great plains, greens and corn bread, the House on the Rock, SoHo, the fucking Constitution, for all its limitations... There's a lot to love about the United States. But I am really, really hating my government today.

The deal-makers have hammered out the last bits of their spending deal, which will seemingly get railroaded through Congress tomorrow in a soul selling frenzy to adjourn. Among other appalling features of the bill is the elimination of language that would attempt to mitigate Bush's war on labor (the "new rules" on overtime pay and the hunger to privatize more public sector jobs) and the addition of a provision that will limit access to abortions. (DemFromCT at Daily Kos has a post on the abortion issue for those of you with the stomach to engage.) I guess Barbara Boxer is threatening to try to slow the train with some Roberts Rules tai chi. Kudos to my Senator, I may not love her as much as my last one, Feingold (who really is the most liberal person in the Senate) but she's fighting the good fight.

And then there's the raising of the debt cap to an unbelievable $8.18 trillion. That's two-thirds of the value of the NYSE. According to the Washington Post (registration required), "Just the increase in the debt ceiling over the past three years is nearly 2 1/2 times the entire federal debt accumulated between 1776 and 1980."

In short, it's all just sick-making. I feel myself losing ground, shifting from "it's time to stand up and fight" back to "it's time to look further into emigration." If anyone has anything marginally uplifting, feel free to post a comment. Please refrain from reminding me that Canada has winter.