I gave Media Matters some money, a few minutes ago. They’ve made my day.

In fact, I’m so cheered up generally that I’ll actually talk about something other than politics for a minute: the proposed film of Pattern Recognition.

One of these days (I’m shooting for November 3rd or 4th, you know) I’ll get back to nattering on about something other than my nascent interest in politics. I’m pretty cheered up generally by a lot of the things linked at Media Matters, a site I’ve run across before. So I added them to my Bloglines list.

They’re probably a little less embarassing a citation than “The Smirking Chimp.” Heh.

People ask how we do the job we do, and there’s another answer, too: because of you. We fight, and you hope. The act of taking up that banner links everyone together, even if you never take up a weapon. Freedom doesn’t mean isolation; it means connection, and admittance to a club with a wide-open membership. We have a common desire, it’s just the execution that’s different.

People ask how they can support us.

It’s very simple.

Vote.

I don’t care who you vote for, I just care that you do. Our deaths, our injuries, our sacrifices, are all payment for that concept of giving people a voice. We’ve given you a gift. We’ve paid for it already. We are here, and we will be here till the job is done. Yet there are people who say that the process is stupid, flawed, unnecessary. They may be right. But we’re here for a reaon, and every one hwo doesn’t vote negates that reason just a bit.

People ask how they can support us.

Vote.

My ballot was not blood-stained, but that’s because a truckload of them probably got blown up. I was using a generic ballot, not even the one I was sent. In order for us to vote, someone gave up their life. The Iraqis haven’t seen a real election in thirty years. It’s a brand new right for them, and some of them are willing to die for it.

Vote.

Take up the banner for all the people, living and dead, who fought for this. Take up your part in the fight.

Someone whose blog I read asked recently, “Do soldiers get to vote?” The answer is yes; hell, yes. We all get to vote.

The other day, I was talking to a traveler on the phone, making plans for a business trip. He was a nice guy, from Virginia, and he wanted to fly out on November 1st. “You’ll be gone over Election Day. Are you planning to get an absentee ballot?” He hadn’t thought of that, and changed his plans and will now depart late in the morning on the 2nd, so that he has time to hit his polling place first thing.

We went on and finished his res. He’s departing from “Reagan National,” but I booked him out of “Washington National.” Sure, he’s voting across the divide from me, but he’s in a “safe” state for his side, and I’m in a “safe” state for my side. But that doesn’t really matter – what matters is that he will vote, and I will vote, and we’ll both enjoy the right to bitch and moan for the next four years – one of us more than the other.

So in a couple of weeks – get off your ass and vote, dammit. Vote as if your life depends on it, because there’s always the chance that it will.

Kerry, we acknowledge, stands to the left of this newspaper on many issues. To restore fiscal order and responsibility, he must leave behind some of the social programs he favors. As a practical matter, a check on his more liberal instincts might be provided by a Congress that is likely to remain in Republican hands – although this Congress has aided and abetted the Bush administration’s building of record deficits.

My God! The Daily Herald, a conservative suburban newspaper with a distinctly faith-based, family-oriented slant (Holy Moly advertises in it occasionally) endorses a Democrat challenger over a Republican incumbent.

It’s Topsy-Turvy Day in Illinois! I’d better learn to walk on my hands.

And where did I find it? In the comments section of a Majority Report “clean thread.”

The Chicago Tribune has endorsed George W. Bush for President.

Apparently the editorial was written by a journalist who, in spite of the many proven omissions, prevarications, contextual elisions and flat-out lies put out by the administration, spouts the same tired “strong leader, working hard” party line.

It’s particularly shocking given that they have endorsed Bean over Crane, Obama over Keyes. Perhaps the Trib is merely attempting to preserve the appearance of non-partisanship, because the editorial is thoughtfully and carefully written. However, the arguments for retaining Bush and rejecting Kerry smack a little too much of shopworn Republican talking points.

Yes, it’s risky changing leaders in the middle of a “war,” but remember who got us there in the first place, for no good reason – as has been clearly and amply demonstrated by at least 4 different government reports.

It’s my personal belief that Bush wanted to attach Saddam Hussein’s Iraq long before we were attacked by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. The often-mentioned report of a possible meeting between an operative of the latter group with an Iraqi agent was dug up very quickly in the initial investigation. Yes, Hussein bad man. Hussein’s sons, very bad men, likely to be much worse in the future after his death. Yes, very bad if they had the bad WMDs. At the time of the war, I was caught up in the fear of “what if they have them,” too. However, it bothered me that we were so gung-ho John Wayne about going in without UN support for the action. After the starry-eyed propaganda reportage started to report things like no WMDs found while strategic and cultural sites were left to the looters while the all-goddamn-important oil ministry was guarded, the scales fell from my eyes. The temporary scales, that is, that had me mostly supporting Bush’s actions post-9/11.

It’s the bitterness, you see. We were all blinded by fear and grief, which for a while overcame our suspicions about the shady doings in the 2000 election. But for some of us, the scales fell from our eyes at some point before or after the invasion, while the true believers are still blindly following and mindlessly chanting mantras of support at their exclusive rallies. That they refuse to see and prefer to be deaf to the truth is what makes the rest of us so bitter. That they can’t think for themselves but must spout party-line formulae at every opportunity makes any thoughtful person fear for the future.

Fortunately, the state of Illinois is supposed to be a “safe” state for Kerry, but there have been an awful lot of Bush-Cheney signs popping up on the roadsides. I have to make good on my threat to get some signs of my own. And to sign up for the volunteer shift at the Democratic phone bank next weekend.

I ran across a frightening word the other day at Fr. Salty’s blog: dominionists. I already stuck it in the Quick Links sidebar, but I have a feeling that the media are finally going to discover this word and the people it describes. And we’re all going to be a little freaked out about it, and everyone will have to re-read The Handmaid’s Tale.

If you’re a Republican, and you’ve never heard this word, you’d better read up on it.