America turns a corner?

I don't want to get my hopes up, because I've been let down before. (Bill Clinton's mind-numbing lurch to the right in the '96 campaign is one of the reasons I later switched to the Greens.) But I think with Obama's inauguration today, America may have finally turned a corner.

If I had this blog 5 years ago, I'd have a lot less trouble finding material, thanks to the myriad examples of unprecedented right-wing tyranny unfolding at the time. Tyranny creep is a form of natural selection: In order for me to notice some new right-wing policy, it often has to be even nuttier than what came before it. Generally, this trend has gone on since 1981.

But I think now we'll have more success at reversing it. One has a right to hope so. Public sumptuary laws and pseudoephedrine logs are among the only major examples of bugfuck insanity that continue to expand now, so the trend may already be cracking.

What people have said to me really is true: No excuses. But that goes for me as well as every person who reads this. I will fight harder than ever - yes, even harder than last year. It starts tonight and continues until I get called home.