Juggling Six Things At Once

So this may not be coherent.

I'm quoting and bolding a statement of Avedon's made in response to an Americablog posting that needs to be emblazoned somewhere (Hmmmm.  Maybe?):

Every time I hear someone saying it will take "a long time" or "years" or "a generation" to undo the mess we're in, I think, "Have you no understanding of history?" It was a miracle the Founders created what they did, and it took unique circumstances and thousands of years to get to that point. You think you're gonna come back from this? Unless something stops this train-wreck now - and I don't see anything like that happening - you can kiss it good-bye. Forever.

The Galt's Gulch gang are too busy hugging themselves to notice; the Tea Party people are mostly going "Nuh-uh, TV tells me so, it's trooooooo-oo!" and conservative/reactionary/Republicans are smacking their lips where no one can see.

When I was a child, I believed that if I could just talk to Fidel Castro, he would stop scaring everybody about Communism.

I don't believe that anymore.  I'd like to be able to cling to the illusion that people given good data make reasonable decisions, but that illusion is melting.

Years ago, I knew somebody who thought he'd survive Nazi Germany.