What does it feel like to wake up in the morning, get out of bed, have a little breakfast, and then head off to work knowing that this day, like all the days before, what you do will send yet more African Americans to a slow but certain death?

In her book on Adolph Eichmann, Hannah Arendt coined the off-repeated phrase, “the banality of evil,” in her attempt to describe how apparently normal, seemingly non-insane people could so easily participate in the monstrousness of the Final Solution.

Banality is where you find it.

Just the other day, in a burst of pseudo-military bravado, Hillary Clinton reared back and vomited up this little gem. Asked what the U.S. should do if Iran were at attack Israel with nuclear weapons, she replied that the U.S. would “be able to totally obliterate” Iran in reply.

There are 65 million men, women, and children in Iran, all of whom Clinton would apparently be willing to murder. Clinton took a brief round of criticism for this blood-drenched remark, but no one called for her to be taken immediately to a mental hospital for a thorough work-up.

But committing genocidal murder can be so much more subtle. Take that seemingly benign little chemical flavoring, menthol.

Civility is the glue that allows people to live together peacefully, especially in big, diverse nations. Canadians are usually civil. Many Americans try to be civil, but we do seem to have alot of horrific role models.

Jeffrey Feldman has written a book called Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy. Feldman also has a blog called Frameshop, which deconstructs the way the American right uses language. In his book, he dissects the mass of hateful spew into seven specific types of us and them rhetoric. For each of the seven bad ways to talk and act, he uses a conservative talking head as an example.

Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association has a vision of the world in which a "command-obedience" relationship exists between the governors and the governed and the use of force is dispensed under the authority of the governors. People are silenced in the presence of arms.

Pat Buchanan leads the charge against immigrants, which he sees an a Mexican invasion of America as revenge for our defeating them 160 years ago at Santa Anna. This framing aids corporate conservatives as it takes the focus off their takeover of immigration policy and instead, blames the immigrants.

Ann Coulter justifies violence against the target of her choice. Liberals are traitors who need to be eliminated because of their collaboration with Al Quaida. She is the ultimate "my way or the highway" advocate and thus closes off any discourse.

Bill O'Reilly blusters so that there is no way to talk about national security or other issues. John Gibson assaults the idea of diversity with his "War on Christmas," and James Dobson extends ideas about child discipline and family authority to the greater society. Dinesh D'Souza blames liberals for all the wrongs of the world, from 9/11 to the war itself.

Collectively, the right wing pundits have almost destroyed the concept of civility.

Discussing the same article, Sara Robinson says:

Somehow, we need to find our way back to each other. And, as simple as it sounds, it may start with a determined resolution that we are going to be civil to each other. Always. Even to your obnoxious Dittohead neighbor. Even to your annoying fundamentalist sister-in-law. Even to that jerk with the faded W'04 bumper sticker who stole your parking space. Even to the whinging concern troll in the comments thread. Catharsis feels like a birthright in our I-want-it-now society; but it's a luxury that progressives can no longer afford. Every time we give into it, the culture splits a little wider, and our odds of ever healing again it grow a bit more remote. It's time for progressives to step up and show the rest of the country how grownups behave. We've got an example to set, and a hundred million people to educate.

If we want to rebuild the country, we need to remember that we are all heirs to the same vast trust of social, political, and physical capital built up by previous generations; that our livelihood and liberties depend entirely on how well we can manage to sustain that common legacy; and that we share a duty to ensure our children's future by passing all of that on to them, not only intact but richer yet.

Our Democratic primaries have been an exercise in how NOT to conduct ourselves civilly, though it is pretty easy to analyze which candidate(s) took the higher road. Negativity has been said to be more powerful than positivity in political contests, but given our record, we need to try a new model.

Last Saturday, as I was fielding comments on Daily Kos about the piece Why We're Leaving, prospective buyers were traipsing through the house, opening the doors of newly-cleaned out closets, perusing the half-empty book shelves, and asking the occasional question about the plumbing. The traipsing continued through Sunday, even though we did not even have a For Sale sign in the front yard yet.

On Monday, we had four offers to buy. We accepted the one from the nice young couple who will have a baby in three months. They seemed to be the hopeful choice: they had saved their money for ten years, had lost out on another house they had loved, and were so so positivel about our house. They bid high. They won.

And thus our own sense of doing the right thing at the right time was validated.

We have found a sweet little (tiny, small, teensy) apartment to rent for a year, about a mile from our current location, and a mile from the Capitol as well. Our chances of running into Members of Congress at the supermarket are slim, our proximity to the halls of power reduced, our privileged views a thing of the past.

I cannot tell you how freed I feel. Tears of relief rise up in me, and have all week.

My friend in England said to me last night (on Skype), "But what if Obama wins?" An ex-pat American, who divides her time between Norway, Spain, and England, she is not bitter and she has hope, now, at last. I told her that if Obama wins, that would be wonderful, in my opinion, because it would mean that the American voters have managed to overcome our natural inclination to elect the person we would rather get drunk with rather than someone who can actually govern the country. But it is still going to be a nasty nasty struggle, and the forces working against the common good are well-funded and effective.

Those forces have too many of the Washington insiders in thrall. You can see it in their eyes: alternately vacant and worried. Avuncular men state "all is not lost!" to each other, and pound the upper arms of the distressed. Staffers slink around, busying themselves with press releases and policy statements so they don't have to think too much about the ramifications of those statements. The members of the Progressive Caucus try to be cheerful as they watch their own hard work undermined, over and over again, by the Blue Dogs, who are in turn, defensive and determined.

The last thing any of them want in their day: activists. Activists disrupt the flow of business. First of all, there are not enough of them around to make much of a difference, except as they impede one's progress along a corridor, and secondly, they tend to ask uncomfortable questions. And they actually want answers.