Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Ding, Dong, the Witch Is Dead...
Two bright spots coming out of the pathetic results of Presidential Election '04...
First off... John Ashcroft has resigned as attorney general and, about that, I couldn't be happier. He's a religious lunatic, a man who claims we're completely, totally safe from crime and terrorism now (hence the reason for his resignation); a moron who found it better to go after Tommy Chong for selling glass pipes than to go after real terrorists. He was more concerned with covering up the cold metal boobies of statues in the DOJ offices than with... going after real terrorists. He was deathly afraid of cats and used to self-annoint with Crisco. Lunatic, madman, fool, fucktard.
The man is an insane asshat, and good riddance. I only hope that he doesn't manage to turn his post-AG life into a lucrative speaking circuit gig. And... has anyone ever noticed that he's almost a dead-ringer for The Simpson's Principal Skinner?
The other silver lining is this: since Bush won the election (and with hardly a mandate, by the way, but a bare majority), he's now stuck with cleaning up his own mess, and that may be a good thing in the long run, because no one in the blue states has any hope that he's even capable of the deed. Perhaps 2005 was too early for a Democrat to take office. Perhaps we need four more years of his incompetent, capricious, downright Caligulan rule in order for him to screw this country so far into the ground that people will finally wake up and reject his party and their politics for generations to come. With any luck, we'll have Hilary Clinton and/or Barack Obama on hand to fix it in 2008 and 2012.
Looking back seventy-one years, to FDR's innauguration in March 1933, here's the breakdown. Democrats in office: 39 years, 10 months. Republicans in office, 36 years. So, about equal time. But plot the social, intellectual and artistic history of the US against those same administrations, and you'll find that the boom times tended to come under Democratic administrations. The sole exception is the explosion of the middle class, which happened under Eisenhower -- but he was pretty much a Republican of the John McCain mold, with little in common with the current robber barons in power.
But -- space race? Democrats, JFK & LBJ, with Nixon lucky enough to be president as their programs paid off with a moon walk. Conversely, the space shuttle blew up on Reagan's watch, then not again until Bush Jr. Dotcom boom? Clinton. The success of the youth movement, begun under LBJ, paid off with Nixon's resugnation.
The WPA, TVA, Social Security, Medicare, commercial television, school vaccinations, the GI Bill, etc., etc., etc.: FDR and Truman (although you have to knock points off Truman's score for being the first and only president to engage in nuclear war, allowing McCarthy to get away with it and beginning the Cold War.) AIDS crisis, Reagan. Bad economies: Nixon, Ford, Bush I and Bush II. (And Herbert Hoover, but I didn't include him in the math above.)
Cinema seems immune to this formula. The "good" periods (mid 90s through now, sort of; the 70s; the mid-30s to late 40s) don't match up at all with who was in office.
Music sucks less under Democrats: Clinton, LBJ, FDR and Truman. You can't really blame Carter for Disco, but you sure can blame Ike for the 50s. And you can really blame Reagan for New Wave.
But anyway -- I'd like to hope that this last election was not a revelation of the total stupidity of the typical red state voter. Rather, I'd like to think it was the electorate handing the maniacs in power just enough rope to finally hang themselves.
W, may the shame with which you leave this office make Richard Nixon look like a saint.
(0) comments
First off... John Ashcroft has resigned as attorney general and, about that, I couldn't be happier. He's a religious lunatic, a man who claims we're completely, totally safe from crime and terrorism now (hence the reason for his resignation); a moron who found it better to go after Tommy Chong for selling glass pipes than to go after real terrorists. He was more concerned with covering up the cold metal boobies of statues in the DOJ offices than with... going after real terrorists. He was deathly afraid of cats and used to self-annoint with Crisco. Lunatic, madman, fool, fucktard.
The man is an insane asshat, and good riddance. I only hope that he doesn't manage to turn his post-AG life into a lucrative speaking circuit gig. And... has anyone ever noticed that he's almost a dead-ringer for The Simpson's Principal Skinner?
The other silver lining is this: since Bush won the election (and with hardly a mandate, by the way, but a bare majority), he's now stuck with cleaning up his own mess, and that may be a good thing in the long run, because no one in the blue states has any hope that he's even capable of the deed. Perhaps 2005 was too early for a Democrat to take office. Perhaps we need four more years of his incompetent, capricious, downright Caligulan rule in order for him to screw this country so far into the ground that people will finally wake up and reject his party and their politics for generations to come. With any luck, we'll have Hilary Clinton and/or Barack Obama on hand to fix it in 2008 and 2012.
Looking back seventy-one years, to FDR's innauguration in March 1933, here's the breakdown. Democrats in office: 39 years, 10 months. Republicans in office, 36 years. So, about equal time. But plot the social, intellectual and artistic history of the US against those same administrations, and you'll find that the boom times tended to come under Democratic administrations. The sole exception is the explosion of the middle class, which happened under Eisenhower -- but he was pretty much a Republican of the John McCain mold, with little in common with the current robber barons in power.
But -- space race? Democrats, JFK & LBJ, with Nixon lucky enough to be president as their programs paid off with a moon walk. Conversely, the space shuttle blew up on Reagan's watch, then not again until Bush Jr. Dotcom boom? Clinton. The success of the youth movement, begun under LBJ, paid off with Nixon's resugnation.
The WPA, TVA, Social Security, Medicare, commercial television, school vaccinations, the GI Bill, etc., etc., etc.: FDR and Truman (although you have to knock points off Truman's score for being the first and only president to engage in nuclear war, allowing McCarthy to get away with it and beginning the Cold War.) AIDS crisis, Reagan. Bad economies: Nixon, Ford, Bush I and Bush II. (And Herbert Hoover, but I didn't include him in the math above.)
Cinema seems immune to this formula. The "good" periods (mid 90s through now, sort of; the 70s; the mid-30s to late 40s) don't match up at all with who was in office.
Music sucks less under Democrats: Clinton, LBJ, FDR and Truman. You can't really blame Carter for Disco, but you sure can blame Ike for the 50s. And you can really blame Reagan for New Wave.
But anyway -- I'd like to hope that this last election was not a revelation of the total stupidity of the typical red state voter. Rather, I'd like to think it was the electorate handing the maniacs in power just enough rope to finally hang themselves.
W, may the shame with which you leave this office make Richard Nixon look like a saint.
(0) comments
Thursday, November 04, 2004
A Message to (Some of) America
An Open Letter to Everyone Who Voted for W, and Everyone Who Didn't Vote...
FUCK YOU ALL
If you voted for Bush, I can't even begin to conceive of why. Is it because our economy is going gangbusters? Oh, sorry -- that's the fantasy land version. Our economy sucks, with millions of jobs lost, deficits that would have made Reagan physically ill, and no recovery in sight.
Is it because you benefited from the enormous tax cut? Well, unless you're making upwards of a quarter million a year, you saw diddly squat. Remember those three hundred dollar checks? They were advances, not refunds, which were deducted from your refund the next year. And, anyway, you've more than made up the difference in increased energy costs, inflation and higher local taxes -- which are higher to make up for what W and company have stolen from state and city coffers.
"No Child Left Behind?" A nice idea, on paper -- trouble is, this administration has failed to fund the program. What they've done, as I've explained here before, is tantamount to a parent telling their sixteen year-old, "Hey, got you a car for your birthday," but then failing to tell them that they'll be paying for the car, the insurance and the gas. Happy freakin' birthday, indeed.
Did you vote for Bush because he'll protect us from the scary middle eastern terrorists? Welp, Osama is still at large and still making movies, and Saddam had nothing at all to do with 9/11. America is less safe, and Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists, thanks to your boy.
Did you vote for Bush because you'd rather have a beer with him than with Kerry? If that was your reasoning, then fuck you most of all.
And if you didn't vote, do me a favor. Shut the hell up for the next four years. You have no right to complain, no right to bitch, no right to say anything. You gave up that right when you failed to exercise your primary right, for whatever reason. If you didn't vote, you're lower than the scum who did vote for Bush.
America is on the brink of a second Civil War. Half of you, the voting half who elected this asshat for the first time, don't deserve to eat or breath. You're the ones who should be rounded up and sent to Gitmo. You're the ones who are obviously so stupid and unaware that you shouldn't even be allowed to vote. And the rest of us, the ones who held out for a better America, aren't going to take your shit any more.
Republicans may have stolen a fake majority, for the moment. But the rest of us are now going to fight you tooth and nail for everything. If you thought Nixon's second term was tough for him, you ain't seen nothing yet. And at the first sign of open fascism (as opposed to the crypto-fascism we've had for the last four years) we are ready to revolt.
Quoth John Wilkes Booth, "Sic semper tyrannis." But don't forget -- when a tyrant falls, his supporters are dragged down with him. I hope every last one of you Bush-voting fucktards is ready to be dragged down to the lower depths, and punished for the great mortal sin you committed on November 2nd.
Again, fuck you all. I had no idea that we had fifty-five million stupid people in this country, but apparently we do. And we'd do much better without every last one of you. Fifty-five million stupid people and around a hundred million non-voting idiots.
Do us all a favor. Get off the fucking planet, and let the smart people run things, okay? Because, clearly, none of you Bush voters is even smart enough to wipe your own ass -- which is exactly what you used the Constitution for on Tuesday.
So, again and sincerely, I say -- go fuck yourselves. Big time. And fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy revolution.
(0) comments
FUCK YOU ALL
If you voted for Bush, I can't even begin to conceive of why. Is it because our economy is going gangbusters? Oh, sorry -- that's the fantasy land version. Our economy sucks, with millions of jobs lost, deficits that would have made Reagan physically ill, and no recovery in sight.
Is it because you benefited from the enormous tax cut? Well, unless you're making upwards of a quarter million a year, you saw diddly squat. Remember those three hundred dollar checks? They were advances, not refunds, which were deducted from your refund the next year. And, anyway, you've more than made up the difference in increased energy costs, inflation and higher local taxes -- which are higher to make up for what W and company have stolen from state and city coffers.
"No Child Left Behind?" A nice idea, on paper -- trouble is, this administration has failed to fund the program. What they've done, as I've explained here before, is tantamount to a parent telling their sixteen year-old, "Hey, got you a car for your birthday," but then failing to tell them that they'll be paying for the car, the insurance and the gas. Happy freakin' birthday, indeed.
Did you vote for Bush because he'll protect us from the scary middle eastern terrorists? Welp, Osama is still at large and still making movies, and Saddam had nothing at all to do with 9/11. America is less safe, and Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists, thanks to your boy.
Did you vote for Bush because you'd rather have a beer with him than with Kerry? If that was your reasoning, then fuck you most of all.
And if you didn't vote, do me a favor. Shut the hell up for the next four years. You have no right to complain, no right to bitch, no right to say anything. You gave up that right when you failed to exercise your primary right, for whatever reason. If you didn't vote, you're lower than the scum who did vote for Bush.
America is on the brink of a second Civil War. Half of you, the voting half who elected this asshat for the first time, don't deserve to eat or breath. You're the ones who should be rounded up and sent to Gitmo. You're the ones who are obviously so stupid and unaware that you shouldn't even be allowed to vote. And the rest of us, the ones who held out for a better America, aren't going to take your shit any more.
Republicans may have stolen a fake majority, for the moment. But the rest of us are now going to fight you tooth and nail for everything. If you thought Nixon's second term was tough for him, you ain't seen nothing yet. And at the first sign of open fascism (as opposed to the crypto-fascism we've had for the last four years) we are ready to revolt.
Quoth John Wilkes Booth, "Sic semper tyrannis." But don't forget -- when a tyrant falls, his supporters are dragged down with him. I hope every last one of you Bush-voting fucktards is ready to be dragged down to the lower depths, and punished for the great mortal sin you committed on November 2nd.
Again, fuck you all. I had no idea that we had fifty-five million stupid people in this country, but apparently we do. And we'd do much better without every last one of you. Fifty-five million stupid people and around a hundred million non-voting idiots.
Do us all a favor. Get off the fucking planet, and let the smart people run things, okay? Because, clearly, none of you Bush voters is even smart enough to wipe your own ass -- which is exactly what you used the Constitution for on Tuesday.
So, again and sincerely, I say -- go fuck yourselves. Big time. And fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy revolution.
(0) comments
