Get Out And Vote And Scream

Moderator: Super Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Iris
Pirate
Posts: 13539
Joined: 01-01-2003 03:00 AM

Get Out And Vote And Scream

Post by Iris » 10-30-2004 04:44 AM

Published on Friday, October 29, 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle
Get Out And Vote And Scream
Now that we're all completely fried and bitter and media punch-drunk, it's time to act

by Mark Morford

So here we are, staring down a rather historic moment amidst the sputtering ideological orgy that is the American experiment and if you're paying any sort of attention at all you're doubtlessly drunk on election hype and saturated with Bush/Kerry platitudes and you wish a white-hot death upon every screeching TV pundit who is right now analyzing yet another insidious national poll that seems to reveal everything and nothing at the exact same time.

And Bush is out there right this very second stumping and sweating and blinking fast and defending his useless hideous little war and hurling snide little invectives and completely fabricated exaggerations at John Kerry, and Kerry is returning the favor by casually mentioning how Bush has ruined the goddamn nation and decimated our self-respect and run roughshod over our international relations all while raping the environment like no president in history and racking up a world-record deficit and mangling the language like a child on too much Ritalin.

It has been, in short, the longest and most painful episode of "American Idol" ever, wherein the two finalists have belted every cheesy American standard and regurgitated every lame disco-era stage move and hit every warbly high note and sacrificed every shred of dignity and integrity and true individuality they might've once possessed, all in the desperate hope that you are finally sufficiently numbed to where you are finally ready press the right 800 number on your AT&T wireless service and place your stupefied vote.

We are almost there. We are so very on the cusp. This is where it all comes down to your intuition and your intelligence and a sheer force of will, your ability to overcome the media-induced nausea and deeply inbred American political ennui and hoist yourself out of this election stupor and go to your polling place and punch the little card or push the little button, and then pray you don't live in a state where the GOP has rigged the touch screens or shredded all the Democratic voter registrations as you think, wow, world's foremost democracy and yet why does it feel like I'm voting in, like, Yugoslavia? Why does it feel that this election is so incredibly messy and loaded and rife with snakes and spit and hissing corruption? Weird. Sad. Telling.

It has become surreal, this election. It has become beyond coherent. We are at a point where our election system has become suspect and deeply flawed and our ideology has come unraveled and we as a nation no longer fully understand our role in the world and the bloom is way, way off the patriotic rose, so much so that it's no longer just a matter of which candidate will put a shinier coat of paint on the massive ship of bureaucracy, but who will stop us from sinking too abruptly into the quicksand of abuse and arrogance and ever increasing irrelevance. Go, U-S-A!

So then. As we stare down this uncanny and indelible moment in American history, there are two angles of approach. One: sit back and reflect on how the hell we got here, what bizarre machinations and demonic falling dominos managed to put BushCo in power, just what sort of humiliating and positively satanic chain reaction lo these past 50 years led up to where we are now, to this bitter yet oddly amusing spectacle of a massive and awe-inspiring empire in full crumble.

This approach, it is the more depressing and fatalistic and painful of the two and will result in much sighing and the supping of wine and the licking of lovers to deflect the pain and energize the skin and try and put it all in perspective, and is recommended only in small doses. Except for the drinking and licking part.

Conversely and perhaps more enjoyably, you can project forward, then reminisce. You can, that is to say, imagine it's a short 20 years hence and it's about 2024 and we're sitting there sipping our laudanum/Vicodin Colas and injecting Nexium straight into our eyeballs and watching our 10-foot plasma-TV walls and looking back and saying my god, 2004, that was a weird one, wasn't it?

Remember that ugly time? Remember when that smirking dolt Bush Jr. was president and we went through that dark dank tunnel of spiritual dread and international humiliation and we bombed Iraq for no reason and killed all those people for no reason and gutted our own economy for no reason other than to line the pockets of the Bush WASP mafia's corporate cronies? Wasn't that just so, like, crazy?

We will make jokes and shake our heads and sigh. We will say oh man remember that defense guy? Rumsfeld? Remember his black and ominous eyes? His savage abuse of power and complete lack of accountability? Remember that demon-god Ashcroft and his oiled feet, didn't dance and didn't smoke and didn't drink and didn't have sex and wanted to crack down on nipples and scan our e-mail and check our library books and tap our phones? Remember Condi Rice, that lost and desperate look, lonely and sad and a creepy veneer of doomed longing over her soul? Weird times, my friend. Sip.

We know that 20 years hence, there will be no Reagan-like legacy for Shrub. There will be no renamed airports or honorary expressways or revisionist rose-colored history books arguing the good and the bad of his epic much-loved presidency, because there is so little good and so very, very much bad and there is absolutely no love anywhere.

We already know that history will look very, very unkindly upon this most booblike, lie-torn, appallingly underqualified of American presidents. Of this we can rest assured. Of this we will only look back and be incredibly grateful it didn't last all that long.

This angle, it is the moderately healing and perspective-adjusting one. It's comfortable and helpful to project in such a manner, especially given how it's almost too hot right now, just too frustrating and painful to remain in this moment, to sit here and wait for the election returns and the potential lawsuits and Supreme Court riggings all the while knowing the GOP is trying everything short of launching another terrorist attack to maintain power and will stop at almost nothing to instill fear and dread and Dick Cheney deeper into the numb American psyche.

You cannot stay here. You cannot sit in this moment any longer. You simply have to get out and vote and scream and then roll up this ugly hunk of living history into a tight little ball of hot gelatinous goo and hurl it at the wall of time and see what sticks.

This is my recommendation. That and the wine thing. And voting. Voting is mandatory. Do it. Do it so you have something to talk about in 20 years. So you can say you were there and you participated and you tried like hell to change history. Because of course, you can.

© 2004 SF Gate
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. B. Franklin

User avatar
Bellisima
Pirate
Posts: 3474
Joined: 09-13-2000 02:00 AM

Post by Bellisima » 10-30-2004 02:47 PM

Direct hit!!! Thanks, Iris.
ImageA silent mouth is sweet to hear.
Irish saying

User avatar
Iris
Pirate
Posts: 13539
Joined: 01-01-2003 03:00 AM

Post by Iris » 10-30-2004 09:16 PM

Thanks Bell! BTW, I love your new avatar. That's right on the mark, too. ;)
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. B. Franklin

Gotrox
Pirate
Posts: 678
Joined: 05-18-2003 08:18 PM

Post by Gotrox » 10-31-2004 05:42 AM

agree mostly up to paragraph 5, then it digress from a main theme of "ignore the media hype" to "but read my media hype". IMHO.

User avatar
Iris
Pirate
Posts: 13539
Joined: 01-01-2003 03:00 AM

Post by Iris » 10-31-2004 05:59 AM

Gotrox wrote: agree mostly up to paragraph 5, then it digress from a main theme of "ignore the media hype" to "but read my media hype". IMHO.
None of us expected you to agree with what's posted in this area of the ship, since you are not a Kerry supporter.
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. B. Franklin

User avatar
Iris
Pirate
Posts: 13539
Joined: 01-01-2003 03:00 AM

Post by Iris » 10-31-2004 05:59 AM

Bellisima wrote: Direct hit!!! Thanks, Iris.
Thanks, Bell! :)
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. B. Franklin

daboodaddy
Pirate
Posts: 3555
Joined: 12-12-2000 03:00 AM

Post by daboodaddy » 10-31-2004 04:14 PM

Damn good rant!
Kerry on! :D
Question EVERYTHING, even your OWN thoughts.
A "Daboodaddyism"

Gotrox
Pirate
Posts: 678
Joined: 05-18-2003 08:18 PM

Post by Gotrox » 10-31-2004 07:54 PM

would say the same if any of the Bush supporters posted the same kind of bait and switch---- I'm an equal opportunity cynic. ;)

Gotrox
Pirate
Posts: 678
Joined: 05-18-2003 08:18 PM

Post by Gotrox » 10-31-2004 07:56 PM

oopz----sorry, I thought I was in P&G, didn't notice the K&E, I won't rain on your parade.

User avatar
Iris
Pirate
Posts: 13539
Joined: 01-01-2003 03:00 AM

Post by Iris » 10-31-2004 08:06 PM

Gotrox wrote: oopz----sorry, I thought I was in P&G, didn't notice the K&E, I won't rain on your parade.
No problem, but if you're going to follow me around, I hope you won't follow me into the lady's room. ;)
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. B. Franklin

Shirleypal
Pirate
Posts: 45448
Joined: 03-06-2003 03:00 AM

Post by Shirleypal » 11-02-2004 03:53 PM

Hi Iris,
Wonder if Gotrox will come to our "Parade" when we celebrate Kerry's "Victory" tonight.

Shirleypal
Pirate
Posts: 45448
Joined: 03-06-2003 03:00 AM

Post by Shirleypal » 11-02-2004 04:01 PM

Just got this email and thought you all might want to read it.

Hogue Prophecy Bulletin
(2 November 2004)
2004--2008

AMERICA'S TRAVAIL
OF POLITICAL ATONEMENT

Friends,
I write this article not on the day of America's most important election in history. That already happened four years ago in the year 2000. The course of US politics and world history was set. Indeed, whoever the president will be the choices made by--or stolen from--the American people in the 2000 election have gained a momentum that will run and reverberate through the history of the next 30 years. The dangling chad high jinks of 2000 has put into power a bellicose and internationally unilateralist, interventionist administration. Bush Corp. consists of former movers and shakers of the fossil fuel industry--the very industry responsible for producing the key ingredient for runaway climate change. Current American policy and fossil fuel consumption are in effect throwing gasoline on the fires of global warming. And, it is a prescient fact that hundreds of prophecies from around the world--including even those recently published by the Pentagon--point to climate disruption as the key trigger for apocalyptic global warfare in the near future.

I believe the terrorist attack on 11 September 2001 would have happened no matter whether Al Gore was president in place of G.W. Bush. The reaction to such an attack may have been quite different though. Thanks to decisions made in 2000, a better future prosecution of the war against al-Qaeda and Usama bin Laden, is gone, and ecologically responsible US economic policies forestalling a global climate war, a dream.

The 16th-century French seer, Nostradamus, foresaw the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. I have commented on two prophecies about the attack in books and articles since 1983. (You can find a detailed account of Century 6 Quatrain 97 and Century 10 Quatrain 49 by linking to: "Nostradamus: A Life and Myth" [3 November 2003]: http://www.hogueprophecy.com/archiv34.htm). My interpretations over the years anticipated a defining incident, such as a terrorist attack on America by Middle Eastern extremists sometime shortly after 1999. This Peal Harbor-style surprise attack would trigger the first world war of the Aquarian Age--a war of international terrorism set to undermine civilization in a conflict lasting 27 years.

Even now, that war can be cut short. There is a prophecy from Nostradamus that could be taken as a positive alternative history. In it, America learns the right lesson from the shock of 9/11, changes policies and greatly diminishes the impact of the 27-year conflict on the world. In previous books and articles, Quatrain 24 of Century 6 dates a time in the summer of 2002 when the American people as well as the president might begin reaping the whirlwind because they did not take stock of their part in the dysfunctional, and hypocritical relationship with the Middle East over the past half-century. Shortly after July 2002 America will wage a ruinous war in the Middle East. A hard and needless lesson unavoided brings a hard lesson learned in four to six years. Thus, when America changes leaders and pulls out of Iraq, a new policy in the Middle East solves the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, revitalizes Arab moderates taking support away from terrorists. The new American president seizes an opportunity to forestall the destruction and horrors of the coming 27 year war and bring peace to the world.

User avatar
Iris
Pirate
Posts: 13539
Joined: 01-01-2003 03:00 AM

Post by Iris » 11-02-2004 04:56 PM

Shirleypal wrote: Hi Iris,
Wonder if Gotrox will come to our "Parade" when we celebrate Kerry's "Victory" tonight.
I doubt it, LOL! But I'm glad to learn you'll be there. :)

Good article, too. I really enjoyed it.
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. B. Franklin

Gotrox
Pirate
Posts: 678
Joined: 05-18-2003 08:18 PM

Post by Gotrox » 11-02-2004 05:15 PM

Bull!!!! if there is free food---I'm there.........;)


( I voted for 1 Dem, do I get invited???) :D

User avatar
CindyLouWho
Pirate
Posts: 3533
Joined: 01-02-2003 03:00 AM

Post by CindyLouWho » 11-02-2004 05:31 PM

Gotrox wrote: ( I voted for 1 Dem, do I get invited???)

Gotrox, I voted for 1 republican ... but he is related to me.

Post Reply

Return to “USA Archive”