"In our opinion," we wrote, "Bush and Gore are hypocrites and whores of approximately the same gutter level, so it's almost immaterial to us which candidate ends up with the most votes."
We'd like to retract that statement now. We were wrong.
Turns out it does matter which whore wins.
And so, we will pray and work for the election of whatever corrupt candidate the Democrats put forward in 2004, in hopes of a quick return to the good old days of an American government run by mere scoundrels, instead of utter scumbags.
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An apology and an endorsement
by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
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Dec. 12, 2003
Let's start with an apology: In the 2000 election, we supported Ralph Nader for president. We put a Nader bumper sticker on our fridge, and turned Unknown News green to symbolize our endorsement. Our tiny website didn't make much difference and didn't swing the election, but still: Our apologies to all America.
What we liked best about Nader was just that he disrupted the predictable flow of an election system that's obviously and thoroughly corrupt. From years of experience reading the newspaper, we expect nothing but lies and half-truths from any professional politician, so we've rooted for almost anyone who disrupted their system — John Bayard Anderson, Ross Perot, Harry Browne, Jesse Ventura, John McCain, even Pat Buchanan, when he was making Bush the Elder squirm in 1992.
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Election 2004
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In 2000, when we saw typical lies and shaded half-truths from Bush and Gore, none of it seemed dramatically different from earlier lies and half-truths uttered by Clinton and Dole, Clinton and Bush, Bush and Dukakis, Reagan and Mondale ... (Trace the lies back as far as your memory and stomach can take it, and wake us when you're done.)
"In our opinion," we wrote, "Bush and Gore are hypocrites and whores of approximately the same gutter level, so it's almost immaterial to us which candidate ends up with the most votes."
We'd like to retract that statement now. We were wrong. Turns out it does matter which whore wins.
We didn't understand how much it mattered until after September 11, 2001.
We would’ve thought it would take decades to move the nation so far toward fascism, but the Bush administration and a Republican Congress have accomplished decades’ worth of such worthlessness in just three short years. These leaders have repeatedly abused the memory of September 11 to justify reductions in civil liberties, increases in police power, and superpower warfare on people who ride camels — virtually ensuring decades of terrorists and suicide bombers determined to avenge their loved ones — while blocking any meaningful investigation of September 11.
And the Bush domestic platform? Laws that protected ordinary Americans from corporate malfeasance have been rewritten away. Laws that protected workers have been repealed or ignored. Laws that could withdraw federal contracts from companies that discriminate against minorities and women are no longer enforced. Hundreds of laws intended to protect America's water and air from chemical contamination have been nullified. Medicare has been "revamped" in ways that frighten many observers — but the changes won't take effect until 2006, a curious delay that mutes any angry reaction until long after the next election cycle. On and on goes the list ...
Meanwhile, new agencies, new officers, and new laws pretend to have heightened security, when all they've really done is keep Americans scared, and allowed we the people to grow accustomed to being perpetually screened, x-rayed, patted down, and monitored as if we're all suspects.
On the left, America’s leading politicians don't give a damn about freedom. On the right they're actively working against it. Both sides are definitely disgusting, but there's just as definitely a lesser of these evils, and it's a difference that definitely matters.
We're former Republicans, and we still carry with us ideals we found on that side of the political fence. Among these is a profound respect for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — a respect no longer found in the Republican Party.
The Bush administration's announced and pursued policies would nullify the Constitution for any American, on the President's say-so. That's how little an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" means to these people. Constitution, schmonstitution.
A government that loudly declares its plan to ignore the people's rights is like a locomotive with no brakes. A Bill of Rights that can be suspended at will is no different than no Bill of Rights at all.
And the Bush Administration has accomplished all this — and so much more — in just the first few years of their first term in office. In a second term, with no need to keep an eye to the next election, it seems reasonable to expect White House policies would lurch even further, perhaps much farther from liberty and justice for all.
In a second term for Bush, expect the Constitution to be eroded at a quicker pace. Expect another war or two. Expect judicial nominees to be less "moderate" than in Bush's first term, when most have been far to the right of Atilla the Hun. Expect even less oversight from the Environmental Protection Agency, Securities and Exchange Commission ... and even more oversight from the Department of Homeland Security. Expect the same as we've already seen from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Rice — only much more so.
We're not very pleased with any of the announced Democrats — and yet, we're ready to make our endorsement for 2004:
We'll support anyone but Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell-Rice and the rest of these bastards.
There is no-one currently or feasibly running on the Democratic side that we wouldn't smother with kisses if he/she got the nomination. We would vote for a mystery man like Wesley Clark. We would vote for a bag of hot air like Al Sharpton or Joe Lieberman. We would vote for a bag of potato chips if it ran against Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell-Rice. We'd vote for a hub cap, an old shoe, or an empty bottle of beer. We'll vote for the Democrat.
We'd like to restore policies forged by kickback and cronyism, instead of by robber-baron war profiteers. We'd love it if the world again saw America as a nation run by befuddled buffoons, instead of demented demagogues. We yearn to see a White House that again believes freedom is merely irrelevant, instead of the current policies that seem designed to quietly strangle freedom while diverting public attention elsewhere.
And so, we will pray and work for the election of whatever corrupt candidate the Democrats put forward in 2004, in hopes of a quick return to the good old days of an American government run by mere scoundrels, instead of utter scumbags.
© 2003, by the author.
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