All Rights Reserved © 2000 Thomas W. Day
As I write this, on March 7 just after Doomsday Tuesday, it appears that we're in for another Tweedly Dee vs. Tweedly Dum presidential election. I'd be willing to write Bill Bradley or John McCain's tossing-in-the-towel speeches for them.
It would go something like this:
"You gutless wimps. You call yourselves Americans, but you have absolutely nothing in common with real Americans, like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or, even, John Kennedy. You're afraid of your own shadows. You're afraid of anything that isn't spoon fed to you by the grumpy old men who hold the power in this nation. Even American kids are freakin' wimps. All it would take to invade this puke of a country would be for someone to yell "boo" really loud and a third of you would dive under your beds for protection. The other sixty-some-percent could care less what the hell happens as long as your favorite television shows don't get cancelled.
"It's one thing that those pitiful old men want to hang on to the power they've had for so long. That's understandable, if a good bit disgusting. It's totally another that the average, working stiff is happy to give those inbred losers control over a nation that could be democratic, if it wanted to be.
"So, now you get to choose between Gore and Bush. Gore, a political hack who is the son of a political hack. A politician who lost the credibility war with Bill Clinton in 1992. Bush, the son of a pitifully lame ex-president, a spoiled rich kid of a politician who's owned by so many special interests that his butt is tattooed like one of those Beef Council diagrams of a fattened steer.
"The upside is, it doesn't matter who wins. They're one and the same. Or maybe that was what you wimps wanted, all along."
If I could choreograph this speech, I'd have my guy give the nation (especially the media) a single digit salute and call it a night.
There's so much going on in a major election that I don't understand. For instance, I'll never understand how the Republican Establishment gets a single vote from people who work for a living. I know, Republicans claim to be "pro-business," but they're really just pro-rich people. The closest the Republican Party ever comes to associating itself with the function of business is when executives give away their stock holder's money to promote special tax breaks for executives.
The list of "business interests" that Republicans have hustled on the rest of us is pretty amazing: the military/industrial complex, the savings and loan deregulation disaster, the sixty zillion tax loopholes that encourage international corporations to save money by moving jobs out of this country, a gigantic income tax break for the top tax bracket. And so on.
Sure, they throw the "pro-life" bone to the religious right, but they don't really mean it. After all, if the poor couldn't get abortions the welfare rolls would be increasing faster than they are now and that would, eventually, force the rich to pay higher taxes to support those not-being-born-and-not-wanted-by-anybody kids. Trust me, that's not gonna happen. Rich folks look out for their own interests like scorpions hunting for a warm boot on a cold night.
None of that lets the Democrats off of the hook, either. Different money interests for different folks. Without the support of the 80 million members of government employee unions, Gore wouldn't get noticed at a high school dance (until he started waving money). This crowd of union bozos have discovered that it is possible to vote yourself rich. They are the only thing separating Gore from Bush. Gore wants to keep spending tax money to support the unemployable in the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed and Bush is willing to trash the country's economy by letting the ruling class make one last dash to the feeding trough. Both candidates represent the ruling class interests from around the world. Gore just gets some of his money from the government employed ruling class while Bush gets a much bigger chunk from the sort of con artist who really appreciates getting to take a poke at the national treasury.
Like the usual 70% who will stay away from this election, it just doesn't matter to me which of these morons wins in November. Kill me slow or kill me quick, I'm still dead.
It will never happen, because of the gutless character of what passes for today's "Americans," but now is the time for the NOTA movement. None of the above. Here's my version of this ballot entry:
The parties can submit their usual human refuse, for the election. But as part of getting to take a roll with these dice, they put up a bond, equal to the campaign funds, for that candidate. No soggy money. No non-candidate advertisements allowed. You're either part of a campaign or you're a spectator. If the voters "elect" NOTA for a particular office, the bond money goes to fund a second election.
None of the clowns from the first campaign can run again. The second campaign works just like the first one. Another bond gets funded for the next batch of mindless morons. And so it would go.
That's actually my second option. My first choice would be, if NOTA wins, NOTA serves. The office goes vacant for the term of the position. At the end of the term, if it is not obvious that we need someone to do that job, the office is abandoned. I figure in twenty years, there wouldn't be an elected government office in the nation.
March 2000
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