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You’ll All Pay #30

© Joe Conat 2004

I really don’t know what to do.

It’s…crap, only four days to Election Day, and I have this feeling…it’s probably not true, but there it is…this feeling that my small list of readers are out there staring into their e-mail inboxes and projecting “Well? Hey, slacker! Hey Mr. Political Commentary Dude! Where’s the YAP?” And I’ve got…nothing.

I’m paralyzed.

What should I say that I haven’t said before? What new facts have come to light that will further enhance my position? None, really.

Don’t vote for Bush. Vote for Kerry. A vote for Kerry is an act of self-preservation that should be instinctual it’s so obvious. It should be reflexive, like jerking your hand out of a fire. Voting for Kerry is like the fight-or-flight adrenal response. And I must admit, as closed-minded as it may make me, that I truly do not understand on a very fundamental level anyone who wants to vote for Bush, anyone who thinks that voting for Bush is a good thing. A small, probably mean-spirited part of me asks “Shouldn’t Darwinism have taken those guys out of the gene pool somewhere around when they were called Australopithecus afarensis?”

I don’t want anyone to explain it to me. I really don’t. We’ll find out in a week who the President is and we can go from there.

Oh, wait. I forgot…the Bush-Cheney campaign is involved.

We’ll find out in a couple months who the Bush-Cheney campaign sent hookers to on the Supreme Court to hopefully steal the White House for another interminable four-year regime of backsliding and horror.

Do I sound bitter? Excuse me.

I wonder, though…given that Justice Rehnquist has had a recent brush with thyroid cancer, do you think Bush is re-thinking his position on stem-cell research? “If we don’t cure Rehnny quick, I may not get the Presidency!”

Anyway.

Personally, I am bone tired of this. Had I a magic lamp and three wishes I would ask for 1) A bazillion untaxable dollars, probably hidden in an off-shore account somewhere and accessible only by me. 2) All the powers of Captain Marvel (the DC hero, the “Shazam” guy, not the alien warrior in the Marvel Universe. How lame would that be? Nega-Bands? Whatev.) and 3) That George W. Bush had taken a clear-eyed deep and introspective look at himself, realized he’s got the brains and leadership abilities of a brine shrimp and wisely decided in a rare moment of clarity NOT to go into politics.

Ah, Genie of the Lamp, where are you and your Robin Williams-voiced witticisms now in this, our darkest hour?

I don’t have a magic lamp, or even a Magic 8-Ball. What I do have is a web page, a list of people who seem to enjoy reading my ramblings and a vote.

You, also, have a vote. Unless you live in Florida. Or Nevada. Or Oregon or Wisconsin. If you live in any of these states you might want to make a phone call to the registrar’s office or something, make sure they haven’t taken you off the voter rolls because they think you’re a felony kitten-eater or dead or even a Democrat.

Assuming none of the above, then vote. No, not for Nader. Nader’s mom wouldn’t vote for Nader. Nader’s mom would tell him to come back inside; the streetlights are on and what does he think he’s doing anyway he knows he’s not supposed to bother the other children.

If I haven’t made it abundantly clear in the past gajillion rants, I support Kerry. Why?

1) Iraq. I figure we might want to trust the guy who actually showed up for military service and experienced a couple little things we like to call “combat” and “leadership” when it comes to prosecuting, finishing and extracting ourselves from a war. Plus, he seems to actually, you know, have a plan to get out of Iraq as opposed to Bush’s mugging and shrugging and mumbling “hard work” and “as long as it takes”.

2) Money. Both Kerry and Bush have it; only Kerry seems to understand it. Bush hasn’t successfully managed a business enterprise in…ever. He took a trillion dollar surplus and turned it into a trillion dollar deficit. He blithely orders us into a misadventure that will cost us an additional $200 billion over the next few years.

He says this will, somehow, help us. He says his plan will bolster a constantly flagging economy. He says we’ll start making money again. Will we, the average citizen, see any of that? No. We won’t see it in health care, we won’t see it in the education initiatives he forces down our throats but can’t pay for, we won’t see it in increased business or tax relief for the lower 98%. Bush and his friends benefit. That’s all. Under Bush the American people are subsidizing the biggest kegger EVER, dude! Booyah!

3) Did I say Iraq? I did? Okay.

4) National Security. I love this one…Bush yells over and over that the money being dumped into Homeland Security has tripled! Yea! But here’s the thing: It’s not the amount of money you spent, Georgy Porgy, it’s how you spent it. We’ve dumped, what…$30 billion into Homeland Security? Without a net gain in actual, you know…security? Evidently George splurged $30 billion on donuts for the boys in blue. “How’s them airports lookin’? Good? Yeah? Have a cruller.”

5) The environment. “Global warming has not been proven to be true.” Uh…yeah, it totally has. No, seriously. It has. It’s, like, true. There are really important looking papers with color pictures and graphs and big numbers and words and everything. It’s all true. You’re an idiot. Shut up, George.

6) He cannot pronounce the word “nuclear” no matter how many times he tries.

All compelling cases, I think. That, and he’s stupid.

What? I’ve been polite and respectful for…well, some of my columns I have. But I’ve got less than a week to go! What are you gonna do?

George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush was not actually elected president. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid. George W. Bush is stupid.

Tell all your friends…yes, even you Republicans reading this. Okay, the one Republican reading this (hey, dude! Shout out! Woot!) Vote for Kerry. Do not vote for Bush. Do not reward the monkey for bad behavior…if you do, the monkey will never stop flinging poo at the country.

A vote for Kerry is a vote for America. A vote for Kerry is a vote for no-poo-throwing.

A vote for Kerry is the blindingly obvious right thing to do.

Journalistic even-handedness my heinie! Bias? You betcha! BIAS BIAS BIAS BIAS BIAS! VOTE FOR KERRY! VOTE FOR KERRY! VOTE FOR KERRY!

I’m Joe Conat and I approved this message.

You’ll All Pay is scrawled on poo-free cave walls with ochre and other natural pigments and often depict a thunder-god boozing it up with Joe who just hunted and killed a truly impressive amount of buffalo. You can tell him you think his archaeological find of the century is a bogus hoax here.

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You’ll All Pay # 29

© 2004 Joe Conat

Remember Bizarro? The anti-Superman? Everything was backwards for him…”hello” meant “goodbye” and “good” was “evil”, etc.

No? How about that episode of Star Trek? No, the original series. “Mirror, Mirror”? Had the crew of the Enterprise accidentally beam into an opposite universe where good was evil and whatnot? No?

Spock had a goatee.

Yeah? Yeah! Okay, now we’re on the same page.

President Bush is a Bizarro Bush from the Mirror Universe.

I have proof, dammit! Just stick with me a second!

In response to a question about the USA PATRIOT Act and why citizens’ individual rights are being watered down, the president responded “I really don’t think your rights are being watered down.” Never mind that two federal judge have ruled that parts of USA PATRIOT were unconstitutional and violated the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

In Bizarro Bush World, “are” means “aren’t”.

The New York Times recently ran a very long, very detailed story tracing the history and debate over Iraq’s fictional nuclear program; how Iraq’s purchase of several thousand 7075-T6 aluminum tubes was misinterpreted or purposely twisted to show the revival of a nuclear weapons program that, in fact, didn’t exist.

In Bizarro Bush World, “does not” means “does”. Bizarro!

The much spoken of Duelfer report on Iraq’s weapons programs capabilities clearly states that Saddam Hussein didn’t have any chemical, biological or nuclear WMD program, didn’t have the means to start such a program and that, if he had managed to re-start those programs, his target of choice would have been Iran, not the U.S. or U.S. interests.

And yet, in the October 8th presidential debate against John Kerry, Bush stated that the Duelfer report showed that “Sanctions were not working”.

In Bizarro Bush World, “were” means “weren’t”. Bizarro!

Best of all, Bush says that “shock and awe” worked and the continuing violent insurgency in Iraq is the result of a war that was too successful.

In Bizarro Bush World, “failure” means “Mission Accomplished”.

Bizarro!

I truly am beginning to think that President Bush isn’t delusional or “out of touch with reality” or “psychotic”…he truly DOES understand the situation here on Earth One. He just can’t express it in a way that’s straightforward.

“Me like Kerry” he might say. Naturally, he mean “I despise Kerry and his big brain all snooty and usin’ big words like ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘failure’ and ‘incompetent’.”

“Me am smart.” “I know I’m a retarded chipmunk, I know this.”

“I inherited a recession.”
“The economy had slowed a bit, but the National Bureau of Economic Research actually pegs the start date of our recession as maybe being in March 2000, a few weeks after I took office, and it might not have even turned into a recession if 9/11 hadn’t happened.”

“[We’ve added] 1.9 million new jobs over the past 13 months…We’re on the move.”

“We added a mere 96,000 jobs in September, 42,000 less jobs than projected and 54,000 less jobs than are necessary to keep pace with population growth. We’re on the move..backwards!”

“I’m a good steward of the land.” “I’ve given forest land to oil companies to chop down and call it ‘forest fire prevention’. Also, air quality is reduced from when I took office. I hate the land and gleefully stomp on small forest creatures while Shell Oil executives stuff $20 bill in my G-string.”

BIZARRO!

Thankfully for Bush, people who profit from his grotesque mismanagement of the finest nation in the world are backing him up all the way. “We’re behind Bizarro Bush %100” they tell each other, whispering back and forth from the stalls in the Executive Wash Room. “He makes us scads of cash. And he’s cute as the dickens!”

To further their cute-as-the-dickens Bizarro World candidate’s aims of world decimation, the Sinclair Broadcast Group has given all of its sixty-two local television stations the edict that they shall, sometime between this day and the Second of November in the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand and Four, pre-empt all prime-time programming for one hour and run, without commercial interruption, the movie “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal”, a film about John Kerry’s 1971 testimony to Congress against the Vietnam war and how it adversely affected morale among soldiers and POWs in Vietnam.

Oddly, fourteen of the Sinclair Group’s sixty-two stations are in swing states such as Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin. I can’t figure that part out.

(Bizarro!)

But, you may ask, what about Section 315 of the Federal Communications Act…the Equal Time provision?

Don’t you see the Lex Luthorian insidiousness of this airing? Sinclair runs “Stolen Honor”…it’s an hour long or so and it bashes Kerry. The opposition cries “Foul” and pulls out ol’ Section 315. Sinclair shrugs, mea culpas all over the place and fulfills its obligation: It runs an hour of pro-Bush stuff. The law talks about equal amount of time, not equal quality or content of programming.

I think we have to find a way to force Sinclair to show an hour of anti-Bush stuff. We can make our own documentary: “Stolen Country: The Presidency That Was Never Real”. Or maybe something simpler, something with a bit more punch: “Bush Sucks, Don’t Vote For Him.”

The Bush-Cheney campaign and their supporters lack subtlety, don’t they? Gone are the days of gentlemanly bouts and all Machiavellian maneuverings hidden backstage. Now the GOP figures “Ah, to hell with it. Nobody cares! We’ll be open about violating the law, undermining decency and fairness and abrogating any responsibility we have to the truth. Hee hee hee!” Republicans think the average American is dumber than a retarded brick. “We’re lying to you! But we brought butterscotch pudding!” “Yea! Pudding!”

“In these changing times of ours, however, there are some things that won’t change: the individual values we try to live by — courage and compassion, reverence and integrity.”
–President George W. Bush, Taylor, Michigan 8/31/04

Bizarro!

You’ll All Pay not written by Joe Conat. You can’t tell him he good writer here.

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You’ll All Pay – Special

© 2004 Joe Conat

So many people have been asking me “why?”I’ve actually received gawping open-mouthed stares. “You? But…but…you! YOU, dude!”

I didn’t want to, okay? What’s the point? Other writers have waxed eloquent…far more eloquently than I, I might add…on the subject and they’ve said all that can be said. We’ve seen the retrospectives, we’ve heard the eulogies and we’ve sung his praises. What more can be said, ultimately? What will my voice joining the chorus do?

What’s the point?

Superman is dead.

The posters all said “You WILL believe a man can fly!” I was seven…maybe eight years old. I believed, man. I believed. Superman was real and he flew and lifted helicopters and there was a powerful force for what was good and right in the world. He was right there! I believed, man, with all my heart and all my soul.

I grew up, of course. We all do. Well…let me amend that. I grew older. I grew older and life kicked me in the teeth a few times, just like everyone else and I acquired some hardness, some cynicism, some “cool” exterior pretensions. Some affectations of disaffection.

But deep down inside, past the biker leather, the Camel Filters, the coffee by the gallon, the beer and the sneer…I believed a man could fly. I believed there was a powerful force for what was good and right in the world.

I believed in Superman.

It actually hurt when Christopher Reeve broke his neck. Intellectually, of course, I knew that the man was not the Superman. That he was mortal…vulnerable. Just like us.

But it stuck in my heart like a little shard of hurt. The disappointment on a cellular level that you can only truly feel as a child. It hurt when Chris Rock reminded us “Superman can’t walk!”

And that’s when the man became the Superman.

Everybody talks about Christopher Reeve’s determination, his indomitable will. His unbending conviction that he would walk again. Not only would he walk again, but everybody afflicted with this sort of grievous injury would, by God, walk again. The word “inspiration” is being tossed about willy nilly these days, but that man inspired me in ways that the “S” shield never could. It was real, man. He was right there, telling me he would walk, telling me it could be fixed. He was a powerful force for what was good and right in the world.

I believed, man.

Well, now the man is dead. His dream, I should hope, shall live beyond his time here with us. He leaves behind his family, his friends and little children like me who believe.

You will believe a man can fly.

I believe a man can walk.

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