Iran: The Mystical Glory of “Reciprocal History”

A lesson for Americans unfolds in the streets of a great Iranian city. 100

Greetings to the people of Iran. Thank you for reminding us of the nature of leadership. Thank you for reminding us that the special leadership which changes history arises from the common sense at the foundation of culture and not from the sterile, frightened, ideological ambitions at the top.

Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for reminding us that following is an honorable equivalent to leading. Thank you for reminding us that ordinary citizens actually do have the time to perform the work of leading themselves, the ordinary insight to direct their futures and the ordinary knowledge to discern the true from the false when they awake and strive for such great things.

In our proud history, the United States sent the entire world the vivifying glimpse of freedom, then it sent that same whole world our very worst face right behind that glimpse. We have extracted, coerced, manipulated and suppressed your dreams and put the results in the banks of our most greedy and least honorable. We have imprisoned the men you elected. We have watched while our lowest neighbors have corrupted entire countries for cheap oil and labor and stolen for themselves every crumb of your dreams for your own future and the future of the lives of your children and families.

We watch these same hollow, fearful Americans attempt to turn even your bravery and suffering to an advantage for their politics. “Intervene or you’re soft on freedom!” they wail.

But now, we find ourselves stranded in the disaster we made. We see the broken faces of the shocked victims of our "depression" staring blankly through the smoke of our own avarice, our own rampage, as it passes through Europe and Asia like a plague, devouring their lives and fortunes. Their futures. Their lifetimes of work and prudence. For a whole generation.

Worse, we see ourselves numbed by the final realization of the scope and gravity of what Americans have done, astonished that we could have allowed our countrymen to inflict such immense harm while blindly watching, seeing only our lofty, spoken claims, not the substance of such horrible acts. As a country, we find ourselves stupefied in a hangover, haunted by growing waves of realization, inescapably trapped by history. All our "knowledge" turns out to be nothing but a shabby deception. At this sobering moment, we find our thoughts too soiled, too horribly manipulated, to understand Iran, the "axis of evil."

Why do these people hate us? Can it be that they are so unfair? Hardly.

Iran, you have grasped the dream we have forgotten. To every one of you with a bloody back or a broken knee in the streets of Teheran, we salute you. Now, after you have followed our magnificent dream, it is time for us to return to our lost honor, to, this time, follow yours.

Enough said, America.

We might yet avoid what we see in Teheran in our own cities, but we will not avoid it sitting abashedly in our houses. We Americans still have the wounds and scars of letting the same sad pathos of profit and power almost wrest our nation away from us. Our adversaries are temporarily at rest, licking their wounds, but still filled with that same blood frenzy, that same predatory ambition of completing what they only barely failed to finish before last year. They plan to enslave us with either our own fears or, shockingly, with our own lethargy.

These wretches have divided us against ourselves with the dream of creating an Iran here, not a theocracy per se, but an unassailable oligarchy embued with an equally ominous perfidy. They think that, with the election of Obama, we will once again drift back to a state where we are too occupied to care what they take from us. They are out there in our midst, skulking, hiding behind their billions and dreaming of owning our souls.

What’s left but Shakespeare?

With Julius Caesar destroyed in the Senate, the Roman Republic slides into civil war at the battle of Phillipi from which it will emerge an Empire. Marcus Brutus, friend and assassin who faces defeat in the coming battle, speaks:

That we have tried the utmost of our friends,
Our legions are brimful, our cause is ripe:
The enemy increaseth everyday;
We, at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea we are now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
or lose our ventures.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Scene III.

Now, who feels like just sitting there until we are Iran?

MeanMesa suggests a posting on this blog which provides a historical overview of the present conflict: "Comprehending Iran: The Nuclear Power"

http://meanmesa.blogspot.com/2009/06/comprehending-iran-nuclear-power.html

Election Reform Without the Lipstick

Why Finish Open Heart Surgery After We've Made Such a Good Start? 64

I can remember elections through four or five decades. For example, I watched my father hurl a tomato at an Adlai Stevenson poster in the southwestern corner of Kansas. I can also remember ballots I cast which were mistakes, campaigns which were, well, a little deceptive and political attacks sewn without buttons into every rational terror of the Cold War and the Soviets. Just about every politician was "soft on Communism" sooner or later.

However, one specific thing I don’t recall hearing was the phrase “They stole the election.” Even Lyndon Johnson’s success which seemed to ride to victory over the names of gravestones in a Dallas cemetery didn’t really stir much interest.

Elections were a bit different then. Without the narcotic invitation posed by electronic voting machines and less than patriotic secretaries of state here and there, even the most ambitious electoral criminals found only scattered opportunities. Although it was a time with plenty of scandalous politicians, the sheer inertia of hundreds of thousands of citizens counting votes dampened any scheme that dreamed of expanding beyond a single county or a precinct.

Things have changed.

The worst President in United States history, apparently, has yet to actually win an election. At least, not an election similar to the ones that Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson won. What more pregnant hour to consider such things than the evening of November 3, 2008?

Our problems seem to have originated from the Southern interpretation of the Constitution. This interpretation, in just a few words, was that the political control of all those states should perpetually reside with the richest, and least honorable, white men living there. Pretty clearly, it was a predictable response to the Jim Crow days after the Civil War.

Once these enduring memories had become legitimate autocratic traditions these bad ideas were ready for a heady mix with States’ Rights nonsense. The rest is history. The Voting Rights Act presented a bump in the road, but only one for bumpkins. A new generation of creatures injected themselves and their ambitions. Designed and birthed under the protective caress of Attorneys General to protect their crimes, this scourge, inhabited by the likes of Addingtons and Roves, effortlessly attached itself to this new career opportunity. The perfect storm followed these dark crimes to outrageous new heights of hubris and cynicism.

These laments from this brief history are hardly late breaking news on November 3, 2008. Half the registered voters in the country assume that if the UN’s Electoral Assistance Division monitored one of these babies, they would still be laughing hysterically on the eve of the Inauguration in January. The US electorate has learned by this time the same lesson George Bush’s State Department has taught around the world. If there is talk of a democratic election, “Duck!”

Amazingly, we continue to coexist with these parasites. A few folks said something after the Supreme Court appointed the President in 2000. The lonely voices of 2004 were successfully defined as “anarchists,” "conspiracy nuts," “poor losers” and “whiners.”

What in the hell are we doing? Playing endless games of mindless Parcheesi while a few of history's bad actors delete the world’s most famous democracy?

So, election reform. Not the spritzy little analgesic we’ve seen repeatedly so far. Real election reform. Also, not some wimpy, half starved little thing that the southern knuckle draggers will, once again, negotiate into a new chapter in the book of idiocy in the House and Senate, either. You know. Like last time. And, uh, the time before that. Like HAVA (explained later)?

First, dump voter registration. This isn’t 1800. The registration idea has been tenderly preserved under the stink of southern versions of States’ Rights long enough. Aside from the fact that this strange process is the central nest of every kind of fraud and exploitation in elections, it has also, finally, encountered the ultimate sentence in the ashcans of history. It is both irrelevant and unnecessary. A well designed accommodation to replace it is easily within reach.

The new, young voters drawn into this desperate election in 2008 were flabbergasted when they encountered this medieval relic. Democracy suggests that all the citizens should be able to vote during an election. That’s not so tough is it? How about Iraqi ink finger dipping? Come on!

Perhaps 60% of these young ones could rather handily engineer a real time computer system to keep track of every vote cast. At least, every voter who voted. Hell, we could even add a feature that could tell a voter if his vote was going to be counted. What a concept!

Second, dump individual state voter requirements. These dinosaurs might make sense when electing a dog catcher, but every American citizen has a stake in the election of Federal candidates of any rank, House, Senate and President. Sure, those “good ole’ boys” might come from your state, but they go from there to Washington to do things to all the rest of us. If these states really want to send these nasty obstructionists to Washington, it seems like the least they could do is to elect them fair and square.

You know. Democratically.

Why should I accept an election conducted by requirements set out by some semi-literate cracker thirty years ago in the swamps of the Robert E. Lee’s contested constituency? Yeah, southerners, but there’s also folks like Ted Stevens and Duke Cunningham These nervous, irritating, local throwbacks have never had any particular confidence that they could keep winning elections unless they either legislated themselves arcane powers to determine who could vote or whored themselves into the laps of equally crooked contributors. The icky migration from burning crosses to “modern voter eligibility requirements” nestled in connivances such as doctored voter registration laws hasn’t validated their practices or improved the results.


Just go ahead and establish Federal guidelines to define citizens enfranchised with the right to vote. Such a task might represent a break from the looting and ideological nonsense to do some real work in the Congress. Too tough?

Third, make the publicly funded election thing work. Obama took some flak on this count, at least, it seemed like it if one allowed the media slants to paint the picture. There were very few reported details of the GOP scheme to strand him with public money while Republican 527’s thrashed him from the flank. Not the kind of messy details one might expect to encounter on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN or any of the other officially franchised (that is, "bought and paid for...") media corporations.

I assume that the deal presented to Obama by the “Straight Talk Express” had a lot in common to an invitation to spend the night with a rattlesnake. The fact that there was no deal became a hyper-publicity “talking point” and an endlessly repeated “broken agreement” by every dirty shirt pundit with the RNC on his chat list.

Public campaign funding should, somehow, eventually entail making a serious dent in the campaign revenues of the media vampires. Once the crap advertisements entered this world as concrete investments of allocated campaign commercials, some of the outrageous lying might diminish. Voters might enter the polling booth with more than name recognition to guide them.

The cheap clowns peddling misinformation, desperation, liable and fear through literally millions of hours of infantile commercials would have to start earning their keep. This enforced economy might introduce at least the possibility of campaigns actually designed to persuade voters to vote for the candidate.

Fourth, send all voting machines to the junk car crusher. These nasty little, secret devices have the same problem as the crazy registration laws. They are invitations to larceny and they are unnecessary. Those two features should guarantee every one of them an inevitable and unceremonious demise. There are already thousands of these wretched little mousetraps in landfills, sent there by officials with a certain respect for the Federal Election Commission or Grand Juries, both fairly threatening possibilities if there were to ever be an actual Attorney General or Supreme Court.

Finally, Congress needs to establish an Election Court. Anyone who thinks this is a “bit over the line” should review the story of how Carl Rove and a few other crooks extracted Louisiana Governor Siegelman’s election victory and dumped him in a Federal Slammer. These boys were so strident that they didn’t even bother to cloud the evidence of their crime.

If some shade of a capitalistic reincarnation can make WalMart a person, and hence, a plaintiff with protection and redress in one of our courts, then perhaps the same elevation is possible for specific elections. This would mean that an election, say Siegalman's for example, could enjoy both counsel, discovery and justice in a court with jurisdiction. Right now, courts and elections only date, producing a few folks with injuries or a few defendants with criminal infractions. The elections themselves appear only as unattractive waifs, orphans without sufficient sponsorship, much less any loving parents, speaking in their behalf.

Right in line with family courts, real estate courts, labor relations courts and tax courts, an "election court" could embrace an election far more materially than just dating.

“Exaggeration?” “Paranoia?” Once you sober up from the kool aid, just Google it.

It is obvious at this point that the Supreme Court’s 2000 decision in favor of George Bush was devoid of even the appearance of anything judicial. “A recount of the Florida vote would irreparably damage George Bush...” The only ones who got “irreparably damaged” were us!

The 2004 insult of Ohio was hardly cleansed by the deposing of the crooked Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell. That stink was so bad, you can still smell it today, four years later. Dead soldiers from an oil war have one odor, destroyed ballots another and, wounded democracy yet another. Ohio’s contribution to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), Bob Ney is still in prison.

Stopping these cheap shenanigans really is within the reach of our modern technology. As of today, Ohio is still planning to pipe all their election results to some crooked outfit (the same one...) in “the basement of the Old Pioneer Bank Building in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the servers for the Republican National Committee, and the Bush White House, are also located.”

(Original Content at OpEdNews
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_bob_fitr_071214_ohio_secretary_of_st.htm)

So, that’s the picture. Naturally, we are asked to assume that a solution to complicated problems such as these is simply not possible. Not possible while maintaining States’ Rights, Freedom of Speech and the career opportunities of forty or fifty Republican obstructionists in the Senate, not to mention the Supreme Court where it would all inevitably wind up if we were to even attempt such a thing.

Do you believe that?

I don’t.

Gee, is there really going to be another civil war if John McCaine is the, you know, uh, "Oh my God! Surprise-underdog-maverick-coming-from-behind-winner" of this "election?"

If you're reading this tonight, be sure to vote. If you are joining in later, I hope I'm wrong.

In Praise of FOX News: America’s Entertainment

What could be more satisfying than searching for the good in everything?
It not only cleanses the soul, it is also a great boon to good health. 43


So, here goes.

FOX News has very nice and well maintained cameras and other equipment.

That wasn’t so bad now, was it?

Hypocrisy Hunting in the Urban Wild Lands

Voting in An Imperfect World: "Oh, Daddy which one's the saint?"
How We Avoid All Possible Humiliation While Electing and Supporting Nobody 35


“Hey! Bill!” Johnnie called as he entered the neighborhood diner.

“Johnnie. Didn’t see you this weekend at the bowling alley.” his friend replied good naturedly.

“Yeah. Larry and I went into the city.” Johnnie answered, looking at the menu.

“What for? Did you have a good time?” Bill asked casually.

“Yeah. Yeah we did.” Johnnie answered, now concentrating on the menu.

“So, what d’ya do? Bar hopping? Girl hunting?” Bill asked, eager and curious.

“Well, we did go hunting, just not for girls.” Johnnie answered, pointing to his choice on the menu.

“You mean, uh, boys?” the younger man asked, puzzled.

“No. No. Nothing like that. We went to that hypocrisy hunting club that Larry belongs to. Spent the weekend going through old newspapers, reading speeches and stuff, then looking for hypocrisy in stories about what the politicians did instead of what they said they were gonna’ do.” Johnnie answered patiently.

“Hmm. What was that like? Did you ‘get’ any?” Bill responded, still unsure what he was talking about.

“Yeah. Yeah, we got some. Larry landed a big one from some Congressman in the fifth district. He won the floor prize. The guy had just lied his ass off around election time, then, once that was kinda’ over, it was just like he had a list of the exact opposite. Ole’ Larry got a real nice portable radio, brand new in a box and everything.” Johnnie’s account of the meeting rambled on.

“You mean, that Congressman was a crook?” Bill asked excitedly.

“No, that’s the whole deal, Bill. The hypocrites do stuff that isn’t exactly illegal, so they just go on, hoping that nobody notices. Actually, they usually score lots more money than the dead out crooks who take bribes and do crimes and stuff.”

“I caught a couple of little ones. Well, one of ‘em wasn’t bad. Some City Councilman who turned out to be a real estate shark and a racist. You know, the guy went exactly against what he was pretending to be to get elected.” Johnnie boasted nonchalantly.

“What about the other one?” asked Bill, now obviously interested.

“Oh, it was okay. I guess I got excited all right. That one was my first catch of the night. First catch ever, if you know what I mean. But everybody there said that I should just “throw him back in” and not say nothin’. They all thought that he’d just go on feeding until he was a lot better catch for someone else, you know, later.” Johnnie explained.

“So, if Larry got the second prize, who got the first?” Bill asked.

“These two old ladies shared first prize. They lived together, retired and all, and both of ‘em are absolute dead-eye on the internet. They trotted out their stuff for everyone at the club meeting, and you could have heard a pin drop. Holy cats!” Johnnie answered.

“Who’d they get?” Bill asked.

“Actually more than one guy, but one main catch. Some preacher in one of those mega-churches. The guy had a boy friend on the side besides being married, lots of drugs and stuff, but even more than that. The whole Spiritual Leadership Council for that church was screwin’ their dues payin’ members, investing the money in some company that made religious books, buyin’ the books for way too much, then billin’ the church. Let me tell ya’. This whole stinkin’ bunch wasn’t working for chick peas, either.” Johnnie explained.

“The old ladies, Irma and Beth, snagged this video of the most outrageous ‘Better than Thou’ crap that the whole bunch of ‘em were spewing out in their church. Those two old gals peddled their story to the tv station. The hypocrisy club gets 10% when that happens. It’s great.” he continued. "I guess they were the same ones who got the Senator with the hooker problem and the other guy from the air port bathroom, you know the one who "isn't gay," when the pair of 'em wrote the Defend Marriage Amendment."

"Wow, those guys were, like, Republicans or somethin', right?" Bill answered.

"See, you're gettin" it! You'd like the club meetings." Johnnie answered, encouragingly.

“I always feel, like, extra righteous. You know, 'clean,' after one of those meetings. Hey, we’re goin’ back next weekend. Why don’t you jump in?” Johnnie mentioned as the waitress delivered his lunch

Hypocrisy hunting cannot replace serious thought when considering which candidate to select in an election. It can be a factor, of course, but as a simple measure, it will do very little to express one’s ambitions for the future of the country. Yes, hypocrisy is a subtle form of outright lying. No, it does not mean that a candidate should be “thrown under the bus” based solely on whether or not he has ever been hypocritical.

Yes, it does mean that if that candidate is elected, he should know that we are watching. As far as “blow hard” conspiracy theories, maybe it is time to start having some thoughts of our own instead of simply relying on how much mud we can pitch. If you find yourself thinking that “detecting hypocrisy” is a responsible way to chose a candidate, you have been “hoodwinked.”

We will never have a perfect candidate. We should never elect someone who presents himself as a saint. He’s lying and we’re buying into it. We should probably never elect someone who is absolutely devoid of any hypocrisy. He is managing the media.

We will have to realistically consider what we want in our leadership. Unexamined and relentless fear and greed may be great fodder for a tantrum, but aimless paranoia is not a reasonable arena to decide who we will elect.

We will have to vote as adults.

Killing Time ‘Till the November Election

Does Our Democracy Call for More Than Knitting Socks? 30

None of us has missed the endless complaints of the political hack on the losing side of an election. For months after the fact, the same refrain seems to “seep up” from the voices of the defeated, hypothetical grumbling along the lines of “If old Harry had won that election, none of this would be happening.” No matter who “Harry” might be or exactly what “this” is, such comments seem to be unavoidable perpetual political noise.

So, what’s the problem?

Simply put, suspicious election results can no longer be dismissed as either inevitable or in any way acceptable. We have all been told about the Supreme Court’s delivery of the Bush White House in 2000. We have all heard snippets about the outrageous elections in Ohio and Florida in 2004. We have heard all the interviews warning us about voting machines, you know, the ones without “paper trails” making recounts possible. Believable recounts, that is.

We may have heard about the astounding election crimes which placed the Governor of Louisiana in a Federal Prison, the court ruling prohibiting him from speaking publicly about his case and the criminal road blocks set before his appeal. He found relief only after the House Judicial Committee, once freed of the Republican strangle hold, began to “look in” on his plight. And even that only occurred after the state Attorneys General of something like 48 states, from both parties, signed a letter proposing that his case be reviewed.

Is all this “stink” limited to Republicans? Lately, while they have held all the power in the government, the answer is “yes.” However, looking back, there was a widely accepted rumor that large numbers of the names on Lyndon Johnson’s voters’ list were residents of a cemetery in Houston. He still became a Senator, and the “story” was dismissed comfortably after he began to repay his debts to his campaign supporters.

In this system, power seems to inevitably lead to innocence.

There are apparently two essential forms of election corruption, election fraud and voter suppression. In a magnificent attempt to add another “bumper sticker” to phrases such a “Fight them over there,” “They hate our freedom” and “Stay the course,” one of our most embarrassing “throw-back” states has sponsored a successful Supreme Court ruling requiring additional identification to vote. It is a law without a criminal. There are no more than a handful of cases of actual election fraud in the entire country. It is yet another blatant design to suppress voting, especially among the poor, the wrong colored and the elderly. You know, Democrats.

It has, however, provided public cover (distraction) for the greater crime of voter suppression. In the case of this crime, the criminals are surfacing everywhere. As is usually the case with such matters, no new law is required. It is the checkered application and enforcement of the existing law that has created such a festering problem.

The Supreme Court “Prize Lottery” of 2000 represents the most compelling case of outright criminal activity. That vote count had to be terminated “before it inflicted irreparable damage to George W. Bush” according to the Supreme Court ruling. Such outrageous partisan hubris could only be reasonably undertaken with the certainty that it would deliver power sufficient to protect the guilty. It worked.

The myriad of “lesser crimes” which delivered Ohio in 2004, although lacking the preposterous glamor of the Supreme Court case, still engineered the delivery of a similar, massive felony. It was the product of “caging,” inadequate numbers of voting machines in Democratic neighborhoods, misinformation campaigns and material miscounts by election officials. The result, although more “low rent” in its execution, was just as damaging.

The “expert” (intelligent design?) for these insults was Mr. Carl Rove. You know, the one who has refused to testify under a Congressional subpoena. The President quickly selected an Attorney General who publicly stated that he would never enforce such a subpoena (the legal equivalent of “treason” under the shared powers act). After the elimination of a few “troublesome” Federal Prosecutors, there was no one else left brave enough to pursue Constitutional Law. The immense cowardice of the House of Representatives’ “Gang of Fourteen,” aside from demonstrating typical Congressional willingness to do absolutely anything necessary to get reelected, cemented the deal during his nomination “hearing.”

Don’t forget your nose plug.

Here in New Mexico we can’t really lay claim to the same caliber of outrage. Our election meddling is more of the “trailer park” variety, but still smelly enough to place us squarely on the “second tier” of states with troubled election results. Being a predominantly Catholic culture, our voters subscribe to the essential “original sin” concept of politicians.

Our allegiance to the tradition of the old Spanish “patron” leads voters here to measure elected officials not by inspired leadership so much as by the size and frequency of “gifts” brought home by their alleged altruism and populist spirits. Republican prostitutes such as Heather Wilson are lauded for continually designing schemes which allow Congressional treasures to flow from positions of exalted power to the submissive, but loyal plebeians below who are willing to accept such behavior as “enough.”

Here, as is the prevailing case across the nation, election manipulations lack the brazen qualities of Ohio or the Supreme Court. In the high desert of New Mexico, vote management takes the form of complicated, yet petty, conspiracies to influence district and regional results imperceptibly, but still effectively, to deliver the desired product.

None of these stinky little affairs seems to amount to much compared to the huge, blatant gerrymandering of our neighboring state, Texas, under the careful husbandry of a Tom DeLay, a true Bush hero who managed to create five new Republican votes in Congress. He was no more than a failing bug exterminator before Carl Rove provided him the “training” to become Speaker of the House, but Rove (and DeLay) had the wisdom of the “fish wife.” They proved, through their complicity in such RNC projects, that great political power can be stolen a tiny bit at a time. Once stolen, it is just as tangible as something won honorably so long as all those ostensibly responsible to oversee such things are adequately paid off or threatened.

So, what’s the “hobby” idea?

It is roughly five months before we go to use those “entirely trustworthy” voting machines again. Beyond that, we can add that it is roughly five months before we once again place our adolescent, unquestioning confidence in the “entirely trustworthy” processes we count on for honest elections. But, hold on. We are ankle deep (or worse) in evidence that these “trustworthy” mechanisms have been subverted! Will we be “lemmings,” willingly marching right back into the same crooked elections like Pollyannas who still try to believe that everything is actually right on track?

If we do that, we will finally get what we deserve. “Fool me once, uh, fool me again?” So far, if we try really hard and we hold our tongue just right and it’s Tuesday, we can still claim that we didn’t deserve what we got last time. Perhaps such a position was marginally reasonable given the subterfuge of the recent past, but it grows a bit road weary as an excuse for our irresponsibility.

Are we satisfied simply with indulging ourselves to continue to complain? Are we really blessed with some sort of stoic acceptance of “That’s just the way things are.” “Get used to it.” “What did you expect?”

So, if we were to adopt this hobby, what could we do to change this mess to something better?

Plenty. Even if you are convinced that your state has none of these pesky little problems, you can campaign for greatly improved election law. It is a state matter which can reach right to Washington, D.C. Your state Secretary of State is “on the hook” to convince you that your elections will be fair, that is, that your state’s election laws and processes will be transparent and honest. That is the job of each state’s Secretary of State. The most important job.

Have you been settling for less?

The election laws in your state are created by your state legislature. This is why such ugly anomalies such as Texas, Florida, Louisiana and Ohio are possible. When the only law enforcement threatening these brassy neo-con election schemes is an unlikely “prosecution” at the hands of other brassy neo-cons in election commissions and courts, we shouldn’t expect much justice. We haven’t had much.

So, communicate. Tell your legislators that you want nice, fresh elections laws that will absolutely end these abuses. Make some noise. You can actually scare the hell out of them with this one.

Let them know that you are not going to tolerate any more hushed rumors of anecdotal election manipulation. Let them know that you are not going to be hypnotized by the results of elections at the cost of forgetting about serious questions about their execution.

Questions about invisible little rodents out in something or other county. Questions about when recounts are possible, necessary, reasonable. Questions about stinky little tricks that wind up disqualifying thousands of votes at just the right moment or at just the place to “reelect” some good ole’ boy who should be going to prison instead of the State House.

There is time to get this cleaned up pretty well before the next election in November. The folks running the country right now are convinced that we are stupid enough to elect Bob Dole President (Uh, no wait. It’s that other old guy.) and accept it as legal. We can’t count on the media to help us here. They own the media. We can’t count on the Supreme Court to help us here. They own the Supreme Court. We can’t count on the Congress to do anything honorable. We know better because we’ve seen them in action. (“Off the table. It doesn’t matter how bad it is, it’s off the table. Off the table. OFF THE TABLE, so shut up. We’re busy!”)

Are we too busy?

All Rightee! President Time!

Making Tough Decisions: Electing a President in a Media Blackout
or is it, Electing a President in an Electorate Blackout?

Here it is again. November. The wife is poundin’ on me -- “You get out there and vote! If you don’t have one of them ‘I Voted’ stickers, you better not plan on gettin’ your favorite meatloaf for the rest of the year!” She don’t care if it’s colder than a brass bra out here. Oh no. “You get out there and vote!” Women are like that. My mom always told me to vote, too.

So, here we are at Cataclysm Junior High. There’s the ‘Vote Here’ sign. All these people, jeez, there’s no parking. I guess there’s nothin’ to do but go on in there and get it over with.

This is just like last time. Every four years it’s the same. I’m walkin' in to vote and I have no idea who I’m supposed to vote for. At least all the names are listed on the ballots. That makes it easier to remember who is running.

At least, this year, I did my homework. I watched the news a couple of times so I’d, like, know, the questions. The wife says you have to do that to be an educated voter. One thing I do know for sure, and that is whoever gets picked is gonna’ be the guy who runs the country until the next time, you know, the next election. I say guy, but, darn, that woman is running this time. If I vote for the woman, the wife will probably like it.

Still, I promised her that I’d vote my own mind. So, I guess it’s time to boil all these facts down so I know what I’m doin’. Mom always said to pay attention to the church goin’ while you size up each pick. McCain’s preacher thinks that the Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon. That don’t mean much to me, ‘cause I ain’t Catholic. O’Bama’s preacher is a black man who doesn’t act like he’s white, but O’Bama dumped him anyway, whatever that means. Hillary’s little prayer bunch is full of fire-breathin’ neo-cons. She says she ain’t no neo-con, but she never said that the rest of ‘em weren’t.

So, that helps.

And, there’s the screw-ups. McCain said he didn’t know much about the economy but he wanted the war to go on for a hundred years. That’s weird all right, but I don’t rally know anything about the economy, either. O’Bama said that bitter people cling to religion and guns, but I ain’t bitter and I don’t even own a gun. The wife hates guns, but she don’t think he’s no Moslem. Hillary said she got shot at somewhere, but the movie didn’t show it. Sometimes I think I got shot at, but I don’t remember any of the details very well, either.

Stuff like that really does help narrow down the decision.

Yup, I’m registered, thanks to the wife, and now I’m walking up to the little curtain thing. Mom told me to never tell a pollster that I was undecided ‘cause they’d call me on the phone everyday after that. I tried to watch all them numbers the news kept comin’ up with. I’m under fifty, but I’m over twenty-five. I’m pretty sure I’m mostly white, whatever that means. The wife and I go to church every Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving and them other two days. I earn less than $250,000 and more than $45,000, right? And, I am the proud father of two kids of “mixed sex” like 39% of the rest of the country.

All that stuff says I’m supposed to vote for somebody, but I can’t remember which one. Still, it’s a clue.

I guess I’m just going to do it like last time. So long as everyone thinks I thought about it, I’ll be all right. Plus, I learned something from last time. I ain’t tellin’ nobody who I voted for until I can figure out if it makes me look stupid. If it does make me look stupid, I’ll just lie and say I voted for someone else.

All right, last time I used the alphabet idea. Since “B” came before “K,” I voted for the guy who’s in there now. To keep things democratic, this time I’m going to pick the last guy. Than means that “O” comes after “M,” even though it’s just barely. Huh. I wonder if I should count the “O” part or the “B” part. That would change everything.

Here goes. It’s gonna be “O.” That leaves all these other people to vote for. At least no one’s has ever heard of any of ‘em. For them, I can just use the old “flip the coin” approach. Anyway, no one ever asks whether or not you voted for them, or, you know, which one.

Now, I take this paper back over to the old lady and she gives me my “I Voted” sticker, then it’s home for meatloaf and sex. What a country!