McCain’t

by Hosho McCreesh

"The imposition of a sentimental, or false, narrative on the disparate and often random experience that constitutes the life of a city or a country means, necessarily, that much of what happens in that city or country will be rendered merely illustrative, a series of set pieces, or performance opportunities."
-Joan Didion – ‘Sentimental Journeys’ from After Henry

“What campaigns peddle is not simply character but character as defined by story—a tale of opposing forces that in its telling will memorably establish what a given election is about.”
-Robert Draper - ‘The Making (and Remaking) of McCain’

“The vote is our ticket to the drama, and the politician’s quest to eradicate fill in the blank is no different from the promise of the superstar of the summer movie to subdue the villain—both promise us a diversion for the price of a ticket and a suspension of disbelief.”
-David Mamet – a footnote in ‘Letters of Transit’ from
3 Uses Of The Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama

John McCain is compelling.

Not as a potential President (god no, he's insanely ill-fit for that job…no, I'll be voting for his esteemed opponent in the upcoming), but as both a public figure and a private pariah, a man with many a heroic and tragic flaw. Also, and of course, as a train wreck. I am fascinated by John McCain, though less as a candidate than as a story; one we, as Didion might say, “tell ourselves in order to live”, as a narrative thread which might serve as some kind of American parable, fable, or even cautionary tale. But most specifically I am interested in his own story: the one he tells himself, the one not actually written about (though still inescapably alluded to) in Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir. McCain is, to my eye, like watching a Spanish bullfight; a public execution; like watching King Lear's descent into madness—engaging not as much for what has been said (which has been surreal) as much as for what is being done: every bit of it intriguing, yet—ultimately—foredoomed.

With less than a day left in his bid for the presidency, McCain is poised to fulfill the dramatic promises made by not only the singularly coherent (which is to say believable) of his campaign’s narrative threads, but that of his actual life’s story as well: and that is to lose, gloriously. To be clear, this has not been the desired outcome of any of the many, dizzying yarns McCain and his handlers have tried to sell the electorate on…no, no…this is the story they’ve unwittingly brought to its justified, dramatically-earned, and correct end—the one they’ve told instead. The exposition of this great tale was laid down generations earlier and the characterizations—both real and false—have been decades in the making. As has the deep and desperate psychology that drives the man who, even after two national campaigns, remains a stranger for the American voter—a tactic that seems, now, much less accidental. Or, rather, great efforts have been made to mask, control, spin, and bury his political and personal inadequacies; matched only by counter-efforts to fabricate, for the man, a new mythology—one based largely on explaining away the failures in his so-called defining moments, his plot points, his mistakes. Offered, instead, has been a kind of passive alibi—one dressed up as a hero’s journey. Enter: the unbelievable character sketch that McCain currently campaigns as. And make no mistake: it is unbelievable. And the polls suggest that the voters have not fallen for it, have not been fooled by the bait-and-switch, have not—despite McCain’s monumental efforts—agreed to suspend their disbelief such that, once again, McCain might be allowed to succeed in spite of himself.

To hear McCain sell it, it goes something like this: he’s a 3rd generation maverick and serious military man; his rambunctious and unapologetic past behind him, he is now a devoted family man, one unwilling to bend to the pressures (& pleasures) of others; he is the prodigal son returned “with the scars to prove it”—that is prove his individual heroism, and love of God and country.


“My grandfather was a naval aviator, my father a submariner. They were my first heroes, and earning their respect has been the most lasting ambition of my life. They have been dead many years now, yet I still aspire to live my life according to the terms of their approval.”
–John McCain, Faith of my Fathers: A Family Memoir

“My father was an intelligent man, and quite well read as a boy. The low grades as a student cannot be accredited to poor intellect. Rather, I assume they were attributable to his poor discipline, a failing that was almost certainly a result of his immaturity and the insecurity he must have felt as an undersized youth in a rough-and-tumble world that had humbled many older, bigger men.”
–John McCain, Faith of my Fathers: A Family Memoir

As defined by his forefathers, John McCain is a study in contradictions—most specifically in his reportedly lifelong roles. In many ways he is a man just like his father and grandfather—only not, in neither their eyes nor his own, as great. In the aforementioned quotes we find John McCain talking about and admitting to things not of his forefathers’ lives but his own—accidental admissions, I’d say. These are the stories he uses to explain away both his and his forefathers’ imperfections. It is also how he positions himself among their ranks. Some of these things might be true, and I have no doubt that McCain believes most (if not all) of them are. But the fact that his story has been so retroactively constructed, that he is so utterly convinced by the story as to doggedly stick to it even as it, as a political tactic, fails him, suggests something a little more pathological at work. True or not true, McCain needs this story to be his story. And even if this is his story—it’s certainly not his whole story.

I have only the vaguest recollections of McCain's campaign in 2000: what I do remember is liking him; thinking he was a reasonable, & forthcoming potential candidate; thinking that he was far more experienced, & frankly, a vastly superior candidate—one much better suited to the nomination. I also remember watching the GOP brutally cannibalize one of it's own, one of its most loyal (if not a little naïve), in favor of George W. Bush and his disturbing, win-at-all-costs brand of politics. It was not only ugly but felt downright wrong. Crucify Clinton, Gore sure…but one of its own, and a war hero? It set a terrifying and unnatural precedent. In fact, Bush’s brand of politics highlighted exactly why McCain was—in my mind—the better of the two: McCain ran a pretty decent and honorable campaign.

Little did we know that 2000 would be an ugly glimpse into what would come to be known as “politics as usual” in the next 8 years—the eventual cost still too impossible to measure. As a result, America has been a nation divided: by Republican action; by Democratic inaction—a division deeper than we still yet know. To see, in 2008's campaign, such a vastly different man than the one I remember from 2000 has been more than a little alarming. And I cannot be the only one who feels that turning, in 2008, to the very people who so publicly destroyed him is more than a little unnerving. After all, we know it affected him. He strongly considered jumping ship and joining the Democratic party afterwards—something that could at least partially be attributed to that cannibalization he endured. So at what cost…at what cost goes loyalty? Yes, politics (& college football) makes for strange bedfellows—sure, sure. But to willingly ally himself with such political hypocrisy has all but proven that, despite all punditry to the contrary, he cares for only one thing: winning. Though McCain seems to tell himself a wholly different yarn.


2

“The other adviser was 53-year-old Mark Salter, a brilliant, pugnacious writer who has composed all of McCain’s books and major speeches and in a more encompassing sense is McCain’s definer, looking after what Salter himself calls the ‘metanarrative’ of McCain’s transformation from reckless flyboy and P.O.W. to courageous patriot.”
-Robert Draper - ‘The Making (and Remaking) of McCain’

“The search for witches, Jews, un-Americans, homosexuals, immigrants, Catholics, heretics is, similarly, a pageant and not really a political quest at all. The prime movers elect themselves the protagonists, identify what is causing all that unfortunate uncertainty in the world, and swear to expunge it, if we will just vote for them.”
-David Mamet - from ‘Letters of Transit’,
3 Uses Of The Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama

As defined by his adviser and ghost-autobiographer Mark Salter, and under the guidance of Rick Davis, and Steve Schmidt, McCain has—as we have witnessed—run a campaign based largely on fear. A campaign that is designed to whip up the most extreme factions of his base into a near-frenzy and destined to reach deep into voters’ most secret prejudices and needle them. To generalize, his base is affluent—which is to say those most susceptible to the tactic of fear: they are, simply, comfortable people with the most to lose. To generalize, his base is middle-class—which is to say proud and willing to sacrifice for some higher ideals, something familiar and historical, something beyond itself. And to generalize again, his base is poor—which is to say ignored and forgotten, and often most susceptible to each and every pillow-talk promise, most willing to vote not their present circumstances but their glorious (and highly unlikely) futures…vote for those brighter days ahead when their American Dream finally gets it’s lotto-ticket punched. McCain’s 2008 campaign has been based on reckless gambles, talking-point horses beaten beyond even recognition, illustrative set pieces, and performance opportunities—yarns packed to the gills with platitudes and world-weary tales of the hard-working everyman…as well as the standard witch hunts, un-Americans, and even heretics. It’s been a campaign aimed at anti-intellectualism, one that smirks at his opponent's eloquence…as if the substance of what was being said is of no consequence. And in that regard, it has been a successful campaign: it has found those it most sought and engaged them. Additionally it has also found those less-civic in their support, found those less concerned with America’s future as with America’s inglorious past…as sometimes embarrassingly and heartbreakingly evidenced by hand-scrawled signs reading "Mavrik," "Half-Breed Muslin" & "Socialiest" strewn across the distended underbelly of the American heartland.

It is called a tragic flaw because it is unavoidable, impending…because the flawed simply cannot help themselves. We've all watched as McCain simply could not help himself…even despite his valiant efforts. The schizophrenic mania manifest in clenched teeth, in physical ticks, in such restrained and barely-held-in-check tongue-jabs and emotions have pushed the man to his physical limit, if not into the white-hot glare of truth for all that it is hidden and that his body-language appears to betray. To hear the man say something like "My friends, I know we're all hurting," while not knowing how many houses he officially owns (much less unofficially) certainly doesn't ingratiate him to the less red of the blue collar set…those the Republican platform must, every election cycle, convince to vote against their own better futures and self-interests in support of the lavish, boundless lifestyle of the upper class. And it is in these so painfully obvious conflicts of interest that the campaign loses traction, where it becomes a comic sketch of itself…yet another annoyance in a campaign of annoyances, trivialities, dull and insipid little errands, chores—all these speeches and smart-ass debates—something simply to be gotten through between now and his magnificently imagined reign. Yes, those pesky, infuriatingly slow-churning wheels of democracy.

Absent from the hero’s journey—if we’re to believe that is what we are being sold—are the less glorious, more humanizing moments: owning mistakes; meaningful admonitions; confessing of one’s sins and transgressions by which the hero can learn to forgive himself…just as we, the audience, forgive him. Noticeably absent. Nearly non-existent. But from the ether-eye, from sources, from un-silent patriots come disturbing, un-heroic dispatches from the supposed front lines of McCain’s psyche…things that do not jive with the official narrative. Rage. Infidelity. Ruthless, quenchless ambition. A hard-charging drunkard with a thirst for dice. A brat insulted by his advantages, but not enough to refuse to abuse them. Misogyny. The word “cunt.” These are separate, unofficial narratives…witnessed reports, yet stories without redaction, stories the merits of which I am neither qualified nor inclined to debate. These are stories McCain apparently refuses to dignify with response (we’ll ignore the argument that perhaps, just perhaps, the electorate might be entitled to it). But that they are is what bears mentioning—leave the exposés to those better suited—what further clouds the tangled threads of his narrative. I have no doubt that politics is a rough business, that every misstep is mercilessly amplified in an election year and especially in this election year. I have no doubt that running for President of the United States is immeasurably difficult. But so is maintaining a crumbling façade.


3

“And we vote for, and follow with interest, that political hero who dramatizes our lives and relieves, for a while, the feeling of hopelessness and anomie that is the stuff of modern civilization.”
-David Mamet - from ‘Letters of Transit’,
3 Uses Of The Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama

Yes, but what is the story McCain prefers? It seems a failed hero’s tale wherein he, in 2008, has little choice. Ignore the base and he risks alienating the Christian right—and his campaign wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Or so he seems resigned to think. But, tactically, what of courting to this base? Is that even sane when facing an opponent decades your inferior in terms of experience, not to mention being the first-ever African American major party Presidential candidate? Wasn't simply being the Republican nominee probably going to, to put it simply, be enough? Did McCain honestly think that the Republican base would ever consider voting for what they would no doubt see as a weak, tax-and-spend, faggoty, tree-hugging, liberal terrorist—even if he wasn’t black? Or was it just desperately begging the lost affections of 2000, the unrealized ousting of Bush in 2004, instead of appealing to today’s much more broad and contemporary voting set?

In many ways I think McCain should have been himself, the McCain of 2000, instead of this straw man, dreamed up by the GOP machine. He has sacrificed his own heart for a shot at the White House, and has done so, I think, to great personal detriment. The disjointed tactics, the grumblings from his inconsistent, divided camp, seem largely those of a blood-thirsty mob being just barely (if not inadequately) restrained…not much of a legacy. Watching it unfold has suggested, to me, a kind of crisis of conscience for McCain. At least I want to believe it has. It also has suggested regret of his many errant decisions…including turning to the very gnashing teeth of a combine that devoured him 8 years ago. Yes, had McCain run simply as himself and were he to lose, at least it would rest solely on him, on his hero's shoulders…instead of easily justified or explained away by consequence and ill-fate. Yes, better the loss be attributed to his volatile and barely suppressed rage, to his failed policies, his poor decisions, his underestimation of voters, or his lack of vision and understanding. At least, then, his worth as a civil servant and a man would not be in question. That would, I think, be easier to take. After all, who is to blame when the very same meritocracy upon which all your deepest beliefs are centered somehow has you losing the big game?

But he has not been himself—which is to say the earlier versions of himself, the story of John McCain that I prefer to ascribe to, the one I choose and believe is more representative of the actual man. I watched at rallies, him standing idly by, while extreme supporters called for the literal head of his opponent. I fully expected him to do something about it, and believe the McCain of 2000 would have. But to see him this time—looking around, smiling uncomfortably, turning to an unseen someone looking for guidance, for help—made me wonder if he even had anything left, anything that could be saved. I see, in McCain, an angry, sad, and broken man. I also see a relieved man. To openly embrace the divisive and destructive tactics that the same GOP machine used to derail his more honorable and very legitimate near-Presidential campaign, the Straight Talk Express, …to see him devolve into someone else, one who would reverse himself so drastically on his pet projects, including immigration and the moral issue of torture (for which even the ugliest Rove-ean political opportunist would have still given him a pass) suggests a deep, pathological need to win. Beyond talk. Beyond promises. Beyond American futures. Beyond pledges and the slaughter of political mischaracterization visited on him by those he now begs to destroy his opponent. He seems cursed to view all his failures not in the eyes of himself (by which he could learn from them) but in those of his dead forefathers…haunted by men he (and others) have lionized into some kind of ideal, some cheapjack Greek gods, men McCain has always wanted to equal and—let's be honest—always wanted to finally best…at something…somehow. For my money, that is what has made him so desperate, so willing to be someone he was not. Perhaps the end, once again, justified the means…as it almost never has before. Or always has, depending on who you ask. And as his deep-seated need to win runs headlong into his impending failure, he is forgetting his own story and forgetting to beware the dramatic promises a narrative makes—as expectations are planned resentments.

I see in McCain the facts of himself, as his story has been retroactively constructed: the narrative yarn that is, to him, so utterly convincing as to doggedly adhere almost exclusively to it—even as it, as a political tactic, fails him. Yes, a man transformed by his life’s darkest hours from a reckless, impetuous youth to a measured man of God and country first. He has ignored the rest. Worse is that even in telling himself the story he needs most believe, telling himself the story of himself, he’s done so not with war stories as one might expect. And they are not tales where he's overcome some great challenge internal or obstacle external. Sadly, while those threads do occasionally work into the larger narrative, the stories McCain tells himself, the roles in which he prefers to cast himself, are the stories not of heroes but of martyrs: of those who—instead of doing something, anything—are simply people to which unfortunate and treacherous things like fate, time, and circumstance just seem to happen; stories not of a tortured yet still determined, murderous Hamlet but, instead, of a broken, bewildered old fool Lear; not so much the prodigal son returned 'with the scars to prove it' as that of a silver-spooned Jesus whose crucifixion wasn't even enough to finally win his dead grandfather's or father’s love.

And it must be asked: does the man even want to be President? Reaching now (and perhaps it’s psycho-babble), but what other choice does a man born to the purple, born to every advantage have—save self-sabotage and wanton tales of martyrdom—to explain away his failures? What else does a man born to every advantage have—save self-sabotage—by which he can finally reject his pathological and desperately failed attempts to measure up? McCain somehow needs to be both hero and victim, both winner and loser, both magnanimous martyr and stone-faced executioner. He needs an escape hatch, a hedged bet, some back-door-extraction from yet another of his life’s untenable psychological situations. He needs it to be okay to succeed, sure. But he needs it to be even more okay to fail. How else are we to explain away Sarah Palin—when the GOP is rife with far more loyal, knowledgeable, capable, & inspired choices? That even Lear needed his fool? Surely McCain cannot have such little regard for the intellect of the American electorate, can he? I see in him—as all great martyrs—a deep sadness, an unreachable place, one that joy cannot find. I think he knows it. And I think he knows that winning this election will not make it go away. And while I have no doubt the man is haunted by some pathological need to best his grandfather and his father in some way, to become something they were not such that the lifelong comparisons might finally cease, and the whispers of his own unhappy heart might be silenced—I think there is a large part of him that does not want to win, one that is content to appear as if he fought tooth and nail but was, ultimately, bested by a man better-suited, and more beloved of the people—or—one with more nefarious crooks and cronies in his corner, and it was, once again, his honor that defeated him. It is, after all, the role he’s most comfortable playing, the story he’s most accustomed to living. And the role he has, after 70+ years, maybe even made his peace with.

I am sorry for the man. Not enough to vote for him, of course…yet sorry all the same. Such tragedy, both personal and professional, has rarely (if ever) played out to the delight of so many worldwide—and never on such grand a national and international stage.

We've all unfortunately and unwittingly borne witness.

————————
Suggested Readings

-“Make-Believe Maverick” by Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone Magazine
-“The Making (and Remaking) of McCain” by Robert Draper, GQ Magazine
-After Henry and The White Album (or, anything, really) by Joan Didion
-3 Uses of the Knife: On the Nature & Purpose of Drama by David Mamet

From The Editor

 
Coming soon, an essay on 'Our Friend,' John "POW" McCain by editor Hosho McCreesh.



[image courtesy of Father Luke]
 

The Dream

by justin.barrett

Forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. His assassination touched off a wave of riots across the United States, and decades of bitterness amongst the civil rights movement, activists and supporters alike. An official day of mourning was declared three days later by President Lyndon Johnson. Dr. King’s legacy and words still reverberate in our collective consciousness to this day.

The most remarkable thing about King’s assassination, however, isn’t the location, or the timing, or the myriad reasons for it, but the fact that he knew it was the inevitable outcome of the life he chose. King chose to be on the side of the poor, the mistreated, the abused, the discriminated against; he chose to be against war, against injustice, against racism; he chose to be for tolerance, and non-violence, and equality – all admirable, yet, during that time, dangerous, principles to hold. But, King didn’t just believe in these principles, he fought for them – demanded their observance, even – with powerful rhetoric and civil disobedience. And, he did all of these in the Jim Crow South, when a black man, no matter how intelligent or charismatic or eloquent, was considered inferior to his white counterparts, no matter how ignorant or uneducated.

Dr. King knew his stature would inevitably lead to his death. Despite this knowledge, though, he continued on, preaching and disobeying. He did what was necessary regardless of the dangers to his life. Imagine this sense of purpose. Imagine Coretta Scott King, his wife, knowing she would likely be a widow, left to raise her four children alone, and still encouraging her husband in his duties. Imagine the remarkable sense of responsibility King saddled himself with, knowing he was the right man, with the right ideas, at the right time. Not the wrong man at the wrong time, but the right man. He never lamented his fate, but owned it. He didn’t shy away from his responsibilities, but embraced them. King knew the country needed a man like him, and he was willing to become a martyr for truth, equality, and righteousness.

Had Dr. King the ability to do it all over again, I doubt much would change in regards to his participation in the civil rights movement. Jackie Robinson, Jack Johnson, Edward Brooke, Alexander Lucius Twilight, and others who’ve broken the color barrier, undoubtedly felt the same sense of responsibility. And each persevered, each welcomed history.

All of this leads me to current Democratic Party candidate for President, Barack Obama. As you know, should Senator Obama be elected, he will be the first black President of the United States of America. As it is, he is the first to receive the nomination from one of the two major parties, and he is the sole African-American serving in the U.S. Senate (and only the fifth to be elected into the Senate in U.S. history). Mr. Obama, too, undoubtedly understands the importance of his historic campaign, and the possible threats he faces should he win the election. And, like Dr. King, he continues on, knowing he is the right man, with the right ideas, at the right time. Should his fate turn out similar to King’s, I doubt he or his wife, Michelle, would regret it much, because he is doing what he feels is right, what he feels needs to be done; and, undoubtedly, he knows the country will be better for it. He feels the sacrifice is worth it.

I envy this sense of self; this driven purpose of history and righteousness. Most of us possess neither. We move through our lives with little to fear and offer the world little in terms of anything new. But, we all owe great men like Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson, and Barack Obama much. Each of them put their life at risk for the advancement of humankind. Let’s just hope Mr. Obama’s similarities to Dr. King’s ends there. Let’s hope we, as a people, as a country, have moved beyond our grotesque history and can accept change, can start a new chapter where tolerance and coexistence and hope are the significant themes.

Our past is filled with despicable and ugly acts of hatred, cowardice and intolerance. From time to time, that ugliness, even now, bubbles to the surface. With the racial epithets and outcries of Obama's murder recently heard at McCain's rallies, no matter how one tries to attribute them to mob mentality, the reality of an assassination attempt appears to grow. And, with the fomenting of hatred, the race-baiting, the exploitation of passionate fears, with the renaming of Obama as an "outsider" and as an "other" McCain's campaign has engaged in, there is bound to be a bitter and potentially angry mood among the McCain supporters should Obama prevail—picture the raucous crowd of villagers raising torches and pitchforks, and volleying epithets, at Frankenstein's monster before moving in for the kill; except trade sniper rifles and handguns for the torches and pitchforks. This scene can very easily come true, should overwrought zealots decide that the country is in danger with Obama as president, something right-wing blogs and the McCain smear ads have either alluded to or outright posited. Just recently, a McCain operative claimed to have been sexually assaulted at an ATM by a “big, black man,” who then proceeded to carve a “B” in her cheek after he saw her McCain bumper sticker. This horrible event turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by the operative; a desperate attempt by a desperate volunteer working for an increasingly desperate campaign. And, we all know, desperation leads to frustration; and frustration can lead to the worst kind of behavior, especially when coupled with fear.

The simple fact is, America has insufficiently dealt with its ugly, racist past; but it’s not the past this campaign is about; it’s the future. On March 18, 2008, Obama said, in a speech on race hailed as one of his finest, “I chose to run for president at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together, unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren.” It’s this sense of change and righting the course our nation is taking that has allowed Obama to run despite the risks.

In the same speech, he said that “what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.” History. It’s what Dr. King envisioned and what Obama is striving for: to realize the dream; for his race, for America, and for the children who come after us, black or white.

[Editor's note: H E R E are some folks j.b mentions above. McCain/Palin the candidacy has morphed into some hideous beast-thing, some freakish, slouching, grinning, conniving, horrible, soul-less creature of its own demented power-lust, concerned only with crushing and destroying the hated Other. It's Golem-Smeagol willing to forgo any chance at personal redemption to clench the illusory ring in its diseased claws. It's the witch in Wizard, sending deranged flying monkeys out across the landscape to do its gruesome bidding, racist fangs glinting in the dull sunlight, ignorance crawling across their pasty faces like lice over the skin of rabid, feral cats, warriors for a jesus of their own imperfect design...shameless bigots with bloodlust curling their sneering lips.

Like it or not, this is the huge white elephant in the country right now. We've seen enough glory-minded armed psychopaths in America that we need not imagine much to imagine someone plotting this very second. The startling, dangerous, and irresponsibly incendiary rhetoric adopted by the McCain camp in attack ads, the unwillingness to publically own them, and the inability/unwillingness to stop a speech mid-sentence and quickly, publically correct these "supporters" when they scream things the candidates find inappropriate or unfair...to focus not on what is, perhaps, a legitimate complaint in re: Senator Obama (inexperience), and instead focus on what is outlandishly out of bounds (terrorist, arab, etc.) is a terrifying and sad thing to behold. Some very basic pre-requisites to even run for president in the United States seem to escape this slavering and vicious mass...not the least of which is "you cannot run for President of the U.S. unless you are a US CITIZEN-- and not a NATURALIZED one." He is not an Arab. Senator Obama is an American,born in Hawaii, which is still the 50th state in the Union. To attack an opponent for anything but his ideas has been the downfall of American politics: it's seen the electorate grow ever more weary, and what's become more acceptable, what's chalk up as "just politics," become more insulting to a nation starved for real political debate.

But, again, of what value are IDEAS? They are nothing short of political currency. After all, isn't it that what killed MLK, Jr., JFK and RFK--ideas? Specifically, it was some crackpot trying to destroy IDEAS by destroying the men behind them. It didn't work, of course, as evidenced by Obama's historic nomination and potential presidency...but, probably, there seems little left when your own campaign has no ideas, while your opponent is flush with them. -- Eds]
 

The Election 'Oh Eight

by Father Luke

[The editors may or may not disagree in re: the efficacy of voting, but that won't stop us from publishing this or from strapping on our dancing shoes. - Eds]

I’m dancing with my arms in the air. My shirt is off, and my hairy belly is bouncing in rhythm with some shit-kicker music I’m listening to that is streaming over an internet radio station. Maybe it’s The Blasters. I don’t exactly know who‘s singing. I really don’t care. Eventually the airwaves will be owned by thieves. People owning air, it seems unspeakable, doesn’t it? But there are those who will control the very air which surrounds me.

I have never voted in a Presidential election. I will be 49 years old in November, and I have never voted, not once in my entire life. I am dancing half naked in the privacy of an old hotel room which I call home. I’m wearing work boots with laces tied in knots because the laces broke long ago, and I’m alive during a time in which the economy of my country has driven our privileged class to frantically rush toward insane solutions as if they were crazy housewives calling Psychics on a pay by minute telephone line looking for a plan they hope will stop their financial lives from crumbling like a flaky pie crust at the touch of an infant’s finger.

I am lunatic happy. Too bad I don’t drink anymore, this would be fun. What the hell, maybe I’ll start again?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not happy that the landed gentry are going insane with worry. No, no. That’s not it. Not it at all. No, I am not happy that my fellow Americans are losing everything they have. I’m simply happy. I’m happy because I have no other choice left for me. I have no choice as to where to work. There is no place to work. I have no choice as to where to live. Without money, there are no places to live.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was in the news today trumpeting this news:

"Given the financial damage to date, I cannot see how we can avoid a significant rise in layoffs and unemployment" – Alan Greenspan

I don’t know what paper you read, but the facts are in, unemployment is up in America 44% over last year. But not to worry, Ladies and Gentlemen, according to the experts it’s only going to get worse. Alan Greenspan has declared a depression. Ah well, easy dot com, easy dot go. Let me turn the music up just a bit.

So, then how will we live? Where will we live? Family homes are being brushed away like so many crumbs off the lapel of a fat man’s dark business suit. Ah, but the streets are open, aren’t they? The streets are always open. The streets are open twenty four hours a day. If you don’t believe there is vacancy on the streets of America, take a stroll through downtown Los Angeles. Hell, it doesn’t even need to be Los Angeles. It doesn’t need to be downtown! Former New York City Mayor John Lindsay called the crimes of the homeless and poverty stricken in this country a slow motion riot. Well, disaster is headed for your front door, Amos. Like dead zombies walking with their arms out in front of them, wanting to eat your brains. Slowly they creep, step, by step . . . inch by inch. . .

So where do the homeless live? Well, that’s just it. They’re homeless. They don’t have anywhere to live. Maybe they’ll shit on your front lawn while you are bathing your children, or look in the restaurant window as you leisurely eat, and pick their nose. Maybe they’ll steal your new car, and kidnap your children. Not likely, however. Besides not having any money for fuel, the poor truth is that you may very well have bought your car from these homeless people. Maybe you also bought your home from them. Maybe John McCain or Barack Obama may come by to ask you if you have any odd jobs, so they might have shelter for the night.

Does this sound farfetched: Political candidates with “Will Work for Food” signs? Well, think about it. It’s not exactly that wild, now is it? It’s precisely what is being asked of us at this very moment.

Vote for me, and put me in The White House.

John Steinbeck’s Tom Joad, in Grapes of Wrath, during the depths of a depression, never stooped to such lickspittle measures. Grapes of Wrath told about hard working, depression dust bowl people looking for an honest day’s work. Yet our country’s highest Politicians engage in cockamamie posturing, ridiculous charades, and manipulative crap slinging every four years. One of these lying bastards will end up with the most powerful position on the planet. Goons; Smear Pundits; Deviants, Pick Pockets, all of them vying for the same thing: The Office of President of The United States. If you miss it, the festive parade repeats itself every four years. Hitch a ride, hayseed. It’s all in fun. We’re going to Fresno to look for work! Hoorah!

Oh, quite a stretch from Grapes of Wrath, Father Luke. Well, not really. But, it crosses my imagination that Tom Joad, with a car full of weary and hungry family members, was more honest than any of these manipulative bastards. Ha Haw! Has it really been four years?

BOHICA, Buster: Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.

Servant of the American People

Of The People, By The People, and For The People, that’s the paradigm. And this new collection of power hungry manipulators will have become the trusted public servants held on high, and put forth to preserve the American Dream; servants who will again have been elected on their word, and who will again double cross the American public. I’m certain of it. It’s the torch they carry. Like the Summer Olympics, the shenanigans happen regularly every four years. It’s nice work if you can get it. But please note: The official in charge of building Beijing's Olympic Games venues worth about $55 billion was recently sentenced to death for taking $1.45 million in bribes. If we were moths, you would see us flying into the lights bulbs above the heads of these screwballs each time they come up with another harebrained idea during the dark night of our depression. America’s Presidential Candidates are gumball machines dispensing stupid every four years at the twist of a wrist, and we chew it up like the sugar craving idiot children we have become.

What is the meaning of this?

So, where does this all end? Where do all roads lead? What is the meaning of this? What am I talking about? I don’t even vote, and so by all rights I don’t even get any say in the matter. The truth is that nearly 5 million, or 1 in 43 Americans, are not entitled to vote. So why don’t I just shut up? Well, as I dance in my little hotel room to music which moves me to smile my lopsided smile, I have full knowledge that Now More Than Ever, and Four More Years is still only four more years, and that this is still the only moment there is, and the only choice I have is for happiness. Happiness is at a premium in a world gone foamy mouthed rabid with money sickness, in a world grown weary of Political lies which are increasingly more confusing than the Religious beliefs we turn to in our places of worship during our times of soul sickness.

Happiness is wisdom. Wisdom comes with a price. It’s paid with a grinding, and gnashing of teeth when the things we want aren’t the things we get, and the chasm between the upset of what we have is balanced with the expectations of that which we didn’t get. Happiness does not depend upon a political outcome. Happiness does not depend upon a Religious belief. Happiness depends entirely upon whether we choose to be happy. Come Election Day, I will be happy. I’m practicing my dance steps for the inaugural ball. As AC/DC said:

We’ve got the biggest balls of them all!

We do! We put up with this horse shit every four years. Let’s ask the poor how to be happy. They’ve had lots of practice, and they’ve suffered the storms of injustice we are only now beginning to prepare for. Let’s go find them, and ask them to dance.

Dear Senator McCain

by justin.barrett

[please address all hate mail to Fritz -Eds.]

20 October 2008

Dear Senator McCain,

My name is Fritz Miller and I'm the Executive Vice-President of a fairly large waste disposal company. I make over $250,000 a year ($2.5 million to be exact) and will receive a tax increase under Senator Barack Hussein Obama's proposed tax plan. NOTE: unlike your Vice-President choice, I am capable in my duties and deserved the title, just in case you were worried about whom you might be reading.

Senator McCain, I've paid particular attention to your recent speeches, and your last debate, where you mention "Joe the Plumber". It seems he has some questionable background issues (including unpaid taxes, being an unlicensed plumber, and actually making only $40,000 instead of the more than $250,000 he claimed to Obama), so maybe, if you're looking for another "regular guy" to make an example out of, you can use me. "Fritz the Garbage Man" you can call me. Tell the world how my meager earnings will be taxed to the hilt by Osama (oops, Obama [smirk]); how my accustomed "middle class" lifestyle of fast cars, fancy dinners, extravagant vacations and multiple mansions will be severely curtailed; how my "regular guy" capitalist principles will be crushed by Obama's socialist ideologies; even how my “guy next door” house will likely be blown up by Obama and his terrorist minions.

"Fritz the Garbage Man" will capture the attention of your audiences. I am an "everyman" with only two Ferraris and a yacht. I am the quintessential "Joe Sixpack", though I prefer to drink 25-year old scotch or $200 bottles of Bordeaux to that domestic light beer swill. “Fritz the Garbage Man”. It rolls off the tongue.

By the way, like you, Senator McCain, I, too, don't know how many houses I own. Seven, I think; plus or minus two.

It is true, Senator McCain, that Barack Hussein Obama is smarter than you; better looking, younger, and leaner. His smile seems genuine and warm. His teeth are white and eyes aren’t jaundiced with age and cynicism. His arms are strong, his legs powerful, his mind inquisitive and taut. It is also true, Senator McCain, that you are on the last lap of the track meet that is your life, and you hit the wall 8 years and many laps ago. However, I still believe in you. We (that is, we 42%) believe in you, despite your erratic behavior of late; despite your absurdly inappropriate choice for running mate; despite your age and health and temperament (which some say in unbecoming of a President, but which I say is not only becoming but will make all those dictators respect us, because we can show them that they aren’t the only ones who have an unhinged, Type A asshole manning the ship). So, smile away, in your smug and corpse-like way. Make uncomfortable jokes about your advanced age. Spout hateful and ugly lies ad infinitum. Continue it all. We love it.

And don’t fret those falling poll numbers, Senator McCain, for you’re like the Red Sox since 2004 and you’re better from behind. You’ve got Barack Hussein Obama right where you want him, just like the Red Sox had the Tampa Bay Rays right where they wanted them when they were down three games to one. Never mind that the Red Sox lost. Ignore that, much like you are ignoring the real issues in this campaign. The Red Sox very likely did win, but the liberal mainstream media didn’t report it. Believe, Senator McCain, believe!

Lastly, Senator McCain, “Fritz the Garbage Man”, should you lose this election (and by “should”, I mean “when”; and by “lose” I mean “get annihilated in”), is ready and able to sweep up the pieces of your dignity and self-respect—or that is to say, have one of his employees sweep them up—and store them in a landfill facility with your bungled, ineffectual, idiotic campaign. McCain/Palin 2008 2012!

Sincerely,

Fritz Miller