EDITORIALS

It's the people stupid! - by Jerry Ghinelli

11/09/04 "ICH" -- In the 1992 presidential campaign, James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign advisor, rallied his supporters with the slogan, "It's the economy, stupid." In 2004, the rallying cry for the Republicans should have been, "It's the American people, stupid. "

And stupid we are!

Faced with issues that will affect this country for a generation or more (if we're lucky enough to survive), millions of Americans voted based on whom they would like to have over for a barbeque and who shares their moral vales.

Bush and moral values is an oxymoron. And Bush and the millions of Americans who voted for him because he shares their moral values are just plain morons.

What moral vales? Killing tens of thousands of Iraqis? Executing 152 prisoners while governor of Texas (including women and illiterates)? Supporting and protecting corrupt corporations like Enron and Halliburton? Making a fraction of the population enormously wealthy, while the working poor were squeezed bloody white? If these are moral values, then please reserve me a room in hell.

WHICH IS MORE OFFENSIVE TO YOU?

Better to concern ourselves with a handful of "fags" getting married while we bully our way around the planet, sowing hatred, violence and destruction everywhere we go.

These “good Americans” are repulsed by a couple of gays holding hands in public, but not by the severed limbs and destruction of a poor and impoverished people in an illegal and immoral attack on a country that was never a threat to the fiercest military machine in the history of the planet Earth.

At least Saddam’s despotism was pure. He made no pretenses of morality, or claims of divine intervention for his treachery. What hubris, what hypocrisy by Bush and company. And millions of Americans swallowed the bait, hook and all.

Now here is a brief commercial showing the “President of moral values” saluting his flock . http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1033.htm

If you think this “one-finger victory salute” was a benign prank, just ask yourself the following question: Could you imagine a true believer and man of values, like President Carter, acting in such a manner?

What else could you expect from a nation that wants its news spoon-fed to it, like an infant with a flag as a bib? The so-called news in America comes from five corporations: AOL, Disney, GE, Viacom and the “fair and balanced” network of Australian-born Rupert Murdoch's World News Corporation (a.k.a. Fox News).

Yes, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News: the working man’s voice for moral values. Fair and balanced reporting of the news, interspersed among the broadcast of the most disgusting, idiotic and depraved shows in the vast wasteland of television. Fox News, whose star, Bill O'Reilly, the last angry man, likes to boast about his prowess and engage in phone sex with women young enough to be his daughter.

Meanwhile, back in the red states, the bible-thumping, flag-waving, “proud to be American” crowd, after praying and thanking God for their freedom at Sunday services, exercise that freedom by displaying confederate flags on the back of their pickup trucks. They go back to their homes and contribute mightily to making pornography a booming, 12-billion-dollar industry. The highest divorce and out-of-wedlock birth rates come from those “red states,” where they wear religion on their sleeves as camouflage against their hypocrisy. Where have you gone, Jimmy Swaggart?

Folks, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Fasten your seat belts, for we are in for some severe turbulence. With 90% of the world’s opinion against our President and his corrupt, bloodthirsty cadre of neocons and conmen, we are in for four more years of fear, war, deficits and violent payback, which is inevitable. To those of you with moral values far exceeding mine, please allow me a bit of piety: “We will reap what we have sown. We have sown the seeds of hypocrisy and we will reap the harvest of misery.”

Get ready, boys and girls, because your vote for morality will be paying dividends real soon. A fascist White House, Republican-dominated Congress and a Supreme Court packed with “hanging judges” will cleanse our once-great nation of sin and immorality. Abortion will only be for rich white women, like George Bush’s sexy, frisky daughters, one of whom has been nicknamed, appropriately, “Jenna and Tonic.”

Gays will be returned to the closets where they belong – except, of course, for Dick Cheney's daughter who, because of her privileged status (see Bush’s daughters, above), will be free to embark on a lifestyle of her choosing. Military service will be saved for the poor who cannot afford higher education; thus a military career (or draft) will be the only option.

There is a sense of anger in this essay, but a sense of amusement as well.

In an “Orwellian Animal Farm” country coming soon to a neighborhood near you, Conservative Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Evangelicals will ultimately peck each other to death in their quest for righteous leadership.

Watch Catholics oppose birth control and in vitro fertilization for the Evangelicals; Jehovah's Witnesses oppose blood transfusions for Catholics; Mormons oppose wine at Catholic Mass, and so on and so on.

Go ahead, Catholic Conservatives: shove the Pope down the throats of the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Evangelicals, and watch the reaction.

Oh, and we mustn’t forget the Jews, who voted for Bush to get security for Israel – good job! You may want to consider emigrating there when the US constitution is amended to allow the Austrian-born, Nazi apologist Arnold “the terminator” Schwarzenegger to run for President in 2008. Maybe Mel Gibson could be his running mate?

Bush received a mandate not based on a platform of rational thought and sound fiscal reasoning, but one of “fears and queers”. Welcome to the new American dream. Don't worry, you won't see Janet Jackson's “boob” again, nor will you have to be disgusted by Howard Stern's revolting penis jokes. No, brought to you in living color, those body parts will be replaced with decapitated heads, broken bones, severed limbs and rivers of red blood, paid for with “red ink” right here in the good ol’ USA.

Signing off now and packing my bags for Gitmo.

Oh, sorry, I almost forgot – God bless America

Copyright: Jerry Ghinelli jerryghinelli@informationclearinghouse.info