~ We haven’t been devastated or depressed or demolished at the angry red planet. we felt it would be prudent to refrain from making any immediate, knee jerk posts about our late national troubles, lest we end up with something which later proves embarrassing, such as ‘we are never voting again’ or ‘we are moving to Spain’ or ‘fuck all y’all Christian bigots’. now that we have pondered the matter for a day and a half, as well as read thousands of rant and raves on the Internet, we feel that we can make a few notes for posterity that are are unblemished by any strains of emotion and desperation.
First and foremost, lets absolve ourselves of any misconception that there will be any unity or healing between the factions. Fuck that. We have realized that we do not merely disagree about solutions to national problems with the right, we literally have divergent conceptions of what the United States of America is supposed to be. We at the angry red planet know that it is an product of the Enlightenment, engineered by men who, despite their aristocratic faults, were progressive intellectuals who desired a broad expanse for thought above all else; however, our contemporary right wants to impose restrictive, nativist codes of thought and behaviour upon anyone in its boundaries. This will destroy the Founding Fathers’ experiment; for this, We hate you. Rather than heal or unite with our neighboring crusaders, we will maintain our bitterness, savor our rancor, and clutch our anger close to our hearts. There is a place for you in this country to abide by and honour your own codes, but not for a moment will we harbour the notion that we should compromise and allow them into public contract.
It was all we could stomach to even suggest the possibility that it would be alright for someone to vote for Kerry Edwards, for they had stated for the record that they were opposed to marriage between men and between women. If we could not tolerate the Kerry Edwards statements, we sure as shit are not going to ‘unite’ with any of the bigoted fucks who turned out to vote for the amendments to various state constitutions; and that includes the Kerry voters who voted for amendment 1 in Georgia. Fuck all y’all. And fuck y’all in 2006 and 2008.
(a corollary: We understand Kerry’s argument that he voted for ‘authorization’ and not for ‘war’, but we consider that to be bull crap; if you don’t see that giving permission to start a war to a guy who clearly is hellbent on starting a war is the same as agreeing to the war, then you are a dipshit.)
our fellow non-republicans—liberals, leftists, progressives, independents, and the democrats—are in turmoil and have immediately begun to lay out plans for 2006 and 2008 that consists of learning how to have some ‘values’ and building some ‘infrastructure’; they base this reaction upon a simple exit poll which stated that ‘values’ were what determined the vote for millions of Americans. you won’t find any plan of attack or proposal for infrastructure in this post, for a couple of reasons. for one thing, we consider this to be a cultural war, not a semantic debate; for another, we know what these assholes value, and under no circumstances shall we pander to such bigoted isolationism. instead, this post contains a few selections from our epiphanies and postulations of the last couple of days. our plan of attack for the upcoming years will be enacted, not described.
(semantics: We have determined that you can not suss out these right wingers’ ‘values’ and subsequently have a discussion on their terms. a case in point is the number of deaths in iraq—on both sides. they, the right wing, sincerely do not care if people die; you can not even rationalize with them that few deaths is better than many deaths, because the lives of other people mean nothing to them. the lives of arabs across the sea mean less than nothing. pointing out the incongruities between their values and the inhumanity of illegal war is a waste of time, as they do not value human life. the deaths we have caused in our wars and in our neglect of the poor at home needs to be removed from the discussion, as the notion is unimportant to the right.)
other fellow non-republicans, stop calling people in the south and midwest names such as ‘ignorant red state crackers’. no state is 100% red; it is a disservice to the millions of voters and workers and canvassers against bush who live in ‘red states’ who tried their best to unseat him. in addition, no state—save for two or three tiny new england backwaters—turned out entirely blue. every state is a ‘red state’; they only look ‘blue’ in the end because your cities outweigh your hinterlands. take cook county from illinois and peep what colour is left. the weak pejorative ‘cracker’ as a synonym for an uneducated, religiously righteous redneck is also incorrect; 75% of the black voters in georgia voted to deny rights to Americans who are gay. no race has a monopoly on prejudice.
(crackers: months ago, we touched upon an event that drove us from a group of folks of similar political persuasion. we had mentioned casually that there were going to be americans voting for bush, and we quickly were informed by someone from santa barbara. that no one would vote for bush. various pieces of evidence, facts, and hearsay were provided. ‘granted this is all true,’ we noted, ‘but you should prepare yourself for the fact that bush is popular; we can’t go 10 yards without peeping ‘bush cheney’ signs.’ we were then informed that we live in ‘bumblefuck’. at that word, we ceased the debate, and broke off communication with santa barbara. there are a number of levels at which barbara’s statement is fucked.
1. not everyone is wealthy enough to live in santa barbara; condescension from a ‘progressive’ towards people to poor to live in her community is not admirable.
2. not everyone has the same information that the elite santa barbarans have; one must accept that ‘bumblefuck’ might know less or more that the santa barbarans
2b. prepare yourself that ‘bumblefuck’, upon given the same evidence, will draw different conclusions than the santa barbarans, based on divergent backgrounds, environment, and circumstances.
3. calling someone’s home ‘bumblefuck’ is an effective method for ensuring that they will assume a different position than one’s own; if our environment and circumstances are so great, why would we share ideals?
4. everyone must live somewhere; at that point, it is not ‘bumblefuck’
5. considering that bush never polled below 40% of voters, it is not rational to assume that nobody will vote for him; it that were the case, we would only need one nader or kerry voter in each state.)
perennial thug rudy giuliani stretched reality to suggest that the relationship between kerry and bush—by extension, their parties and supporters—is equivalent to the relationship between thomas jefferson and john adams; those guys hated each other at the close of their bitter contest for the 1800 presidency. years afterward, they started an amicable and brilliant correspondence about politics, texts, and planting which lasted for years. when we see the amercian public or politicians reading and writing about anything that does not involve ashlee simpson, donald trump, or laci peterson, then we will revisit this proposal, until then we will consider giuliani’s head to be up his ass.
is it worth moving out of the county—fleeing to canada or new zealand or some other place where they politely speak american? the backlash to this desire is that we are supposed to buck up, stop whining, and get ready to fight back; parallels are drawn to the fact that unions and women and blacks didn’t get what they wanted at the outset. naturally. however, for what exactly are we fighting? as stated above, this is no longer the great experiment begun by jefferson, adams, madison, and even the asshole hamilton. america is a conglomeration of fatasses who are more interested in making payments on a new HDTV and riding lawnmower and suvs with dvd players than they are in participatory democracy. americans are teenage girls getting plastic surgery. americans watch ‘cribs’ and include burger king in a weight loss regimen. americans drive cadillac suvs while living in whitefoord. americans are so obese that they are causing drag on airplanes. americans construct hideous buildings like symphony tower super walmarts. americans willing choose ignorance and provincialism over introspection and contemplation; they do not believe in science or modernity.
(coincidentally, it is curious that we just picked up the latest ‘national geographic magazine’, which features a story on evolution; the title ‘was darwin wrong?’ is followed with ‘no. [but 88% of americans will not believe anything in this article is true]’ )
in other words, there is a gaping divide between the occasional self serving newsweek article that describes the greatness of the united states – offering examples of madison’s bill of rights and the citizen soldiers of world war 2—and the mundane reality of millions who just do not give a shit about anything beyond filling their own fatty lives with muffin bars, ‘the oc’, and ipods. it is one thing to desire to defend the ethics of the declaration of independence and the bill of rights; it is another to defend people who are not interested. are we expected to be like chauvinistic missionaries, leading supposed savages to our faith? we reckon we are not; the information is out there, we can no longer expend energy coddling these two legged vermin and teaching them to be adults. we say that people can either get on board or be written off; Americans, you are now with us or against us.
we have been unable to find ralph nader’s concession speech; the nearest admission of defeat we could locate was a november 2 speech which he gave at the press club which seemed to reveal a premonition that he would not take the white house. nader concluded his speech with two names no americans will recognize:
“As Eugene Debs once said and as I.F. Stone once said, the only struggles for social justice worth fighting for are those where you lose and you lose and you lose until you win”
on the bright side, we have four more years to see if the curse of tecumseh holds true.
~ we have been noticeably and intentionally absent over the past couple of weeks. this doubtlessly has rattled the nerves and instilled despair in the hearts of our readers, many of whom come here not for the sparse commentary on urbanity and domesticity, but for the lashes and cuts poured upon political eventualities. part of our absence has been for personal reasons, namely the conclusion of the second atlanta experiment, about which you shall learn at a later date, and part is because we figure that most of our readers are too occupied with various GOTV endeavours to spend time reading our random diatribes. we assume that most people know by now that our president is a criminal and any administration that refers to a threatening tape from osama bin laden as a ‘gift’ on the same day that eight (8) of our marines are killed deserves to be replaced. furthermore, we have accepted bitterly the doctrine of ‘anybody but bush’ which stipulates that any mention of kerry’s shortcomings will fail to benefit the parallel goals – similar but not identical – of the left and the democrats. due to this forced, necessary unity, we have shelved such essays as the nakedly titled ‘why we always lose’ and ‘the left does not know how to speak’ and ‘we wish dean was here’ and ‘do we really need to be friends with fucks like eminem and robert byrd just because we all happen to hate bush?’ and ‘are the goals of ralph nader less appealing just because his book was published by a republican?’ and ‘we can’t wait for this forced, necessary unity bullshit to end’. in other words, with regards to the democrats, if you can’t post anything nice, don’t post anything at all.
we are close now; what once seemed a depressingly forgone conclusion – a second term – during lonely rides through the rainy nights in the no-man’s-lands along dekalb and breathless climbs up the windswept peaks of north avenue has become a tantalizing improbability. we are not adept at motivational pep talk at the angry red planet, as we work mostly in deliberate misanthropy, so as you spend your last hours affecting the process in whatever measure you are able – phone banking, visibility, canvassing, election protection, rides to the polls, monitoring – we must look to others for words of inspiration and perspective, such as a couple of lines swiped from frederick douglass on the work ahead, “Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must pay for all they get”, or, as ashley williams puts it to his troops massed against the army of the deadites, “by god let’s give ’em what for!” go forth, friends, girded with the fearlessness of knowledgability, and we will see you sometime on the moons and rings and seas of titan.
ps. if the election is so close that legal hijinks ensue, and the united states supreme court again oversteps its boundaries, precipitating a bloody solution in the streets and fields and malls of america, try to keep in mind that the battle is between ideas, not men. as crass teaches us, ‘destroy power, not people’.
~ in the interest of informing georgians of the content and meaning of the proposed amendments to the state constitution, we have swiped the following blockquote in entirety from the atlanta journal and constitution. we have done so to make amendment 2 less baffling for the voter and to point out the discrepancy between the question on the ballot for amendment 1 and the language in section B in the actual amendment – more to the point, the question on the ballot is about marriage, while in truth section b prohibits all types of union between two people (not limited to marriage):
No. 1
This is the wording that will appear on the ballot:
“To define marriage as the union of man and woman. (Senate Resolution No. 595): Shall the Constitution be amended so as to provide that this state shall recognize as marriage only the union of man and woman?”
If voters say yes, here’s what will be added to the constitution:
“MARRIAGE
“Paragraph I. Recognition of marriage.
“(a) This state shall recognize as marriage only the union of man and woman. Marriages between persons of the same sex are prohibited in this state.
“(b) No union between persons of the same sex shall be recognized by this state as entitled to the benefits of marriage. This state shall not give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other state or jurisdiction respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other state or jurisdiction. The courts of this state shall have no jurisdiction to grant a divorce or separate maintenance with respect to any such relationship or otherwise to consider or rule on any of the parties’ respective rights arising as a result of or in connection with such relationship.”
No. 2
This is the wording that will appear on the ballot:
“To provide the Supreme Court jurisdiction to answer questions of law from federal courts. (House Resolution No. 68): Shall the Constitution be amended so as to provide that the Supreme Court shall have jurisdiction and authority to answer questions of law from any state appellate or federal district or appellate court?”
What it means:
The proposed amendment is aimed at improving efficiency in the federal court system.
The Georgia Constitution already allows the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to ask the Georgia Supreme Court to answer an unsettled question about state law that could have an important bearing on the outcome of a federal lawsuit. The proposed amendment expands that authority to the federal court judges in Georgia who sit one level below the federal appeals court.
The proposed amendment, backed by the State Bar of Georgia, would allow litigants in U.S. District Courts the opportunity to find the answer to an important state-law question long before their case is appealed to the 11th Circuit.
–ajc.com
~ more on amendment 1: georgiansagainstdiscrimination.com
~ In a further demonstration that the Kerry campaign is keeping its ear to the angry red planet for cues concerning the language and salience of its arguments, we have one of our points, posted on an external website:
“Here’s something [Karen Hughes] said post-debate that bugged me on the bike ride home: I heard her say that Kerry didn’t have any plans, he just had a “litany of complaints”. Wow, it is reassuring to know that the Bushes just consider those of us who don’t have jobs are health care are just a bunch of complainers.”
-ashleyGA, 14 October 2004
We compare this with comments made by Senator Kerry whilst he spoke in Tampa today:
“And what does the President of the United States have to say about these out-of-control health care costs that are killing job creation and hurting middle-class families? In the debate the other night, he called these problems “a litany of complaints.”
There you have it folks. George Bush’s answer to our health care problems is to tell the American people: stop whining.”
-John Kerry, 18 October 2004
we would have taken it to the point of using the term ‘whining’ as well, but we did not think that the vast majority of our readers would have appreciated a Coy Howard/George W Bush double entrendre.
~ we have dropped the service provider for this site in favour of the umbrella which hosts sisyphean, from the ground, and a couple of other great sites. we are not about to publicly damn our old host by name, but if you ever thought ‘damn, the service at the angry red planet is crummy; i wonder why?’, and you are about to move into a new host, feel free to ask us, lest you get caught in the same mess. if you want to join the sisyphean [w] umbrella, and you have reason that would compel the work.group to host you, go ahead and petition them for a site; it would help your case immeasurably if you have ever been hosted by the godless red/born 2 lose house.
~ cnn.com wants to know what internet users have to say to “Do you think sexual preference is a choice?“. does cnn understand tautology? more to the point, do they know that the word ‘preference’ implies a choice being made? if not, then they must also find that gays ‘prefer’ to eat food and ‘prefer’ to breathe clean air. a question about choice is useful is drawing out the president’s prejudice, but in the abstract, this question is a stupid one.
the question is not stupid because ignorant people at cnn and across america do not understand why some people are different than they are; it is stupid because its construction both reveals the opinions of the questioner and directs a certain answer from the listener. why doesn’t cnn ask “are most blacks are uneducated because they are poor, or poor because they are uneducated?” that is about as sensitive and sensible as ‘is preference a choice?’.
we have read the news quite a bit, and we have spoken to a number of our fellow americans; not one of them has the politics of anyone’s sexuality foremost in his or her mind as we approach what many consider to be an election of paramount importance. where does cnn find the notion that americans are frozen in their thoughts until they discover the foundation for the sexual desires and emotions of heteros and homos?
clearly they are trying to milk a few more days out of the kerry/cheney family controversy, in order to futher the meme that kerry is ‘not a good man’, but we don’t think the underlying reason for this controversy is worth a tinker’s damn. getting sidetracked by this bullshit is exactly what the republicans, who want poor and uneducated people to put aside their economic concerns and rely on bigotry to decide their vote. congratulations cnn, on your steadfast position as a political tool.
~ debate three is all about the moderator. let’s thank him for the great questions he conjured. thank you for not wasting time with questions about the environment, cutting of funds for national parks, failing infrastructure, superfunds, poverty in our cities and rural suburbs, the social detachment of the suburbs and exurbs, fuel prices, energy deficiency, voting fraud, corporate power and influence of the gov’t, and the fucked up electoral college. thanks instead of asking about prayer and abortion and about who loves their wife and kids more.
~ in the past we have stated our skepticism of the usefulness of the electoral process in our representative democracy. we give one of the corporations a chance that it can overcome a more dangerous corporation. if there is any doubt that the corrupt thugs in the republican party will relinquish power honourably, quietly, or peacefully, take a look at voter fraud, silver state style:
Clark County Election Dept.
(Oct. 12) — Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.
Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.
The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.
The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.
Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.
“We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assistant to get those from me,” said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee. klas-tv.com
the ‘Voters Outreach of America’ is currently working in oregon, so any of our readers there should find their voter drives and encourage people to find someplace more trustworthy to register to vote and to watch ‘Voters Outreach’ to make sure that their windows aren’t smashed and their vans do not somehow burst into flames.
~ similar bullshit in minnesota: “Hundreds of completed voter registration cards found stashed in car”[w]
~ a couple of more terms to add to the list of those that annoy us:
- ‘game on’ – this might have been cute once, at the beginning of the cycle, but it becomes senseless after arbitrary reuse, mainly because ‘game on’ can only occur once. examples: “kerry owned the first debate…game on!”; “act has $125 million to spend on getting out the vote…game on!”; “bush has been busted wearing a wire during the debates…game on!”
- ‘cycle’ – this is too vaguely used in reference to random scenarios that either are already represented by descriptions of length, such as ‘month’, or are so open-ended that they do not cycle. examples: “election cycle”; “contribution cycle”; “news cycle”
- ‘meme’ – we are very interested in the concept of the meme, but we are tired of the enthusiasm with which people repeat the word as a demonstration of the fact that they are keeping up with election tactics. example: “push bush’s impetuousness at the debates to plant the meme that he is an angry jackass.”
~ for those who were unable to peep out the finale of the vote for change tour finale last night, read the following then follow it with a blistering rendition of ‘born to run’
“We remain a land of great promise, but I think we need to move America towards the fulfillment of promises she has made to her citizens; economic justice, civil rights, protection of the environment, a living wage, respect for others and humility in exercising our power at home and around the world.
These are not impossible ideals, they are achievable goals, with strong leadership and the will of a vigilant and informed American people. These core issues of America’s identity are what’s at stake when we vote on November 2nd . And I believe, that Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards understand these important issues and are prepared to help our country move forward. I think they understand America is not always right, that’s a fairy tale for children. As John Edwards said, struggle and heartbreak will always be with us.
But one thing America should be is true, and it’s in seeking her truth, both the good and the bad that we find a deeper patriotism, that we find a more authentic experience as citizens. And we find the power that is embedded only in the truth to change our world for the better. And that’s how our soul as a nation as a people will be revealed and it is what we are fighting for on November 2nd.
The country we carry in our hearts is waiting” – bruce springsteen
~ bush flop [w]
~ we all like to talk about how stupid bush is, but is it really fair? what if the man is suffering from a degenerative disease? obviously, his drug use and alcoholism might be to blame for his mental decline. regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that he is not qualified to serve as president or drive a car, but we wouldn’t want to make fun one someone whose incompetence arises from a disease or handicap, would we? see his acuity disappear in quicktime [mov]!
~ is it really necessary to petition the new york times to confess that its obituary of derrida [w] is unkind? firstly, we all know that the paper has lost its credibility in the past couple of years. secondly, if you are getting a 2200 word obituary in a dandy paper like the new york times, can you really complain? if we get that much press when we are killed, it ain’t likely that we’ll bitch about the particulars of being called ‘frauds’ or ‘talentless hacks’. that’s better than a 3 word epitaph, such as ‘they lived here’.
update: if you want a lesson in the best way to be disrespectfully deferential, see the london times [w] “is derrida dead?…We know only two things. We do not know. And M Derrida is in no position to enlighten us.”
