State of the Union

State of the Union
by Saab Lofton

The good news: After a year of saber rattling, the Bush administration has yet to invade Iran! God bless the peace movement! The closer we the people come to the 2008 election, the odds of such an invasion decrease (they're crazy, but they ain't THAT damn crazy)!

The bad news: Since the Republican Party won't be able to use its atrocity-laden imperialism in the Middle East to win the White House, it'll more than likely use "illegal immigrants" as scapegoats. I have three things to say about that:

a) Superman, the most famous, the most popular fictional character in Human history, is by dictionary definition an illegal alien. So the quickest way those damn minutemen can get their feelings hurt is if I catch any of their monkey asses in line to see the next Superman movie -- a man can only take so much hypocrisy (that having been said, I want to see people wearing Superman T-shirts en masse the next time there's a pro-immigration march -- lose the American flags, for Christ's sake, quit kissing up to Lou Dobbs and FOX News) ...

b) Not that I mind Mexicans moving here, but IF the goal was to make Mexico so idyllic no one would ever want to leave, allow it to go commie! Promise on a stack of Bibles, Torahs and Korans that the C.I.A. will NOT replace Mexico's legitimately, democratically elected presidents with genocidal, corporate puppets (as the agency has done for decades to a dozen other countries) the minute Mexico votes to have free colleges and free, universal health care.

c) There are no borders to speak of between the nation-states of the European Union, so when that overrated pretty boy Barack
Obama voted for the Secure Fence Act (which would authorize the construction of a 700 mile-long wall along the Mexican-American border) in Sept. 2006, I wanted to puke. The only reason the Religious Right demonizes the erasure of global borders is because whites are a minority worldwide (there are less than one billion NATURAL blondes and redheads on a planet of seven billion) and since democracy is all about strength in numbers ...

More bad news: After Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, you'd think the Democratic Leadership Council would've finally learned to nominate actual liberals instead of these Faustian/Machiavellian moderates who're ideologically indistinguishable from Republicans, BUT NO ..! The D.L.C. thinks it can con voters by making a big deal out of Hillary Rodham-Clinton being a woman and Obama being black so the electorate will forget they're just another couple of Faustian/Machiavellian moderates who're ideologically indistinguishable from Republicans!

If Dennis Kucinich ain't nominated, it'll be 2000 and 2004 all over again. Democrats, this is your last warning: Don't nominate a Faustian/Machiavellian moderate AND THEN have the unmitigated gall to get pissed off if Ralph Nader runs again. Wanna spoiler? Look in the mirror ...

The ONLY reason why Kucinich is considered "unelectable" and "unrealistic" is because all too many are way too cowardly to stand up to their archetypal conservative brother-in-laws at the Thanksgiving table and say the following:

"Whether the Cowboys are better than the '49ers is a difference of opinion; whether Kirk is a better captain than Picard is a difference of opinion, but saying 'America's military-industrial complex has done more damage than the Nazis' is NOT an 'opinion,' it's a scientifically proven, historically documented FACT (my favorite four letter word). WE CAN AND MUST DO BETTER!"

In 1988, years before "9-11 transformed America forever," or whatever,
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis popped his head out of a tank during a photo op wearing a helmet two-sizes-too-big which made him look like Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman ... guess which societal demographic Dukakis' macho stunt was specifically designed to appeal to? I don't care how much disposable income it has, stop kissing that demographic's pale, flat ass!

"A coal miner still dies every six hours from black lung disease," said Jesse Jackson in a 2004 Buzzflash.com interview. "Bush and Cheney campaigned on guns in 2000. Well, the people in Appalachia still got their guns, but they don't have jobs and they don't have health care." We the people need a Greenpeace version of FDR's New Deal so those mining for coal would have much safer jobs building electric cars, growing industrial hemp and installing solar power panels -- and if affording such an eco-friendly jobs program means we'll have to live without nuclear missiles, then so be it! If it also means higher taxes for the rich so they'll no longer be able to afford MC Hammer mansions straight out of MTV's Cribs or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, then again, SO BE IT!

More good news: Dr. Peter Phillips is a professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and the director of Project Censored. Right after the 2004 election, Phillips stated "over 80 million eligible voters" refused to participate.

Now juxtapose the aforementioned with what was reported in the Nov. 4, 2004
Toronto Star: "The overall turnout, steadily going down for decades, shot up to 60 percent." All this means Dubya only had a little more than 30 percent of "the will of the people," since Kerry carried about half of the electorate. That ain't a mandate - not if more than 100 million either voted against Dubya or simply didn't vote. The bottom line? YOU ARE NOT ALONE -- WE AREN'T "THE FRINGE," THEY ARE, SO ACT ACCORDINGLY ..!