A cogent and measured political essay

The BBQ Pit
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Well, it’s almost election day in the USA, and I intend, as I always do, to cast my vote for Chief Executive with the candidate who I think will do the least damage to civil rights, misrepresent the disadvantaged the least egregiously, be the least incompetent in foreign affairs and be the least prone to misapprehension or neglect of technological concerns. Once again, I’ve seen issues made less important than ideology. Once again, I’ve seen the opposing viewpoints presented in the form of platitudes, sound bites and derogation. Once again, I am underwhelmed by the candidates themselves. Screw it. I feel a rant coming on.

…Ahem…

To all the major Presidential candidates: You shameless, pandering, puerile and pusillanimous pretenders! You carbuncles on the body politic! You myopic, glad-handing, self-serving and deceitful scraps of screed-litter on the winds of public opinion; you termites in the house of State! It’s been said that in any democratically operated society, the people get the leadership they deserve; I for one do not believe Americans are so undeserving as your candidacies would indicate.

I have personal messages for each of you, starting with the front-runners. Please pay attention.

Dubya
Y’know, I don’t begrudge anyone the ability to coast through life if they’re lucky enough to profit from the work, ingenuity or beneficence of others, but what the FUCK leads you to believe your good fortune and Alfred E. Neuman persona qualifies you to drift into the Presidency? What, in your priveleged and shielded existence, do you feel makes you uniquely fit to stand for your countrymen as the leader of the free world? Do you see the Shrub family as the next American political dynasty? Well guess what Junior? I’ve lived through the machinations and sacrifices of another American family, seen them picked off by assassins, seen their foibles and follies played out in grand public displays and seen their great dreams realized as well. I’ve known that family, Governor, and your family are no Kennedies!

algore
Mr. Vice President, I’ve been carrying around various conflicting and contradictory goals for this country, and before your campaign I’d frankly despaired of ever reconciling them. Thanks so much for showing how cleverly you can pander to ALL POSITIONS on any issue; heaven knows what opinion I might’ve formed if you’d just explained your proposals without relating them to each of my special interests. :rolleyes: You’re an intelligent man, Al; anwer me this one — if the force of public opinion meets an equal and opposite force of political inertia and you’re at ground zero removing any relevance from the event, WHO THE FUCK WINS??? Do you even remember what your actual intentions are? Oh, and one final question Mr. Public Image: embellish much?

Nadir
Oh look, another Caped Crusader has come to rescue America from the clutches of an Evil Empire; this time it’s the horrible Corporate Conspiracy (aided and abetted by the nefarious and indistinguishable Republicrats) to keep consumers powerless and living in toxic waste. Only problem is, nobody’s willing to turn on the Batbrain searchlight and call for your help. You seem to think your guidance is so indispensable it might be a good plan to play those Forces of Evil[sup]®[/sup] against each other until we’re desperate enough to cry out “Help us Green Giant; only you can save us now!” Well allow me to express my personal feelings of gratitude in the simple, direct way of the peasant victim that I am: FUCK OFF! We don’t need no white knights round here today, thank you. Gods, save us from messianic dickheads with delusions of importance.

Harry and the Libertarians
Earth to Planet Browne: you’ll find the rest of us over here dealing with real world problems whenever you decide to drop your cock and join reality. I’ve heard taco-induced borborygmus rumblings that presented a more practicable political platform.

Pat-reich Buchanan
Zieg heil, you fascist prick. Suck my Wehrmacht when you get a chance.

And finally…

Pat Paulsen and Dick Gregory
Where are you now, you spineless sonsabitches!!! Pansy-ass quitters! (At least Gregory has a business to run; Paulsen’s excuse SUCKS. “Ooh, I’m all dead now; I can’t run a write-in campaign, boo-hoo-hoo!”) Once again, the Man gets his way.
Fuck.
I’m just a little bit cranky today. I think I’ll go have a nap.

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::clap clap clap clap::

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“borborygmus” - A rumbling noise produced by the movement of gas through the intestines.

My new favorite word.

Oh, and great post, xenophon41. You can’t see it, but I’m genuflecting right now. :slight_smile:

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**xenophon41 wrote:

(At least Gregory has a business to run; Paulsen’s excuse SUCKS. “Ooh, I’m all dead now; I can’t run a write-in campaign, boo-hoo-hoo!”)**

That’s what I’ve been saying all thru the 2000 election!! Where’s Pat Paulsen when we need him?? Damn his hide, why did he have to go and die!? Especially when we need his unique combination of skill and talent to guide us thru the election process.

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I found it! I found it! The lone compliment in the entire piece!

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10

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I know I’m not even American, but reading your post makes me proud of the USA.

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Borborygmus makes its debut on the SDMB.
Try a search for “tenesmus” sometime.

And while “borborygmus rumblings” is redundant, all in all, a concise and poignant summary of the state of the presidential election this year. Beautiful.

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Main Entry: te·nes·mus
Pronunciation: t&-'nez-m&s
Function: noun
: a distressing but ineffectual urge to evacuate the rectum or bladder

I trust from you user name, you don’t have this particular problem, Uncle Beer (at least as far as the bladder is concerned).

Doh! :o

TwistofFate: I’m not even Irish, but I’ll drink to that. :slight_smile:

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Heck, I’m not even Southern, but I screwed my sister after that rant!

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A perfect 10! Thank you, Xenophon41!!

Is it ok of I add a small side rant that I have been dying to get out of my system?

Here goes…

Hey! Bush!! You know, sometimes I wish I had been given such a beautiful surfeit of privilige by virtue of my birth. You know that silver spoon that constantly shoved everything you ever wanted into your fat little face? Sometimes that makes me jealous. Sometimes I even feel envy that you can so cavalierely (SP?) adopt of viewpoint that blindly and purposefully denegrates an entire social class, who by virtue of their birth, will never have what you have, will have to work twice as hard for every thing you have, will fight their entire lives to struggle out of a cycle of poverty, violence, and lack of education. You know, I think, “Gee, had I been handed every fucking thing I ever wanted, my life would be a piece of cake.”

But then I imagine myself looking like you, acting like you, sounding like you. I picture your ugly little face spitting out bile rhetoric that basically says, “Hey! I’m rich, I want to stay rich. I don’t want to be poor! I don’t want to have to work! I want to sit on my throne and tell all these poor ungrateful pions what to do!” I mean, sometimes you sound mildy intelligent, like maybe you know what the fuck you are talking about, but we all know that only happens when someone writes a speech for you.

Anyway, I picture my voice coming out of your nasty little mouth, and I realize that being poor was worth not being you. Every time I had nothing to eat, every time I cried because I couldn’t get a toy I wanted, every minute I spent earning money that I handed over to my parents, money I earned by cleaning nasty ass toilets and tubs, every time I ever thought that it sucked to be poor, I never knew how good I had it. I would rather lick the shit out of a thousand toilets with my tongue, I would rather use my left nipple to Chlorox a thousand tubs, than be you. Because that’s just fucking nasty.

Fuck you, you incompetant mysogentistic rasist little fascist bitch. If I believed in hell, I would recieve much pleasure by seeing you burn in it.

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Dear Mr. Bush.

let me put this in simple terms so you understand.
Bush is bad man. He will make country very sad. Bush go bye bye!
See, you have to talk to him on his level…

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Wow, xeno, I’m posting that one up on the voting booth. Nice work!

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I had to reply to this…
Your rant is well stated, but it does seem ambiguois (god, I hope I spelled that right, knowing the spelling police on here)
As you started:
Hey! Bush!! You know, sometimes I wish I had been given such a beautiful surfeit of privilige by virtue of my birth.
Now slide in there, Hey! Gore!! etc…
Your message still works, and if ya really want to go there it actually works better with Gore.

Something to think about , anyone who rises to aspire for the presidency has to be connected with powers that will always piss off us common citizens, but good lord, should we have to put up with a canidate (Gore) who will shamelessly lie about damn near every topic, and expect us to buy it, or should we consider that the other canidate, though he may have lead a charmed life, at least has some decent values instilled in him by his folks.

Something ya got to think about…

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I expect the candidates to lie. I would be shocked if they were capable of honesty after years in politics. But I prefer liars to idiots.

Also, my values are very different from Bush’s, which is why I prefer Gore. I value a woman’s right to privacy, the rights of gays to marry, the rights of children to walk down the street without being shot at and to recieve a decent education, the rights of the poor to recieve aid so that they can feed their children, the rights of criminals to have a fair trial and their right to life.

I value the goal of a society that is equal and fair, or, since that Utopia will never exist, the goal of a society that at least tries to treat people equally and fairly. I am not interested in a country with some half-ass bourgeoisie aristocracy (sp?) that rewards people for coasting through life.

I apologize for my grammar ahead of time. There were a lot of tricky parallel structures in there, and I have had a few drinks, and it is 1 am, so it might get a little crazy.

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yeah, I mean they’ve already gone and fucked up some innocent person’s life, why waste another? Shit, we’d be inhuman to make them face the consequences of their actions!

Victims have rights too. How about we hope for a system that works well, and treats both sides fairly? I’ll settle for that.

Oh, and a criminals right to life… but you also said

Is that pro-choice? Are you one of those who’ll put a fetus in danger of death, but defend a murderous criminal’s right to live while his victims rot in graves?

If you’re going to be pro-choice, at least support death all around. Personally, I don’t see the death penatly doing any good, so why bother? They sure as hell aren’t teaching a lessons to the thousands who are lining up for that fatal injection.
It is late, I’m tired, and pissed off. These days are getting too long.

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Jesus. I still don’t get this complaint about Bush riding his daddy’s coattails. Who the fuck do you think Al Gore’s father was? I gotta hint for ya. He wasn’t some slackjawed tobacco farmer.

Al Gore is the son of former Sen. Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee and his wife Pauline (La Fon). Gore was born on March 31, 1948, while his father was serving his tenth year as a Democratic representative from Tennessee. Al Gore Sr. served four more years in the House and then won three consecutive terms as a senator. As a result, Al Gore Jr. grew up in the nation’s capital. The Gores kept an apartment in the Fairfax Hotel, now the Ritz Carlton, in the city’s Embassy Row section. Young Albert lived with his parents during the school year."

This sounds like a pretty fucking privileged lifestyle for a so-called “man-of-the-people.”

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Here’s more:

In 1956, Albert Gore Sr. was considered for the the Democratic vice presidential nomination. The delegates settled on Estes Kefauver, rather than Gore or John F. Kennedy.

When Clinton picked his son for the vice presidential slot on the ticket, Albert Gore Senior told the New York Times: “We raised him for it. I taught him to work hard and do his duty and his mother made sure he studied his lessons.”

I really think you guys should get off that particular horse. It’s a bit tired.

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Being born rich isn’t a crime.

To yell at either candidate for having the luxury of money while growing up gets you nowhere because they certainly couldn’t pick their parents and they sure as hell aren’t going to disown them to go live in the slums.

The question is: what will the candidate do for America when they get into office? Being born rich doesn’t stop you from being compassionate to the poor. It doesn’t stop you from helping the tired huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Sometimes you do have to call a spade a spade though. Good rant xeno. Nice addendum nacho.

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Is it too late to start a write-in campaign for xeno?