Archive for September, 2004

miscellaneous

Tuesday, September 28th, 2004

Re-elect the Skull of Richard Nixon!

I didn’t know that the skull of Richard Nixon was running.

The bald man is watching.

This bald man?

Why did gary hart drop out of the election?

Because he dared the media to destroy him.

Jon Stewart Shadow Government Poster.

I wasn’t able to pull that out when leafing through his book at “Countermedia Books”. I assume it’s not featured in the cd version.

bad things george w bush has dun

I don’t know. How do I narrow the field?

standing by the dumpster and the eagle has landed.

Part of the great Moon-Landing Hoax? Next to the studio-shot, there was a dumpster?

george bush jeans pictures

You want Bush to start appearing in Levis commericals?

norman thomas 1948 presidental slogan i have nothing…

I… have nothing.

black dick porn

Cheney’s not black! I guess in your fantasy he is.

The Presidential Debates of Lore

Monday, September 27th, 2004

In the deep recesses of CSPAN or CSPAN 2 in the year 2000, a debate between the presidential candidates of the Natural Law Party, Constitution Party, and Libertarian Party was shown. The only thing I remember from this was the debating over who would take over the remnants of the Reform Party: the mantle for Conservatism since Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party was floundering, and the Natural Law candidate saying he was the natural heir since he was in a court fight over who was the actual Reform Party candidate.

If that wasn’t enough, there was also the vice-presidential debate between their respective running-mates. Just in case you needed to know who was a spit and a half away from the button in case John Hagelin or Harry Browne won. The three buttressed the top of their tickets and proceeded to go on about the respective philosophy of “limited government”, “inter-cooperated government” and “biblical government”.

A day or two after the election, in talking about the Florida situation and the election in general, I noticed a sort of underground cult fondness for John Hagelin. Good to see that I wasn’t the only one. (Not that I take Hagelin too seriously, as far as these things go.)

Flash back to 1996, when Saturday Night Live had Dana Carvey playing Ross Perot, attending a third party debate. We go through the various candidates: Perot, miffed that he was sitting there; the candidate for some marginal real party, then the candidate for the Totalitarianism Party, and the candidate for the Female Circumscision Party. (“And what do you believe?” “Well, I believe that all of our nation’s problems will be solved with forcible circumscision of all women.”)

Perot’s rhetoric remains the same. “Sure, we all want a dictatorial totalitarian government to protect us and shield us from our own dangerous thoughts, but who’s gonna pay for it?

Eventually Perot leaves, and the moderator says “Well, let’s look at the polls.” .0007% for the Totalitarian candidate, .00009% for the Female Circumscision Party candidate… an argument ensures, which leaves one of the candidates saying “Yeah, you can say that… being the front-runner.”

It’s a much more interesting debate than the “Memorandum of Understanding” — constricted pountering of talking points that we get. (See here.)

Jump back to the Simpsons, where Kudos and Klang take over the bodies of Clinton and Dole. When exposed as aliens, the crowd murmurs. “I believe I will have to vote for a third party candidate.” “Go ahead. Waste your vote.” The crowd gasps. Perot punches a hole into his hat. And, after the planet is completely enslaved and we see the Simpsons in a slave-camp, Homer says “Don’t believe me. I voted for Kudos.”

Or maybe the leader of the now defunt Natural Law candidate?

One Nation Under Satan

Monday, September 27th, 2004

Bouncing about on AM right-wing talk radio, we hear the commercial for a web site accumulating signatures for a consitutional amendment (or law or something) to protect the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

We have a grandson visiting his grandpa in prison. The grandpa tells the grandson how he got there. “Things were much different in the old days.” But then: First they banned the words “under god” from the Pledge of Allegiance, then they took the words “In God We Trust” from the money, and the next thing we knew: he was in prison!!

I can’t figure out how that puts anybody in prison. That must be one hell of a slippery slope!!

So the ad ends this way:
“Bye, grandpa!”
“Bye, grandson! I’ll be praying for — ”
The guard interjects “Quiet! This is how you got here in the first place!!”

Last week, the House of Representatives — with plenty on the table (Homeland Security, an unbalanced budget, health care, and the list goes on) went to work on (1) political tax cuts (2) a law to keep state courts from ruling on the words “under God” in the Pledge, and (3) the annual (sometimes more than annual) Flag-Burning Amendment.

I laugh. I cry. But mostly I sigh.

Protest of August 2002

Monday, September 27th, 2004

August 2002. Remarked on in the national media, front page in the Portland Tribune, somewhere in the back of the Oregonian…

It was the type of protest that gives the governorship to Ronald Reagan and the presidency to Richard Nixon. And gives the name “Little Beirut” to Portland, as Bush’s father named the city.

“Makes you long for banners with ‘Socialist Workers Party’ and ‘International ANSWER’, eh?”

With equal amounts of inspiration and dreadfulness. Not so much depressing, as all the other post – 9/11 protests had been — what, with a collection of 30 or so neo-hippies and/or “gutter-punk” anarchists.

Feel free to do that. I believe the conversation I overheard at the bust-stop as a routine Friday-evening (and slightly more mainstream) drum-line went by was “Yeah. I outgrew that 30 years ago.”

But, if you get a thousand or more people to gather… people will notice. Even if it doesn’t play in Peyoria very well, as the case with that September protest (though later protests would play better in Peyoria).

What gathers a thousand people?

In this case: George W Bush was in town, in a downtown hotel, raising funds for Gordon Smith’s campaign war-chest. Gordon Smith is that curious Republican Senator: depending on the audience, he’s conservative, moderate, liberal. If my memory serves right, the Cheney appearance for the same effect a couple months prior only drew a hundred. I probably walked through the crowd enough to be considered part of the Bush crowd; I can’t say the same thing for the Cheney one. That may represent the natural flow of opposition as we transitioned to the war-drums into Iraq. (A later Cheney appearance would present itself with the new “free speech area” contraption: WIRE FENCING. I didn’t see it first-hand, but I heard about it. I eye aiiie.)

The common chant was a bit different from “Give Peace a Chance”: “George Bush is a son of a bitch!”

There’s a charm therein. It at least works as an umbrella that sits the porpouri of left-wing causes being paraded around. They were being yelled out by a young woman, standing atop a fire hydrant, shouting “Stand Up! Stand up for (fill in the blank!) Stand Up! Stand Up Against (—-)!” Etc. Etc. Etc. Some I like more than others.

I cringed at the sign saying “Forget Israel! Free Palestine!” And, while there are style-points in delaying the SUVs for a few red-lights and not doing the same for more fuel efficient cars, the fact is: the drivers of the fuel efficient car hates being delayed as much as the SUV… and they’re right behind them.

Ari Fleischer said this of it: “We did not have any inkling” that such protest would occur, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters. Confusing, considering Bush’s father gave it that nickname. And, considering that the Portland Police Department said that this was what they were expecting.

There were clues the demonstration could get nasty on the Web sites of groups involved.

Preparations for the protest were posted on the Internet as early as Aug. 7 and continued constantly under such headings as “Tear gas canisters cause severe thermal burns,” “Bush to visit beautiful Portland in August, you should too,” and “What happens if you’re arrested for civil disobedience?”

Well, considering that the police sprayed tear gas at the crowd, I have to wonder what’s wrong with helpful suggestions about the severe thermal burns that tear gas produces. It seems to me like helpful advice.

Some weird man held a sign saying “Band bugs from being inserted in me”. I assume “band” was a mis-spelling of “ban”. I assume it’s some form of schizerophrenia. (Though, to be frank, these are schizophrenic times.) At any rate, if someone wanted to do “wacky protest footage” (I recall a Fox News segment during one of the two 2000 Political Conventions that by-passed the batch of WTO-types and the “Shadow Conventions” held by Ariana Huffington and went to the odd woman shouting “Remember Lyme Disease!”. The voice-over saying “There are protesters promoting obscure causes.” Which begs the question: What’s so wrong with Lyme Disease Research?)

Local media coverage is interesting. Basically, flipping through the four news broadcasts: UPN’s was the most sympathetic to the protestors. It seems to be because their reporters were hit the hardest with gas-spray, and thus were able to captur footage of police in riot gear tossing rubber bullets right at their camera — footage that puts whatever appeared at the local indymedia site to shame. Either ABC’s or NBC’s — I don’t remember which– seemed to describe the protests entirely from the viewpoint of police-officers’ eyes. This network was lucky enough not to be hit by the rubber bullets, I guess.

One of them, I think CBS, did the most annoying and egregious ass-licking of Bush I’ve ever seen, going to weather saying “Bush, if you’re watching, this is how the weather’s going to look when you leave tomorrow morning…”

And try the front cover of the Oregon compared to the Portland Tribune. Unfortunately, the format for the Oregonian’s online is such that I can’t find a reliable mock-example, but the Page 1 headline was something like “Bush’s Environmental Policy to Provide Oregon Jobs”! (a classic spit-take was my reaction…) Yippee- cayak! Other features on the front page essentially how great his trip was, and the import it shows that Gordon Smith’s re-election chances are for the Senate races. Nothing on the front page about the demonstrations… probably pushed to page 2 The Portland Tribune, (honestly, a sort of sad-sack freebie): Bush Protest Turns Angry and Ugly.

Two different universes, The Oregonian and the Portland Tribune. No matter how you cover the story, The story of the protests is more significant than the Bush fund-raiser.

But, regarding the Oregonian and the local media’s fawning over Bush: that was what everything in the media looked like from roughly September 12, 2001 to the middle of Spring 2003. Still does in certain sectors and to a certain degree.

The late news cast leaves with the media person standing before some graffiti, marked there at the end of the day, sometime after the pepper-spray and rubber bullets spurred the worst of the lot, with the words “Bush Knew”. I have to groan. It makes for gripping footage for a later”Mad as Hell TV” show. (public access.)

I got a funny

Friday, September 24th, 2004

Bush: Saddam was a threat

Threat? With what? SPITBALLS???

On the Oklahoma Senate Race

Friday, September 24th, 2004

I eye aiie. I googled the name of Sheila Bilyeu a few days ago, and got squat. Today I google her name again, and I see that she, for what it is worth, is getting her message out a little bit.

I’ll go ahead an relay the more sensational parts. She believes, for various reasons, that the portrait described by the media piece here was unfair.

In the 1990s, Bilyeu unsuccessfully sued Ponca City schools, game show host Alex Trebek, CBS anchor Dan Rather and others.

She would not discuss her lawsuit against Trebek. She said Rather did not use her name on the news, but “was making insinuations about me — that I was a whore or something.”

Her lawsuit against Ponca City schools alleged educators there were part of the “evil political conspiracy” against her.

She claims she has been targeted by conspirators because she was born with a “V” mark on her head and was known as the “victory baby.” She said politicians have tried to stop her from running for office because they fear she will “mess up their … power and their money.”

She said the device was stuck in her head during an operation in the late 1970s at a military base in Arizona.

In her D.C. lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts wrote in 2001: “Plaintiff has filed a narrative, stream-of-consciousness complaint that, as best as I can tell, revolves around the plaintiff’s belief that a conspiracy led by President Clinton has implanted a transmission device in her head, ‘gassed’ her and stolen her dog.”

A brain implant? Anonymous gassings? Fine. But stealing a dog? Has Bill Clinton no shame?

Here’s an interview:

Some news media has portrayed you as crazy, citing your claim that a radio receiver was implanted in your head. Have you, or are you willing to, have a doctor verify this?

Bilyeu: If there is a good conscientious one who would not be in trouble with my enemies and if they would not mess up the equipment so that the tests are invalid.

Ms. Bilyeu,
Is it true that you sued Dan Rather over his false news reporting years ago? That might get you some votes right there.

I am really rather embarrassed that I sued him;others have done such worse things.I should sue the Daily Oklahoman and Nolan Clay for his lies. Nolan Clay did lie. Perhaps he misunderstood ,but there are lies and he deliberately tried to destroy me on behalf of Carson is my belief;anyone who asked themselves why he did that would surely agree.

Upset by this “revocation” of endorsement, she’s peppered that message board:

TRY TO HELP VICTIMS. DO NOT DO AS CLAY (media-person) DID AND TRY TO RUIN MY CHANCES. HE OBVIOUSLY IS IN BED WITH CARSON OR SOMEONE WHO HAS BAD MOTIVES.WHY WOULD HE OTHERWISE NOT GO AFTER THE FRONTRUNNERS INSTEAD OF A POOR PERSON WHO JUST WANT THIS COUNTRY TO BE WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE.

AND:

My only question is that is she successful in her bid for the Senate, won’t she now be responsible for the conspiracy she is fighting against?

Okay. At a certain point it ceases being amusing and just becomes depressing.

For Oklahomans who find the Democratic candidate too… Republican… for their tastes, and want to throw a protest vote somewhere… I guess you could close your eyes, pretend that you didn’t read about the Conspiracy, and just run off of this article.

An Election that is not quite perfect

Friday, September 24th, 2004

“Well, so be it, nothing is perfect in life, so you have an election that’s not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.”

You know, if the Confederate States had been able to vote in the 1864 election, Abraham Lincoln would not have won a second term.

Think about it.