“If we can just get rid of the KKK, White Supremicists and the Mafia… the country will be a better place.”

“The world is full of dipshits. Everywhere in the world. I could never forgive Hitler. The world would’ve been a better place without Hitler.”

“It’s obvious that Johnson was involved in the assassination, because… look — how many cars behind him was he?”

“I was stationed in Guam. The bombing was hell.”

“The 60s. It was all burn your draft-card, burn your bra, escape into Canada. I knew a lot of folks who did that. In 1973, for instance…”

“Smile.”

In 1988, the day after election day, my brother was as upset with the election of George Bush over Michael Dukakis as a seventh grader (or was it eighth?) could plausbly be.

He went around the kitchen in mock-horror, — as Good Morning America was on in the family room going over the election results — clapping his feet together saying “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. Get me back to Kansas.” The metaphor was The Wizard of Oz… see: he woke up in a bizarre dream-world where the populace had just elected a George Bush president, I suppose possibly validating the Reagan regime.

Election Day, I asked my speech therapist (as a model of good citizenship, wearing the “I Voted” sticker) who she voted for. “George Bush”. I can’t say I fully, or even half- understood the ramnifications of either vote, but… I asked “Why?” and she only answered “The better person for the job” before moving on to the task at hand — likely going over that dreaded “r” sound.

I. So we have the anti-Bush sign (and t-shirt) slogan:

BUllSHIT.
(or, in some cases the sanitized: BU**SH**.

I must say that the anti-Kerry counterpart is… lame.

JOhnKErry.

II. (leader) “Hey! I’m running for president in 2020. That’s when I become eligible for the first time”
(me): “Hm. Need to get a headstart, I guess. Are you running against Jeanna Bush?”
“Jeanna…?”
(his partner): “George Bush’s daughter.”
(leader): Oh. Clever, but… no, that’s not my gimmick. See… I plan on cleaning up the street personally.
(me): Okay.
(leader): the Irish way. Right out of the pub… See, I’m Irish American, and I’ll just (shows his fist)… get rid of the prisons and roll ’em out like this.
(me): Ah… Move us right to the Law of the Jungle.
(leader): Right. You’re a Scott, right?
(me): Right.
(leader): My running mate, over there, he’s a Scott too.
(partner): Hi.
(me): Ah. So, you’ve got the Scottish vote and the Irish vote cornered.
(leader): Yep! On to victory!
(me): Kind of like how Dukakis had the Greek vote cornered…
(leader): Huh?
(me): Never mind.

Kerry is pablum. But my theory has always been that either nobody is beating Bush or anybody is beating Bush. Thus, I guess, the logical candidate for the Democratic Party is… pablum.

John Kerry arrives in Portland at 1:30 this afternoon. He’ll speak at Pioneer Courthouse Square at 5. Knowing, this isn’t enough to impress even the staunchest democrat, organizers have wisely invited Howard Dean to appear.You reminded to politely applaud windbag Kerry. The idea say democrats is that you’re not just elected Kerry..but getting rid Bush. Don’t think of this as a vote for Kerry. OK, WHATEVER. We’re having some kind of lame election shortly.

A crowd swarms around a coffeehouse a few blocks from the (well-cordoned off) Pioneer Square, and a block from where I’m standing. Yep! There he is, walking out of the limosuine… shaking hands, signing pieces of paper. I half-heartedly fish around my pocket to see if I can get him to sign something, but there’s nothing signable, and I would get no closer than 5 people away from the man’s hand.

Later, I walk around the blocks. I lean in the vicintity of the Pioneer Square Starbucks for a while. You’re close to Howard Dean’s speaking, but there is no view and it is the worst spot for the speakers. So I leave. I laugh at myself while I follow a couple other people who are peering through the empty Starbucks, straining their neck to see Dean — but unsuccessfully– from out the other window of the building.

I spot a group of Young Republicans across the street on the other block, waving Bush/ Cheney signs and some markered-up cardboard signs (“9 out of 10 Terrorists Support John Kerry” is the example de jour). I figure there oughta be some confrontation brewing over there, so I walk over there. It’s relatively embarrassing: they’re saying the Pledge of Allegiance, making sure to emphasize “Under God”, proving their Patriotism I suppose. Then they venture into a chant of “Bush/ Cheney! Bush / Cheney! Bush/ Cheney!” The Kerry supporters join in with a “Sucks!” … “Sucks…” “Sucks…”

Not terribly original, I suppose, but it’ll do.

A woman walks by and yells “I hope you all believe in Reincarnation because HITLER’s in the White House!” A Bush supporter chimes in with “Hey! Naziism is Socialism!” Sheer BRILLIANCE, the both of them! Reminiscent of this moment from the dualing Iraq War Protest / rallies when the two sides converged: into Tim Reilly’s microphone: “These guys need to read their history book. STALIN!”

I walk around the corner. I spot another crowd surrounding what is obviously a car, even though I can’t see the car. “Maybe Dean’s escaped over here”, I think, and rush over. A woman is sitting in the car, with the radio on Kerry’s speech, and that’s what the crowd is listening to… Hm.

I see some cardboard. If I had a marker, I would scribe in “Vote Skull / Bones 2004!!!” Nothing doing, though.

The speech ends. I find myself standing between the Bush supporters and two angry young radicals waving the old Iraqi flag. The Bushites haven’t noticed the radicals yet, and they dive into the National Anthem while the Kerry crowd dissipates past them. Someone invites the crowd to yell stuff into his cell-phone, concerning the Bush supporters. I shout “Kerry IS the Lesser of Two Evils!” The man shrugs “Okay.”

Then the radicals start chanting… “INTIFADA! INTIFADA! PALESTINE! IRAQ! INTIFIDA! INTIFIDA! PALESTINE! IRAQ!”

“Nothing good can come from this”, I think.

The Republicans turn around. “So you’re voting for Kerry, then?”
One of the two radicals says “NO… He’s a Zionist too!”

I walk away, while the Bush supporters tie the two angry young radicals in with Kerry. “Vote Kerry! Vote Kerry!” — pointing at them.

I can’t comment too much on Kerry’s stump speech. I clapped a few times when I was in agreement…

Last time out, for mayor of Portland, I cast my mayorial vote for…

Shaun J. Fairlee.

There wasn’t a whole lot at stake. Either Mayor Katz would pass the 50 percent mark, and thus skip the general election, or she wouldn’t, and then would go up against (he who came in second) a pernucious and quite capable nineteen year old.

She just barely nicked past that 50 percent vote threshold. And thus Mayor Katz’s reign of terror moved on unabetted for yet another four years, with a supposed mandate to do her nefarious deeds.

This year is a bit different. Katz is history. The floodgates have opened. We now have a mixed bag to choose from. Lots of candidates. A few worth noting.

Jim Franesconi is the big party-machine cog, who will… probably win… if not in the primaries than in the general election.
The two that seem to divide the, quote-in-quote, “activist community”, seem to be: Phil Busse and Tom Potter.
James Posey has his contingency of voters.

And Jim Spagg was yanked from public access television, obstensibly for stealing office supplies but more likely for defecating feces on the air.

What more do you want to know about the very ubiqutious Extremo the Clown?

A Phil Busse supporter comes up to me. Asks me for my vote. “Sorry, I already voted.” I say. “Oh. Who’d you vote for.” “You don’t want to know. Not Busse.” “Just as long as you didn’t vote for Jim.” “Franesconi? Heck no!” “You voted for Tom, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Just as long as Jim doesn’t surpass the 50% mark. Thanks for voting.”

And now I make a confession.

I lied.

I voted for Extremo.

So sue me for not taking the process as seriously as I ought to.

“Hey! Come here a minute! We need to straighten out this guy’s mind.”

“Yes… I understand the sentiment of Kerry and Bush being this good cop / bad cop routine, but that doesn’t mean that…”

“See, you get it. At least, part of it.”

“LaRouche’s not a out of wack. Go back to the title ‘Children of Satan’. It’s an old anti-semitic slur.”

“Oh. I get it now. Wall Street Journal editorialist (name didn’t register).”

“…so why name your pamphlet that?”

“But none of these guys are Jewish… Cheney, Rumsfeld… well, Perle and Wolfowitz are, but…”

“It came out March of last year. Everyone was confused at the start of the war, and we needed to … loosen things up a bit.”

“Reaction is (face aglow with mock-shock) ‘Children of Satan’… Really?”

“But… ‘Children of Satan’… you know it’s an old anti-semitic slur.”

“When? Look… it doesn’t matter, because… it’s not what we’re talking about… these guys here… They are the Children of Satan.”

“Do you know the difference between Man and Animal?”

I was vaguely aware of where this was going… I’ve heard Clyde Lewis interview some LaRouche organizar named Ron Wolfe… the effect in hearing those interviews is… dinsultorary (coin a new term.) We move toward a half-baked, half parasitically land-grabbed excuse to use the term “Beast-Man”.

I wasn’t terribly interested and I needed to leave shortly anyway, so I answered every “probing” question with “I give up. You tell me,” until a long-haired bearded, mildly stoned by disposition guy I used to know slightly better than I do now came up and said “Hey! Have any new conspiracies for me?”… and initiated a somewhat more interesting conversation — the LaRouchites arguing that the “Children of Satan” are inherently evil (remember: they are Beast-Men), and him arguing that they’re misguided, but not evil.

They still don’t seem to understand the connotative nature of the terms “Children of Satan”, or for that matter “Beast-Man”.

But I promise: I’m done with them…

I walked up to a group of LaRouche supporters and it went like this:

Me: The latest pamphlet is entitled “Children of Satan”.
LS: Actually, it’s recent pamphlet. (goes to pull the pamphlet out of his collection)
Me: Yeah, well… divorce the title from anything and…
LS (a different one): Oooooh…
Me: Yeah, I guess you know where I’m going with this.
LS: No. I oohed, because this is an original copy. Full gloss cover!
LS: Why would you want to divorce the title from anything? It’s called that because this cabal are the Children of Satan.
Me: No. I mean…
LS: What, you want endless world war III?
LS: Dick Cheney is a Child of Satan, like the others on this cover… Rumsfeld, Perle. We need to bring the troops home!
Me: I mean… divorce the title from any and all content… what does the title evoke? When carefully choosing a title, why would you go with “Children of Satan”?
LS: Because these guys are the Children of Satan! Their philosophy of endless World War 3… You want endless war? Have you read the pamphlet? $5!

I should have been more explicit… And why would I lay down $5 for a pamphlet that they have had laying around all over the place for free (except without the glossy cover)?

Sunday… public library… quarter til 1.
“Go upstairs yesterday? They had a lot of food.”
“Nah. It was packed with kids.”
“Of course it was packed with kids. It’s “El Dia de los Ninos… or is it ‘la’?”
“If it’s dia, it’d be la.”
“Could be irregular.”
(Apparently, it is.)

“They’re thinking of tearing down Jeff.”
“Really? That’s a travesty.”
“Well, it’s always been considered a ‘failing school.'”
“Now what? Bus the kids to all the other schools?”
“No place in their neighborhood.”
“Well, you know, they tore down (name of high school escapes me). Replaced it with a dog-track.”
“No they didn’t.”
“The kids were doing alright, y’know. But they’re considered expendable.”
“Witness the recent shooting of an unarmed black man.”
“Well, you know. There’s always the Draft! They’re bringing that back.”
“Right. Because what these kids need, as all the schools get declared “Failing”… is Discipline.”
” The Al Franken Hour. 620 Am. You should turn in somtime.”
(Actually it sounds more like Randi Rhodes… Besides which, Franken has 3 hours.)
“I don’t believe my vote matters anyway. They’ll put in whoever they want to, like last time… Florida.”
“And it’s all messed up so badly in Iraq that there’s no turning back.”
(13 or 14 year old): “Bush only did that to complete what his dad did.”
“Exactly.”
(I’m mum on that point.)
“Remember John F. Kennedy? Now there was a president!”
“Everything changed when he died.”
“Did you hear Robert Kennedy Jr. Friday?”
“Um. No.”
“There’s somebody that’d be great. Like listening to old Robert Kennedy.”
“The Kennedys are such a tragic family.”
“I hear that John Kennedy Jr. may’ve been a possible spot at the vice-presidency. There’s ”
“Hm. Where’d you hear that?”
“I dunno. The radio.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. Your choice.”
“Okay.”

“Blame Me. I voted for Nader.”
That was my line, but I don’t think the take-off on the common bumper-sticker line “Don’t Blame Me. I voted for ___” registered with anyone. Besides which, I’m not even circumspect on that vote.

“No, I don’t blame you.”

“Yeah, well… I only voted that way after staring at the electoral map for a while. If I had been in Florida, I would’ve voted Gore.”

A different person came up to me, and said. “Yeah. I waited for Gore to say anything at all to get me to vote for him, but he never did. I’m basically a Socialist.”
“Hm. I can’t really say that, on balance, I like Nader’s positions more than Gore’s. I dunno… if he had any chance, I probably wouldn’t have voted Nader.”
“In fact… I voted for Lyndon LaRouche in the primary. Even though he’s a nutcase.”
“Lyndon LaRouche Is Right!” , an obscure Simpsons reference that no one would catch.

This is the politics of personal aggrandizement. Nobody in their right mind would consider Lyndon LaRouche better than Al Gore, and probably not even George W. Bush. In a 2-person race where the stakes are real, I’m pretty confident that this “basically socialist” would throw Al Gore into office over Lyndon LaRouche.

Likewise, when it comes right down to it, I would probably have, even in 2000, selected Al Gore into office over Ralph Nader, though that’s a bit more chancey than the Lyndon LaRouche choice… (what the hell? Let’s try something a little different for a while and break down a few things…) In the end, Nader comes across as an authoritarian yahoo… like most 3rd party figures tend to come across, actually. (Ross Perot, anyone?)

But… by voting for LaRouche, we can know that we voted for LaRouche. By voting for Nader, we can know that we voted for Nader. And we can say so. To impress, if not other people, ourselves.

Note my joke, “Blame Me… I voted for Nader.”
Note his statement “In fact, I voted for LaRouche, even though he’s a nutcase.”
Two statements that make ourselves inwardly smile.

And to damn the system. And to damn the system. And to damn the system.

“The kids are getting more conservative.”
“You’re right.”

“My students are getting more conservative. It’s really strange. I can’t use some of the old references I used to be able to…”
“It’s the triumph of Homeland Security.”

“Something to that effect. Actually, I think it goes back to 1967. A little conspiracy theory I have. (didn’t follow). But it took a while for that to kick in, and now we have…”
“What we have today.”

“Right. Actually, think about it for a minute. I saw Mel Brooks’ History of the World last night on AMC…”
“Great movie!”

“Yeah, it is a great movie, really funny, but I realized… it couldn’t be made today.”
“Hm. Maybe not…”

“Certainly not. And you know what else?”