THE MAYBE DEBATE
by Rohan Seivwright
10/14/04
Why do I have zero interest in the debates? Maybe because the debates have been so managed by the two dominant parties that I recognize bad theater when I see it. I don't have an appreciation for bad theater. Plus, my IQ is higher than two, so I'm easily offended by such a sham. Maybe it's because Bush calls himself a conservative yet the government has expanded to the point of wanting to change the Constitution to please bigots while trashing the Bill of Rights with Patriot Acts 1 & 2 to please elite power. Maybe because Bush and Kerry feel it's okay to have Free-Speech zones. Maybe because I thought freedom of speech was an unalienable right, not a privilege. Maybe it's because billionaire Kerry who supposedly is a champion for the poor, doesn't stand up against corporate outsourcing and feels it's okay for the government to make life easier for corporations with subsidies while giving them tax breaks and incentives, as if they don't have that already. Yeah, make life easier for corporations, while schools are starved, Tort reform removes a layer of protection from patients, and universal health care remains a carrot constantly dangled and never released.
Maybe it's because Kerry headed a committee which investigated Iran-Contra crimes, recognizing the CIA's involvement with cocaine trafficking, yet talks about fighting the drug war, not within the Pentagon, or the CIA, or Wall Street, but by more heavy-handed policing in the cities, and I guess placing more young street dealers in prison. Maybe it's because the drug war is a war against the poor, robbing them of their civil liberties. Maybe it's because Kerry supports the Patriot Act. Maybe it's because Bush wants immigrants to come across the border, not because he has a bleeding heart, but because he wants them to work for five dollars an hour, or as he said, "five dollars and fifteen cents" an hour, keeping wages low, and leaving them exposed for exploitation.
Maybe it's because Kerry hired Bush's ex-counter terrororism advisor, Rand Beers, who was the architect under Clinton of the Plan Colombia scam, where planes spray pesticides over the crops of the poor, while ultra-rich drug kingpins are allowed to grow, ship, and profit off of tons of cocaine. Maybe it's because over two million -- maybe three by now -- black men are in prison primarily for drug charges. Maybe because 6.9 million Americans are in the correctional system as the prison industry booms with the help of privatization.
Maybe it's because the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and other Free Trade racketeers use America's muscle to punch holes through the sovereignty of countries around the world, mainly brown skin countries, and suck the economic blood from them, causing civil unrest. Maybe it's because Bush surrounded himself with former Iran-Contra and Gulf War criminals, like John Poindexter, John Negroponte, Richard Armitage, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and so on. Maybe it's because Kerry hired a brazen war criminal, Wesley Clarke, onto his staff . Maybe it's because Kerry continues to reference Ronald Reagan as an example of his plans for a new America. Maybe it's because the Middle-East will become the new South America. Maybe it's because America has been so Gumpified by Crap-Culture (Reality Shows, Oprah, and the like) that few people understand the dangers of imperial power, and Globalization, and the CIA's history of dirty tricks, and the unanswered questions of September eleventh.
Maybe it's because in the end, being the product of the cocaine 80's and go-go 90's, I've realized that whether it's a Republican (Reagan) who enabled the crack-cocaine epidemic, or a Democrat (Clinton) who deregulated to make life easier for corporate criminals while "reforming" welfare to shrink the unimpressive safety net for the poor, we as a people are FUCKED. We are fucked until we shut off the corporate/government run television, turn off the corporate/government run radio, get out into the streets and protest/fight like hell for the end of the two-party system, an end to the destruction of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, an end to the Military Industrial Complex, an end to the Prison Industrial Complex, an end to an immoral Market- Based system that makes whores of us all, an end to Apathy.
10/14/04
Why do I have zero interest in the debates? Maybe because the debates have been so managed by the two dominant parties that I recognize bad theater when I see it. I don't have an appreciation for bad theater. Plus, my IQ is higher than two, so I'm easily offended by such a sham. Maybe it's because Bush calls himself a conservative yet the government has expanded to the point of wanting to change the Constitution to please bigots while trashing the Bill of Rights with Patriot Acts 1 & 2 to please elite power. Maybe because Bush and Kerry feel it's okay to have Free-Speech zones. Maybe because I thought freedom of speech was an unalienable right, not a privilege. Maybe it's because billionaire Kerry who supposedly is a champion for the poor, doesn't stand up against corporate outsourcing and feels it's okay for the government to make life easier for corporations with subsidies while giving them tax breaks and incentives, as if they don't have that already. Yeah, make life easier for corporations, while schools are starved, Tort reform removes a layer of protection from patients, and universal health care remains a carrot constantly dangled and never released.
Maybe it's because Kerry headed a committee which investigated Iran-Contra crimes, recognizing the CIA's involvement with cocaine trafficking, yet talks about fighting the drug war, not within the Pentagon, or the CIA, or Wall Street, but by more heavy-handed policing in the cities, and I guess placing more young street dealers in prison. Maybe it's because the drug war is a war against the poor, robbing them of their civil liberties. Maybe it's because Kerry supports the Patriot Act. Maybe it's because Bush wants immigrants to come across the border, not because he has a bleeding heart, but because he wants them to work for five dollars an hour, or as he said, "five dollars and fifteen cents" an hour, keeping wages low, and leaving them exposed for exploitation.
Maybe it's because Kerry hired Bush's ex-counter terrororism advisor, Rand Beers, who was the architect under Clinton of the Plan Colombia scam, where planes spray pesticides over the crops of the poor, while ultra-rich drug kingpins are allowed to grow, ship, and profit off of tons of cocaine. Maybe it's because over two million -- maybe three by now -- black men are in prison primarily for drug charges. Maybe because 6.9 million Americans are in the correctional system as the prison industry booms with the help of privatization.
Maybe it's because the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and other Free Trade racketeers use America's muscle to punch holes through the sovereignty of countries around the world, mainly brown skin countries, and suck the economic blood from them, causing civil unrest. Maybe it's because Bush surrounded himself with former Iran-Contra and Gulf War criminals, like John Poindexter, John Negroponte, Richard Armitage, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and so on. Maybe it's because Kerry hired a brazen war criminal, Wesley Clarke, onto his staff . Maybe it's because Kerry continues to reference Ronald Reagan as an example of his plans for a new America. Maybe it's because the Middle-East will become the new South America. Maybe it's because America has been so Gumpified by Crap-Culture (Reality Shows, Oprah, and the like) that few people understand the dangers of imperial power, and Globalization, and the CIA's history of dirty tricks, and the unanswered questions of September eleventh.
Maybe it's because in the end, being the product of the cocaine 80's and go-go 90's, I've realized that whether it's a Republican (Reagan) who enabled the crack-cocaine epidemic, or a Democrat (Clinton) who deregulated to make life easier for corporate criminals while "reforming" welfare to shrink the unimpressive safety net for the poor, we as a people are FUCKED. We are fucked until we shut off the corporate/government run television, turn off the corporate/government run radio, get out into the streets and protest/fight like hell for the end of the two-party system, an end to the destruction of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, an end to the Military Industrial Complex, an end to the Prison Industrial Complex, an end to an immoral Market- Based system that makes whores of us all, an end to Apathy.
posted by Rohan at 10:14 AM
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