~ colin powell is still a tool. everyone in the world knows that he was lying when he told the united nations that iraq had weapons of mass destruction, so why does he think that he has any credibility when now telling us that iran is about to break off some nuclear weapons? he could have quit without making himself look like a whore, but they made him throw in one more trick. even if he thinks it is really true this time, the sad fact is all the morons in this country who get their news from brit hume and toby keith will commence freaking out that the iranians are coming to cut off their heads and burn some bibles with nuclear bombs if we don’t put a boot up their asses with all expediency. colin powell is a dick.

~ to the clueless freaks who think that the fact that the bushes are hanging out at clinton’s library opening is proof that this country isn’t divided because ‘red’ and ‘blue’ can come together at a photo op in little rock, need to be clued in on something; they can ‘come together’ for this event because it doesn’t mean shit. we aren’t talking about reforming health care or killing people in iraq; we are talking about posing for cameras and watching bush sr checking out chelsea in a leather skirt. when they come together on enacting policy that does anything but serve to strengthen the relative positions of their political machines, then you can sing their praises. grinning together like idiots in little rock is hollow, self-serving bullshit; if clinton had any testicular fortitude he would not have invited them and would have invited wrk.grp [w] to frame his work.

~ iyad allawi claims that no civilians have been killed in falljuah! more on the iraqification of vietnam:

“anyone who runs is a VC. anyone who stands still is a well disciplined VC”

“did you hear about this marine who killed an unarmed wounded guy in iraq?”
“yes. that’s just stupid.”
“agreed…though one might say that the entire set of circumstances which put a US marine in the position to shoot anyone in fallujah is ‘stupid'”

could this be as stupid as the iraq debacle being superseded by headlines like ‘some rappers fight at the vibe awards’ or ‘someone cares that an ad for ‘desperate housewives’ was aired during a football game’? this is also stupid: the house of representatives rewrites rules about what to do when one of them is indicted whenever one of their own, such as republican tom delay, actually gets indicted. we wish that people could rewrite laws about downloading movies and songs and comic books every time they get caught downloading movies and songs and comic books.

~ other stupid headlines: ‘Kerry Says He’s Not Ruling Out Another Run’

~ colin powell has resigned, which should surprise no one. we await the deluge of liberal whining that with powell goes the only moderate voice of reason on bush’s cabinet. we say that this ‘moderate’ prick had the chance to stand up for what he knew to be true and right many times, especially before walking into the united nations and wittingly lying to the whole world about iraq’s weaponry, but he chose to sell out and tow the company line as the obedient soldier he has been trained to be – although, one might consider him to be a sellout since the days when he attempted to cover up the my lai massacre. good riddance; now bring us condi rice’s head (figuratively, of course).

~ our wordpress [w] install is finally getting hit with as much casino and finance spam as movable type. we have instituted a solution that involves the automatic deletion of a comment based upon the appearance of certain words. we will not tell you what they are, so if your comment doesn’t appear, get a thesaurus and try a new combination. combat comment spam [w] may help some of y’all other wordpress users clean up your site.

~ for most folks, the election is a distant memory; we understand that any folks who is still harping on it are considered to have their heads up their asses. nevertheless, we have found some amusing lines referring to those days long gone.

mr. nader is explaining – again – how he did not cause the democrats to lose – again – in his own charming manner:

“No wonder enough of the voters go for the moral issues. What else do they have? When you take away the economic issue, then you allow the presidency to be personalized. If Bush happens to be more likeable—don’t ask me why—he becomes the transmitter of the moral issues. They garnish it with gay marriage and abortion and occlude all the secular immorality.” –ralph nader

this next quote is not even slightly original, but the payoff comes from the name of the old white guy saying it:

We are not using the internet or email like we could. It is the most cost effective tool we have. These old white men need to turn this over to a new generation.

by kerry2004 on Mon Nov 8th, 2004 at 17:11:03 EDT

~ speaking of amusing speeches, we had the good fortune to kick it this week with mimi [w] of – well, we don’t know which project at this point, as there are many – varied and multitudinous fames, who showed surprising patience during our confederate apologia, nader confessional, and a rambling tirade which could be entitled ‘norwegians can take the fucking bill of rights and be better than anyone living in the u.s.’

~ happy veterans’ day and happy birthday to kurt vonnegut, veteran and author of ‘galapagos’.

~ by ‘cultural war’, we are insisting that certain hand wringing over kerry’s defeat is misplaced when based on the fact that some assholes claimed that ‘values’ were the factors that determined their votes. considerable hay has been made since the election over various notions, such as: the democrats have no values, the democrats have values but can’t articulate them, the democrats values are immoral.

initially, the values impetus was a sensible theory as it explained the surprising turnout—discounting the likelihood that the election results are fraudulent—in support of bush (we have never grasped the democrats confidence that a large turnout favours democrats by default, do not republicans turn out, as well?). however, we are skeptical of the truth of the reports of the ‘values’; it seems to us that blaming people for being christian, anti-choice, homophobic or all of the above is an easy way to divert attention from the fact that john kerry was a shitty candidate and unworthy politician. if democrats can make people agree that it is the naiveté and prejudice of the rural voters, then democrats do not have to admit that they fucked up by selecting john kerry.

this spin notwithstanding, in our analysis, anyone who voted for george w bush is at least one of three types: ignorant, bigoted, or an idiot. two of these types can be turned to our advantage; the third is useless.

the ignorant are the people who suffer from cognitive dissonance; they know what they want in their lives and in the country, but they have been misinformed that bush is capable or willing to service these needs. there is a chance that the ignorant can be educated as to what is best for the country and what will serve them better; this can be accomplished without altering our positions.

the idiots do not have any ideas; they are voting for whoever has the prettiest campaign images, most numerous signs, and loudest surrogates. the idiots can be turned to vote for our side with these superficialities. they would not understand why they are on our side, but they will prove useful as warm bodies at the polls; think of them as replicants or eloi. they are stupid and will remain so, no matter who uses them, it might as well be us.

the bigoted are useless. we can only bring them to our side if we adopt their insane causes (ex. jerry falwell); if this were to happen, we would not only destroy our own cause, but become as twisted and inhuman as them in the process. granted, some bigotry is based on ignorance and/or idiocy; for this type of bigot, see above paragraphs. otherwise, be prepared to deal with the rest of these people only with overwhelming force and numbers. they can not be reached with reason; they must be marginalized, punished, and excommunicated.

we are not just talking about voting here; we are speaking of serving as proponents of cultural education, where our goal is to have the citizen engage the public as an inquisitive participant, rather than serve as a mere consumer, a sponge soaking up ‘the incredibles’ and ‘grand theft auto’. as inheritors of the enlightenment, this is our duty.

~ the above use of ‘our side’ is not a euphemism for ‘democrats’ the above is meant to help democrats; we hate your party, but this is mainly for your spinelessness and ineptitude, not just because you shun commies and liberals.

~ We haven’t been devastated or depressed or demolished at the angry red planet. we felt it would be prudent to refrain from making any immediate, knee jerk posts about our late national troubles, lest we end up with something which later proves embarrassing, such as ‘we are never voting again’ or ‘we are moving to Spain’ or ‘fuck all y’all Christian bigots’. now that we have pondered the matter for a day and a half, as well as read thousands of rant and raves on the Internet, we feel that we can make a few notes for posterity that are are unblemished by any strains of emotion and desperation.

First and foremost, lets absolve ourselves of any misconception that there will be any unity or healing between the factions. Fuck that. We have realized that we do not merely disagree about solutions to national problems with the right, we literally have divergent conceptions of what the United States of America is supposed to be. We at the angry red planet know that it is an product of the Enlightenment, engineered by men who, despite their aristocratic faults, were progressive intellectuals who desired a broad expanse for thought above all else; however, our contemporary right wants to impose restrictive, nativist codes of thought and behaviour upon anyone in its boundaries. This will destroy the Founding Fathers’ experiment; for this, We hate you. Rather than heal or unite with our neighboring crusaders, we will maintain our bitterness, savor our rancor, and clutch our anger close to our hearts. There is a place for you in this country to abide by and honour your own codes, but not for a moment will we harbour the notion that we should compromise and allow them into public contract.

It was all we could stomach to even suggest the possibility that it would be alright for someone to vote for Kerry Edwards, for they had stated for the record that they were opposed to marriage between men and between women. If we could not tolerate the Kerry Edwards statements, we sure as shit are not going to ‘unite’ with any of the bigoted fucks who turned out to vote for the amendments to various state constitutions; and that includes the Kerry voters who voted for amendment 1 in Georgia. Fuck all y’all. And fuck y’all in 2006 and 2008.

(a corollary: We understand Kerry’s argument that he voted for ‘authorization’ and not for ‘war’, but we consider that to be bull crap; if you don’t see that giving permission to start a war to a guy who clearly is hellbent on starting a war is the same as agreeing to the war, then you are a dipshit.)

our fellow non-republicans—liberals, leftists, progressives, independents, and the democrats—are in turmoil and have immediately begun to lay out plans for 2006 and 2008 that consists of learning how to have some ‘values’ and building some ‘infrastructure’; they base this reaction upon a simple exit poll which stated that ‘values’ were what determined the vote for millions of Americans. you won’t find any plan of attack or proposal for infrastructure in this post, for a couple of reasons. for one thing, we consider this to be a cultural war, not a semantic debate; for another, we know what these assholes value, and under no circumstances shall we pander to such bigoted isolationism. instead, this post contains a few selections from our epiphanies and postulations of the last couple of days. our plan of attack for the upcoming years will be enacted, not described.

(semantics: We have determined that you can not suss out these right wingers’ ‘values’ and subsequently have a discussion on their terms. a case in point is the number of deaths in iraq—on both sides. they, the right wing, sincerely do not care if people die; you can not even rationalize with them that few deaths is better than many deaths, because the lives of other people mean nothing to them. the lives of arabs across the sea mean less than nothing. pointing out the incongruities between their values and the inhumanity of illegal war is a waste of time, as they do not value human life. the deaths we have caused in our wars and in our neglect of the poor at home needs to be removed from the discussion, as the notion is unimportant to the right.)

other fellow non-republicans, stop calling people in the south and midwest names such as ‘ignorant red state crackers’. no state is 100% red; it is a disservice to the millions of voters and workers and canvassers against bush who live in ‘red states’ who tried their best to unseat him. in addition, no state—save for two or three tiny new england backwaters—turned out entirely blue. every state is a ‘red state’; they only look ‘blue’ in the end because your cities outweigh your hinterlands. take cook county from illinois and peep what colour is left. the weak pejorative ‘cracker’ as a synonym for an uneducated, religiously righteous redneck is also incorrect; 75% of the black voters in georgia voted to deny rights to Americans who are gay. no race has a monopoly on prejudice.

(crackers: months ago, we touched upon an event that drove us from a group of folks of similar political persuasion. we had mentioned casually that there were going to be americans voting for bush, and we quickly were informed by someone from santa barbara. that no one would vote for bush. various pieces of evidence, facts, and hearsay were provided. ‘granted this is all true,’ we noted, ‘but you should prepare yourself for the fact that bush is popular; we can’t go 10 yards without peeping ‘bush cheney’ signs.’ we were then informed that we live in ‘bumblefuck’. at that word, we ceased the debate, and broke off communication with santa barbara. there are a number of levels at which barbara’s statement is fucked.
1. not everyone is wealthy enough to live in santa barbara; condescension from a ‘progressive’ towards people to poor to live in her community is not admirable.
2. not everyone has the same information that the elite santa barbarans have; one must accept that ‘bumblefuck’ might know less or more that the santa barbarans
2b. prepare yourself that ‘bumblefuck’, upon given the same evidence, will draw different conclusions than the santa barbarans, based on divergent backgrounds, environment, and circumstances.
3. calling someone’s home ‘bumblefuck’ is an effective method for ensuring that they will assume a different position than one’s own; if our environment and circumstances are so great, why would we share ideals?
4. everyone must live somewhere; at that point, it is not ‘bumblefuck’
5. considering that bush never polled below 40% of voters, it is not rational to assume that nobody will vote for him; it that were the case, we would only need one nader or kerry voter in each state.)

perennial thug rudy giuliani stretched reality to suggest that the relationship between kerry and bush—by extension, their parties and supporters—is equivalent to the relationship between thomas jefferson and john adams; those guys hated each other at the close of their bitter contest for the 1800 presidency. years afterward, they started an amicable and brilliant correspondence about politics, texts, and planting which lasted for years. when we see the amercian public or politicians reading and writing about anything that does not involve ashlee simpson, donald trump, or laci peterson, then we will revisit this proposal, until then we will consider giuliani’s head to be up his ass.

is it worth moving out of the county—fleeing to canada or new zealand or some other place where they politely speak american? the backlash to this desire is that we are supposed to buck up, stop whining, and get ready to fight back; parallels are drawn to the fact that unions and women and blacks didn’t get what they wanted at the outset. naturally. however, for what exactly are we fighting? as stated above, this is no longer the great experiment begun by jefferson, adams, madison, and even the asshole hamilton. america is a conglomeration of fatasses who are more interested in making payments on a new HDTV and riding lawnmower and suvs with dvd players than they are in participatory democracy. americans are teenage girls getting plastic surgery. americans watch ‘cribs’ and include burger king in a weight loss regimen. americans drive cadillac suvs while living in whitefoord. americans are so obese that they are causing drag on airplanes. americans construct hideous buildings like symphony tower super walmarts. americans willing choose ignorance and provincialism over introspection and contemplation; they do not believe in science or modernity.

(coincidentally, it is curious that we just picked up the latest ‘national geographic magazine’, which features a story on evolution; the title ‘was darwin wrong?’ is followed with ‘no. [but 88% of americans will not believe anything in this article is true]’ )

in other words, there is a gaping divide between the occasional self serving newsweek article that describes the greatness of the united states – offering examples of madison’s bill of rights and the citizen soldiers of world war 2—and the mundane reality of millions who just do not give a shit about anything beyond filling their own fatty lives with muffin bars, ‘the oc’, and ipods. it is one thing to desire to defend the ethics of the declaration of independence and the bill of rights; it is another to defend people who are not interested. are we expected to be like chauvinistic missionaries, leading supposed savages to our faith? we reckon we are not; the information is out there, we can no longer expend energy coddling these two legged vermin and teaching them to be adults. we say that people can either get on board or be written off; Americans, you are now with us or against us.

we have been unable to find ralph nader’s concession speech; the nearest admission of defeat we could locate was a november 2 speech which he gave at the press club which seemed to reveal a premonition that he would not take the white house. nader concluded his speech with two names no americans will recognize:

“As Eugene Debs once said and as I.F. Stone once said, the only struggles for social justice worth fighting for are those where you lose and you lose and you lose until you win”

on the bright side, we have four more years to see if the curse of tecumseh holds true.

go vote.

~ we have been noticeably and intentionally absent over the past couple of weeks. this doubtlessly has rattled the nerves and instilled despair in the hearts of our readers, many of whom come here not for the sparse commentary on urbanity and domesticity, but for the lashes and cuts poured upon political eventualities. part of our absence has been for personal reasons, namely the conclusion of the second atlanta experiment, about which you shall learn at a later date, and part is because we figure that most of our readers are too occupied with various GOTV endeavours to spend time reading our random diatribes. we assume that most people know by now that our president is a criminal and any administration that refers to a threatening tape from osama bin laden as a ‘gift’ on the same day that eight (8) of our marines are killed deserves to be replaced. furthermore, we have accepted bitterly the doctrine of ‘anybody but bush’ which stipulates that any mention of kerry’s shortcomings will fail to benefit the parallel goals – similar but not identical – of the left and the democrats. due to this forced, necessary unity, we have shelved such essays as the nakedly titled ‘why we always lose’ and ‘the left does not know how to speak’ and ‘we wish dean was here’ and ‘do we really need to be friends with fucks like eminem and robert byrd just because we all happen to hate bush?’ and ‘are the goals of ralph nader less appealing just because his book was published by a republican?’ and ‘we can’t wait for this forced, necessary unity bullshit to end’. in other words, with regards to the democrats, if you can’t post anything nice, don’t post anything at all.

we are close now; what once seemed a depressingly forgone conclusion – a second term – during lonely rides through the rainy nights in the no-man’s-lands along dekalb and breathless climbs up the windswept peaks of north avenue has become a tantalizing improbability. we are not adept at motivational pep talk at the angry red planet, as we work mostly in deliberate misanthropy, so as you spend your last hours affecting the process in whatever measure you are able – phone banking, visibility, canvassing, election protection, rides to the polls, monitoring – we must look to others for words of inspiration and perspective, such as a couple of lines swiped from frederick douglass on the work ahead, “Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must pay for all they get”, or, as ashley williams puts it to his troops massed against the army of the deadites, “by god let’s give ’em what for!” go forth, friends, girded with the fearlessness of knowledgability, and we will see you sometime on the moons and rings and seas of titan.

ps. if the election is so close that legal hijinks ensue, and the united states supreme court again oversteps its boundaries, precipitating a bloody solution in the streets and fields and malls of america, try to keep in mind that the battle is between ideas, not men. as crass teaches us, ‘destroy power, not people’.