~ somewhere in north carolina, a man steps up:

‘while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you”d like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf….What I wanted to say to you is that I — in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and….’ –harry taylor, to gwbush

~ indictment for only one administration official is pretty lame, especially if the guy is only known for being indicted. again, bush tries to divert attention from the indictments (and ongoing investigation of karl rove’s crimes) by moving mars closer to earth.

~ happy 40th birthday to Jefferson National Expansion Memorial!

~ re: eric rudolph

“It really doesn’t matter what you say because I will go back to my home and you will go back to jail. The clinics in town will still be open and abortion will still be legal,” Lyons said.

haha!

stay out of atlanta, rudolph!
stay out of atlanta, deadbeat!

good riddance.

~ 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.

~ when debates equal comedy gold, who knows what dipshit comment from bush will be a website next week?

• youforgotpoland.com
• offroaddieselengineemissions.com
• needsumwood.com

~ happy birthday to jimmy carter, georgia state senator, founder of the carter center, and author of ‘The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer’. you can break off a greeting to him at his website [w].

~ y’all know how non-partisan we are here at the angry red planet and how much contempt we have for the contrivances of electoral campaigns such as the highly orchestrated presidential debates, but how tight was the line about the cuban missle crisis and current u.s. credibility?

…We can remember when President Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis sent his secretary of state to Paris to meet with DeGaulle.

And in the middle of the discussion, to tell them about the missiles in Cuba, he said, “Here, let me show you the photos.”

And DeGaulle waved them off and said, “No, no, no, no. The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me.”

How many leaders in the world today would respond to us, as a result of what we’ve done, in that way?
–john kerry

that is the broad view of the nation as something more than a playing field for political teams which we appreciate more – though only slightly – than localized swipes such as Kerry’s “…today, there are four to seven nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea. That happened on this president’s watch.”

admittedly, it was nice to hear kerry acknowledge that he visits the angry red planet, as evidenced by his mention of our najaf policy.

~ perhaps it is best that an unqualified partisan is placed at the head of the cia. we had figured that after the next terrorist attack on american soil, most people would rally around dear leader w. on the other hand, the late demonstrations that the administration is not serious about making any of the reforms that the 9/11 commission has recommended might increase the likelihood of a spain or yugoslavia style response.

~ we doubt that cat stevens is complaining too much about the shabby treatment he received from our inept department of homeland security, as the sales rank for ‘The Very Best of Cat Stevens’ on amazon [w] has moved up to #19 today.

~ fear not, we are not abandoning this project. despite our declaration that there will be no more posts – long time readers know how likely that is to be true – we still intend to maintain a presence here. we have spent the past five years in a schizophrenic state, as we have never reached an agreement on the purpose of this site. to make a cat move forward, you pull back its tail; we have found that we move in whichever direction our tail is pulled, such as the expense of a week on building a database for the work images only to cast it aside and write instead some snide remark about how shitty police officers are. this incongruity has arrested our development.

lately, our internet time is taken up with sophisticating sisyphean.com [w] and a new enterprise that is in development. we hope that a new structure will allow us to separate the wheat from the chaff, the style from the content, and allow all endeavours to blossom unhindered. there is no consensus on the content of the future, but we have learnt its nature; while we still intend to bring you features such as the '’history of atlanta', our goal is the return of the angry and the red to 'the angry red planet'.

~ opensecrets.org [w]

~ what’s the big deal about the d-day anniversary? we doubt that this nation of consumers, who have no purpose in life but to choose the one of the five colors of mini ipods that best represents their identities or, when they fail to shed their obesity, file lawsuits against people who offer diet plans, who are watching this week’s romantic and pompous d-day flash animations on the news, pieced between jennifer lopez’s third marriage to a wealthy celebrity and the list of who might get ‘whacked’ on the season finale of ‘the sopranos’, really know the difference between pointe-du-hoc and pegasus bridge.

our country is now involved in a war that is based upon a foundation of dubious moral certitude; it is a war that we chose to begin, full of self-righteousness and disregard of our neighbors’ skepticism and wariness. In order for Amercians to be kept in line and to keep their faith, we need to believe that the united states is a beacon of justice, equality, and freedom. Unfortunately, when americans seek to reassure themselves of this notion, we apparently can not find any contemporary evidence of its veracity; we are forced to look sixty years into the past to find an example of this country’s ability to triumph over an enormous danger and to do so with a magnanimity that proves us to be a ‘good’ people. Regardless of political persuasions, americans occasionally must pay solemn yet treacly lip service to its veterans, in the belief that some connection with them will build credibility for the nation today.

while the fortitude and valor of the men who rushed from the sea or leapt from the skies into france of 1944 is indisputable, it is crucial that americans realize that the accomplishments of those men are three and four generations in the past. The flags that are waving today over suburban homes, mcdonald’s parking lots, and cable talking heads represent more than just that single accomplishment . The flag symbolizes every moment of the nation’s history, both the glory and the stains: every racist cop that has shot an unarmed kid in new york, every family without health care in ohio, every man or woman sleeping in a box under a bridge in atlanta, every my lai and wounded knee and abu ghirab. A few moments of victory does not outshine the multitude of failures. if americans want that flag to be worthy of respect in the future, and if they want to honestly claim an inheritance of the heroism of its past, they should try summoning the titanic forces of toil and ingenuity of the young men, including my grandfather, who charged through fascist steel and flame 60 years ago, and apply them to the injustices and inequities of today. There is no reason that our descendants should not be able to look at today with the same awe and respect for peaceful accomplishments that we lavish on our ancestors for their accomplishments in war.

Otherwise, Regardless of what we can buy or what we drive, our lives are so empty and our claim to democracy so tenuous that we must derive a vicarious honor by repeatedly making grasps at the only movement in our nation’s history that is universally accepted as unquestionably noble. To you well fed fucks, this is our last post.