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November 10, 2006
Reality – Not Politics
Famed writer Alan Moore will be appearing on an upcoming episode of The Simpsons. Given his well-known and admirable commitment to faithful adaptations, Alan will be dying himself yellow and chopping off a finger from each hand.
Posted by Mike Gold at 09:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 08, 2006
The New King of Washington, or Why I Hope the Senate Remains Red
The second most important aftereffect of this week’s election is a realignment of Potomac power brokers. With a Democrat victory in the Montana senator’s race, the Blues are now just one election result away from taking control of the Senate. In a party line vote with the Socialist Senator from Vermont showing Blue, the Democrats can have their way. If they take the Virginian senate seat, Joe “I shall caucus Blue” Lieberman becomes the party line swing vote.
Lying, fear-mongering bigoted hypocrite that he is, Joe is running around Connecticut today saying he is truly independent. He says is beholden to no party. Right, Joe. You’re not beholden to anyone except to the Republicans who financed your campaign, to the Republicans who rang all those doorbells and did all that campaign work, to Republicans like Jack Kemp and Michael Bloomberg who campaigned for you, to the so-called “Republican Jewish Coalition” that produced and signed your most hateful campaign literature, to Republicans like RNC chairman Ken Mehlman who gave your campaign access to their hallowed “get out the vote” Republican data bank and robo-phone equipment, and to the Republican majority who voted for you instead of their own straw-dog candidate.
Yeah. Joe’s beholden to no one. Right.
Lieberman won the election fair and square – as a Republican, using typical Republican tactics and resources. So Joe, do the right thing and declare yourself a Republican.
Of course you won’t be able to jockey yourself into committee chairmanships and positions should the Democrats win Virginia. But at least you’ll actually be living up to your phony-baloney campaign image of honesty and integrity. And you’ll still be able to wipe your ass with the Bill of Rights and threaten government censorship and bomb Arabs and slaughter American soldiers and all the other fun things you’ve grown used to.
Democrat challenger Ned Lamont peaked the day he beat Joe for the nod. That’s a shame; he had strong and decent positions on a great many issues but he couldn’t move them into the media’s anti-war spotlight. He obviously wasn’t “A” list material, but on a scale of 1 to 10 you could fit the Manhattan phonebook in between him and Joe.
As for the first most important aftereffect of this week’s election… That would be the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. That’s a genuine shame. Who’s Joe Lieberman going to pose with now?
Posted by Mike Gold at 02:48 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 05, 2006
The Most Dangerous Man In Washington
It isn’t hard to make a Jew paranoid; you’ve got the weight of history to help out. But this year there’s a man preying on his own people, and his name is Joe Lieberman.
Not content with his double-digit lead going into the election, this weekend damn near every Jew in Connecticut received a couple of mailers informing them that the Democratic Party has turned its back on Lieberman in favor of such well-known Jew haters as, and I quote, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, John Dingell, and Al Sharpton.
Damn. Well known “Democrats” like Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, John Dingell, and Al Sharpton are big-time Jew haters. Who knew? Except for Lieberman, of course.
When a man plays the race card against his own people this close to an election that by all appearances will be a slam-dunk for him, his character becomes so clear even Ray Charles could see it clearly. And Ray Charles is dead.
Control of the Senate is going to be a close call. The Democrats need seven seats: six for majority, the seventh to make up for Lieberman. But if Joe becomes the swing vote – and, statistically, that is likely to happen often – then this lying bigot becomes the most dangerous man in Washington.
That means both the Democrats and the Republicans will court him constantly. It’s ironic that a man who keeps kosher will be offered so much pork. If the Democrats win control, Joe will be offered significant committee chairmanships. If the Republicans want Joe to switch in order to retain control, he will be offered significant committee chairmanships.
No matter which party wins, this filthy, disgusting, lying bigot will achieve great power. Going into the election, he wields the considerable power he already possesses to assure his victory by mindlessly branding people who have the courage to speak out against senseless murder as anti-Jewish.
Ashkenazi like myself have a phrase for it. A shanda for the goyim. Joe Lieberman, you are swine.
Posted by Mike Gold at 10:02 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
November 02, 2006
The Life Of No Party
Everyone from progressives to reactionaries bemoan the lack of political options. “The lesser of two evils,” they say in disgust, often in an attempt to rationalize their own inertia. “If only we had a three party system.”
Yeah, well, I’m against it. I want what our nation’s founders put in the Constitution: a no party system.
The problem with Democrats and Republicans is that they are Democrats and Republicans. They endlessly fight their own Bizarro World Super Bowl; it has some half-time value, but little else. We don’t get the best people available, as the best are way too smart to take on the grief. We do get a lot of meaningless teevee ads from the DNC and the RNC that are, literally, in favor of no one. Like pit bulls on crack, all they do is attack.
So here’s what we should do. Registration opens on August 1st and absolutely everybody who pays a $25.00 filing fee before Labor Day can run. Nobody runs under a political party banner. Let’s keep the elephants and the donkeys in their zoos.
We allow a primary campaign for exactly one month. Candidates get to tell us whatever they want about themselves; they won’t have as much time to attack the mammoth herd. We hold the national primary on the first Sunday in October, and each candidate (obviously, no more than five) who gets at least 20% of the vote gets to run in the final election on the first Sunday in November. No automatic 50.1% wins – the entire electorate gets to chose from the most popular. There are no questions about who gets to participate in the debates: everybody who makes it to the championship round is in.
This will not eliminate the role of Big Money and influence, but by shorting both the playoff period and the championship round while simultaneously expanding the field – even by one candidate – the money will be spread out and the last-ditch fundraising round that fuels the worst in contemporary campaigning will be lessened. Incumbents will have less time to score points by suddenly acknowledging they need their community’s support.
It’s not a panacea, but it would be an improvement.
Oddly enough, such systems are in place in various parts of the world, and have been put in place (with respect to the party-less structure) in a number of significant local elections across America.
At the very least, the bullshit level will be reduced some. At best… well… maybe Gary Coleman will have his shot at the White House.
Posted by Mike Gold at 09:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack