Shut Up And Listen 86 Decision 2002--Part 2: The Post-Election Report Now that I’ve had time to think and read and listen, I’ve calmed down. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not necessarily an entirely bad thing. Yes, it is a bad thing, but there are positives sides. Without a doubt, you’ve probably heard that the Republicans now control the House of Representatives and the Senate thanks to Tuesday’s election. I was kind of upset when it happened, but now I’m not that bad. First off, out of the four elections that I said were ones to watch, the Republicans won three. The only Democrat to win was Johnson in the South Dakota Senate race. The only one that I cared all that much about was the Florida Governor race where Jeb Bush was re-elected, a true sign that there is something very wrong in the world. But the whole election thing isn’t all bad. For one thing, now the Republicans have to do some good work or they’re fucked. They fuck up now and who can they blame? And if they do good, then hey, that’s great. By the Republicans winning, they’ve backed themselves into a corner where they’re going to have to really think about what they’re doing and what the consequences might be. Is war against Iraq really a good idea? Do Americans want to sacrifice their freedom to feel secure? Are they satisfied with the state of the economy? Those are questions they’re going to have ask and provide answers for, and if they’re the wrong answers then it could be “bye-bye, George” in 2004. There are also the facts that to get bills approved in the Senate, most often you need 60 seats or face the tyranny of a filibuster; and also that in the House of Reps, the Reps often vote for what their local constituents want more than towing the party line. See, I didn’t know that as in Canada, usually members of Parliament vote with their party or else. In Canada, party solidarity is much more strong. So, the Democrats losing isn’t all bad, but that leads to the question of why they lost. Why did they lose? Well, because the Democrats are pussies who don’t stand for anything and really didn’t deserve to win. The thing I hate the most about the Democrats is their lack of convictions. Their platform all across the country was “Vote for us because we’re not the Republicans” which means nothing. I don’t blame people for voting Republican in many cases, because at least with a Republican they know that that person will stand up for what they believe and fight. Democrats often just go with the flow and switch sides on issues. It’s disgusting. The Republicans are much more of an ideological party than the Democrats, and therefore get a lot more respect. I respect the Republican Party because it at least stands for something. I don’t agree with what they stand for, but at least they’ve got beliefs, something which I have a hard time believing the Democrats do. Honestly, it would have depended on where I lived and who was running for me to decide if I would have voted Democrat or Republican, just because of the fact that both parties are so damn close in what they do. I still think that it would have been best if the Democrats maintained control of the Senate, but I can see how they lost it so easily. The thing that shows how fucked up the Democrats are is the fact that they couldn’t get a former Vice President elected in the place of a man who was just killed. The face that Mondale lost shows how fucking sad that party is. I thought he would have won mainly on the sympathy vote, not to mention his status as former VP. But no, he couldn’t pull it off. Pretty sad. But as they say, now we look to 2004. Here’s hoping that Bush fucks up. And now, here is a post-election column by an online acquaintance, J. Francis Archonis: HOW IT BEGINS Chad, a “cyber acquaintance” asks me to do an editorial for his website. I agree. Sometime thereafter the proverbial turds slam into the ventilator. I begin my first take on the upcoming midterm elections, after getting a few paragraphs done and I decided ”this is crap, I’ll just do another one”. Tuesday, November 5, Election Day, poor old Guy Fawkes hardly got a mention. For me, the day began as usual, around 04:00hrs(4 a.m.) and it wouldn’t end until 20 hours later. A typical Tuesday/Thursday. But, today I’d get to vote in a rather crucial election. The power balance of, and most importantly the direction America will take for at least the next two years is at stake. With issues like ‘HOMELAND SECURITY’ and ‘ECONOMIC REFORM’ at stake the vote I cast would hopefully do some good. HOW IT PLAYS OUT After completing the morning jobs I head to the local polling area and go to sign in. I’m surprisingly told, “You don’t vote here. They changed your voting location. You got to call someone to find out where you vote.” No one is sure to "where" this location is. Then after a good 5 minutes of back and forth questions one of the monitors realizes I am at the correct location and I’m directed to my districts “sign in” area. While the new monitor goes on about my making sure I vote for the New York City Charter Reform, all I can think about is how obvious it was that the other monitors tried to disenfranchise my vote. Surely had I went home to call “someone” as to where I would be voting the day would become an informational goose hunt. And I'd miss my chance at voting. “They actually tried to stop my voting” was all I could think. People often confuse me for a Police Officer, I wonder if this was a contributing factor to the apparent “profiling” I was just subject to. I've long suspected a total corruption of the legal voting process in N.Y. State, this incident just added to my suspicions. Either way I was signed in and on my way to the booth. Hidden by the plastic curtain I review the names of the different candidates. I see Carl McCall’s name. He’s running for N.Y. Governor, supported by Hillary Clinton, Chuckie Schumer, and the rest of the Democratic machine. McCall’s got a lifetime of public service behind him. He knows what to say and to whom to it should be said. Just last week, McCall asked Tom Gallisano, yet another individual seeking the N.Y. Governor’s Mansion, at financially speaking, his own expense, to drop out of the race and therefore be guaranteed a position in the “McCall Administration”. Carl McCall is used to making phone calls and asking people to “do favours” for him. He’s been reprimanded for using the influence of his position(s) to get family, friends and associates jobs. McCall has made phone calls and written letters, over 60 of them, to sway the hiring practices of big money companies. Carl McCall's choice for a running mate, Dennis Mehiel fathered two children out of wedlock with different women when he was separated but not yet divorced from his first wife. Mehiel, a millionaire businessman from Westchester County, is the primary financial backer for McCall’s Gubernatorial run. Big money and the Democratic Party once again working with one and another. Tom Gallisano refused to drop out of the race, just days before the actual election, and was subsequently attacked by the McCall campaign. I thought a little more about just whom the Democrats were running for elected positions. For the second consecutive election the Democrats would be running a corpse. Patsy Mink would once again run for The U.S. House of Representatives seat for the 2nd Congressional District of Hawaii, only this time from beyond the grave. That should come to no surprise since the Democrats let Mel Carnehan’s corpse run for the Senate just 2 years ago. Of course the dead guy won, and the Senate seat was “given” to “Widow” Jean Carnehan, now the anointed Senatrix of Missouri. They sure “showed me” something that day. The people of the State of Florida, with their inability to cast a vote properly also showed me something; that they had become even less skilled at voting than they were in 1996. 14,872 invalid ballots were counted in the 1996 Presidential race compared to 19,120 ballots for President that was declared invalid in the 2000 election. 4,248 additional Floridian would be voters proved themselves less than competent compared to the years before. Al Gore would attempt to take advantage of the obvious lack of intelligence in the Sunshine State by then forcing two (2) ballot re-counts. The three (3) ballot counts all indicated the same thing: George W. Bush had won the election. The numbers were in. The law of Florida was satisfied. Never satisfied with the word of law Al Gore and the Democratic Machine attempted to force a third(illegal) re-count of the votes. It took a Supreme Court decision to stop the attempted hijacking of the 2000 Presidential Election. To this day Democrat spin is to declare,” The Supreme Court appointed Bush the President” yet its hardly the case when the facts are in. Illegitimate Speaker of the House Tom Daschle, was a firm supporter of this method as he too once won his elected position in the State of South Dakota with a “forced hand re-count’ way back in 1978. Why illegitimate? The post election “conversion” of Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords allowed Daschle to take control of the Senate in a dubious manner. Jeffords fooled his Republican supporters, the People of Vermont who put him in office, but he didn’t fool anyone else. Neither did Daschle. Since the Democratic takeover of the Senate we’ve watched the economy drop like a stone. We’ve seen the enemies of America take advantage of the failed Democratic policies enacted by former Executive Bill Clinton. The savage attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. mounted an American death toll, in one day, equivalent to the losses suffered during an average year of combat during the Viet Nam War. More than 3000 American citizens lost their lives in 60 minutes because of Democratic policies. This was certainly something to consider while I was making my final decisions. How could I forget he Senate race in New Jersey? Senator Bob Toricelli also reprimanded for abuses of authority, realizing he was going to lose his Senate seat and therefore possibly jeopardize the Democrat’s one (1) seat majority in the Senate, would drop out of the Senate race. The Democrats scrambled and dug Frank Lautenberg from his sarcophagi and illegally placed him on the ballot. New Jersey law bars replacement of candidates less than 51 days before an election. A lower court ruling allowed adding Lautenberg as candidate 33 days before Election Day. Once again the word of law meant nothing to the Democratic Party. Not much of a surprise there. I think of how for almost one whole year the Democrat controlled Senate has refused to move on a Homeland Security Bill. Little Tommie Daschle has imposed an “artificial majority” clause, there by not voting on any legislation or nomination that he (and the Democratic party) deems controversial unless there is a majority of 60. The Constitution requires only a simple majority for a legal vote. Democrats seem to make up the rules as they go along, and conveniently bend or ignore the established rules. I recall the recent Democratic Rally at Paul Wellstone’s funeral service. There is an ancient battle strategy where “one uses a corpse to resurrect a spirit”. Along with Wellstone’s spirit came the corpse, in the form of former Vice President Walter Mondale. The Democratic machine was reaching deeply into their usable cast of characters to maintain their hegemony on the Senate. And, their latest attempt was to bring Fritz the Mondale back into the game. 22 years after the American people told Mondale to go home. Were the democrats a party out of touch with reality? Had they any issues to run on at all any longer? Would the Democratic candidates have anything to say to the American people besides the usual slurs and baseless attacks on the Republican Party they had used for the last decade to maintain their power base? I can’t say they did. The Democrats were seemingly content to continue with their failed policies of the last 40 years at the expense of the American People. It was simple, with the flip of some levers the Democrats would be further enabled to continue their practices. So I flipped the levers I felt needed to be flipped; “Republican” down the line. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? November 6th I check the email and Chad, the editor in chief was looking for his article 24hrs ago! “I’ll get right to it I promise” and I do. Somewhere along the way my computer seizes and I lose the essay I’d almost completed. I’m pissed. But, when I turn on the news I hear that the Republicans have swept the elections. Amazing news. For the first time since the Republican Party was founded around the Civil War that the Republican Party has gained seats in the president's first mid-term election. History in the making. The American People have spoken. They have officially rejected the Clinton Era. The "Baby Boomer” generation has appeared to have finally grown up and decided to act like adults and not spoiled selfish children. It took long enough. So now we’ll see what the Republicans have to offer in earnest. I predict a greater sense of Homeland Security, and despite the cries from the left, there will be no threats to freedom for law-abiding citizens. I predict that Saddam Hussein will capitulate to the United States’ demands for unrestricted inspections. I predict a growth in the American and therefore the World’s economy(ies). I predict that the current administration will remain in power after the 2004 elections and that the Republican Party will remain in control of the United States through the 2012 elections. I believe America and the World is heading toward a brighter future despite the machinations of madmen and religious terrorists. Only time will tell if my predictions are correct. But I certainly feel relieved that we'll be hearing less from the likes of Daschle and the humiliated Democratic Party. Its certainly a great day in the Republic. Why You Should Remember, But Have Stopped Caring Monday is Remembrance Day here in Canada. November 11. It’s a day of remembering those who fought in the wars and such. And I almost don’t care anymore. That sounds more extreme than it actually is. What I’m actually talking about the coverage of Remembrance Day and the fact that it starts a good week in advance and goes so far overboard that by the time the eleventh rolls around, I just want to forget it all. Oversaturation is the word. It’s a damn shame too, because I truly believe that veterans should get some respect and tribute, but the media just makes you resent the entire thing. (On a side note, I did find out something interesting: around twenty thousand Canadians served in Vietnam. We’re talking about people who went to America and signed up. That’s fucked up. That really is. I’m sorry they went through war and everything, but damn, that’s just dumb. Here I thought it was just Americans coming to Canada to avoid the war, not the opposite thing too. Fucked up.)