Speading "democracy" on the mushrooms
Well Folks,
The election is nearing, and most agree it’s important. Will the Democrats replace the Republicans? Will Nancy Pelosi or Bella Lugosi end up Speaker of the Mouse? Will the Monkey Man in the White House menagerie eat a banana in celebration or will Dennie Hastert throw up his kielbasa?
Will it be Morning in America or Mourning in America? Will we all be Raptured or Ruptured? Is Obama the savior, come at last to cast the Beast into the six-hundred-sixty-six foot deep lake of fire? Or is Bush here for two more years?
Will gays be allowed to get married? Will Rick Santorum be freed to have sex with more than one dog? Will the money we don’t have for Social Security be used to attack Iran? Will raising the minimum wage destroy Capitalism as we know it? Will the CIA dispatch Pat Robertson to assassinate Hugo Chavez? Will we finally support our troops with armored jock straps? Will we still be afraid, very, very, very afraid?
Will the “will of the people” be thwarted again by crooked voting machines? Or in new and improved ways? Will the price of gasoline go up or down after the election? Will anyone who supports taxes be elected? Will the new judges be activists or pacifists? And what about the children!!
Now, I guess all of this is important to someone - but I’m looking at this upcoming election a little differently. Generally I don’t even call it an election – it’s a test, one we’ve failed regularly for some time. Rick Santorum might be on to something with his man/beast preoccupation.
We’re taught that humanity is special. In one book it says god took five days of practice working up to making us - his pride and joy; and THEN he put so much effort into our creation that he took the next day off (he was self-employed) to rest up.
We’re supposed to be special because we walk “upright” (although that never made sense to me – just like that stuff about having opposable thumbs – it always seemed to me that if humans could, for example, put their elbows in their ears, THAT would “prove” we were “special” – we’re such a modest species).
We’re special, too, because we “think” – unlike the beasts (yeah, I know, Rick and other dog-lovers say dogs think, but animal-lovers have stars in their eyes ). We’re “rational” – or we must have been once, back in the “Age of Reason” anyway. We recognize “time” and comprehend our eventual demise. We’ve been to the Moon and invented hair transplants, buttocks enhancement, and right-turn-on-red (after stop).
We’re special !! Or so we’re told. I’m beginning to wonder.
So … for me this election is important too. It will answer that old question we used to hear women periodically ask their men in the old black-and-white movies: “Well, what are you? A man or a mouse?” To put it another way: “What are we? Humans? Or just another kind of beast?
The Bush machine has been purring right along quite successfully for six years without a hitch by dealing with us as if we were only stupid animals. The R’s throughout the country, too, have been doing quite nicely - thank you - for a long time now, via the same approach.
What’s that Duhbya said, ”Fool me once … uh … shame on you. Fool me … uh … can’t fool me again.” Like most things the dauphin utters, it seems to be untrue. This election will determine whether it is or not.
For just as long, the Democrats have stood bravely forth as the loyal opposition jellyfish; going along and pretending not to (at least as much as they felt it was personally prudent to pretend). Now how these stalwarts actually behave – should they win as the polls predict – or how they react – should Kkkarl Rove, Diebold, et.al. succeed in stealing the election again - will shed light on the advisability of our putting faith into the “democratic electoral process.” Likewise, how we react to that illumination will tell whether we are actually men or truly beasts.
If we act at the polls out of fear, hatred, faith, prejudice, ignorance, greed; or on the basis of thirty-second mud slides (“Don’t vote for Rapunzel !! She let her hair down. If her hair can’t count on her, how can we?”), we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Republicans steal the election and we don’t hit the streets, we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Republicans steal the election and the Democrats don’t hit the streets, and we don’t go after both of them, we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Democrats win the election and give us a new/improved Republican Light (with extra Lieberman) and we don’t hit the streets, we have no right to be called “special.”
Two quotations come to mind:
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” - H.L. Mencken
“As my old Pappy used to say, ‘You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, and those are pretty good odds.’ ” - Brett Maverick
I’m betting with Mencken and Maverick.
- Uke Man
The election is nearing, and most agree it’s important. Will the Democrats replace the Republicans? Will Nancy Pelosi or Bella Lugosi end up Speaker of the Mouse? Will the Monkey Man in the White House menagerie eat a banana in celebration or will Dennie Hastert throw up his kielbasa?
Will it be Morning in America or Mourning in America? Will we all be Raptured or Ruptured? Is Obama the savior, come at last to cast the Beast into the six-hundred-sixty-six foot deep lake of fire? Or is Bush here for two more years?
Will gays be allowed to get married? Will Rick Santorum be freed to have sex with more than one dog? Will the money we don’t have for Social Security be used to attack Iran? Will raising the minimum wage destroy Capitalism as we know it? Will the CIA dispatch Pat Robertson to assassinate Hugo Chavez? Will we finally support our troops with armored jock straps? Will we still be afraid, very, very, very afraid?
Will the “will of the people” be thwarted again by crooked voting machines? Or in new and improved ways? Will the price of gasoline go up or down after the election? Will anyone who supports taxes be elected? Will the new judges be activists or pacifists? And what about the children!!
Now, I guess all of this is important to someone - but I’m looking at this upcoming election a little differently. Generally I don’t even call it an election – it’s a test, one we’ve failed regularly for some time. Rick Santorum might be on to something with his man/beast preoccupation.
We’re taught that humanity is special. In one book it says god took five days of practice working up to making us - his pride and joy; and THEN he put so much effort into our creation that he took the next day off (he was self-employed) to rest up.
We’re supposed to be special because we walk “upright” (although that never made sense to me – just like that stuff about having opposable thumbs – it always seemed to me that if humans could, for example, put their elbows in their ears, THAT would “prove” we were “special” – we’re such a modest species).
We’re special, too, because we “think” – unlike the beasts (yeah, I know, Rick and other dog-lovers say dogs think, but animal-lovers have stars in their eyes ). We’re “rational” – or we must have been once, back in the “Age of Reason” anyway. We recognize “time” and comprehend our eventual demise. We’ve been to the Moon and invented hair transplants, buttocks enhancement, and right-turn-on-red (after stop).
We’re special !! Or so we’re told. I’m beginning to wonder.
So … for me this election is important too. It will answer that old question we used to hear women periodically ask their men in the old black-and-white movies: “Well, what are you? A man or a mouse?” To put it another way: “What are we? Humans? Or just another kind of beast?
The Bush machine has been purring right along quite successfully for six years without a hitch by dealing with us as if we were only stupid animals. The R’s throughout the country, too, have been doing quite nicely - thank you - for a long time now, via the same approach.
What’s that Duhbya said, ”Fool me once … uh … shame on you. Fool me … uh … can’t fool me again.” Like most things the dauphin utters, it seems to be untrue. This election will determine whether it is or not.
For just as long, the Democrats have stood bravely forth as the loyal opposition jellyfish; going along and pretending not to (at least as much as they felt it was personally prudent to pretend). Now how these stalwarts actually behave – should they win as the polls predict – or how they react – should Kkkarl Rove, Diebold, et.al. succeed in stealing the election again - will shed light on the advisability of our putting faith into the “democratic electoral process.” Likewise, how we react to that illumination will tell whether we are actually men or truly beasts.
If we act at the polls out of fear, hatred, faith, prejudice, ignorance, greed; or on the basis of thirty-second mud slides (“Don’t vote for Rapunzel !! She let her hair down. If her hair can’t count on her, how can we?”), we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Republicans steal the election and we don’t hit the streets, we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Republicans steal the election and the Democrats don’t hit the streets, and we don’t go after both of them, we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Democrats win the election and give us a new/improved Republican Light (with extra Lieberman) and we don’t hit the streets, we have no right to be called “special.”
Two quotations come to mind:
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” - H.L. Mencken
“As my old Pappy used to say, ‘You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, and those are pretty good odds.’ ” - Brett Maverick
I’m betting with Mencken and Maverick.
- Uke Man
1 Comments:
Hi Tom,
Excellent!! I really appreciated your thoughts. Let's hope the people come through this time. Sondra
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