Columbian assassination plot / American abstinence plot

Bad Columbian rebels... I don't know what to say about this. No one wants Dick Cheney to be the President, not even Dick Cheney. The government will take a turn for the Republican in a major way and for many many years. Not to mention the Patriot-Act-Bot-2000 that would be created because of this. And it morally reprehensible, this is a bad idea in the same way corporal punishment is a bad idea. I hate the President with the red hot passion of a thousand suns as much as the next guy, but eye for an eye does not work and we need to rise above it. So I hope all you domestic terrorists out there take that to heart. Love him or hate him or hate him some more but don't kill the President.

Moving on. The President is an Asshole. The President has started paying back his conservative allies who put him back in the oval office. Bush would like over $230,000,000 spent on abstinence only sexual education. So far he has only gotten Congress to agree to waste about $130,000,000 on it. Now first of all can a program where you specifically don't talk about sex be considered sexual education? And in response to any sort of study to tell how well this kind of "education" works to prevent disease and pregnancy as opposed to actual sexual education...

"We don't need a study, if I remember my biology correctly, to show us that those people who are sexually abstinent have a zero chance of becoming pregnant or getting someone pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted disease,"
-Wade Horn, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in charge of federal abstinence funding.

Good thing that this decision has nothing to do with religion or it would be illegal... kinda. I know if my High School gym coach in health class told me not to have sex until I was married that I would stop looking at girls and focus on my studies. Could we also drop another couple billion into that "War against Drugs" that is working so well. Everyone remember when you start to OD don't inject insulin into your heart just step into that time machine and make sure your past self just says no. Just like Bill and Ted.

Luckily I know a little something about abstinence... I think they should give me the $130-$230 million and I will personally make sure that the legislation will work. All you have to do is go to local Junior High Schools and hand out "Dungeons & Dragons" books and sweatshirts with Mickey Mouse on the front.

I guarantee you from personal experience that those kids will not get laid until some time in their mid-twenties. Dammit! I didn't even like fucking Mickey Mouse.

In other news those wacky Iranians need to learn that we don't want them to have enriched uranium. They have changed their mind for the third time again and are saying that they need to have 20 gas centrifuges. You could argue that all nations should have access to Nuclear Weapons, but you would be an idiot. There is absolutely no reason for us to have nuclear weapons unless they are pointed into space to stop the hoards of alien races who want to come and gut our natural resources... Or maybe just no nuclear weapons.

Also Ukraine's Parliament has now said that saturday's election should be annulled. Now this doesn't mean a definite re-vote but hopefully it will allow some outside observers in to allow a fair and balanced vote so that like here in the US the citizens can once again fuck themselves.

Anyway, I hate everyone... Except you.

Hippy President Pardons Turkeys

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither." - Benjamin Franklin

We don't really know how the new staff changes at the White House will affect it yet but I am willing to bet every cent that myself and my ancestors have ever made over the course of time that it moves us towards the apocalypse rather than away. As far as gut reaction the biggest hit will be the loss of Colin Powell, he is seemingly a voice of moderation in a Gung-Ho White House. But even more frightening is the choice of his successor.

I know two things about Condi Rice... 1. She tends to look really really angry when being photographed in a non photo-op way. 2. From what I have seen there is no bigger yes man in the administration. She is being put in to make sure that the President can now do whatever he likes with no absolutely dissention in his ranks. This is seemingly the most high profile change in his cabinet but I don't think that the true evil of what he is doing will become clear for months or even years.

In other news the republicans in the house have shown just how ridiculous they are once again by ironically repealing rules they put in place to show how immoral the democrats were but not having similar rules. To give them a tiny amount of credit it does seem that there are a good deal of Republicans out there that disagree with the decision. That doesn't make it ok though... If you want to protect your leader do it in court.

In other news Bush signed a bill raising the government's debt limit by $800 billion more. That is Eight Hundred Billion Dollars enough to buy 60,790,273 2005 Honda Civics at base price (although I am pretty sure that we might be able to cut a deal if we buy in bulk). That is a lot of fucking reliable, economical, fuel-efficient mid sized sedans. For that amount of money you could give each and every American $2750.94. How could you possibly fuck up the economy that much? Our children and our children's children will be paying off the bill for his stupidity and the stupidity of 52% of America for re-electing him.

P.S. The Increase in the debt limit would buy 1,355,932,203,389 pounds of Turkey at my local Giant Eagle Grocery Store.

P.S.S. I hate everyone... Except you.

America: Love it or Leave it

I have been thinking the last few days about my connection to America and what it means to me. In the past my connection to America has been much like that of a boy who doesn't want to acknowledge the similarities he has to his father. It is easy to walk around and feel patriotic without acknowledging the reality of America. It is easy to look at our American Heroes without realizing their faults, some heroes were conquerors, some were slave traders, and some were just men doing what was acceptable at the time but torn between loyalties. Our forefathers were smart guys who knew that this was a country for the poor and downtrodden and the lazy bastards that no one else really wanted and they saw that things were changing around them even as they drafted the documents that would act as a frame for our country. This is why the constitution is a living breathing document that is meant to be changed with the times. I personally think that portraying our heroes with some tarnish on them makes them that much more real and makes their accomplishments that much more impressive. But to this day we feel like we need to protect our children so we give them a partial education consisting of a pantheon of American gods and these same people grow up into adults who don't want the truth because it gets in the way of their day off.

We tell them that Columbus discovered the new world, not that any educated person at that point knew the world was round, that many many other people had discovered it before him, that he wasn't in the ship that originally discovered the main land, that he enslaved Native Americans and would cut off their hands if they did not fulfill their quota of gold, and that he was a discoverer and not a conqueror. But dad-gum he discovered America, hundreds of years after a laundry list of other travelers and Natives. We show our children the accomplishment that is Mt. Rushmore but don't tell them of how it is an unforgivable desecration of the Black Hills a holy area to some Native Americans that is comparable to the crucifix for Catholics.

". . . My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags -- that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it."
Mark Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

The "Love or Leave it" philosophy of America is exactly what keeps us from ever truly having a free country. What the essence of this phrase means is that if you see that something is broken you have two options 1: Shut up and deal 2: Take off and forget about it. They want us to go to Canada so that they end of with a country of ignorant/silent people who don't speak up for what they believe in. I have no problem with love of country but when it comes without the knowledge of the accomplishments and subsequent failings of those who came before you. We don't need historical supermen, the inspirational impact of real men's accomplishments is much more effective.

So back to me, Nathan. I am sick and tired of feeling like a second class citizen in my own country because I feel that a woman should have the right to choose. Because I feel that two dudes kissing is not reason enough to alter the US constitution and limit the freedoms of all Americans. Because I feel that no one other than law enforcement needs to have a handgun... The right to carry arms is to stand up against tyranny and don't think the King of England is going to invade any time soon. Because I feel that Education should be held above the Military (we spend 86% more than China, the second most spendinist military nation in the world). And because I think America should be the world leader in real Freedom and Equality and that we shouldn't limit anyone's freedoms be they black, Jew, gay, handicapped, a smurf, or fucking whatever. We need to get over our petty religious bigotrys and start living up to the promise that our nation truly has.

I am as patriotic as anyone who pickets an abortion clinic or the funeral of a homosexual. I am as patriotic as anyone who feels they are protecting the "sanctity" of Marriage. I can support my troops without supporting a war whose purpose keeps changing to fit the needs of the administration. I am just as patriotic as anyone who says they support their President but doesn't think about the world wide consequences of what he does, how he is limiting scientific progress, and how he uses an unjust war to stay in office, increase the wealth of himself and his friends, and keep a nation in fear just so that he can push forward whatever agenda he feels like. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost but we are a country who doesn't feel the pain of this war because of the racism and the distance that it lets us feel because two planes flew into two very tall, very important buildings 3 years ago and killed our families and friends and forced us to look at the world in the same way that everyone else who has been attacked at home does.

To be continued...

As always, I hate everyone... Except you.

One week later... And the four year countdown hasn't even begun.

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."
- Thomas Jefferson

Ok it has now been half a fortnight now and so far no one has woken me up on Wednesday Nov 3 to tell me that it was all just a bad dream and that the American people did not vote like they just escaped from a mental institution. But I am starting to feel like I am not going to wake up... That the American people did make a colossal mistake and that we have to like with it for the next four years, one month, and twenty days. Not to mention whatever long term effects that this will have with us worldwide.

Now it's time to look at the bright side. Ummm.... Ok.

Now it's time to look at where to go from here. It is fine to joke about it, we all have but if you do move to Canada then you are more ignorant than the people who you believe forced you there. The quickest way to turn a 51% - 48% county into a 62% - 36% country is by abandoning your post.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately and have decided a couple of things. I have a duty to my country to try to shape into the face of true freedom and equality it is meant to be. I hate my government right now but there is shit that I can do about that. I also hate a good deal of the American public, those who stay willfully ignorant but decide to vote anyway there is also shit I can do about that, Americans are lazy by nature and I don't see that changing anytime soon unless a candidate can work their talking points into an Episode of CSI: Miami. What I can do is try my best to keep them in line for now and to make sure that come 2008 that there is a candidate in office that actually deserves to be there and that has the best interests of my country at heart. My country is kind of shitty right now and I want to make it better1.

I am going to think about this a little more and write about it tommorow, until then peace out. And I hate everyone... Except you.




1. Just a quick side note on a pet peeve of mine. Never ever... ever respond to a statement like this with "Well find a better country." I don't give a good goddamn about how our country compares to another country if I see something wrong with it I am going to fix it as best I can.

Bush got more votes for president than any president in history.

So did John Kerry, the only presidential nominee to ever get more votes than Kerry is Bush. I do have to say that it is good to know that people are getting out to vote during this campaign. The good news about this is that Americans are taking more of an interest in their country and starting to live up to the duty of voting. The bad news is that Americans don't understand that the other half of that duty is making an educated vote. You can't just buy into the candidates rhetoric.

Here is a pretty good idea of how I feel about this week's festivities here in good old Ohio.

On another note I just want to mention that Ralph Nader is a dick. This is the first election where I have not voted for Ralph Nader... And frankly despite his statements of "The lesser of two evils is still evil." I still felt like I was voting for the lesser of three evils before. And now I feel like he is actually worse than Kerry but at least more straight forward than Bush. In 1996 I was a bright eyed, bushy tailed 18 year old with stars in his eyes and I proudly wrote in Ralph Nader because I hadn't done any research and I liked the idea of supporting a third party. I would still make this choice in hind sight. In 2000 I voted for Nader because his running mate was an amazing wonderful articulate woman who has some sense and can see that getting Bush out of office is a larger issue right now. Consequently I did not know that she did this until I just tried to google her and was unable to find a website but was able to find that article. As a privledged white heterosexual anti-racist voter I would just like to say that Winona LaDuke kicks major ass and I will vote for her on any and every occasion I can, unless she is running as a third party against Bush.

I will write more on this later but in closing yet again "I hate everyone... Except you."

I'm ready to get to work for the American People.

What the Fuck!? Ready to get to work? Right now and for the last four years you've been the President. I shudder to think what he will do in his second term with a majority in the house and senate and knowing full well that he doesn't need to run a reelection campaign in 4 years. Here is a tiny excerpt of the president answering questions about his reelection...

REPORTER:

"Do you feel more free?"

PRESIDENT GEORGE W.
BUSH:

"Oh, in terms of feeling free, well, I don't think you'll let me be too free. There's... There's accountability and there are constraints on the presidency, as there should be in any system. I feel... I feel... I feel it is necessary to move an agenda that I told the American people I would move.

Something refreshing about coming off an election, even more refreshing since we all got some sleep last night. But there's... you... you... you go out and you make your case, and you tell the people, "this is what I intend to do." And after hundreds of speeches and three debates and interviews and the whole process, where you keep basically saying the same thing over and over again, that when... when that... when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view.

And that's what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as the president; "now let's work..." and the people made it clear what they wanted. "Now let's work together."

And it's one of the wonderful... it's one of the... it's like earning capital. You ask, "Do I feel free?" Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.

That's what happened in... after the 2000 election. I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election, and I'm going to spend it for... for what... what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is-- you've heard the agenda-- Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror."

Lets Translate some of this speech shall we?

---

'the people made it clear what they wanted. "Now let's work together." '

This means that

"A narrow margin of Americans have made it clear that I can do whatever I want. So do what I say or be labeled as a flip flopping lily livered partisan hack with a bad attitude."

---

'Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.'

This means that

"I am going to push through whatever the hell I want. In fact right now I am coming up with a campaign to invade France because they are hiding WMD's in their croissants."

---

"...I told the people I'd spend it on, which is-- you've heard the agenda-- Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror."

This means that

"You see this 'capitol' is kinda like burger king bucks, you have to buy a whopper before the first of the year or your coupon expires. You guys know exactly what I'm gonna do Social Security is going to be bet on the Stock Market so our Senior Citizen can afford only the highest level of cat food to eat, I will make absolutely sure the the bottom 90% of Americans recieve a tax cut comprising of about 3% of the total tax cut, I will move the economy forward by taking credit for stuff that has nothing to do with me, More shitty standardized tests in schools means that low income schools will be even shittier than they are now so that we can keep the minority population isolated an oppressed, and of course what Bush agenda would be complete without the needless slaughter of countless innocents and American Troops. USA! USA!

---

That is one question (about 1 minute) out of a 45 minute question and answer session. And it is a softball question at that. What the hell was America thinking.

CNN Headline: America Has Spoken

... And it's said we're greedy small minded assholes!

I have odd listening patterns in my car when I am on my way to work I have 5 different stations of NPR programmed into my radio all of which seem to play the same programming during the day with varying amounts of static. Their liberally biased coverage helps me get through my long days of killing babies and pushing through the gay agenda.

I do have to give Republicans kudos on a couple of things... First of all they have been able to mobilize the fundamentalist religious base. A group of people that no matter how logical or how many facts they are presented with stay steadfast with their dumbass ideas. This works both in religion and in politics. Religious ideals are one thing and I would never fault anyone on having them no matter how stupid I may think they are. Religion cannot be proven or disproved, you can tear apart the bible all day long but in the end it just comes down to faith. Politics is not religion, you cannot just take it on faith that your candidate will will do the right thing.

The other brilliant thing that they do is in their dodging of questions, and I know that both parties do this but the Republicans are so much more devious about it. And it is not just the big fish, it's everyone from the president down to the guy who cleans GOP toilets. If they are pushed on a question they don't like they first of all try to dodge it, then they answer it in the most vague way possible, and then they attack the interviewer in whatever way possible to try and change the subject, then (if it comes to it) they walk away. They have found a way to say that they have answered the question and walk away without their base thinking anything but that the interviewer is obviously some sort of communist/Nazi/terrorist/collaborator/spy.

It is terrible to have your delicate child like innocence broken. Sure I was already a bitter radical who fought against the establishment but at least I thought that there we a majority of people out there in the country (even if they hadn't voted before) who also understood how important certain things were. I have now realized that most people are not basically good, certainly they probably think they are but most people are more concerned with entertainment value than they are about actual political debate. Most people are more concerned with their own petty little problems then helping their fellow man get clothes, food, housing, education, a job, health care and the like. "I can't pay $40 a year for children to be edjumacated, goddammit!"

Why are Americans voting again schools, why are Americans voting to restrict the rights of other Americans, and why are Americans voting for a man who has killed tens of thousands of people for a war he decided to wage well before September 11, 2001. What the fuck is wrong with us? This is America, we have done terrible terrible things in the past but for the most part we keep moving forward making sure that freedom is our goal. So why now have we set ourselves up in a position where we will be moving backwards for the next 4 years at least and beyond that all our civil liberties are now at stake with whatever judges will be appointed to the Supreme Court.

So what I have decided is that we just need to keep on doing what we have done all along. All the good decent people of this country who truly love it and the ideals that it was founded upon (not so much the actions) have to actually send letters out every single week to their congressmen, their senators, the White House, The President himself, his father, god, and any other entity you can think of who can possibly knock some sense into people in the next 4 years.

Why is America so Dumb?

OK, I am thinking slightly more clearly now than when I was this morning. My first reaction was to look up information about how to immigrate to Canada then I dabbled for a moment with the idea of suicide but finally decided on starting a blog... Mostly because I didn't want to go through the trouble of moving again and I really don't like the sight of blood. So here I am, a pissed off boy from Ohio trying to focus my blinding rage into text.

How is it that we live in a country with more resources for information than any other country in the world, a country with freedom of speech and press, a country where any one who wants it has access to newspapers, books, the news, and the internet. We even have access to other countries sources of information. It is important for me to mention that I love America, but more so in theory than in practice. What I hate is the majority of it's citizenry. America is a country of the willfully ignorant, a country where people care more about a president who will show off than about a president who tells the truth. A lie that has cost thousands upon thousands of deaths, mostly of innocent civilians who are being "liberated" of their need to breath, move, and generally have that rosy glow in their cheeks.

They say the buck stops with the president and while I would never say that the President and his staff of evil, lying, bigots don't share a huge percentage of the responsibility for the mess our country currently finds itself in the buck doesn't stop with them, it stops with you (you assumes that you are a US citizen who has not been legally disenfranchised of the right to vote). I spent 6 hours in the rain yesterday walking door to door to make sure that people got out to vote and that noone was stopped at the polls. It is every person's responsibility to know the facts not just what facts you want to know, you can't just watch fox news and listen to AM radio. The lives of over 1000 US troops are in my hands in your hands and in the hands of anyone who didn't vote Gore in 2000.

It is easy to point fingers but in 2000 there was no way to tell the kinds of evil that this man could possibly visit on this country. As pissed as I was if I had a problem with the electoral college the time to take up that problem is before elections are held. Not after you are pissed about the desicion. And no matter how much corruption there was at the polls, even if Kerry had won I have lost my faith in the American people. And that hurts.

So I am going to try to write about how pissed I am as often as possible so as not to forget about it. I don't care if there is nothing to do about it now. The American people have hung themselves and I am not really happy about it now.

P.S. I hate everyone.