Author: anachronarchrist

I’m not sure, but moving away from this type of stuff is important. The author is a “uniter, not a divider” in the same tradition as Bush.

On the otherhand, it’s sure nice to hear some good venom from time to time.

I also wanted to add that the weed is much better in the new California…

Dear President Bush:

Congratulations on your victory over all us non-evangelicals. Actually, we’re a bit ticked off here in California, so we’re leaving. California will now be its own country. And we’re taking all the Blue States with  us. In case you are not aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington,  Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and all of the Northeast.

We spoke to God, and she agrees that this split will be beneficial to almost everybody, and especially to us in the new country of  California.  In fact, God is so excited about it, she’s going to shift the whole  country at 4:30 pm EST this Friday. Therefore, please let everyone know  they need to be back in their states by then. So you get Texas and all the former slave states. We get the  Governator,  stem cell research and the best beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer. You  get  Ken Lay. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.

We get 85% of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get all the  technological innovation in  Alabama. We get about two-thirds of the tax  revenue, and you get to make the  red states pay their fair share. Since our divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms to support, and we know how much you like that.

Did I mention we produce about 70% of the nation’s veggies? But heck, the only greens the Bible-thumpers eat are the pickles on their Big Macs. Oh yeah, another thing, don’t plan on serving California wine at  your state dinners. From now on  it’s imported French wine for you. (Ouch, bet that hurts!) Just so we’re clear, the country of California will be pro-choice and anti-war.

Speaking of war, we’re going to want all Blue States’  citizens  back from Iraq. If you need people to fight, just ask your evangelicals.  They have tons of kids they’re willing to send to their deaths for  absolutely no purpose. And they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their kids’ caskets coming home.

Anyway, we wish you all the best in the next four years and we hope, really hope, you find those missing weapons of mass destruction. Seriously. Soon. With the Blue States in hand, the Democrats have firm control of 80% of the country’s fresh water, over 90% of our pineapple and lettuce, 92%  of all fresh fruit production, 93% of the artichoke production, 95% of America’s export quality wines, 90% of all cheese production, 90% of the high tech industry, most of the US low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Stanford, Berkeley, CalTech and MIT. We can  live simply but well.

The Red States, on the other hand, now have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care cost spike), 92% of  all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of all tornadoes, 90% of all hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists,  100% of all Televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. A high price to pay for controlling the presidency.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually eaten by a whale,  62% believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% believe that evolution is just a theory, 53% that Saddam Hussein was involved in  9/11 and – most hard to grasp – 61% believe that Bush is a person of moral conviction.

Sincerely,

California

Moral conviction? Perhaps another kind of conviction – but I don’t know about moral.

Dems face this harsh reality:

The Dems are currently reduced in the public eye to what both parties really are: competing election winning machines driven not by consistent ideals or policy goals, but by a balancing of the interests and influence of it’s largest contributing constituencies.

The GOP would like to thing they are not only different but distinct. I’m sorry but the two parties are really just the two heads of a push-me-pull-you beast that needs it’s neck snapped.
The Dems alienated their hawk and crypto-fascist wings in the early to mid seventies. Instead of going away,  they systematically took over GOP policy and have eventually spawned the Bush Doctrine.

The Neo-Cons rule foreign policy (the former Dem hawks) and the Crypto-Fascists rule the military industrial complex (Carlyle Group was started by and is currently run by a Carter admin official among others). And of course, the Bush family is as East Coast Elite as it gets, despite all the creative mailing addresses. All the Dems have left are the little people who remember to vote their interest, academics, various special interest groups, unions or certain entrenched corporations.

In order to come even close to winning elections under these conditions, they have to deal with king maker types (how else did Lieberman get on the ticket), who then can make the call on who is president, and perhaps more importantly, why…

If the Dems want to win based on the popularity of their ideas, they must break their relationships with the king makers and learn to tell their opponents from their own backsides.

A Parallel Systems Approach seems a decent alternative. Instead of whining about this detail or that detail of how the GOP are ruining our beloved system this way or that (‘I have a better plan’), how about creating a parallel socio/economic system. One country, two systems. Let them ride the current corporatism into it’s own firy doom.

Is there any doubt that Hong Kong has made China more capitalist that China has made the Kong commie? An idea is small, but tremendously hard to kill. We need to provide a functioning alternative and competing system, the way Britain did when it sacrificed Hong Kong.

I suggest the Dems promote investment in expanding the free market areas of the internet (no taxes?!!?) to include many of the soon-to-be de-regulated or privatized industries, and promote the conversion of system users from customers to shareholders.  Shareholders can unify and pool power, customers generally cannot. Shareholders reap actual benefits for participating in and promoting commerce. Shareholders vote.

Executed properly, this could extend Clinton era triangulation of  the GOP’s economic conservatives and expand the Dem base from the right without sacrificing the traditional Democratic goals of helping and empowering the little guy. Just lose the shabby means of old, not the the ends.

Let’s say that a few million people tried to buy health insurance last year and for the most part each negotiated as an individual. Some did well, some got screwed, some couldn’t afford it. What would the result have been if they had negotiated as a pool? What about Car Insurance? Utilities? Mortgages?

This was often referred to in the last election in terms of health care. Why doesn’t the gov’t leverage it’s buying power? The answer is that it doesn’t want to because it does not represent the interests of it’s human constituents, rather it’s corporate masters. I think that this is true of both parties and that it seems the Dems are bought off cheaper (always seem to get about 40% of a given corporation’s donations).

To save the nation, the status quo doesn’t have to be stopped or better executed. It needs to be replaced entirely:  Taken over from the inside by supplying what the push-me-pull-you beast promises but cannot deliver. Provide economic security through BOTH the promotion of business and the promotion of the consumer’s power. At very least the little guy could reap some benefits from the eating of our planet.

In later diaries, I’ll ramble on more about this, but suffice it to say, you can both out-conservative the GOP marketing machine (no taxes! free markets!) while also providing the security net so valued by Dems and their voters. Who goes there first is not up to party leadership. It’s up to us!