Awesome Video

http://famousdc.com/2008/10/27/you-can-vote-however-you-like/

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Can I Vote Yet?

[sigh]

Only 6 more days (or 7 or 8 depending upon the level of GOP-sponsored voter suppression in your area) until Election Day. This will easily be the most excruciating, painful, nerve-racking, torturous 6 days in recorded history. The level of self-prescribed medication required to keep me (relatively) sane during this entirely asinine political process has been astounding.

The suspense is killing me--are the tracking polls accurate? Will enough young people vote? Will the GOP succeed in stealing another election? Are those who are still claiming to be 'Undecided' (side note: how the fuck are you still undecided?!?!?) really just hiding the fact that they won't vote for a black man? What will happen if Obama loses? By the way, none of these questions are effective sleep aids, in case you were wondering.

[sigh]

I remember the good old days of the 2004 Presidential Election when I wasn't so much voting for a candidate (Kerry) as I was voting against one (Bush). Or even going back to 2000 when I didn't even bother to vote (Gore = meh, plus I always thought Lieberman was a joke--you want to do what with my videogames??). Oh disaffection, why have you abandoned me? What happened to the aloof Scrap Heap Pete I came to rely on for snarky, pessimistic sarcasm? Obama, I love you, man, but why have you made me care so much? To be honest, all this caring is kinda painful.

But after the sweet release of Nov. 4 (depending on the outcome), I may finally be able to get a good night sleep again.

And more importantly, at long last I can go back to not giving two shits about politics and I can focus on what is really important: UFO conspiracies.

Drunk Indian for Obama

McCain can have the squash, this drunk Indian is all Obama. Woo hoo!

Politically-Astute Pumpkin

photo source

Everybody Needs to Chill The Fuck Out!

My liberal friends, take a short memory ride with me for a moment. It’s January 2001. A month earlier, the Supreme Court stopped the recount and handed the presidency to George W. Bush. Protests of his inauguration are planned. (Dude hadn’t even taken office, and we were already protesting the motherfucker.) You know he’s going to be incompetent. You saw through all that compassionate-conservative bullshit and that $200 tax rebate bribery scam. You’ve been pissed since early November, and little do you know, you’re going to stay pissed for eight more years. It’s that anger I want you to remember. Remember the hate. Remember the way you pronounced “W” like it was an expletive (George W. Bush). It was damn near an act nonviolent protest the way you pronounced that “W.” Remember how inarticulate you became when he was brought up in conversation. Remember how many stammering “asshole, shit, fuck… shitting fuckerhole” remarks you made in front of your girlfriend’s Republican parents, unable to hide your venomous rage. Remember the times when that anger turned to despair, convinced that we had indeed become Rome. And this was our fall.

I’d like you to remember because that vitriol and bitterness are exactly what we’re seeing from conservatives right now. We’re really not that different: when our side doesn’t win, we get pissed. (Some of us get so pissed, we take our ball and move to France, but that’s a different story.) Barack Obama has gained a sizable lead in every poll imaginable and conservatives are freaking the fuck out. And that hatred is boiling over right now. Sure, it could be racially motivated (the way the McCain ticket is almost constantly race-baiting, that wouldn’t be a surprise), but the more and more I think about it, the more I think this:

We’ve been taught to hate each other. From the time we choose our political identity, we’re taught that the other side is corrupt, incompetent, and evil. As a liberal, I’m accused of being an elitist, soft on crime, and anti-family bleeding heart who wants to give rich people’s money to those who don’t want to work. And the other side is filled with toothless, uneducated, anti-choice bigots who only want guns to make up for their little dicks.

For whatever reason, this country lives in constant division: white/black, gay/straight, right/left, north/south. And it’s precisely this division that prevents us from truly making any progress. These divisions only give us someone to blame, someone to point a finger at and say, "My life isn't what I want because of them."

If we’re constantly being wedged apart by issues like abortion, welfare, or immigration then we will never be able to really see the whole picture, the proverbial forest right in front of our eyes. This prevents us from living harmoniously together, stops us from pursuing our own happiness, and blinds ourselves to the fact that maybe, just maybe there are more important things in this world than our petty differences.

It’s like on "Lost," when Jack says, “We either live together, or we’re gonna die alone.” Slowly, but surely, in our own myopic ways, we’re all dying alone.

Now who’s to blame for that shit?

This Is But A Small Example Of The Trash We're Dealing With...

Smug Racist Fuckers: Exhibit B

This Is But A Small Example Of The Trash We're Dealing With...

Smug Racist Fucker: Exhibit A.

The Coded Racism of the McCain/Palin Ticket

Six or seven years ago I worked at a video store in Takoma Park, Maryland. It was one of those independent type of video stores -- heavy on foriegn and cult films, with movies categorized by their director -- nestled in the charming Old Town square of a wealthy, white, pseudo-liberal enclave. One Sunday, I worked the morning shift alone. I liked Sunday morning shifts. Almost nobody rented or returned movies, and I was free to get high, get some food, and watch movies all day. This particular Sunday was especially slow because there was some sort of art/folk/hippie fest going on down the street to distract my usual customers. Some time around mid-morning, this white lady rushes through the door with a video to return. She slams it down on the counter and says to me, "This is late, but I'll have to pay for it later. There's a bunch of black people standing by my car."

I remember being stunned. I can't believe she just said that to me. I can't believe I look like a person that another person would look at and think, "Yeah, he looks racist. We can be racist with one another." Fuck me.

After that brief shock, I looked out the window to where she had parked, and the "bunch of black people" standing on the curb by her minivan was, in fact, a family of four. A mom, a dad, and two preteen kids, no older than 10.

This is what racism in America has become. It's no longer explicit and out in the open. It lives in cul de sacs and board rooms and the neighborhood bar, where white people feel comfortable with other white people and feel free to say what they truly feel. And when it does see the light of day, it lives in carefully coded messages that only those who share similar feelings would even pick up on.

This is how John McCain has chosen to run his presidential campaign.

John McCain, at last night debate, speaking about an energy bill that was supposedly rife with evil earmarks: "You know who voted for it? You might never know. [pointing at Obama] That one. You know who voted against it? Me."

John McCain is one racist motherfucker. "That one?" Really? The backbone of bigots everywhere is to dehumanize the targets of their hatred. But more importantly, "that one" allows McCain to cast his opponent as "the other," as "one of them." It's code for "the blacks" or "the gays" or whoever is different and must be feared. It's an easy, covert way to call Obama a terrorist, a Muslim, an elitist, a black guy. These are things that John McCain is counting on that you'll fear, but more importantly, that you'll hate. You wouldn't vote for one of them, would you?

So every time you hear Sarah Palin say community organizers don't have job responsibilities (read: "black people don't work"), or you see the white lady on "The View" say that Obama is hiding facts about his life (read: "you just can't trust blacks"), or you watch anything on Fox, just remember: the white sheets and burning crosses might be absent, but the sentiment remains the same.