2004-06-23
16:47
Have they buried Ronald Reagan yet? I ask because for a while, it looked like Fox News Channel was trying to turn his funeral into a summer replacement series. Good God! Put the man in the ground already. The whole thing was starting to stink of Weekend at Bernie’s. Dragging a man’s rotting carcass around the country is not a memorial,it’s what inbred racists do when a black man whistles at a white woman. I never thought it would take longer to get buried than it did to die of Alzheimer’s.
I became politically aware in the 1980s, so Reagan was an important President to me. I was raised to be a Democrat for two reasons: Number one, I am Irish-Catholic and that’s what the Kennedy’s are, and Number two, I was raised by a single mother who was a social worker so, believe it or not, she was not a huge Reagan fan. In fact, she was downright liberal! So I was too. When I was 13, I put up signs for Mondale-Ferraro, when I was 11, I wore a t-shirt that said “my body my choice.” This, of course, was back before the word “liberal” had taken on the same connotation as communist or known sex-offender. This was back when being liberal or conservative just meant a different way of looking at things and not a reason to be mortal goddamn enemies. Let’s face it, the Democrats and Republicans are no longer political affiliations, they are rival street gangs that feel the annihilation of the other is the best answer for our country. The congressional motto has become “they pull a knife, you pull a gun, they put one of yours in the hospital, you have a federal inquiry on everyone they have ever fucked”, okay, that’s not the official motto but it should be. What is it going to take for these people to realize that there is no them and us, there is only us.
One of my favorite examples of the perceived importance of partisanship is when the news identifies someone’s political party when it has nothing to do with the news story. Last month, where I live in Oregon, it was reported that a man named Neil Goldschmidt (former Governor, Secretary of Transportation, and Mayor of Portland) had been screwing a 14-year-old girl while he was the mayor. The story was shocking enough, but the reports kept listing him with that “D” after his name to identify him as a Democrat. Oh yeah, like him being a Democrat has anything to do with him being a goddamn pedophile. Why don’t they just categorize him as Neil Goldschmidt-Yankee Fan or Neil Goldschmidt- Jew. By the way, slightly off the topic, Goldschmidt was in his mid-thirties when he started schtooping the 14-year-old, and the abuse went on for 3 years. He can’t be arrested on statutory rape charges because the Statute of Limitations has run out, so people are saying that he got away with it but let’s look at the facts people. If you were in your mid-thirties, you can’t just continually have sex, there has to be some talking. And really, isn’t having to have a conversation with a 14-year-old girl punishment enough?
But back to the point, your saying to yourself, sure Aug, we think the whole partisanship thing is a problem too, but what the hell do you want me to do about it? Well I’ll tell you, my mother taught me not to trust Reagan. Not because he was a Republican but instead because he was in power. That’s right America, there are no Democrats or Republicans, only those in power and the rest of us. It is time to find common ground and that ground should be to mistrust and despise all people in power! What I’m telling you is that it is possible to disagree with both Clinton and Bush. What I’m saying, is that it is all American’s right, no, repsonsibility, to bitch and complain no matter who is in power, or what letter comes after his name.
