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WHY 100 MILLION AMERICANS DON’T CARE
By Giles Weaver
Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy.
-- Richard Linklatter/Slackers
 Mere days before America’s 230th birthday, the Supreme Court prevented our representative republic from becoming a constitutional monarchy by one vote. One vote. We have to remember that Germany was called the Weimar Republic before it became the Third Reich. China is called The People’s Republic of China. Peoples? Republic?
George W. Bush was one vote away from coronation. A King of Fools hatched in the back halls of power. And what is Congress up to while our system of checks and balances erodes before our eyes? They want to exhume the Office of Censorship so that evil publications like The New York Times can’t publish stuff everybody already knows. Here is one of the funniest damn things you’ll ever hear: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Isn’t that hysterical? Not that I’m going to rise to the defense of the “mainstream media.” I’m not. The New York Times is a pathetic rag and tool of power. I’m just saying its funny how it doesn’t say, “… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…except when right wing assholes decide they should.” It doesn’t say that… yet.
What else? Congress tried to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning. I read somewhere that you are 60 times more likely to get struck by lightning than see somebody burn an American flag. That says it all.
Oh – and Congress is absolutely positive that they’re definitely going to think about trying to figure out when to schedule a very serious debate about when they should meet to discuss that situation in that place nobody is supposed to think about called Iraq that seems to be getting much better every day except for a bloody civil war. There’s a war on all right – on us.
So, let’s see how “the greatest democracy in the world” is faring on its birthday. In the 2000 Presidential election, of America’s approximate 202 million citizens of voting age, only 110 million of them voted (60%), and in the 2004 Presidential election, of 215 million citizens of voting age, 125 voted (64%). Since the U.S. Census Bureau normally overestimates their numbers, and not accounting for widespread voting irregularities, there are around 100 million Americans who just don’t care. Somehow, they feel left out or disillusioned by the political process. Or perhaps they don’t understand how bad it actually is. Or perhaps they understand that half of 60% is 30%, so our President has 30% of the country’s “consent,” and that’s not enough. I don’t know the answer to that question, but here is a quick list of things that may be considered factors in why 100 million registered voters are withdrawing in disgust (in no particular order):
- Gerrymandering. The Congressional districts in this country are being unscrupulously created to ensure less political choice in our “democracy.” For various reasons of which this is only one, over 90% of incumbents of both parties are returned to Congress and almost every one of those races is a cakewalk. In the rare actual campaigns, the candidate who out fund raises and out smears the other wins. Some representation. This is your representative republic. Are you truly being represented? Or will your district remain Republican or Democratic for the next 100 years while third party candidates are marginalized and out spent? Considering most of these incumbents are either millionaires or tools, the prognosis for the future is grim.
 Electronic Voting Machines. I have a PC that freezes up all the time, and it has so many viruses and spy ware and all sorts of other junk that no software program will get rid of, and I just can’t help but think that perhaps voting machines with the same problems shouldn’t hold the balance of world power in its microchip. These things aren’t secure and aren’t reliable. Time to go back to the good old-fashioned hand count. It’s only the most powerful government in human history. I think it’s worth the time to do a hand count.
 K-Street. I am the lobbyist. I make a living by lobbing the government that represents YOU to make decisions that benefit the corporation paying my salary, not YOU, the public. Sometimes I even help write the legislation that will benefit my acquisition of a summer home while screwing you to the wall. Sometimes I bounce back and forth between a government position and K Street – the revolving door. My favorite new door is being appointed to regulatory agencies that regulate the sector for which I worked. There are no air pollution problems if you just say there aren’t any. See how that works? I’m K Street and I’m here for one reason only – big money. Public policy is for pussies. So vote for your Congressmen and Senators all you want. They’re all our bitches anyway.
- Depleted uranium. Quick chemistry lesson: anything that involves uranium is not safe. Sticking that stuff in munitions that seep into the ground for decades are definitely not safe, and certainly not the action of a benevolent super power. It is cruel. In Vietnam, Agent Orange left a legacy of genetic abnormalities and a tremendous spike in various cancers, many multiple, not to mention American soldiers who were exposed to it as well. But Agent Orange is soooooooooo ‘70s. Get with the times. It’s all about depleted uranium now! Funny, American military doctors and Iraqi doctors are reporting illness and a spike in multiple cancers like the ones Agent Orange left behind. We are occupying a country that we’ve literally poisoned for a generation. Many thousands of Iraq veterans will die young because of cancer. It will happen. I wonder what the latest weapons rage will be then…?
- State run media. The gatekeepers of democracy abandoned their posts long ago. Ten companies own everything and all they care about is advertising dollars and access. With very few exceptions, journalism in America is now nothing more than a language of lies with spectators who are dumb as rocks and all too eager to lap up the most grotesque distortions, manipulations, and out right fraud. Don’t believe anything any of them say. Turn away in disgust. Now.
 The Republican Party. The modern day GOP and its hollow headed followers are quite simply the most venal, destructive, and idiotic political party in American history. Seriously, 230 years of “American democracy” for this? Absolutely detestable in every single possible category.
 The Democratic Party. So pathetically weak and directionless that it should just fold. The Democrats are like the Detroit Lions of politics. What a bunch of losers. I’ve known barnyard animals with more backbone and political acumen. Why these people are even still around is beyond me.
Public Policy. On the Endangered Species list.
- Corporate Socialism. GOD forbid that the government of the United States provides any kind of social safety net to its citizens. Why that would be SOCIALISM! The government must absolutely never provide for its citizens. Those are ENTITLEMENT programs, and the only people who like entitlement programs are devil-worshipping tree hugging liberals who are crazy to think that Mom and Dad should be able to afford their medications in their old age. Oh, yes, and every single American corporate entity in the country, because the government may not want to give YOUR tax money back to you in the form of, say, health care, but they sure love giving YOUR tax money to American corporations who live off massive government contracts, tax breaks, favorable legislation sometimes written by members of that corporation it is benefiting, caps on legal immunity, access to military when interests are threatened overseas, research and development money, grants, etc.., etc., etc. Companies demand “deregulation” while picking OUR pocket at the same time. We don’t have free markets here. Anybody who thinks we have free markets needs a lobotomy. We don’t have anything close to free markets. What we’ve got is a huge corporate-socialist structure masquerading as capitalism. We are essentially a military economy. The $450 billion defense budget keeps our economy afloat and it is all largesse from the taxpayer, or in more recent Republican controlled eras, largesse borrowed from others that will become the liability of future generations. Way to go “budget hawks.” So, yes, of course, there are certain socialist structures we lack, and this is an imperfect analogy on many levels, but money goes from the taxpayer to the government to private corporations. Maybe the term should be corporatist or something like that since there is nothing “social” about this arrangement. If we shifted the defense budget over to the Department of Education our economy would collapse. Then we’d be just a bunch of dumb assholes with no money.
- Corporate personhood. This is the famous doctrine that allows billion dollar companies an “equal” voice in the political debate by being treated as a person under the law. This makes perfect sense, because most of us are billionaires and thus it is easy to have just as much individual influence in an election, or in political arena, as, say, Halliburton or Exxon-Mobil. Doesn’t make sense does it? Corporations, whose sole legal responsibility is to make a profit for its shareholders, control our federal government through K Street Lobbyists and campaign contributions, and expect legislation favorable to their sector in return. Simple pay to play. 30-second attack ads without an ounce of truth or intelligence in them are expensive. In all fairness, if corporations have personhood, then I would like corporationhood. I would like to send all of my payroll tax liability to the Cayman Islands to vanish in some post office box. If anyone ever accuses me of anything, I’d like $1000 an hour lawyers, publicity firms, and media spinners to line up to crush my accuser. I’d like to out source myself – say to Italy. I’d like to have the United States military at my disposal if I want oil in places where people are brown or left of William “Asshat” Kristol. Why should corporations get to be the only people who run rough shod of everything and everyone in their path?
- Repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. Think of the name of this. The FAIRNESS Doctrine. That just sounds, I don’t know, like a Communist and a pagan mated. We absolutely would not want “fairness” happening anywhere in a land founded on the ideal, “All men are created equal.” This one goes to Reagan, that senile bastard, who, last I checked, hasn’t risen from the dead yet to eat the souls of children and puppies like jelly beans. The Fairness Doctrine ensured balanced points of view in our news media. Now look at what we’ve got. It’s nothing short of a national disgrace and embarrassment. The Fairness Doctrine needs to be restored and all these jokers posing as journalists need to be fired.
- The 1996 Telecommunication Act. Way to go Bill. You single-handedly destroyed radio – which is so bad now I can’t wait for it’s ultimate and well deserved demise. Thank God for satellites and the IPOD. Die FM radio Die.
 Federal Communications Commission. The FCC will not sleep until all media companies are rolled into one massive Conglomasauraus Rex headquartered out of China that donates to GOP election campaigns. But don’t worry because since there are so many channels to choose from, diversity will be preserved. Just like in radio. As we speak, current rivals EMI Music and Warner Brothers music are doing the merger dance and will soon one will gobble the other and they will become the 2nd largest music company in the world. It’s just another consolidation/monopoly in the incestuous entertainment -infotainment world. And the F.C.C. is supposed to protect us from all of this. But really what’s happened is they’ve presided over the most monumental deterioration of the media sphere in America since the Fairness Doctrine was repealed and monopolies were and continue to be the latest rage in our “free markets.” Michael Powell was definitely the perfect little imp to head the F.C.C. for so long. He was the perfect poster child for this tool of an agency. Try making a ruling that benefits the PUBLIC! That’s your job. Not acting as brokers for media conglomerates jostling for future revenue streams. You’re bleeding us dry you simpletons.
- Corporate Communism. That’s right all you democracy loving anti-pinko Cold War loving fools. The United States props up the single most sickening communist state on the Earth – China – so that we can fill our big box stores with worthless shit that nobody needs. Once upon a time we really didn’t like China. For example, the CIA flew Tibetan rebels to Colorado to train them to fight the Chinese in the 50s and 60s. We really didn’t think it was such a great thing that China had state run media, cultural revolutions, and imperialist designs in Asia, the jailing of political prisoners, and the use of torture. Then along came Richard Nixon and American corporate interests and we pulled the plug on anything anti-Chinese. Now, we are China’s bitches. They own our debt. We borrow billions from them everyday to pay for our oil fix. In 2005, the trade deficit was over $200 billion in China’s favor. Empty shipping containers pile up at U.S. ports because we’re not exporting anything. Instead of opposing China’s dismal record on human rights we’re emulating it. Here is something to make you think – 30 million people were either killed or died of starvation under Mao. That’s more than Stalin’s purges and the NAZI holocaust combined. That’s who owns us. The pinheads in Congress want to pass “English-only” laws when we should all be learning Chinese. The prevailing attitude is that the Chinese will never pull the plug out from underneath us because their economy is so intimately tied with ours. You think China actually cares about its own citizens? Didn’t you read what I just wrote – 30 million people died. You don’t think they would trade another 30 million to see the United States collapse under the weight of its own pompous delusions? If you don’t, you’re a better person than I am.
 The Christian Right. The Christian Right (aka American Taliban, American Mullahs, Jesus Freaks, Death Loving Armageddon Worshippers, Hypocrites, etc) in this country would be nothing but non-stop comedy if they weren’t so dangerous. If this is the best Jesus can inspire, than its time to find a new messiah. In fact, Jesus Christ is probably the laziest messiah to have ever been dreamt up in our feeble brains. He’s a no-show. He just doesn’t seem very committed from where I’m sitting. Apparently, and I did not know this, he is the Prince of Peace, except in every single American foreign policy decision, in which case he’s a stealth bomber. He can change shapes I guess. He’s also not the Prince of Peace if you’re gay. And when the world ends, sometime in the next couple months according to some quacks, he’s not the Prince of Peace either. He’s a military commander who kicks ass. Somebody really should have proof read the Bible before Guttenberg printed it. Talk about sloppy contradictions.
- First Amendment Zones. These zones are media stage management and the marginalization of dissent. Of course you can speak your mind – just not in the background of the cameras and fenced inside this “freedom is on the march” cage. Yet another brilliant legacy dreamt up in the dark creases of the baby boomer mind. Is there anything they can’t destroy?
- Iraq. ‘Nuff said.
- Afghanistan: Just when you thought it was safe to party like its September 10, 2001, along comes Afghanistan, the war of revenge where we never actually got revenge, got rid of the “enemy,” or finished the job. Now it’s a failed state once again, the British are sitting ducks, the Taliban are resurging, and the CIA unit tasked with hunting down Bin Laden has been disbanded. Is ANYONE feeling safe except Osama bin Laden? I hate to say it, but if it were OSB and Michael Chertoff in a hot dog eating contest, I would put my chips on OSB.
- Israel/Palestine. Who decided that Israel is worthy of receiving $6 billion of YOUR tax money ANNUALLY, for propping up a murderous apartheid regime in the Middle East? They spy on us. They shoot our planes down. They meddle in our foreign policy. We don’t even have a defense treaty with them. Why are they getting all our money? I have a feeling we could use the extra $6 billion a year right here in the U.S. Perhaps New Orleans could use it. I absolutely could care less about any of these idiotic biblical claims on land. Jerusalem should be razed, the Wailing Wall & the Dome of the Rock right along with it, and we should put up a mall. When’s the last time a war was fought over a mall? But that’s not what is going to happen. What’s going to happen is another 38 years of illegal occupation, and the absurd killing of innocent civilians by the Palestinian resistance? Here is one American who is finally sick of both sides. Let them kill each other into extinction. Just stop doing it with MY FUCKING MONEY.
- Torture/Rendition/Gulags/Indefinite Detention. It’s all legal now. The barbarians are at the gate, and they are us. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
- National Security Agency Surveillance Program – the government is spying on us and nobody seems to care. They tell us it’s for “security” but these are the people whose “security” expertise was lacking on 9/11 and who failed to secure New Orleans. Besides the fact that it’s completely unconstitutional, do you want these incompetents trolling through your stuff? Didn’t you see the section on gulags and indefinite detentions? You think that’s just for the brown people?
 Presidential Pardons. Just idiotic. For example, half the people Bush I pardoned ended up in Bush II’s government. Call me stupid, but perhaps people convicted of lying to Congress shouldn’t be allowed to play with the public’s trust again. Guess again. This is America. Everybody is on easy street but you.
- Signing Statements. “You pass the laws and I ignore the laws.” It’s a simple choice – President or Caesar – but not both. Never both.
- Right Wing Talk Radio. I read an article in this months WIRED about the possibility that humans and Neanderthals mixed. I am certain a latent genetic imprint from these “mutants” has experienced a modern resurgence in the form of right wing radio. It has no redeeming qualities, it is not accountable to the truth, and its misinformed audiences make misinformed decisions as a result. It has debased any type of quality debate that once took place in this country’s media, it’s mean-spirited, and is quite simply the slow death of the intellect taking place for all to see.
- Intelligent Design. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! God designs men to think about sex every three seconds, but then makes women, and then on top of that it’s a sin punishable by eternal damnation of the soul. Not only a sin – the ORIGINAL sin. It was sin before sin was cool. That’s not intelligent design, that’s torture. Which is legal again so no worries there.
- The Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Remember this from school? Reagan, that simpering brain dead moron, stopped enforcing it and the result has been 25 years of rebuilding corporate monopolies at the expense of the consumer and the American middle class. Remember the American middle class? I believe there will be an exhibit about it in the Smithsonian this year if you need a refresher course.
- The Department of Homeland Security. Besides developing the dumbest color coded alert system ever, and holding huge press conferences announcing the discovery and arrest of completely fictional terrorist plots, the only thing this department has actually done effectively is track down Democrats from the Texas legislature for leaving the state in attempt to shut down Tom Delay’s gerrymandering of the congressional districts there. What a colossal waste of money, time, manpower, and resources. Oh yeah, they don’t have any resources. Isn’t it funny how there aren’t any terror alerts, or big fake round ups of big fake threats, unless it’s an election year? Non-election year: safe. Election year: you may spontaneously combust.
 The Washington Press Corps. Just when you thought no group of people on the planet could be more useless than the United States Congress, along comes the Washington Press Corps. I wouldn’t trust these sycophants to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich much less guard against encroaching fascism. Why don’t we all cut to the chase and have all these whores drop to their knees and blow Tony Snow in a Pay Per View special.
- The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. The audacity of putting the term “Consumer Protection” in the title of this bill shows what utter contempt our legislators actually have for us. Joe “What’s In Your Wallet” Biden, a Democrat, and others who turn their backs on their duty to represent their constituents best interests, get behind this atrocity of a bill and pass the Orwellian BAPCPA. Here’s how it works. I’m the credit card company and a lobby the government to relax “predatory lending” regulations – i.e. they get to target people who can’t pay them back. They become no better than loan sharks. At the same time they lobby to make it more difficult for people to declare personal bankruptcy. By the time they’ve paid off enough people to get the BAPCPA passed, they’re already making so much money on the predatory lending practices that it doesn’t even matter. Then they dump millions of dollars into advertising campaigns to convince people to use their cards as much as possible, even if they can’t pay, because they want you to go so far deep into debt that they own you for years. It’s kind of like Tony Soprano “busting somebody out.” You bleed them dry. Way to go Biden. You will never be President.
- War on Drugs. Another war we will never win. Incarcerates large numbers of minorities who are shut out of the economic process, pollutes the legal system, wastes billions of taxpayer money with little to no concrete results, and ultimately leads to the death of law enforcement officers and suspects alike. It doesn’t work. Great for the prison business though and of course Jesus frowns on drugs so we better keep funneling blood and money into this worthless exercise in futility
- Star Wars. It doesn’t work. New Orleans is about to be lost forever, but we’re shoving billions of dollars up the Asses of a bunch of defense companies who will never be able to make it work. Ha, ha, ha, the jokes on us because the billions are already spent and we have no new toy and are no more safe. I have one word for you: box-cutters.
- The War Against the African Americans. Everyday, everywhere. I’m guilty. You’re guilty!
The War Against the Homosexuals. I still don’t get it. The only proof the religious quacks have against gay people is some passage in a book that was written by 40 writers over 1500 years. Have you ever told 40 people the same thing? Goddamn get a life.
- The War Against Women. It’s hard to care about the war against women when women don’t give a damn about it themselves, and, in fact, actively participate in the mechanics of their own demise (Republican women this means YOU!). No matter what I think of a woman’s behavior (I think American women are becoming more mean spirited by the day….), I don’t see why they should be subjected to the dark whims of a bunch of religious quacks. Women’s rights are the backbone of any first world country. If Roe versus Wade were to be overturned, many U.S. States would immediately pass laws that are an attack on women’s rights. It would balkanize the country. If we don’t do something about those electronic voting machines, I think that it will happen, and it may just have to happen for young American women to snap out of whatever delusional spell they seem to be under and take note that women had to fight for all their rights and they have to fight too. So lose the attitude. You aren’t entitled to anything. You are foot soldiers like the rest of us.
- New Orleans: I feel safe.
That’s all I can come up with right now. Pretty formidable hurdles unless you have a billion dollars, or a billion dollar company, or both. After 230 years of questionable history, I give the U.S. a C + and that’s only because I’m heavily sedated. I assure you the majority of the time I am withdrawing in disgust. I can’t even watch these pompous self-righteous mongoloids spew their lies anymore without wanting to puke everywhere – and those are just the news anchors.
So get a new plan, Stan. There are only so many good years left before the vote goes 5-4 the other way. You fall asleep one night in a Republic and wake up the next morning in a Kingdom. And wouldn’t that just be the icing on the constitutional cake? 230 years ago American revolutionaries launched a war of rebellion against a monarch and dedicated themselves to forming a union “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” All these years later, their ancestors are either sleepwalking into another monarchy, or zealous participants in destroying what they once fought so dearly to create. Happy Birthday Founding Fathers -- sorry about the mess.
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