Hi friends. The following text appeared yesterday,
November 6,2000, on
gop.org. Obviously from the nature of the views expressed,
the site had been hacked and someone substituted their own message.
I thought it might be fun, considering it's
Election Day, to deconstruct
the writers message.
Also, for the record, I am a conservative, but
am not a fan of George W. Bush. If Liberman had been running for President
with someone else as VP on the ticket I would have voted Democrat.
The text was taken from www.attrition.org, and is titled "thieves like
us". The words in parenthesis and italics are mine. The only changes I have made to the text were fixing some
mis-spellings.
San pointed me to a mirror of the page can be seen here: http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/2000/11/06/www.gop.org/
this
hack has not been sanctioned by a
political party or
candidate.
welcome to one of the former main webpages of the gop.
take a minute to read:
As my dear friend Thomas
Paine once said, these *are* the times that try men's' souls. We're faced
with the realization that the united states government was never meant
to scale to the level at which it currently sits. It seems hard to believe
that those distinguished gentlemen, sitting back in that dusty hall in
Philadelphia, ever imagined a nation as large and as populous as our own.
Indeed, Jefferson himself faced the first indicator of this woeful inability
to scale when faced with the Louisiana Purchase. It came down to this great
man, who had crafted so much, that for all their wisdom and caring and
structure, they had made a country in which there were no rules set for expansion.
And ever since, this maxim, this lack of foresight in men so far sighted,
has throttled and crushed this nation in so many different ways.
(So far I am in complete agreement with him.)
George W. Bush would make
a great president for those states which traffic not so much in decency
but bigotry. Not acceptance but hate. Not love but fear. There is no sense
of human camaraderie amongst those who live south of the Mason-Dixon line.
At least, no camaraderie for those whose appearance is not completely and
utterly similar to one's own self.
(The last paragraph sounds
quite Clintionian in it's phrasing and alliteration. And just like
some of Al Gore's statements this political season, it's only purpose is
to impose an us-vs-them mentality. I may be young and idealistic,
but I think when everything else is removed most Americans would
help/support any other. I had a hard time realizing this until John McCain's unsuccessful campaign this spring. He seemed to unite the
great silent moderate America who doesn't subscribe to the values attributed
above.)
So gays, blacks, latinos
(who Bush won 80-odd percent of in Texas in his last
state wide campaign), and even women, (once they've been knocked
up and sent into a nine month hibernation until they can produce a male
heir,) are treated as less than human. They're not even given the 3/5ths
that slaves once were. Their manifest destiny is serving that great tyrant,
the straight white male.
And don't presume that I'm
unaware of how cliche that may sound. But sometimes, lord, sometimes cliches
prove to be a great truth. (And sometimes they're
just cliches.) And there is no greater truth in American than the
straight white male's dominance and his Aesopian desire to keep it.
(Well put - even though I do not agree with the statement)
I myself seem to be the very same thing as all the other swine who run
this country. For a guy like me, a vote for Bush is like a vote for continued
prosperity.
But as the scum also rises,
so the sun also sets.
I can not conscience vote
for Bush. A vote for Bush is a vote for myself. A vote for Bush is a vote
for myself at the expense of everyone else living in this strange and savage
land. (Why the self hatred? Can't someone in
power care for others with out the guilt?) For whatever reason,
be it upbringing, my parents, or perhaps even brain damage, I reject the
idea of voting simply for myself. A vote should be cast not simply on personal
issues, but on one's feeling on how your vote will affect the
whole country.
Voting for Bush would be
voting for myself and voting against anyone not like me. We don't need
to talk about the supreme court, or Al Gore's endless babbling about that
tax cut for the top 1%, (With a graduated tax system,
any across the board tax cut will go mostly to the rich, simply because
they pay the most in taxes.) because like your fuzzy mathed lockboxes,
it's seared into the American consciousness. I don't need give you reasons.
If you can not see them yourself, then nothing will ever remove the blinders.
Gore isn't the best of men,
but I refuse to be stuck in the same arrested adolescence as all of America's
luxury classed celebrities, who presume that you can only vote for a candidate
if his views tally 100% with your own. (I may be
misunderstanding the last sentence, but is he trying to state that Gore
isn't a luxury classed celebrity? In fact most of luxury class
support the Democratic party; just look at who attended their convention.)
That is the folly of the spoiled. Nor can I pretend that the differences
between Gore & Bush are unpronounced. (I would
like the writer to honestly state a difference. They are both just
politicians who never say anything, so they never offend anyone.
Nader, McCain and Bradley (and Keys even though he's a wacko) were the
only candidates to ever just answer a question with out looking at a script
or poll data.) If you believe that, then Bush has played you as
he wanted to play you. He's run as a moderate Democrat on Democrat issues.
It amazes me that all you woeful cynics of the political process who don't
buy the hype have bought the hype so
deeply.
Bush is a man whose entire
life has been spent in the shadow of a superior father, and remembering
back to those awful days (End of the Cold War - freedom
across Eastern Europe?) of 1988-1992, it's hard to imagine Sr. being
very superior to anyone, but Dubbya has used the Senior as his prototype.
He's the classic Oedipal (valid point), even
if that does mean we must consider the horrific possibility of School Marm
Barb having sex with either George. He's spent his entire life trying to
please his dorky father, and once he gets in office, do you think that's
going to change? He'll mirror Papa's policies as quickly as hate crimes
legislation can be shot down. (Can anyone honestly
make a valid argument for hate crimes legislation? Isn't it enough
to convict someone for what they did? The only way a criminals motives
should be judged are philosophically or medically. Because if a person
is guilty of murder, shouldn't society be equally appalled by the act regardless
of who the perpetrator and victim are?)
Again, Gore ain't the best
of men, but he's a good man, and he's a smart man.
(Woodrow Wilson was a smart man, but he also was one of our weakest Presidents.)
He may very well be smarter than any man who has ever been President. He's
a fascinating intellect, and while he's a little to the right of where
I wish he'd be, at least he truly understands governmental
compassion, rather than giving it the thin lipped service of W.
This election won't affect
me in any way. Either way, I'm going to float to the top. However, I comprehend
the effects of my vote on the rest of the populace, and can not be irresponsible
with it. I must vote, as dear self aggrandizing Ralph Nader & his chorus
of increasingly irrelevant celebrities have said, "my conscience". My conscience
tells me that I shouldn't fuck over people over for my own self, nor should
I maintain some lofty ideal of a true progressive movement when that self-same
progressive movement can't attract any minorities or gays, and serves as
the political equivalent of a country club for the spoiled and overpriviledged.
(Didn't he just describe Gore?)
As such, I must vote Gore,
and I urge you to do so.