When you surf over to The New York Times the morning before Election Day and see the headline “Offering G.O.P. as 2010 Version of Change” over the teaser “John A. Boehner, who hopes to be the next speaker, is running against Washington after 18 years in Congress,” it’s easy to spit coffee into your keyboard and consider drastic action, like hanging yourself or someone else.
Rewarding this conniving, pumpkin-colored ward heeler with a majority in the House and the speakership on top of it is like electing the dog speaker of your house after he gets into the garbage and then shits all over the living room.
The stormcrows in the media have spent months awk-awk-awking about the ass-whuppin’ the Donks are gonna get on Tuesday, and now it’s upon us. Part of me hopes we get it, in spades. A nation with an attention span measurable in nanoseconds, which oscillates improbably and inexplicably from Clinton to Bush to Obama, deserves a righteous, brass-knuckled, wake-the-fuck-up sort of dope-slap.
Of course, this would mean that the innocent would suffer alongside the guilty. So instead I choose to think about the crowds that stormed our house last night for Halloween. It was a bumper crop of costumes, a record turnout that wiped us completely out of candy for the first time ever, and there wasn’t a single, solitary sourpuss among the escorting parents despite our yard full of signs pimping Democratic candidates in solidly Republican Bibleburg.
You could take this as a sign of the dire times — can’t afford food, so let’s hit the streets for some free sugar — but I’m going to vote against my own best judgment and call it a sign of (what else) hope.
“You know, I think there are more of us than they think,” said a passer-by the other day, applauding our choice of candidates.
Let’s hope so. Get out there and pull those levers, folks. Unless you like the idea of having the Great Pumpkin two steps away from the presidency.
Mad Blog Media 
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a dope slap with any lasting effects. After all, if eight years of Chaney/Bush weren’t enough to provide the masses with a lasting memory, what would work?
I’ve been amazed at something ever since the whole mid-term electioneering began about two years ago, and that is American’s “me want, me have to have NOW” mentality. The guy has been Prez for less than two years, he’s had only 21 months to clean up Bush’s mess, and everyone thinks that unless we’re back to the go-go years of the late 1990’s (thanks, no doubt, to Reagan), then he’s a failure. By contrast, and to see how much more ridiculously impatient Americans are today, look at the Great Depression: it starts under Hoover in late 1929, and FDR gets elected in 1932. By 1936, four, not two, FOUR years later, the Depression is still going strong, soup kitchens are common, and the Dust Bowl is as dusty as ever. But instead of everyone crying that the “change” they got wasn’t enough, they re-elect FDR in a landslide.
The Great Depression was far, far, FAR worse than what we got, yet people were willing to give FDR the time he needed to clean up the mess. But not today’s descendants of the Greatest Generation, no, they gotta have what they want NOW!
Spoiled brats.
I think we were dope-slapped for 8 long years and we’ll likely be dopey from said slapping for many more to come. It’s enough to make you wonder if we’ll ever wake up from the 8 year barrage.
Meanwhile, look what Great NPR Pumpkin left in my inbox this morning.
No matter who wins or loses tomorrow, one huge problem will remain. Can someone explain why funding for social programs, unemployment and the like ALWAYS face the idea that only limited funds are available, but when it comes to funds for murdering or enslaving our enemies (and quite often our friends too) the budget is LIMITLESS? Don’t tell me how this happens, I know that much. What I DON’T understand is WHY we continue to let it happen?
Because there’s not enough of US to get together to outvote THEM, Larry. Or at least we’re too spread around the country to mount a serious challenge to those powers. Oh, and there’s that bit about being woefully underfunded compared to the competition.
On another note some of those words up there(Great NPR…etc) are a link….I have no idea why they aren’t orange like other clickable links on here.
Ciao Barry, Your argument would mean that MORE folks are happy with the limitless budget for war and are actually glad that social welfare plans get shorted than vice-versa. I have a tough time believing that more Americans want the military-industrial complex to get whatever it wants while anyone not connected to that gravy-train gets pretty much nothing. My wife explains these things with her classic, “people are stupid” which I have to admit, explains a lot, but I still have a tough time understanding why Americans are unique in this way. Few (if any) civilized countries shortchange their citizens to spend ever-more on military might. We’re right up there with North Korea I’d guess! I read somewhere that China spends the around $70 billion a year on their military while the US of A spends $700 BILLION. There’s something extremely f#$%’d up about that! Americans need to wake up and put a stop to this insanity.
I’m not sure where this fits into our political discussion here, but it does, I think… somehow.
Bass Pro Shops my friends:
http://jalopnik.com/5679038/the-perfect-toyota-truck-for-the-zombiepocalypse
Why?
Because the people to remind us of our stupidity are lapping the shit that is being fed to them by the dogs of politics. In other words, the media has failed to rekindle our hatred for simplicity for the chance to be quick, easy, and well, simple.
When was the last time you read, saw or heard a coherent, thought provoking piece of opinion in a mainstream media outlet that didn’t sound (or feel) like something you would get from the talking menu board at KFC? Heck even the more ‘liberal’ media has been guilty of this. Instead of a 30 second ‘report’ about the ills of , we need a 30 minute report that uncovers all of the problem.
Not too difficult, really. Just not too profitable. No one that I know of is going to listen to NPR, or watch PBS, for an in-depth report on the depression that is afflicting the country because it just wouldn’t draw people in. Maybe the ‘liberal’ media should hire MIchael Bey to produce a short media piece about the problems at hand. It could have exploding houses, flying cars (because we all know that those are “just around the corner”), lovable characters which can be packaged in Overly Euphoric Meals, and maybe a storyline. Then people will pay attention.
I’m moving to Italy. Larry T, I need a job.
My McAfee security system blocked that Toyota truck link, David; said it tried to download a system change.
As far as people voting against their interests? I think Orwell (or was it Goebbels?) got it about right. Say the same weird shit often enough, esp. on FAUX News, and it sticks. The slow dumbing-down of America has worked. History is reinvented and the Volk don’t even know it. I’d bet that half the voters think the Great Depression is something that happened in Buffalo after the Bills lost their forth consecutive Super Bowl.
Seems to me the only explanation for working stiffs voting Republican is the Stockholm Syndrome. I haven’t been this bummed since the 1984 election. But the Dems really blew it.
When I finally move to Italy for good it’ll be to RETIRE! Meanwhile, we’ll continue to spend as much time as possible there between the cycling tours and the wife’s academic exploits. Her college wants a satellite campus over there and she’s the woman to set up and run it…and if I behave I think I get to come along! Actually I probably don’t REALLY have to behave, just make sure the cappuccino’s delivered to the bedside each morning..after that I can do whatever I want! And YES, I do know that I’m quite likely the luckiest bozo on earth, so don’t post a bunch of snarky crap to remind me about it!