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  ...presents...              Political Rant #1
                                                         by THE NIGHTSTALKER
                                                         09/01/1997-#339

             __///////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\\__
               \\\\\\\/  Everything You Need Since 1986  \///////
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 |___heal_the_sick___raise_the_dead___cleanse_the_lepers___cast_out_demons___|

It's 1997, Mourning in America. Hillbillies hold the White House, Illiterate 
ideologues command the House and Senate. The only voice of reason in the 
tripartite of Government seems to be the Supreme Court. (However, their
decisions on cases heard today won't be known until later this year, so God 
only knows what lunacy may result.)

Rush Limbaugh still rules the airwaves, with Howard Stern a close second. If 
Howard would JUST STOP OBSESSING with tits and pussy and lesbians and all 
that other stuff, and be the articulate intelligent individual we know he is, 
he could be the Anti-Rush, and maybe get some of those dittoheads actually 
thinking about freedom and inalienable Rights, and not obsessing about some 
illegal immigrant (read: someone with non-white skin and an accent) who has 
actually gotten his/her child into a Public School! Or worse, had the 
effrontery to actually have given birth to a child within our Sacred Borders, 
which makes that little brown tit-sucker an American Citizen, with all the 
Rights and privileges thereto. Makes ya wanna puke, don't it, Rush?

But wait, surely there's someone in America that knows the score and wants 
to make some changes? What, you mean The Youth of America? Sumimasen, 
gaijin-san, as I laugh 'till I hemorrhage.  This is Generation X, Slackers, the 
"Whatever" generation. All they care about is hip coffee and maybe getting 
another part of their body pierced or pigmented.

OK, what about the teenagers?  Too many of them seem to be more interested 
in going to raves or just plain getting high (Remember kids, Just Say No... to 
overpriced, underpowered dope! Sez MacToke, the drug-sniffing dog. "Just, Ah 
say, just say no to Some Drugs!" Says Senator Helms, who is both pimp and 
whore for the Tobacco Cartel, when he isn't sniffing bicycle seats.)

But there is a small minority of people, mainly kids who've grown up with a 
joystick in their hands, who have rewired their brains to take in huge
amounts of information at one shot, filter the crap and distractions and make 
The Right Decision instantly. For whatever reason, videogames (and computer 
games on the family PC) seem to Do Something to kids at an early age.  Maybe 
they just see the computer as their gateway to better games and don't want 
the grownups to turn off the supply by such things as the Communications 
Decency Act. (Hey, didja know about Senator Exon's Little Blue Book? He had 
this binder, fulla dirty pictures he had downloaded for him offa the Net. He 
really liked to carry this around with him and show it to fellow Senators and 
Congresscritters. You might say he gets a big kick out of sneakernetting porn 
around the Capitol. Hmmmm.)

So there's one group who's interested in freedom and being left alone by Big 
Brother.

Then there's the cypherpunks. I think the only reason they really exist is that 
they enjoy pissing off the Feds with their encryption hijinx. Thanks 
for the PGP, Phil! You're OK in my book. (You're shit in Janet Reno's book, 
though. But by me, that's REAL street cred!)

There's also the more literate and aware members of the cyber-community
(hey, I used the word cyber, does  this make me one of the digerati? Huh?) 
who actively work to promote freedom on the Net (oooh, there's another hip 
term from the Digital Zeitgeist. Screw you, cDc, I'm sending this to WIRED 
so I can be a Digital Pundit!) and restrict the overarching influence of the 
inbred Kallikaks and Jukes' in the House and Senate. (Paw! Junior's lookin at 
the ladies underwear in the Sears catalog agin! Well, lock out that site and 
update Net Nanny! I gots to go slop them hawgs agin!  "And when shall I say 
you'll be back in your office, Senator?")

In their own feral way, the political majority in the House and Senate dimly 
realize that there is a threat to their authority Out There, and it has
something to do with this thing called the Net (and as Bob Dole sez, "The net 
is a good thing to use to access the Net... Now for some STAGE
DIVING!") and that scares them. The can't control the content, they can't 
control where it goes or who reads it, and the whole flipping point of
Congress is to MAKE LAWS, and the whole point of A Law is to enforce control 
on someone or something.

On a very basic level, which most people really don't want to think about, ANY 
law passed by Congress implies that the United States Government will do 
whatever it takes to make you obey that law, up to and including killing you.
How do you kill data on the Net? You can't. You can only kill the Net, and 
there's too much money being made for that to happen anytime soon.

The "Computer Underground", once made up of people interested only in free 
software, free phone calls, and flaming each other's hardware, now finds
itself having to actually think about politics and strategies. They have to get 
involved in the political process, they may actually have to go out and vote, 
fer crissakes!

Some fall into the bottomless pit of Libertarianism. Talk about masturbating 
with both hands!  Some advocate anarchism, some actually know what they
are talking about when it comes to anarchism. (Most people, under the age of 
twenty who have computers or read 'zines, consider anarchy as something to 
do with stinkbombs during school assemblies. uh huh huh huh huh, he said 
'ass'!) Kropotkin would weep!

The sad thing is that the only people who actually vote are those who actually 
care about what's happening. Some vote the way Rush tells them to vote (and 
if Rush told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it? "DITTO!!!"), some vote 
to try and do the Right Thing, whatever that might be, and some vote merely 
for one or two items on any given ballot.

I feel that the North American peoples are fundamentally decent, and can be 
trusted with banned books and free choice in abortion and fundamental rights 
for everyone regardless of sex, color, religion or perverted unnatural sexual 
obsessions. (Faggots thinking they've got the same rights as normal folks. 
Absolutely disgusting.  Oh. look, there goes J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson. A 
couple of REAL Americans!) It's just that it's hard work keeping up with 
what's going on locally, let alone nationally, to make that difference
politically. Which is why Limbaugh can sway people. He's a brilliant man, 
speaks well and is skilled in the use of rhetoric. He's also devastatingly funny 
and an equally brilliant satirist. His gag commercials are hysterical.

Pete Wilson, governor of California can tell people that Mexicans are taking 
your jobs and eating your pets, too, and get away with it. People see all these 
Mexican laborers sneaking over the border and taking jobs for miserable
wages and make that assumption that yes, my job is endangered too. Well, 
maybe if you do shit labor like washing out garbage trucks for minimum wage. 
But by using the "Mexican" as a stalking horse, Wilson got re-elected to 
office. He's still got his power and his job for another few years.

And this is why the Right has such sway over the voting populace. They are 
masters of the sound bite. Something that takes ten seconds to say and
resonates with the voters, yet takes 30 minutes (at least) to refute and 
requires a blackboard, reference works and an audience that wants to invest 
the intellectual time and effort to listen and digest and independently
confirm the proofs of your refutation. Good Luck getting THAT to happen
anytime soon, Sparky!

The big problem with the Liberal/liberal/left political scene is the 
overwhelming insistence on arguing over the smallest details, as if the lives 
of every sodding Spotted Owl depended on it.

I once heard from a lesbian friend of mine how a meeting devoted to selecting 
a candidate to endorse devolved into a hour-long emotional debate
over whether or not it should be spelled "woman" or "womyn". Jesus Red
Roaring Christ! Anyone who cares about that and holds up everyone else,
should be flogged, as should the people who let her get away with that sort of 
thing in the first place.

Consensus is the Holy Grail of the Left/Liberal community. When Lyndon
Johnson rammed through the Voting Rights Act and diverse social welfare
acts, he didn't care a fat rat's ass about 'consensus', you voted how you were 
told to vote... or else. And LBJ had the juice to enforce that 'or else', as did 
Harry Truman, FDR and JFK. Jimmy Carter, Mr. Consensus himself, couldn't 
even wipe his ass without consulting half a dozen people. Richard Nixon, 
slammed through significant welfare improvements and benefits, thanks to 
his having the very balls of most of Congress in his pocket. The Republicans 
didn't like it, but screw 'em, consensus wasn't in his vocabulary, either!
Seems to me that what we need is another charismatic leader, ala' FDR or 
JFK, someone who can motivate the people to do the right thing. Or at least,
another LBJ, who knows where ALL the bodies are buried and is willing to 
pass out the shovels.

Forgive me if I don't hold my breath waiting for THAT to happen. Looks like
Al Gore will be our first President of the 21st Century, Hey, Macarena.

God's Sweet Mercy on us all!

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