2008 Elections: Paranoia Sets In

Yaknow, the Republicans, for the past couple of decades, have shown that they march in lockstep to promote the interests of a small core of wealthy, greedy elite.

Note to "low-information" people: The real elite are the CEOs pulling down salaries of $10m and up per year, with personal fortunes in the hundred millions and billions. Yaknow, people like, oh, Cindy McCain, Dick Cheney, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ken Lay, the Bush family.

We've seen them pander to the Religious Right to pull poor and working-class voters to the polls to vote against their own interest and for the wealthy. We've seen them toss the Religious Right under the bus once they achieved their aim.

Let's face it, the Capital Gains tax benefits only those who have large amounts of capital. If all you have to leave to your kids is the house or the family farm or a couple of million in investments, you don't benefit from repealing the Capital Gains tax. But Cindy McCain benefits a hella lot. And your schools, parks, libraries, roads, bridges, military, hospitals, colleges, dams, levees, and other civil institutions suffer from lack of funding. Which, if your federal, state, and city governments want to keep providing services for you, must be funded somehow. So if Cindy McCain doesn't pay Capital Gains tax, the government cuts the budget for maintenance of, say, the federal highways. Or gives your city or state less money for your 'flu shots. Or your kid, who serves in the military, gets inferior equipment.

It's gotta come from somewhere, right?

So we all know the Republicans have always had this formidable machine, because the Treasury is full of taxpayer dollars and these wealthy, greedy scumballs want to keep siphoning it off. The Dubya years have been the worst illustration of that, as war profiteers and ruthless contractors won no-bid contracts by bribing their friends in the Republican Congress (think Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, people like that). Well, the election's got everyone in a fever, and we're taking our eye off the ball again, people. We're looking at pathetic old John McCain and thinking, "No way in hell is that guy gonna win this thing. Shoot, some days he needs GPS just to find his ass with both hands, a flashlight, and ass-labelled arrows everywhere."

Could be, could be. But what will the immensely powerful and greedy wealthy people do to ensure that our tax dollars keep flowing towards their pockets? Well, one of the remaining candidates has been funded by corporate bigwigs from the charming girlfriend-beater Chris Albrecht (how feminist is that?) to Vinod Gupta, CEO of Info U.S.A. A look at the size of donations handed to Senator Clinton by these hard-headed businessmen tells us a lot right off the bat. People like them are not known for giving money to anybody without expecting something in return. If they done paid for the lady's ticket, she's gonna have to dance with 'em.


Then there's the Other Candidate. Brian told us yesterday that he found Barack Obama before we did. It's true. If not for Bri we'd probably be sitting around going Bar-who? Thanks, Bri.

So there's Barack Obama. He's in the home stretch now, heading for the victory. He has more popular votes than Senator Clinton, more pledged delegates, and more superdelegates. Today a crowd of 75,000 or more turned out to hear him speak in Oregon. He's not beholden to the powerful wealthy and greedy cabal. His fundraising has come from average yobs like us, who send a couple of hundred as they can afford it. 1.5 million small donors funded Obama's campaign.

He's the only candidate of the three in the running who is not owned by the cabal. And he needs every voter, and every vote. Obama and his campaign people have always been pretty respectful of the Clintons, despite Hillary's "kneecapping," "kitchen sink" strategy, and "nuclear strategy." And Obama has told his campaign folks and the world that he is reaching out to Clinton's supporters.

Clinton has displayed no such comity. She is still attempting to delegitimize Obama's success. But what really gets our paranoia chemicals going is, the cabal, with its dirty tricks, its Lee Atwaters and Karl Roves and droves of followers who don't recognize that they are being used and played and tossed aside when the party's over, is undoubtedly planning to use more dirty tricks to hold on to power.

Why not? It's served them well since Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex.

So while bumbling around on the InnerTubes today, we found this:

IMPORTANT
This information is not to be posted to any of our usual forums and should be emailed only to people you know personally andcompletely trust.

Here is the updated game plan.

Step one: Register a bunch of user accounts on lefty blogs.

*Create false identities equally divided between Obama and Clinton supporters. Initially play it cool. Don't make more than two accounts per blog one for each candidate. Too many accounts from the same ip and you will be outed as a sock puppet. Dont do anything drastic that would get you banned. Lurk for a while
at first so you can learn how they talk. Liberals are like a different species. Dont start an all out flame war right away begin with small insults.

The idea is to poison the tone of discussion but do it so slowly that they dont realize where its coming from. You want the liberal sheep to get caught up in it and start doing our work for us.

Step three: As the Democ-rat nomination narrows in on a candidate crank up the heat. The loser ident should start calling for a voter boycott on the winner. You may not be able to peal off voters to our side but demotivating them so they stay home is almost as good.

SPREAD THE WARNING

Now, there are several sites (to which we won't link, but you probably know they exist) that claim to be peopled by supporters of Clinton. Most of them don't have many individual posters or commenters. We've been looking at them periodically, just because we're paranoid.

We've noticed a trend: One or two strong posters, more articulate than the rest, start by praising Clinton and downplaying Obama. That's to be expected. Everyone has a candidate they support and it's a bitter disappointment when one's chosen candidate doesn't win.

But these people then go on to suggest various ways in which the disaffected supporters can protest the nomination of the other candidate. And to no one's great surprise, all these different ways redound to the benefit of the Republicans.

Suggestions are made to shower superdelegates with email. Vicious attacks on Democrats and Democratic politicians, and even the small-d democratic process. The disaffected are urged to vote for McCain, harrass Obama supporters, flood their legislators with mail and calls, turn to Faux News for information and shun all other sources.

What do you think? Sounds pretty fishy to me.

So once again, we urge all our friends, Democrat and Republican alike, not to fall for this type of dirty politicking. Fight fair. Examine each candidate's policies. Don't be swayed by Faux Noise or dubious sources like WingNut Daily. Consider carefully what your own interests are and who best represents them. Don't consider not voting. Vote for Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich or Nader or Barr or Clinton or Obama or McCain, but don't give up your hard-earned right to vote. Don't sit out this election. Your country stands at a crossroads. She needs every single individual to turn out and do something.

Don't consider violence or harrassment. Consider your favoured candidate and your alternative candidate, and vote. And consider this: the economy is in the pits. The dollar is in the pits. The climb out of those pits is going to be long and hard. Set aside your feelings, whatever they may be, and consider the fate of the nation, and your children, and your children's children. We cannot afford another war. We cannot even afford the two we're currently fighting.

Which candidate will give us peace, and help us rebuild the economy, and leave our nation a better place for all of us? We're not urging you to support any particular candidate. We are, however, speaking against John McCain because we do not think he has a grasp of the enormous issues facing us. We do not think, if he is elected, he has the temperament and the capacity to pull the entire nation out of the quagmire. Any of the other candidates would be preferable.

So choose carefully, and wisely, and well. Because your choice will affect not just you, your family, your friends. It will affect your entire nation, and the citizens of many other nations.

Stumble It!