Congratulations America! Once more you have voted to reverse human evolution! In celebration of this auspicious occasion, I offer the following words from one of your fellow citizens, who foresaw this glorious future:
*****
The scene is Grants Park Chicago 1968. A full scale model of the Mayflower with American flags for sails has been set up. AJ in his Uncle Sam suit steps to a mike on the deck.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is my coveted privilege and deep honour to introduce you the distinguished senator and former Justice of the Supreme Court Homer Mandrill, known to his friends as the Purple Better One. No doubt you are familiar with a book called The African Genesis, written by Robert Ardrey, a native son of Chicago, and I may add a true son of America. I quote to you from his penetrating work:
"'When I was a boy in Chicago I attended the Sunday School of our neighbouring church. I recall our Wednesday night meetings with the simplest nostalgia. We would meet in the basement. There would be a short prayer and a shorter benediction . . . And we would turn out the lights. . . and in total darkness. . . hit each other over the head with chairs.'
"Mr. Ardrey's early training tempered his character to face and make known the truth about the origins and nature of mankind.
"'Not in innocence and not in Asia was mankind born. The home of our fathers was the African Highland. The most significant of all our gifts was the legacy bequeathed us by our immediate forebears, a race of terrestrial flesh eating killer apes. Raymond A. Dart of the University of Johannesburg was the strident voice from South Africa that would prove the southern ape to be the human ancestor. Dart put forward the simple hypothesis that man emerged form the anthropoid background for one reason and one reason only – because he was a killer.
"'A rock, a stick, a heavy bone, was to our ancestral killer ape the margin of survival, and now we sit in his office at the wrong end of the world. . . Man's original nature imposes itself on any human solution.
"'The aggressive nature of the southern ape, sir, glowing with menace, fought your battles on the perilous veldts of Africa 500,000 years ago. Had he not done so you would not be living here in this great city in this great land of America raising your happy families in peace and prosperity. Who more fitted to represent our Simian heritage in all its glory than Homer Mandrill, himself a descendent of that illustrious line?'
"Who else can restore to this nation the spirit of true conservatism that imposes itself on any human solution? And at a time when this great republic is threatened by enemies foreign and domestic? Actually, there can be only one candidate: The Purple Better One. . .Your future President. . ."
To the battle Hymn of the Republic an American flag is drawn aside to reveal a purple assed mandrill (thunderous applause). Led to the mike by secret service men in dark suits that bulge suggestively here and there, the Purple Better One blinks in bewilderment.
*****
Well, God bless America, and God help the rest of us. And for those unfortunates who didn’t vote Bush but are stuck in America, my commiserations.
I think it’s very true that the lost ones, well, do seem to get lost in abstract/political arguments. Apparently there is no justification in law for me to take a life privately. Call it a war and it seems it is easy to brush such matters under the carpet. The fact that Bush and Blair have the blood of tens of thousands of innocents – no, let us just say ‘people’, why such we make such a distinction, which is, after all, the justification for war? – tens of thousands of people, then, on their hands, and still presume to be respectable rather than monsters, astounds me. They cannot even apologise for fear it will make them look weak. Is that the behaviour of a normal human being? Why do we put up with it? That fact that we do means we must share the guilt.
Well, it looks like a majority of Americans – even if it is only just a majority – are hell bent on learning the hard way. I just wish we didn’t have to do the learning with them. I think most of us are over those lessons – the need for the separation of church and state and so on.
I only hope that those right-wing voters are actually capable of learning, but since about seventy million of them are probably born again Christians, I doubt they are capable of anything resembling rational thought; the Apocalypse is probably just what they’re after. It’s called self-fulfilling prophecy, I think.
Now God be thanked,that in our final hour
His primate sits in absolute power.
Now thank The Lord, whose wisdom is a mystery,
For giving this one his due place
In the follies of human history.
Now let us pray, that God will have a better day
Because his ‘chosen’ primate
Holds the world at bay.
Now let us wonder, at the things we do believe
And marvel how ‘religions’ hold us – spellbound –
As we misconcieve.
Now let us take our many faiths and find
A single, simple, unity of mind,
But slip back into our religious dogma hard,
Where arms and power hold the highest card.
Now let us read our holy writings and, content,
Bring death and mayhem on our heads with bullets spent.
Now God be thanked,that in our final hour
His primate sits in absolute power,
And we who questioned God must shake our head
Because His ‘marvels’ turned all logic on its head.
The America bashing sure abounds around here. America made a choice and selected Bush for another four years and that is a good thing!
No one says it better than dear old Bill Burroughs!
The worst part is that this time W’s really won the election: a majority of Americans did vote for him! We French people cannot boast though, we also had a creepy election last time in 2002…
Well, I guess that the Purple Better One will start to throw fesces at the rest of the world soon, now that he has 4 more years at the head of the biggest Banana Republic in the world.
Yes, America made a choice, but since America is also making choices that affect the rest of the world, and choices that have meant the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, I think we have the right to oppose such choices.
Hello again, Q.
_______________
We are, all of us, losers in this bloody war.
Though we wave our flags and sing out loud
– while burying all our valour, score by score –
“God/Allah be praised”: We should not be proud,
For sending young men back to their homes,
Wrapped in a patriotic symbol’d shroud.
We are all religious in this bloody war,
Calling upon our “God/Allah” to ignore
Souls of corpses lately slain by the other side
And give Us comfort in our rally of ‘religious pride’.
For does not “God/Allah” know that we
Have raised His banner to set the others free?
We are, all of us, winners in a senseless hate
That murders reason by explosive suicide,
Or some other fanatical so called ‘act of fate’,
Or thunders from the missiles of avenging planes
Whose flag on tail and wings show ‘patriotic pride’,
Blessed by that same Divinity worshipped by the other side.
We are, all of us, losers in this bloody mess.
Though we wave Bible and Quoran and sing out loud,
Condemning as “Traitor” anyone not with us,
While, in the fervour and chanting of our proud
Proclamations, move ever closer to a dark abyss.
We are all righteous in this bloody war,
And all of who us who own the ‘Truth’
Will never let the other through that door.
The Most annoying thing is how sanctimonious att lthe Bush supporters are, now that their monkey has won. I swear I’ve seen more “W’04” bumper stickers after the election (for non-Americans who may not know, that’s all Bush’s campaign bumper stickers had printed on them – simplicity for the simple-minded, I guess). And any Bush supporter with whom I try to discuss the travesty of the election invariably responds with some variation on “Well, we won, America has spoken. Tough luck and shut up.” They are very smug and very prone to gloating. Of course, I’ll be honest. If Kerry had won, I’d still be buying random strangers drinks in some bar somewhere and drinking toasts to his future administration.
Today I met some real live other people who seemed as devastated about the election as I am. The disgust rolled off of them in thick oily waves. It was nice to see somone give a shit, nice to see it still ruining someone’s day.
one of the saddest parts is how everyone is saying that people only voted for John Kerry as a “lesser-of-two-evils” candidate, and that no one really liked him, but they hated Bush. For the record, I think John Kerry would have made a GREAT President. I am not a democrat, and I oppose the two-party system, but I liked John Kerry. I think he would have been a brilliant leader. Not that it makes any difference, now.
Anyway, I liked the side-by-side pictures of Dubya and the hooting chimp.
Peace.
http://sorryeverybody.com/">This</a> is quite a charming site. I’d just like to say, I’m sorry, too. I don’t mean that facetiously – I really am. I’m sorry for the Americans who voted for Kerry who, for instance, will get hassle in their travels around the world from people assuming they are jingoistic crypto-imperialists just because they are American.