I have no faith in our election process, as I write this, I spoon down pounds of cheerios, because it lowers my 300 count cholesterol

"You'd be surprised what the human mind and body can adjust to."

Those words were spoken by a homeless man who lives under the subway in New York City. He's been living underground there for over 4 years. He used to have running water, but the authorities cut that off. He tells the documentarian how the running water spoiled him "because of course you could get used to that kind of thing."



I guess you can get used to all kids of things like: the messed up way we elect our leaders in such a non-democratic format... like winner take all primaries, our screwy electoral college system is way funkier that it seems, election fraud, wire tapping of the the citizenry, 1 million people on the terrorist watch list, or a real bad economy...... if you want to.

Me? I am have trouble focusing, and that's keeping me from writing on this and some other subjects (that link is sorta random -it's a link to a rant on keith olbermann) like "reification and my goofy friend who thinks there can't possible be an argument for the non-existence of god, when he looks over with surprised eyes at me "do you know any?" and this is a guy i'd like to think was pretty smart, but oh, well."

Instead I have switched fonts on you to tell you something is up...I am going to be free associating more than normal, like your were the murderess of an ostensibly cool college rock band and I am typing away trying to impress* you with what one of my girl friend's called my "rich inner life" which was just her way of saying "you have too much of a poor outer life and I am moving upstate to get away from you, and to fuck lumberjacks, because it is every girls wish to fuck a lumberjack at some time, and I can finally do it once I dump your loser ass."

* I am pretty sure this is what they call an inside joke. One person will get it though. Can you believe that I wrote this after I wrote that e-mail to you? Ya...me either....though what I was saying in the e-mail and what appears here as hackery of that idea is two other things, but I ran out of "steam" as I really got into the idea of writing this, so I have to apologize to those who are reading this even though I am talking to you right now and not to them and I think it's kind of rude for them to read this part when it is so obvious I am not talking to them but I am talking to you...

i don't really see her point as she could have fucked lumberjacks right here, but this chick was all about authenticity and I mean that. I am not just saying that to get some cheapo shot off against a girl who treated me "ok" except when she was dumping me to fuck lumberjacks.

I know I am breaking the cardinal rule of Strunk and White by going on like this, by "carrying a breezy affect (or is it effect I read the book I should know) but fuck Strunk and fuck White or whoever wrote that part. I am going to write like this tonight because I'm frustrated by my inability to sit down and really write something meaningful. I can only write stupid jokes about 'fucking' lumberjacks and now a host of idiots typing Google into their browsers are going to find me when they are doing searches for funny jokes about lumberjacks, but I think that's kind of funny as the joke is on them.

As difficult as it is to type with a handful of cheerios it is slightly more difficult to get through the workday if you are most people. Fuck I am out of cheerios and I was on my third bowl of cheerios. I should tell you though mini sized bowls that are "child sized" and not meant for an adult.

I know you are probably thinking that I don't really write anything substantial anyway, so why am I so worried that I can't seem to focus and write on topics that are of interest to me now. You've got a point of course unless of course unlike me you don't think that spirit wives, underaged girls, and celebrity gossip is somehow substantial. You are wrong, but that's a disagreement that we can agree to disagree about later unless you really want to disagree with that, but I really wish you wouldn't be so disagreeable.

I have no faith in our election process, and you knew at some point I was going to have to get into the topic sentence of this rant, but like always I have waited for as long as I could possibly get away with it because I like pissing people off who don't like me.

I was eating at one of my favorite restaurants the other night (I eat out a lot and when I eat out I like to make fun of servers who have english accents and I don't care if they end up in my line at work and tell me how they are planning on franchising the restaurant because I like english accents and I like that restaurant) and I brought up the point that I feel like I have lost faith in our election process, and I feel like most other people have too, but I have yet to see a general consensus like that reported in the news. And (while left unsaid) perhaps that's why there is no general consensus as to what we should really do something about it.

Of course one of my obnoxiously agnostic friends suggested that perhaps there is no general consensus to ameliorate the fictional problem I am pointing out, because most people have not lost faith with our system.

His point was something like "in politics there is now, always has been, always will be shenanigans, so what's the point in getting upset about it now? It's not all that different really." (I'll call this Thesis 1--in addition let's add an explainer to thesis 1-- we don't really notice things because we are too tired from working shitty jobs and watching commercials.)

Maybe he's right. If you read the constitution to the United States it reads like "we really like this democracy idea ...let's get around to it sometime." And I know that republicans have been getting away with suppressing the vote for years and democrats in chicago can vote after they die (and boy you gotta admire the city folk of chicago and their sense of civic duty going about voting way after you would think they care) so is it really different?

well. I don't care if it is different. How about that? It's a crying shame what we got going on right now. I mean a lot of folks think that Bush stole the election. You might think that would get some people mad. We've got computer vote counters that don't add up. And that stuff gets reported. It gets reported that the guy who own Diebold (don't let'em change their name) is a fucking republican hack job guy. I mean if I was a republican even I'd be a little upset.

Bill Clinton's wife is looking each and every way she can (to super delegates and other such non-sense) to get herself elected like the popular vote doesn't even matter anymore. Which I guess if you leaned anything from 2000 it's that it doesn't matter.

This is the 21st Century, I think we can figure out a way to count votes. This is not a hard problem, but we all accept it like it is, just the way we let the so called "commission of getting people we like elected" to tell us who gets to debate and we let them change the rules right in front of, as they go along, anytime they get spooked. I guess there is nothing we can do about it. We couldn't come up with public financing or anything else. We can just bemoan the complicated nature and the intricacies of how money gets turned into speech for corporations and corporations aren't even people. (yes solyent green still is)

It just seems to me that, that this is one hell of a laundry list, and that makes me long for the sweet natured naivety of Watergate. But back then we had some faith in out government, and got pissed if it didn't work right. We didn't just say "government as usual" and "is there someway we can privatize this mess so that the people who brought you new and improved Lay's potato chips now with laxatives can get a shot at things?"

I lay this at the foot of Jimmy Carter for being such a pussy* and not fighting like a Democrat, but like a democrat (see Bill Clinton and his wife whenever they contemplates failure.)* i'm not saying vote for nader.

I guess what I am saying here is that there might be some actual problems here. (and some of them of them are systemic...the electoral college is not democratic and if you don't know why I wish you'd go find out why, but I won't bother with links if you can't come up with a reason why it might not be democratic and-- I don't give a fuck about Rhode Island--is it even an island after all? Bunch of fucking liars they have over there.)

So if there are problems why don't we see problems and if we see problems why don't we have answers and if we have answers why don't we see the answers? I wish I had an answer to that.

WE ARE TOO RICH TO CARE.

(I'll call this thesis number 2)

What I failed to include (until I added the explainer) in my rambling discussion of thesis One is that it goes hand in hand with how Americans are too tired to vote anyway that we all have jobs that keep us down and the media "manufactures consent*."

*(damn media always making me want stuff--like I never wanted chicken for breakfast, but after watching all those McDonald's commercials about the chicken biscuit I gotta admit I'd like one, but I a'int getting up that early just to try a biscuit and some chicken, though if you know anybody who's tried one tell me what they thought about it!)
Thesis one and Thesis two seem to logically contradict each other, but in a nuanced debate I will accept that it can be shown they don't strictly contradict each and certainly are not mutually incompatible. (that's not how I wanted to say it, but you get the point)

I know I forgot how to show you how my earlier discussion ties in with thesis 1 but this is already a long post and I don't think i want to waste your time there so lets just agree that it does, ok? See? It's better when we don't fight.

Thesis 2 is a subdivision of why didn't the middle class ever fight the rich and bring the communist revolution to fruition? It's the pay raises stupid the pay raises!! well...that and color tv. Though I fail to understand why the cubans have put up with the revolution for so long in that case...

The simply fact remains that there are winners and losers in every economy and this culture has failed to produce a consistent resistance.

But you will object to this picture of American Exeptionalism and offer Noam Chomsky as proof. He will tell anyone who will listen that we are living in best world possible,* a time period of mass resistance, which is just Chomsky's way of being gay for Seattle, like my ex-girlfriend is gay for coffee and lumberjacks.

*(if by best world possible we live a a shitty world where there were some people who didn't just sit around and say we live in a shitty world, but they would go out and have meeting on occasion and in those meetings occasionally a resolution would pass where some of them would say that things are shitty and the majority would vote saying that was indeed so.)

And I will tell you that if you want to bring up every random fact you learned from your 8th grade history book in the name of layering additional complexities at me, I am going to have to kick your ass.