Elegant (by Comparison)
Even Nixon was a smoother criminal. Justice Scalia has countered with
the precedent that the American people have never had right of suffrage
in an American election. It being necessary for any free and democratic
society to bail out Savings and Loans, the tax burden ought now to be
shifted to the electoral college, the supreme court, and a Simi Valley
concert hall filled with Frank Sinatra fans. When, in an unprecedented
television appearance of a candidate during an election, Rutherford
B. Hayes explains that, reliable exit polls notwithstanding, he is going
to win the state of Florida, I find myself wanting to change the channel
to Nader's speech, but my landlord, at the other end of the bar, refuses
to concede the remote control. The ghost of Trotsky keeps trying to
tell me that this evidence of a division among the bourgeoisie clearly
signals that conditions are ideal for a proletariat revolution, but
20,000 jobless former GM employees, unable to decipher question 2 out
of 100 on the State of California's application for foodstamps, think
it's just politics as usual. To those who think in terms of gush and
bore, I plead "but I wanted the October Surprise, not Chevy Chase as
Gerald Ford. Couldn't we at least have a coup with a little class?"
Jimmy Carter's speech on campaign financing reform is drowned out by
a formation of 2-million-dollar Tomahawk cruise missiles en route to
Baghdad, seeking an opportunity to defend themselves against anthrax,
a lilting Santoor, autonomy, journalism, a thrown bottle, a speck of
dust, or a blowjob someone had the audacity to try to avoid talking
about on TV, still sticky from all the duct tape used to repair the
Asian financial crisis. He glances at the teleprompter trying to remember
whether he's the liar or the dumb guy. If you are a non-citizen applying
for Medi-Cal and you are not (a) LPR, (b) an amnesty alien with a valid
and current I-688, or (c) PRUCOL (an alien permanently residing in the
U.S., under the color of law), please do not fill in the shaded box
for "Birthplace." The contradictions between slavery and wage labor
were of necessity replaced by the contradictions between labor and capital:
the Republican revolution. From the Wormley House Hotel to the Bohemian
Grove, where the justice's son's boss is the lawyer for the plaintiff,
the justice's wife the plaintiff's employee, the secretary of state
the campaign chairman, and the father is the brother is the son. Excuse
me, but your oil platform is standing on my foot. When Newt Gingrich
gets his own radio show, we will come to understand the necessity to
read between the lines of riot troops, so let's tune the radio to static
and chant together: "The first step is admitting you have a problem."
The second step is refusing to cede the election to a higher power.
"You liberals are just nuts about Chomsky," the waitress says, popping
her gum, but you don't look up.