To Be A Tool, Or Not To Be

People on all sides have been working over Charlie Wrangles draft proposal. Personally ,I like how he messes with people, like Utah Phillips says,"you got to mess with people". Its a kind of shock therapy and Charlie is actually a very smart guy. He was upset with Chavez because Chavez beats Charlie at his own game. Anyway..a conservative blogger was upset because he thinks hidden in the proposal is the covert messaging that the voluntary enlistment program selects for "fools, losers and tools". He expounded on the qualities of todays fighting force. We have all heard about the "economic draft", but this notion is disputed (conservatives argue the data does not back this up). I won't go into the minefield subject of an "IQ" draft but I KNOW there are more than a couple felons serving in luei of and a FEW immigrants who will be naturalized if they survive but what does it mean to suggest someone is a "tool"? Could that apply to someone who volunteers to do something? I think of someone unwittingly serving someone elses interests, being used for a dirty job, but remaining unaware, conned rather than coerced. How could you get someone to do something you want without them being aware? How can you get people to participate in something that will benefit others and harm them and to not only do it willingly but enthusiastically? First you need a pitch.

Im thinking of Tom Sawyer and his strategy for getting out of work, for getting others to paint the fence he was supposed to. Not just to do it, but beg to do it. How? He sold it. With an appeal to self interest (you are missing an opportunity!) and the imaginary. ( your failing to understand how much fun this is) Same as selling fast cars, or beauty products. We are all tools to some extent, but getting shot up securing oil wells for rich people and thinking that's what gives your life "meaning", thats a" tool "you won't get drafting middle-class mall rats. Charlie knows.

Last night at the CAJA meeting we made plans to go battle the "free market"neoliberal agenda in Bozeman Montana next week.They decided to use our out-of-the-way-corner of the world to negotiate what they hope is the final round of negotiations in a trade deal between the US and South Korea. We will be manning the barricades. Anyone who wants to join us please come. Bring a warm coat. Some new young people showed up for the meeting and liked the energy. One gal said she was from S.Dakota and had never heard anything like what we were saying. Another gal said it was a little scary for her ( I know we are on track) and one kid gave an impassioned reading from Zinns Peoples History. Very cool. Definately NOT tools.

Democracy vs Capitalism

This is from Wang Hui's essay Depoliticized Politics in the New Left Review 41. "A multi-party system pre-supposes that each party has a specific representative character and political values, for which it will fight against it's rivals within the parlimentary-institutional framework. However ,as the character and values of the parties become increasingly indeterminate within a broad macro-economic consensus, real democratic politics dissapears." That" macro-economic consensus" of which he speaks is the hegemony we need to dismantle but I am all in favor of more, and more diverse , parties as a way to get the ball rolling. Ill be campaign manager!

This is how Theodore Adorno put it: "Freedom to choose an ideology- since freedom always reflects economic coercion- everywhere proves to be freedom to choose what is always the same." With all this "freedom" ,everyone buys the exact same shit, wears the same clothes and thinks the same thoughts. The social is commodified.

I have a soft spot for old Debord because he made the polemic poetic : "the Spectacle is the submission of human sociability to the deadly solicitations (the lifeless, bright, sameness) of the market."

There is a great new team member from Argentina over at renegade eye talking about worker occupied factories and other cool stuff. A good antidote to that "broad macro-economic consensus".

The Old Peanut Farmer

Jimmy Carter had trouble being President, trouble in El Salvador, trouble in Israel, and big trouble in Iran. But he is one hell of an ex-president, building homes, monitoring elections and brokering peace. Tonight on the News Hour he talked about his new book and the plight of the Palestinians as eloquently, forcefully and passionately as anyone Ive ever seen. The interviewer kept trying to interject the dominant, jingoistic spin narrative about Israel as victim but Jimmy kept calling bullshit and explained the nature of aparthied over and over till she finally got it. I feel more hopeful about movement on this issue knowing he is on it and sense that Americans are getting sick of beligerent Zionists sucking up US tax dollars to build illegal settlements, walls and Israeli-only roads. Which we coincidentally got a first hand look at thanks to a little video the group Friends of Sabeel just sent today. Called Sacred Space Denied ,Bethlehem and the Wall ,it does a great job explaining the expropriation of West Bank property that is going on in order to build high rise settlement blocs. Friends are Palestinian Christians and could use support. North American address is PO Box 9186 Portland orego 97207

I don't suppose the Zionists or Phalangists are super -thrilled that the US will soon be negotiating with Iran and Syria in order to engineer a "peace with honor" ,as old Tricky Dick called it, but desperate times call for deperate measures. Here is how I see it playing out. The US will soon say sayonara to the Sunnis, you got six months to pack up your shit and go before Sadr is installed as ELPresidente and the Shiia get turned loose. They can head for Saudi Arabia , Yemen, Oman , wherever, but they are done in Iraq. The US could have figured this out a long time ago ... but , it turns out you have to pick sides in a civil war and you might as well pick the one with superior forces and numbers.The US can hunt down a few al Qaieda, then declare victory, and get the hell out. The Madhi Army can act like Hizbollah, running it's own schools, militia, and politicians, the Iranians will agree to lay low until the American public finds it's next O.J. or Michael Jackson and we can send a few F- 16s or Trident missles to Israel to shut them up for awhile.

Goodbye "Class, Hello Antagonism

I mentioned previously that I have been slogging through Hegemony and Socialist Strategy by Laclau and Mouffe and Im glad I persevered through the 150 or so pages of theoretical construction to get to some basic application, written in basic english, because it provides valuable critiques of orthodox Marxist theory right at the points I have long struggled to define and elucidate. A big one being, can we revolutionarys really limit ourselves to organizing around the forces of production? The authors point out that increasing "commodification" of the social by advanced capital,together with "bureacratization" caused by increased intervention by the state is in fact creating "de-proletarianization". Couple this with an expansion of the field of conflicts and antagonisms ( no longer ONLY about ownership of the means of production) and we have this modern scene of uneven development and fragmented struggles. What to do? It turns out these new forms of subordination are creating a "moment of deepening of the democratic revolution... and politicization of all social relations" I can buy that. (Pun intended)

So it's obvious the old notions of class are transformed,and certainly these are not the first intellectuals to notice. Im a pretty good example of what they explain quite well, a fishing guide is a long ways from any factory. They also realize the ambiguous nature (the tension,as it were, so often found in good music ,art and theory) of this commodification of social relations- namely ,the way it can subvert inequalities by convincing people that access to an ever increasing range of goods equals social progress and the advance of democracy. Which it is not. Rather than "unity" , searched for in vain by Luxemborg, Labriola and Kautsky, we have "the 'plurality' of the social and the unsutured character of all political identity." We have also found some more tension because this is not the logic of pure difference found in your extreme libertarianism, a total lack of unity or common point of reference, the "There is no society" of Thatcher. In fact ,this is the tension between the two great themes of the democratic imaginary- equality and liberty.To much unity, goodbye autonomy. To much individual, goodbye collective.

This is the point where conservatives (Im thinking von Hayeck and The Road to Serfdom) rightly worry about collectivism (to much unity) creeping into totalitarianism, where law is used to give power to the expanding state to facilitate the expanding bureacracy. The reaction is what we see now, New Right meets the New Left in a bastardized liberal-conservatism. The defense of free markets and social hierarchy. Nein Danke. To resist this we need to balance liberty and equality to create a plural, radical democracy, democracy in every aspect of the social, economic (production and allocation) and political.

So what about hegemony? Here is where the unity comes in, discursively. Hegemony as the consolidation of all the discursive articulations, the unification of all it's possibilities and limitations. It will take one more installment to close this up. We still need a strategy.

Like But Not Like VietNam

"We had to destroy the villiage in order to save it." The war on Iraq is like the War onVietNam except for all the ways it is not like it. In each case we talked of defending the Iraqi/Vietnamese people or government as if such an entity existed.There are no Iraqis ,as in We The People, just as there were no Vietnamese. The notion itself is a construct and a very disputed chunk of territory requiring a unified entity to actually manifest.Purple fingers don't do it. It is unclear whether a Lebanon actually exists.Bush declared during his recent trip to Hanoi that the "lesson" of the war was that Americans need to be persistant, to persevere, to stay the course. This lesson is being promoted, just as that horrible war is still being fought, over at blogs such as neo-neocons by people whose whole reality depends on that not having been a huge mistake. Just as they cannot nor ever will admit going into Iraq was a huge mistake. The real lesson, of course, is down the Mall from the Presidents house, a huge black wall with the 58,000 names on it. 3 million Vietnamese. Who knows how many Iraqis. These ghosts WILL haunt us.

What might just save us, as a species, is art. I just returned from watching my daughters dance company perform in Columbia, Missourri and it was a somewhat profound experience, sitting there with a large group of fellow humans watching something so beautiful and thought-provoking and abstract unfold in a magically uniting way. It struck me that this was a form of anti-war. It was all about transcending the base and barbaric and banal aspects of human existence and reaching toward something better, the possible that does exist. That Truth provides a glimmer of hope each time I experience an artform. And it made me proud that I had raised an artist rather than a soldier.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends but reports are showing that "food insecurity" ,formerly known as hunger, is growing in this land of conspicuous consumption and obscene wealth. Montana's food banks saw a three fold increase in use this past year despite the fact unemployment remains at around 4%. 24% recieve some food support during the year. This means more people with jobs cannot afford to feed their families. Sad. Ten shoppers were injured in a Mall stampede on Black Friday morning, rushing to get at the newest gizmos. We celebrated Buy Nothing Day.

My Own Private Idaho

This is the final installment for awhile, I promise, concerning my trepidation about the American Taliban, otherwise known as Christian fundamentalism. Call it coincidence or Providence but I return home to find the new Harpers and in it an article titled Through A Glass Darkly: How the Christian Right is Reimagining US History by Jeff Sharlet. Perhaps Renegade Eye is correct that this is just another sign of the movements "loudness" rather than it's actual power but when they describe their "theocentric" world view, with a whole industry cranking out revisionist history and religious curriculum for homeschoolers and Christian academys and colleges, when I hear of the near mythical status bestowed on people like Andrew Jackson and Douglas Mc Arthur, I can't help but think the Left needs to pay attention and come up with an aggressive response. These folks know full well that ,as Orwell put it, "those who control the past ,control the future while those who control the present , control the past." Then there is Major General Jack Catton saying that he sees his position as an advisor to the Joint Chief of Staff as a "wonderful oportunity" to evangelize men and women setting defense policy. For them the state has one legitimate function, that of the sword. "Another favorite of Christian history was Sergeant Alvin York, who in WWI turned his trigger finger over to God and became perhaps the greatest Christian sniper of the twentieth century."

Speaking of Wars to End All Wars, I want to throw in a rejoinder to the VietNam thing from yesterday. The War on Iraq brings up all kind of war analogies on the hawk blogs, we learn not to appease from Churchill, not to listen to hippies or the media from Nam, and this morning Rep. Duncan Hunter (R,Cal.) was warning his dem colleagues not to "sell us down the river" but to stand up against adversity like Ronald Reagan did when facing down the commies in the Evil Empire! He also reminded us how Ronnie (the Right's God) didn't falter when things looked tough in El Salvador! And now, thanks to Him, "hundreds of millions of people live in freedom and democracy"! Jaw dropping stuff. Totally straight face.

Culture Warrior

As if the Christian radio and Quiverfull article didn't bring on enough anxiety I then proceed to watch the unsettling little documentary, Jesus Camp. Graeme had a little discussion of this disturbing film over on his blog but I didn't realize that much of it concerns the same area of Missouri I was just visiting and where we saw the film. (We made it back to Montana last night, thank the Lord) So there was that odd coincidence. Much has been made of this whole "culture war" meme with some commentators dismissing the notion as overblown and others pinpointing it as the epicenter of this terrain of civilizational conflict.Revolutionary Blogger reminds me in the last thread of the difficult problem of stereotyping and generalizing, and I wonder how necessary is the empirical for this discussion and how valid are "general" impressions and observations as a casual student of the human condition? Could I start going to some of these fundamentalist churches, visiting some of their websites, seeking them out for discussion in order to more accurately guage their impact and influence?

I know the French and Dutch and other "modern" european societies are experiencing this same tumultuous conflict, brought on in large part by reaction to Muslim immigration, but exacerbated by other contradictions of culture, politics and economy. The French Right exemplified by LaPenn (spelling?) is calling for a return to Catholic orthodoxy, priests facing the alter, speaking the old latin. Others around the world want to RETURN to a time rather than PROGRESS to the next stage. Islam, Hindus struggling with a caste system, Christians and the 50s, all in conflict over tradition, values and the frightening modern.

Across The Homeland

Mrs.Troutsky and I have been travelling through the northern tier, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, and into Missourri. In order to stay irritated I often tune into the plethora of Christian radio stations which dominate the airwaves out here in corn and soybean country. The "gay agenda", abortionistists and abortion industry, public schools, all sorts of secular mischief really has these folks agitated, especially in the wake of the recent elections. I heard interviews of Gary Bauer and Sam Brownback, who want to "earn" back the trust of the American electorate. Then I picked up an issue of the Alternative press Review which had an article about the new (to me anyway) Christian movement called Quiverfull. These folks believe a woman must procreate constantly to create an "quiver- full" of arrows for Gods army, a demographic assault on secular humanism as it were. They also have to defer to men as the leaders of the family unit, and by extension, the planet.Mormons are way ahead of them in this particular strategy. Over-population is not an issue when the end -times are just around the corner anyway.

Reality Check, Reality Balance

This sober analysis is from James Petras on Axis of Logic: Leftist intellectuals exaggerate the radicalism or revolutionary reality of Cuba and Venezuela, overlook the contradictory realities and their pragmatic accommodations with neo-liberals of all stripes. The Left, with little historical perspicacity, continues to categorize pragmatic neo-liberals like Lula, Kirchner and Vazquez as ‘progressives’, lumping them together with pragmatic leftists like Chavez, Castro and Morales, basing their inclusion on their twenty year-old political identities rather than their current free market, pro-agro-mineral elite policies. Worse still, the Left confuses the pragmatic neo-liberal regimes’ efforts to negotiate symmetrical free market trade agreements with the US to better the terms for national agro-mineral exporters as some sort of ‘anti-globalization’ policy or as a ‘counter-weight’ to US power.
The Left – or sectors of the Latin American Left – has to face up to the fact that while US power has declined relative to the ‘Golden Age of Pillage’ during the 1990’s, it has recovered and advanced since the mass rebellions and overthrow of client regimes of 2000-2002. The hopes that the Left had that the presidential victories of former center-left electoral parties in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, would augur a reversion of the neo-liberal policies of their predecessors have been demonstrably dashed. The attempt to redefine the conversion of the ex-leftist-turned-pragmatic neo-liberals into something progressive or as a ‘counter-weight’ to US power is ingenuous at best and at worst compounds the initial error. The Left’s lack of political clarity on the political changes has led it into a blind alley as damaging to its future growth as Washington’s failed efforts to recognize the new realities of the new millennia.

He makes valid points and many of the same criticisms were expressed by myself and other comrades (Che Bob,etc) after returning from our delegations to Venezuela. What Petras perhaps misses though, is the force of the undercurrent of grassroots revolutionary consciousness and indigenous organization. Something "endogenous" is happening there, though it may not happen overnight, or in a "rupture" form at all. For a more enthusiastic, optimistic assesment here is Alvaro Garcia Linera , Vice President of the Republic of Bolivia:

Here in Bolivia, the great mechanisms of mobilization were the defense of the coca leaf, the defense of water, the defense of the land and the defense of the hydrocarbons. Around these axes, the society regained confidence; around these axes society regained the ability to mobilize, constructed leaderships, constructed networks which unified city and country. And it has been thanks to that, that we can now say that in Bolivia we have a government of social movements.
If we proceed to the gradual unfolding of these four pillars, I have not the slightest doubt that the so called postneoliberalism or the society which is beyond neoliberalism will have to consolidate itself initially in the continent, and from here, if we have sufficient force and ability, to irradiate to the other continents. Latin America is in the vanguard of the construction, of the debate and of the organization of the postneoliberal societies.

I want to believe this is the vanguard movement for a worldwide reassessment of who owns what. I also believe we need to remain critical and realistic about it's unfolding.

All About Israel

Ive recovered my ire and today it is coalescing around all this sudden mention of the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict as the central location for a global quick fix. DUH! Kofi Annan announced the result of a UN study showing that conflict to be the key to working through our Muslim troubles. We are also hearing little hints that this may be a key component of a plan put forth by The Overwhelmingly Wise Ones over at the Iraq Study Group. Talk about your Masters of the Universe drama, the world waits with baited breath for the lead counsel for the Carlyle Group (Baker) to fix everything and return us to the world we once found so Safe and Comfortable. Even Tony Blair is blaring this suddenly discovered concept of confronting Israels brutal policies. They could have all just read this brilliant blog!

Of course Olmert says he will only negotiate with Palestinians AFTER they have met his list of pre-determined demands. ( How is that negotiation? Ask Orwell) The Wizardly Study Group is also said to be considering negotiating with Iran and Syria, the Axis of Evil, but Olmert, Condi and Bush don't sound ready to eat that much crow quite yet. And then thereis the dilemna of the Liebermans, our own Jumpin Joe and the new Israeli deputy minister for Strategic Threats, Avignor. Our Joe is a Super Hawk who jumps among parties, defends the Jewish Lobby and now has leveraged an increased role in foreign policy. The other is a Stalinist, overtly racist thug who supports "transfer" and represents the growing move to the extreme within Israeli society. Tom Robbins warns us in his novel Sexy Legs and All that it all comes down to Jeruselum.

Perhaps this is the new model for Global Government, the Counsel of Wise Corporate Elders. Gathered away on some hilltop retreat, they can micro-manage the worlds problems from their perch on high. Any representatives of the People? Of course not , although I sit here patiently waiting for their call.

For The Hook and Bullet Crowd

Part of the allure of living in Montana are all the wonderful opportunities afforded those of us engaged in what we'll call "the sporting life". Now I fully realize that torturing fish and blasting holes in large mammals is not everyones cup of tea, but for me it is in part a family tradition, and in part a way to get in touch with my inner- predator. I waste thousands of perfectly good hours each year pursuing fish with flies and I am pleased to report I am very successful generally. I couldn't hazard a guess at the number of trout caught and released but it's a bunch. I am thrilled to report the landing of three steelhead ( a rainbow trout which has migrated to the Pacific, grown very large and made its way back) just over the hill in Idaho.Due to the fact that they were hatchery raised fish and so unable to reproduce, only one was released. The other two were delicious. I also wanted to report the successful catch but not release of a large "5x6" mule deer buck a couple days ago. ( I'll spare you the pictures) There you have it, the great outdoors, fur, fins, blood and guts in 2006. A big part of what we do here.

I have been contemplating the election results and politics in general and reading lots of blogs and articles and this was all I could come up with. Wierd. I have , through a process of over-opinionation, been rendered opinionless on politics. By the way, thats my word, over-opinionated. As is inner-predator.

Financialization

How significant is the heightened pressure on the dollar? Someone better versed in global finance will have to answer that one but China's central bank chief says it wants to "diversify it's trillion dollar currency reserves" by either trimming their dollar holdings or just accumulating fewer. You know Wall Streeters are exchanging nervous glances as they nurse their martinis. Japan holds a record amount of those tainted dollars as well and is ready to start calling some shots.

Meanwhile, Columbia's Supreme Court ordered three legislators arrested for ties to right-wing para-militaries. I don't know what game Uribe and his US handlers are playing, but if it means less harrassment to the social movements and union leaders, it's a good thing.

In Oaxaca, Governor Ruiz has proposed a "six point plan" to help settle the conflict with striking teachers and APPO. Sounds like John Kerry or some shit. Hopefully the protests can stay unified and achieve both local and broader goals.

The UN General Assembly voted for the fifteenth straight year to "urge" the US to end the 45 year old trade embargo on Cuba. The vote was a telling 183 to 4. Our allies were the Marianas Islands, a virtual protectorate and corporate client state ( think sweatshops, Conrad Burns, forced abortion, etc) and Palau. Who knows what Palau wants.

After the elections, so Im reading here, "both paries want to salvage political and military success in Iraq." Bastards all just worry about THEMselves, what they want to salvage for THEMselves. Think of how many troops and other humans died while the Paris "peace" talks were going on. Is Henry Kissinger directing this show?

Bucking The Trend

While the state of Montana did elect a moderate John Tester to replace dumbass Conrad Burns (giving control of Senate to Dems) , we were also the only state in the union where Republicans gained seats (and possible control) in the State legislature. And leading the conservative charge was the county I live in, where Tester was defeated along with every other dem who ran. The people of our county also voted in favor of bringing a new Wal-Mart Supercenter to our rural community. They did it in the name of "free enterprise". The Churches are the most powerful political entities here and they encourage people to vote for the white male with the most exaggerated western twang and biggest white hat. We also have lots of refugees from the urban/suburban West who come here to escape minorities , taxes, and regulations. Welcome to My World.

On the flip side, Montana did vote in a raise in the minimum wage pretty overwhelmingly. Normally the Chamber of Commerce gets what it wants. Lots of credit for engineering progressive change in this state goes to the county and city just to the north of us, Missoula.

Preparing Myself, Deep Breaths

By the time I go to bed tonight I will be a little bit happier or a little birt sadder depending on the outcome of the elections, which, considering the fact I think of myself as a revolutionary, is more than a little contradictory. I spent time last week canvassing our neighborhood and making GOTV calls etc.Two years ago I went to Washington (state) to work on the Patty Murray campaign because I can't help myself, I am a political junky.

Yesterday we went to a rally in little Hamilton Montana and shook hands with Senator Max Baucus, who i don't really like, Governor Brian Shwietzer, who seems a decent sort but has some dumb ideas, Senate hopeful John Tester, who really is a good guy though obviously no radical and Monica Lindeen , who has little chance of beating a bozo name d Rehberg for our single House seat. Ex Senator John Melcher was there as well and State school superintendant Linda McCullogh. We yelled and waved our signs and promised to make more calls. It is remarkably easy to get caught up in the Spectacle of it all, with all those nice, sincere ,caring people trying so hard to effect change in what they know is a deeply flawed system. Tonight Ill watch the results in a redneck bar a million miles from nowhere and try to keep track of what is going on.

What But Not How

In a Common Dreams essay, Dave Robinson, executive director of the national Catholic peace movement Pax Christi, tells us, "Values Voters Should Choose the Common Good Over Facism". Pretty strong language and he uses Thom Hartman's comparison between corporatist trends of the thirties and those of our current era.

He states: "The central question should not be 'are you better off now than you were four years ago?", it should be 'how can we- all of us, especially the weak and vulnerable- be better off in the years ahead? How can we pursue greater peace and justice?"

Fine sentiments,( although Ayn Rand is turning in her grave), but at this juncture in history we are not so much looking for self-evident questions as we searching for answers, theoretical suppositions, articulation of some sort.He ends by saying:

" If we are to be faithful to the nonviolence that Jesus taught and to which we seek to remain faithful, we must be ready to unmask the powers and principalities that have gained a chokehold on our politics and society and challenge them for what they have always been, the real evil that we are all called to struggle against as Vice President Wallace put it so long ago, “always and everywhere.” Unmask and challenge? Go for it!

Unfortunately , we are back to the "evil" thing. And" when opponents are defined not in political but in MORAL terms, they cannot be envisaged as an "adversary" but only as an "enemy". With the 'evil them', no agnostic debate is possible, they must be eradicated. Moreover, as they are considered as the expression of some 'moral disease', one should not even try to provide an explanation for their emergence and success. This is why, as we have seen in the case of right-wing populism, moral condemnation replaces a proper political analysis and the answer is limited to the building of a 'cordon sanitaire' to quarantine the affected sectors." Chantal Mouffe

Dave Robinson knows we cannot continue to quarantine all the poor and disenfranchised, all the terrorists, all the "evil-doers" or all the corporatists either ,for that matter. We have to change all social relations, the political and the economic.

Democracy in Action

“Oh look dear,” I said to my wife “we just received more of that helpful and informative campaign literature. Now we’ll be able to make better decisions when we go to vote”.She replied “ Isn’t our democracy wonderful honey? Read me that first one so I can learn more about the issues and candidates”. “Sure thing” ,I said. “This one says John Tester supports the death tax. That’ s terrible. Mom and dad build a legacy to pass on to their loved ones.. and when they’re gone.. the evil Federal government takes 37%!” “ Those bastards!” She exclaimed.”Whats the next piece of helpful information?” So I told her; :This one says ‘our vote will decide who handles our national security, either the’ Democrats who would let Terrorists go free” and I showed her the picture of Bin Laden they had on the front. Her eyes got wide and she let out a little cry. “Or Republicans”, and here I showed her the picture of Ronald Reagan with that white cowboy hat and his Morning in America smile. “Well that’s a no-brainer “ she said, “even though Ronnies dead he could still lick that evil doer.” “I sure know who Im voting for “I replied.

“Whats the next issue we should inform ourselves about?” “ Well” I replied, “this letter from the Citizens For Economic Opportunity says that because they are dedicated ‘to the principles of free enterprise and economic and consumer choice’ we could get a new WalMart Supercenter in our little town. They included a drawing so we ‘ can see what an attractive project this will be, and it will provide the economic benefits and shopping convenience that we need so much.” “Oh ,that’s just so great! We can get cheap goods made by exploited workers and maybe Ill get a part-time , non-unionized job there paying minimum wage. Why do those elitist hippie scum want to keep such a beautiful store out of our valley? “Well ,honey, they are all Godless communists.” “Of course , dear.”

“Well I for one can’t wait till tommorro to see what other informative campaign literature shows up” said the little woman. “Luckily ,you don’t have to” I said,”we’ll just turn on the TV and learn some more about the candidates while we watch Fox News.”