Contact your representatives today!

I’m not really the most political of guys, I’m much happier talking about box-office reports than public-opinion polls, but I’ve been angered by George W. Bush from the moment he stole the election in 2000. Something about the way he subverted democratic principles and the will of the people in order to grab power kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Funny how he’s proceeded to subvert democratic principles and the will of the people a thousand different ways since then. Started an illegal war, illegally detained and tortured prisoners, didn’t bother pursuing the people responsible for the events of 9/11, looked the other way while an American city was destroyed, illegally wiretapped American’s phones, those kind of things, I’ve got to say, they just don’t sit right with me.

And yet, I’ve kind of let all those things go by without really getting involved. But this Wall Street bailout thing has sent me right over the edge. No pretext, no explanation, no excuse, just a loaded revolver aimed at the temple of the American middle-class, "hand over all your money so that my wealthy friends can stay wealthy or else." Did someone say $700 billion dollars? Try $1.8 trillion dollars. And keep in mind, the language of the bill only limits taxpayer involvement at $700 billion at any given time — that is, we’re talking about a slush fund of $700 billion, to be replenished and handed out however our financial overlords see fit, with no oversight, no checks or balances, on Bush’s say so. Everyone is talking about it as a bailout, but I have a hard time seeing it as anything besides just handing over the keys to the Treasury to Wall Street. And you can tell from the markets that Wall Street sees it for what it is — a blank check, a carte blanche to keep going full-steam ahead, no correction, no regulation, no punishment required. Yahoo! We finally failed so big that we now get to raid the Treasury!  It’s grand theft in broad daylight on an unimaginable scale.

So, I don’t generally do this, but please, Write your Congressperson, write your senator. It’s fun and easy and, believe it or not, it makes a difference. If enough people show that they are royally pissed off about this, maybe the spineless Democrats won’t cave on this one — after all, congressmen don’t make so much money that they won’t be affected by this. (Speaking of which, I simply cannot believe that this, this, has become a partisan issue — why are all the headlines today about the "Democratic Response" to this obscene, dripping phallus of a bill? For Christ’s sake, fucking NEWT GINGRICH is against it! UPDATE: Christ on a pogo stick, even rabid conservative hate-hound Michelle Malkin is against it — and she’s dumb as a post and evil as creosote!)

UPDATE: If you’d like to know what all this has to do with the election, you will not get a finer, more readable, more comprehensive overview than this right here.

Longtime reader The Editor tells me that a snail-mail letter to your representatives carries more weight than a phone call or email, but due to the emergency nature of this atrocity that’s being rammed down America’s throat in record time, I urge readers to do both. Write the email, copy the text, paste it into your word processing program, print it up and send it.

Thanks! Analysis of Jeepers Creepers, Pumpkinhead, The Wizard of Oz, and A.I. are on their way. To my readers who suggested I watch Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Ginger Snaps — well, I tried. I really did. Sorry.