Stories

Stories - a collection of anonymous writers

A collection of anonymous writers

20 January 2004

Pete said:
" As far as that goes, and regarding Howard Dean - and you may recall I was
among the first of our number in his camp - well, you fall in love with the
prettiest girl at the party, but she's not always the one you end up taking
home to meet Mom."

Prettiest girl at the party? I thought you said you didn't like John
Edwards?

> Pete said: "I've still got Howard's back - his rabble rousing 'concession'
speech only makes me love him all the more - but I'm still firmly in the
" Anybody But Bush" camp, as are we all."

I liked the 'tude as well -- just don't know how it's going to play well
with the middle-of-the-road types who think Nickelback is a great rock 'n'
roll band.

> Pete said: "Mark, what's the Big Beef with Kerry? I don't see "Gore" written
all over him."

You don't? A genuine liberal, yes, but one w/no stones -- gives the okay to
Dickhead to invade Iraq, has an 11th hour conversion on the war after Dean
pulls ahead of the pack, returns to his pro-Iraq position after the capture
of Saddam. He's a typical spineless, poll-watching Democrat, a bland
McCandidate that is more the product of focus groups than the life history
of a real human being. He also participated in the massacre of a village in
Vietnam. Pretty sordid stuff, but, having a father who fought in that
ridiculous war, I don't know if I fault Kerry for that. Nobody knew what
the fuck was going on in Vietnam, sorta like the Iowa caucuses.

Also, Kerry has been taking move after move right out of Dean's playbook.
He's copied Dean's rhetoric, his anti-Bush zeal, his power-to-the-people
schtick. He's also a blueblood, but, then again, so is Dean.
I mean, don't get me wrong, if Kerry gets nominated I'll being doing
everything I can to help him. It dawned on me today that the only time the
guy I voted for won was in 1992 when I voted for Clinton. As much as I hate
voting against one candidate rather than for another, the only thing that
matters when a Bush is in office is that he is removed ASAP.

I still think Bush is going down. That was the major criterion among voters here. A lot
of people think Kerry's military record puts him in good stead. Others like
Edwards because he's a southerner -- forgetting, of course, that so was
Gore. And Clark, of course, is a general -- never mind that he attended GOP
fundraisers as recently as 2002 and that he voted for Reagan and Bush I.

The goddamn electability issue is hurting Dean. The media establishment has
dutifully painted him as a crank. He's "angry," they say, but they could
just as easily characterize him as "passionate" if they weren't a bunch of
mindless pack animals. (I'm ashamed that I have a degree in journalism, to
be honest.) But, although I disagree with 95 percent of Americans on most
political issues, at least kicking Bush's ass is high in everyone's list of
priorities.

Then again, it seems like every election just bums me out.

20 January 2004

> I sure hope Kerry sinks,
> cause I don't think he would stack up well against Bush. Can you say Gore?

I dunno. My gut doesn't have a problem with Kerry, but it sure backs up at
the thought of the prospect of having to vote for Edwards. He just rubs me
the wrong way.

As far as that goes, and regarding Howard Dean - and you may recall I was
among the first of our number in his camp - well, you fall in love with the
prettiest girl at the party, but she's not always the one you end up taking
home to meet Mom.

I've still got Howard's back - his rabble rousing 'concession' speech only
makes me love him all the more - but I'm still firmly in the "Anybody But
Bush" camp, as are we all.

Mark, what's the Big Beef with Kerry? I don't see "Gore" written all over
him.-=pete

20 January 2004

I knew things were fishy when I got to the caucus to find several John Kerry
posters on the door of the building ...

Here's my short take on things: All the couch-potato dumbasses who were
undecided until a week-and-a-half ago overwhelmingly supported Edwards and
Kerry. You know, the people who get their news from the boob tube. Dean is
angry! Dean is angry! We Democrats have always nominated milquetoasty
pussies, why should we stop now! (Of course, Dean's "concession" speech
probably only confirmed the suspicions of those who think he's a wingnut.)
Also, the caucus system worked against Dean. The dumbasses formed strategic
voting blocks (anybody but Dean, anybody without balls!) to prevent Dean
from gaining any significant delegates -- a lot of these pinheads preferred
voting for fucking Clark, who wasn't on the ballot, to Dean.

In my precinct, the first round of voting went like this: Dean got 92 votes,
Kucinich 72, Kerry 62, Edwards 40, Clark and undecided 5 (there was not one
fucking vote for Gephardt!). According to the equation, the Edwards, Clark,
and undecided people were all unviable and had to choose another candidate.
But here's what ticked me off: after the initial count, nobody knew what the
fuck was going on, the dazed dotard overseeing the caucus disappeared from
the room for 15 minutes and somehow, when he returned, the Edwards fucks had
46 people. As a result, Dean, Kerry, Edwards, and Kucinich all got one
delegate each from my precinct. Now, according to caucus rules, you have to
be viable on the first count, not the second (which is what the Edwards
people were). Basically, Kucinich people -- yes, Kucinich people! -- and
the the Clark fucks helped Edwards out. So even though we had the sizable
majority in the room, we all got the same number of delegates.

Had it been a primary Kerry still would have won, of course, but I'm not so
sure about Edwards pulling second. Another HUGE factor, however, is that
Iowans don't respond to negative advertising at all, and Dean and Gephardt,
who were at each others' throats, paid the price for it.

But back to my main thesis -- stupid fucking Iowans. Thirty-four percent of
Kerry's supporters opposed the Iraq War. Why, you might ask, were they
supporting John "we'll keep a tight lip until the poll returns come in"
Kerry? I think the fact that he's a war criminal impressed a lot of people
who undoubtedly thought such dubious credentials boded well for the general
election.

Oh well, if Dean can pull off New Hampshire -- and stop bellowing hoarsely
like Stone Cold Steve Austin -- he's still in the game. The mindless pack
journalists will enjoy his Iowa defeat for a few days until they find
another irrelevant story to run into the ground. I sure hope Kerry sinks,
cause I don't think he would stack up well against Bush. Can you say Gore?
Fucking dumbass corn-fed hog-eating "let's play nice" Iowans.
md

19 January 2004

Hey folks,

Weird, but Iowa is at the center of the nation's attention right now. Last
night I went and saw Dean at the university. He brought along Sen. Harkin,
Jeanine Garafalo, and Joan Jett. Everyone was pumped, except me. I've
never felt at ease cheering in a crowd for anything other than rock 'n' roll
or the Giants. Still, it was good to see Dean and Harkin so pumped up and
rarin' to go.

I'll give you a report on the caucus. I expect, in Iowa City, it will come
down to Dean and Kucinich. This town ain't Gephardt country. I still don't
understand Kerry's surge, but apparently all of the negative media attention
-- the shameless pack journalism of the dim-witted press corps -- has taken
its toll on Dean. All of this "Dean's angry" stuff is just plain horseshit.
Given the current state of affairs in this country, I don't trust anyone who
isn't fucking angry. That was clear enough at the talk last night. Every
time Dean mentioned Bush there were boos and some loudly uttered
profanities. Mr. Angry was in the position of toning down this outrage,
directing at specific misdeeds of the Dickhead Administration. I think Dean
channels voter angry better than the other Dems (barring Kucinich). People
want to throttle Bush and some milquetoasty "My dad worked in a mill and I'm
one of you crap" isn't going to resonate with outraged voters.
Anyway, my gut feeling is that the Kerry surge is a fluke, that when the
rubber hits the pavement it's going to be Dean and Gep, since they have the
ground teams out here.

But we'll see. I'm often wrong about these things.
Mark

23 March 2003
Lewis

I'm pretty beat from battling over the last four days.
I spent a long time in captivity on Friday, and I
didn't much like it. They kept the big doors to our
Embarcadero werehouse hell open through the night, and
I didn't have my jacket. Fuckers.

It got pretty ugly yesterday. Cops were yanking people
off their bicycles and hurling them to the ground, and
grabbing women by the hair. It seemed like revenge for
the fact that we had the upper hand on Thursday.

One thing that's making me smile- a marching band was
on the streets yesterday, and there were more cops
than demonstrators following them around. The band led
a lot of cops away from where they should have been,
and it allowed for more disruptions at major
intersections. Hahahahahaha.

14 April 2003
DM Holler

I even watched the Saddam statue fall, the made for TV vindication,
the trumping visual snippet that Bush badly needed, a video-byte designed
to soothe the cognitive dissonance of non-urban Americans.

I was of course ambivalent about it: Who isn't pleased to witness the fall of the dictator?
But, as Bay Area Democrat Nancy Pelosi said in Congress, (I'm paraphrasing):
" If we went there to knock down statues we could have done it at far less expense."

3 April 2003
DM Holler

My coffee klatch friend asked everyone he knew on 24th St. today the same question:
Has Bush ultimately done more than bin Laden to harm America?
People thought about it a long time before answering.

What was true of Ancient Rome holds true for Washington.
At a certain point it is too late for reform, maybe it is too late for America.
Regardless of who wins the next election, even if it were Gandhi himself
reincarnated as say a Vermont Democrat, we all know that something in human nature
allows such situations to persist.

Tormented tormentors (as my mom puts it), are a dime a dozen.
(Saddam was the child of a rape, remember?)
The architecture of human consciousness withstands the weather of the ages.
The paradigms cannot be erased.
The roots cannot be poisoned or ripped out.
Try as we might to suppress the expression of violence, terrible patterns burgeon
astonishingly from the seeds of unfinished wars.
This is the unsolved business of the first Gulf War, which was the
unfinished business of World War II, which was the unfinished business of World War I,
which was the unfinished business of the Ottoman Empire, which was the unfinished business of the Roman Empire.