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DON'T BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR THE YOUNG ELVIS

That's what Bill Shute said way back in the nineties whilst discussing the reign of the recently-coronated William the Randy, and after all these years all I gotta say about that piece is how right Mr. Shute's view remain considering the political contest that we here in them thar United States are currently being pummeled with. And really, it ain't as fun a choice to make as choosing whether the rockabilly Elvis or the jumpsuited version should adorn an Amerigan postage stamp, because either way you go you kinda get the feeling that this choice you're making is akin to being located smack dab inna middle of Louisiana and the option is either the firing squad or hanging. And just about as fun as well.

I've been around the block a few times and remember loads of presidential elections, some that I'd just as soon forget. I even recall the day after Nixon made it in and my mother being rather upset that the nation would choose Nixon over a righteous and godly man as Hubert Humphrey...of course the only reason I remember that day is because I bought a Matchbox Ford Cortina at the Hill's department store in the Lincoln Knolls Plaza, Youngstown Ohio (we had the day off from school, and it was an overcast rainy one too!), but all kidding aside this current competition is one that really proves H. L. Mencken's saying about politics being the worship of jackals by jackasses to be particularly true. Really, never have I seen so much pointless praise and hosannas heaped upon men whom, in a different time or dimension or on another planet for that matter would be seen as the reincarnation of those old time mountebanks who promised the unwashed all the goods and services of the world, usually at the expense of others but that didn't matter because those achievers deserved it. Sheesh, even William Jennings Bryan had more backbone and trustworthiness than either of the big name candidates running for president this go 'round, and you know what a phony (albeit a likable phony who had the good sense to resign from the Wilson cabinet) he was!

But before I tend to disrupt my bladder even more, let's first talk about Mr. Walk On The Water himself, Barack "Is He a Muslim? Who Cares!" Obama. Before we do, please get one thing outta your head...Obama's election (which pretty much seems in the bag as we speak, but maybe a tasty surprise will happen within the next few days to upset the apple cart!) ain't gonna solve any racial questions just as the election of John Kennedy didn't solve any religious ones. In fact, almost fifty years later religious hostility is perhaps even worse and out in the open hostile than it was in 1960, with hardshell liberals the caliber of Bill Maher and Al Franken mocking Christianity on the national airwaves and getting away with it under the guise of free speech. We certainly didn't have to put up with such evil in the "hated" pre hippie era, other than with boring "comedians" like Lenny Bruce trying to "teach us a lesson" about society and belief, sparing his own New York liberal hide in the process! Having Obama in the comfy White House swivel chair isn't exactly gonna get all Amerigans to gather 'round and sing "Kumbaya" like so many social planners would hope, and frankly if racial hostilities flare up to an even newer high I would not be surprised even a tad.

And as far as the racial question goes, all I gotta say is that Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha really did hit in on the noggin when he spoke about the prevalence of racism in Western Pennsylvania and how it will probably hurt Obama's chances at least in this state. Unfortunately the guy backtracked and apologized for admitting what now seems like a plain-as-the-nose-on-my-face fact, because the nomination of the Big O as I like to call him has certainly brought out some of the bigger conspiracy nuts and closet black haters to the forefront of the local all around gabfest frolics. One person actually thinks that the election of Obama will unleash a torrent of black fury unseen since THE BIRTH OF A NATION, while others including some staunch lifelong Democrats (who are still stuck on that sick FDR as a kind, benevolent richguy interloper image that continues to make me puke) are switching to the other side because the thought of Obama in charge is just too strong an image for their beanies to comprehend. It's really surprising to hear one of these ethnic voters who has cursed out the Republican Party for longer than I can remember muse "You know, that Huckabee guy wasn't that bad after all..." which is something that never would have crossed the mind of an avowed anti-redistributionist as I.

Cooler heads do prevail in the rustier-than-thou Western Pee-YAY area, though perhaps not in the way one would expect. Recently another acquaintance, a guy who I pretty much try not to offend since he is larger than me and has quite a temper (plus has made his disgust with the current administration known to all within earshot) asked me out of the blue who I was going to vote for. Nervously I replied "none of the above" hoping to avoid any kerfuffle (even though my response, for all intent purposes, was true), only to have him reply "I know what you mean, but I guess I'm going to be voting for Obama in order to straighten things that are going on in Washington". Of course the guy thought I wasn't for Obama because of the race factor and that I'm no Republican (which I guess must mean he thinks I'm an OK guy in his own Eastern Euro ethnic way!), but at least I thought it different from the usual responses that I've been inundated with as of late.

But frankly, I can't see how anyone couldn't go for Obama on personal appeal alone. He comes off so nice and much younger than his 47 years would lead you to believe. Due to his lighter complexion he's the spitting image of the early-sixties tee-vee black (I refuse to be a quisling and use the accepted hyphenated term "African-American")...y'know, the kind you would see on various dramas and perhaps a few comedies like THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW (and I'm not talking about the episode with Godfrey Cambridge!) who had that dignified look that was obviously copped from repeated viewings of A RAISIN IN THE SUN. Of course you only got a glimpse of these actors and actresses (most specifically Cicely Tyson) in one especially self-righteous scene where he or she would prove him/herself to have taken the moral high ground (or more often behind some desk in a white collar job role), but after tee-vee got scared off of blacks other than entertainers after the AMOS 'N ANDY brouhaha it was a miracle that any of us got to see black people on the tube at all!

Not-so-strangely enough, the early-sixties-bred television character Obama most reminds me the most of is that kid on DAVEY AND GOLIATH who wore the polka-dot tie. Remember that one, where this lad with an obvious melatonin advantage moves into town and Davey's always rambunctious friend whose name escapes me says that he doesn't like this newcomer because he wears a polka dot necktie, and his dad or uncle or someone else doesn't like guys who wear polka dot ties so he doesn't as well. Of course alla us kids watching this religiously-bent animation series were goin' "c'mon, that kid doesn't hate him because of the tie, he really hates him because he's COLORED!!!!!" Which of course was the whole idea behind that particular D&G, but I guess back then things hadda've been circumvented a bit in order to pass muster with obviously superior early-sixties tee-vee kid mindsets.

But suave early-sixties looks and calls for "change" aside, what is Barack Obama other than just the latest in the long conveyor belt line of Big Government libs who wanna work out every aspect of your life and help you live it for you, and you betcha you're gonna get it up the wazoo unless you're part of the newly emancipated (from two-thousand years of Evil Western Morality) "New People" who finally got to be created sixty years after Stalin's death 'n boy aren'tcha glad??? For a guy whose catchphrase is another term for cleaning up baby's soiled diapers, I see nada difference between him and the long line of mooshy Dems who have been shoveling the same pap at ignorant ethnics for the past hundred years in a desperate attempt for these WASPs to come down and mingle with the hoi polloi. When you get down to it, all Obama really is is a Jimmy Carter without the farmhand philosophy or Ted Kennedy with a chance of survival. Of course when Obama talks about change he means it as in change from the previous eight years of Republican rule, but as the recently-retired Charley Reese said, there really isn't a dime's worth of difference between the politics of the young and fresh fellow Obama and the tired old shovel the sap antics that the Dems have been dabbling in for a good century now. Face it, Obama's whole schtick is just the same old socialist hokum for the rubes dressed up in a shiny new package, and you know that if/when he's elected he's gonna get away with murder because all of the frothing social planners and useful idiots that are in tow these days are gonna cry "racist!!!" at anyone who dares question the upright moral integrity of their Great Black Hope. (And we sure gotta fear the wrath of the Obamanites once their man gets hold of the reigns...given their feral loathing of anything outside their chic radical cliques coupled with their moral stance of "can" or "can't" as opposed to "right" or "wrong" who knows what havoc they will reap once in control of the halls of government!) And I'm sure some ignoramuses will probably want to hurl their own charges of racism at me for the previous few statements, but what else could one expect from a bunch of Government School-trained automatons anyway?

And as for such issues as troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, I tend to believe that although Obama would withdraw troops from such places he'd only send them to more "politically correct" battlefronts like Darfur and the Peace Creeps won't even bat an eye. After all, their ideological ancestors were so hip to the idea of FDR sending troops to Spain during the thirties, to fight for the Communists naturally, so why should they rant and rave if Obama decides to use the military for his own political agenda! And please, don't get me started on the current economic "crisis" which will be but a memory in a few month's time no matter who gets it! Let's just say that Capitalism as it stands in the hands of the Senate Financing Committee might by at fault, but unbridled Capitalism isn't!

But really, who but the most hidebound of pundits would disagree with the fact that the main core of the Democratic Party, their beliefs and their candidates (with a few brave exceptions like South Carolina's Bob Conley) riding the waves with their promises of "sharing the wealth" (aka robbery) and micromanagement are just plain evil? Evil like your grade school teachers and other people who told you that your only true worth was what you did for others, while others certainly took advantage of you for it and feeling cheated was just selfishness on your part. Evil like just every other authoritarian who told you to "think for yourself" then whomped you for doing just that because you did just that it went against the grain. Evil because these same brilliantines told you about the wretchedness of acquiring wealth, yet didn't mind begging for a piece of your ill gotten gain (or stealing it in ways legal or other) in order to fund their own pet causes and whims. The problem is that the evil has been made holy due to an imaginary "common good" that really will never benefit from all the good vibes and hefty tax dollars thrust upon it. As one commentator noted recently, the hopes and dreams of Obama are exactly the same as those of Lyndon Johnson's fortysome years back, and Johnson with his Great Society got a whole slew of programs through which in fact are still up and running all these years later. And yet, the "change" that LBJ promised the sheeple of his time never did transpire and in fact only made Ameriga worse, just as strict government control of schools has turned out generations of idiots, aid to poor families had only broken them up and created a bastard nation and public-funded councils bankrolling the arts has only led to loads of subpar works that sure don't inspire the way unfunded artists of a variety of stripes (especially the avant garde!) will for eons to come.

As far as the loyal opposition goes, I gotta say that the Republicans got what they voted for during the primaries, and the fact that they voted for John McCain only goes to prove that once again that the GOP in their infinite wisdom have decided to take sizzle and style over substance which is what they often accuse their Democratic rivals of. Only I fail to see any sizzle or style in McCain, who never did strike me as being any sort of "conservative" let alone right wing icon that the Republicans always praise themselves for cultivating. I mean, there were other blips on the Republican primary ballot radar that were farther to the right ("the right" as in a party of perceived small government and personalism) than McCain like the iffy Mike Huckabee or especially my own personal fave Ron Paul, and Dr. Paul was more or less trounced by the Republican elite (and liberal pundits like the better late if not never Tim Russert) for espousing the same set of values that these very morons would have championed a good seventy years back! But I guess people get what they vote for, and if Republicans wanted to vote for a well-entrenched Washington insider who's more or less eager to cross party lines on issues that make the standard television commentator drool uncontrollably (plus co-sponsored one of the bigger illegal immigrant amnesty bills in recent memory), well it's their problem.

Get one thing outta your head...no matter how much McCain screams, utters and wiggles, he sure ain't no Great White "Conservative" Hope! As if the term has any true, substantive meaning outside of what's happening on the Taki's Top Drawer site or at CHRONICLES magazine these days (and it's a term the likes of many of these paleocons tend to loathe) but if you wanna get down to brass tacks, how many so-called conservatives in politics really are (that is, actually work hard against massive government programs and other surefire vote-getters), let alone were? People like to gab all they want about Ronald Reagan and the George Bushes, but would conservatives at least as I understand 'em to be really double/triple the size of government as Reagan had, he being an admirer of FDR who never really did divorce himself from his old hero? Or would they have bled hearts over a "kinder and gentler nation" or "No Child Left Behind" as the Bushes? Really, I couldn't see a Robert Taft or Barry Goldwater indulging in any of these frivolities, and outside of a few brave souls what Republican could you think of who wouldn't want to jump on the gushy-gooey bandwagons that every Republican prez from Hoover on down has more or less CREATED despite the image of Republicans as small government (maybe next to Dems, but most likely NOT!) self-starters? So no matter who is on the big number ticket this time, the do-gooders and world betterers are gonna get their man into the Big Comfy Chair!

It all reminds me of Molly Ivens (consider her a left wing Mencken, extra lite) and her forward to the Vincent Bugliosi (consider him a way less, but still liberal enough Ed Sanders extra-extra lite) book on George Bush who said that the Republicans had their candidate in '00 and he was John McCain, but somehow that sneaky George W. Bush got in there and mucked our plans up but good! I kinda thought it funny to see the opposition party so eagerly wanting to pick the Republican candidate, and for once they got their man even if it's eight years too late! (Gee, I guess this does give me the right to proclaim that the Republicans had their candidate in Paul, but gave it to the illegit McCain instead!) Anyone with two braincells to rub together would obviously know the reason that the general liberal contingency and what is now termed as the "drive-by media" think McCain's such a wonderful Republican candidate...it's because he's such a milquetoast who can easily be cajoled and molded into whatever form or shape suits the moment even more than Gumby could! Even when McCain yells and "takes off the gloves" to frighteningly pallid effect he's still playing footsies with Obama as this campaign has so eloquently proven! Look at those debates where McCain really coulda torn into the Big O for everything from his associations with perhaps "shady" and "anti-American" characters (whom I frankly could care less about) to his support of partial birth abortion (not to mention Obama's various wimp-out responses to such questions...guess the guy isn't used to hardballs being tossed at him!) but chose not to in order to make this a "nice" election. I dunno if this is the kind of fellow I would've wanted tangling with Kruschev fifty years back...could you have imagined McCain engaging in a kitchen debate with that infamous Soviet leader?!?

Naturally when all is said and done I dunno which is worse, having to choose between people who are gonna make you eat strawberries and cream even if you hate it, or those who promise to dismantle everything that stands in your way one of these days, except themselves of course. The current Amerigan presidential contest is probably an even worse scenario than the one in 1972 which prompted Mark Jenkins, in the pages of his fanzine HYPERION to scathingly berate George McGovern for wanting to turn politics from "the art of what is possible" to "the art of what is right" (mainly whatever 51% of the population says unless the government objects and goes court-shopping in order to overturn it)...Obama would change this definition to "the art of what I can do for the greater good (which is what a well-informed group of intellectuals should deem it to be)" while McCain's take would be "the art of sacrificing any personal integrity which I may or may not have in order to break deadlock" as if being deadlocked over an issue that means something to you is worth "sacrificing" whatever personal view on the matter you may have.

Out of all of this chaos there are actually a few intelligent observations and recommendations being made by people associated with what is left of the "right", but don't count on any of them to make inroads into either the mainstream of political discourse or the public square for that matter. The usually etapoint Pat Buchanan has made some wise remarks as is wont his nature (such as with his endorsement of Ron Paul during the primaries and his backing of Democrat Conley) but as usual began rallying around his old Republican buds as the election drew nearer and nearer. If he'd like us to vote for McCain I'd at least like to read a good reason for doing so from Pat (like telling us that McCain might elect strict constitution-believing judges to the Supreme Court, which he probably wouldn't do anyway), even if they probably wouldn't change my mind. The Southern Avenger, a Charleston-based radio personality/columnist whose blog I have linked up on the left, has come up with a rather smart voting guide in his endorsement of Chuck Baldwin of the Constitutional Party even if I don't exactly cozy up to them as much as I do the usually weak-willed Libertarians. Myself, I'll probably pull the lever for Libertarian candidate Bob Barr even if there are issues with him that I certainly cannot agree with, such as his membership in the ACLU as their right wing stooge more or less. Maybe it's a sympathy vote...after all the bile Larry Flynt dished out about him during the Clinton scandal while breaking the eighth commandment in the process (as if commandment breaking was anything new on Flynt's part), Barr deserves all the help he can get!

So if you know what's good for you, VOTE THIRD PARTY or better yet DON'T VOTE AT ALL!!! If you do decide to truck on down to the polling place please don't do so as a "protest vote" like the communists would ask you to do all those times when Gus Hall was running. Do so because it's probably the only way we can veer our government away from the tyranny of the do-gooders that would result from staying the two-party course. Of course if your idea of Good Times is to have the modern day equivalent of those "uplifters" from some old D. W. Griffith movie micromanage every aspect of your life while creating even more "special privileges" for people who certainly haven't been getting the short end of the stick for the past forty years, Obama is your main man. Or, if you're anxious for "small" government that somehow continues to grow despite all the blab about eliminating tons of deadwood departments and, of course, "coming together" is the most important thing of all, McCain is the one to punch the card for. Me, I always thought that the average BLOG TO COMM reader had at least a modicum of intelligence to see that hogwash for what it is, but judging from some of the comments I have received regarding various political scribings on my part, as well as the hefty amounts of votes that Herman Munster hasn't been getting in my own straw poll, I sincerely doubt it.

(For a better encapsulation of a lot of what I have written above click here to be taken to a recent Paul Gottfried column at TAKI'S TOP DRAWER that sums up a lot of my opinions regarding this election [while going off on a few different tangents, but so what] and in a way more erudite way I may add. At least this piece, by the usually correct Gottfried, as well as the comments left thereafter, make a whole lot of sense and give more in-depth analysis of where Ameriga 2008 and the election stand than the usual flapping jaws heard within the realm.

And while I'm at it, here are some more smart words you probably won't find in First Principles. A good guide to read before you decide to just hang out and do nothing this coming Tuesday.)