A Not-Paid Political Announcement - Guest Editorial Post

My sometime-collaborator, Michael Reaves, has, for good and sundry reasons, allowed his blog to lapse. But he had something about the mid-term elections he wanted to put forth, and so -- even though I never get into politics myself, as long-time readers all know -- I am giving him the space for a guest editorial. His opinion does not necessarily reflect those of this station, nor its employees -- well, except that it kinda does ...


Here it is:


"If things go the way it appears they will this Tuesday, we are, all of us, royally, painfully, mind-numbingly fucked. Without soap, without a cushion for the sawhorse, without even the cold comfort of a reach-around.

I am deeply puzzled by the actions of the Republicans (including the tea party, birthers, and others who usually don't leave the  house without wearing their trusty tinfoil fedoras). What's wrong with you people? I mean, there's not playing well with others, and then there's stalking onto the playground with a militia strapped beneath your black leather duster, screaming "SEE YOU IN HELL!!!" and proceeding from there. This is usually known, in terms of  The Hero's Journey, as the Path Of the Raving Loony. It is the path most of you have apparently chosen, albeit on a slightly more sophisticated level. But only slightly.

Listen up, all you Neanderthals in three-piece suits: a democracy is founded on informed consent -- a concept most, if not all, of you are having more trouble with than a hunchbacked lab assistant trying to remember if Doctor Frankenstein told him "Brain A " or "Brain B". "Informed" consent is not "unformed" consent. What difference a vowel makes.

Look, I'm going to take it as a given that you have your reasons - and they probably even make sense - to you. I also know that you people see conspiracies everywhere (and the really scary part? These are the relatively normal ones I'm talking to now.) But seriously - I gotta ask: What the fuck is wrong with you people? Even though it's typical of you folks to see everything and everyone in black-and-white starker than film noir, please try to hear me when I say that there are subtleties and hidden agendas when even just two people get together. With 300 million? There are more.

But 'tis all to no avail. The hollow-eyed, stone-faced multitude makes the typical computer-augmented hordes of Undead zombies swelling the local multiplex seem about as terrifying as multiple clones of Fred Rogers, sans sweater. They are Republicans; until recently cast into Lovecraftian Outer Darkness, they have clawed their way back into the coveted center once more. Their sheer, True Grit-style indomitable determination is something the Democrats not only do not understand but cannot understand. The Dems, it must be said, have backbones of pliable plastic at best, like a lab replica, while the Republicans have spines sheathed, Wolverine-like, in pure indestructible admantadine. The only problem, of course, is that it sheathes their brains as well. They are Republicans; fear them."


We now return you to your regularly-scheduled programming.


And agree or not, if you aren't in a mail-t0-vote state and your ballot already in, do exercise your constitutional right to be part of the process, however flawed, come Tuesday. It is your right and your duty as a citizen. If you don't vote, you don't get to bitch.