September 3, 2001
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There is a ditty that I first heard when I was a child mumble years ago,
and heard again only a few days ago:
The election is now over; The results are now known; The will of the people Has clearly been shown. Let's forget all our quarrels And let bitterness pass. I'll hug your elephant, If you kiss my ass. The corporate media repeatedly reassures us that no one really cares about those few minor discrepancies in the last election, including the fact that the man who lost the popular vote, George W. Bush, became president anyway because he owned the only five votes that really mattered. The tack that the corporate media was going to take was evident from the beginning when the protesters along the inauguration route were essentially ignored. Since then, the media has paid enormously little attention to the issues raised by the election, including the disenfranchisement of millions. The corporate world has a puppet in the White House and the corporate media is delighted and convinced that if they don't point out the strings, the public won't notice. But if the media truly believes that most people have forgotten the election fiasco, it has totally lost touch with the world outside the Washington Beltway. Untold millions of disgruntled citizens wryly or bitterly embrace the spirit of the last line of that ditty. Polls suggest that there is still a lot of latent anger about the election. Anti-Bush jokes flash around the Internet in mind-numbing numbers. The president's latest malapropisms are discussed around water coolers, in email, chat rooms and even the rare 'liberal' talk show. Bumper stickers and T-shirts give vivid evidence that not everyone thinks that a stolen election is something we should 'just get over.' If you don't believe me, type "anti-bush" into a search engine. The last time I tried that in Google, I came up with 8,510 hits. Several hundred of those hits -- more than 800 by one estimate -- are for web sites devoted to lambasting, berating, castigating, censuring, deriding, and making fun of The Shrub. No sane person is going to wade through all those hundreds of sites, but a tour of a small sample provides hours of amusement and enlightenment and gives hope that the public is beginning to awaken. One starting place might be: http://www.linkcrusader.com/anti-bush.htm Bill Cavanaugh reports on the opening screen that linkcrusader.com is "Free Speech Central" -- Bill's BEST Links to Progressive & Anti-Bush Sites. He offers 700 anti-Bush links. There are links to sites featuring sloganed t-shirts, jokes, serious essays and news, and calls to action. There are links to more than 500 anti-Bush songs, such as 'Navy Subsidy' sung to the tune of 'Yellow Submarine' and taking a jaundiced look at Dick Cheney's electric bill. 'Hit The GPS Spot' (Hit Me With Your Best Shot) reflects on the Pentagon's rigged test of Bush's missile defense system. To the tune of 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling' is 'Bush Lost, But Won By Stealing.' And sung to the tune of 'A Horse With No Name' is 'Of Course, He's To Blame.' I didn't mean to go on so about the songs, but it's like sitting before a bowl of salted peanuts, it's hard to stop at just one. OK, two more: Sing the song 'Hit the Road, Jack' and substitute these words from the chorus of 'Give those Votes Back': Give the votes back, And don't you attack Al Gore no more No more, no more, no more Give the votes back, And don't you attack Al Gore Sung to the tune of "What A Wonderful World This Would Be" by Sam Cooke, is a parody by Bob Witkowski called 'What A Wonderful World.' It is filled with such delights as this: Don't know much about air pollution Don't know much 'bout the constitution Don't know much 'bout th'economy It never much affected me But there's one thing that I know for sure If the rich stay rich and poor stay poor What a wonderful world this will be Some of the website names are inspired, I Did Not Vote For That Son of a Bush.com, for example, whatdemocracy.com and AllHatNoCattle.net. There are t-shirts, bumper stickers and coffee mugs for sale at numerous sites, decorated with such slogans as "Jail to the Chief," "Resist the Illegitimate Bush Occupation," "Don't Blame Me-My Vote Didn't Count," and "Bushwhacked." There is a link category "VIDEOS, SONGS, SOFTWARE, GAMES, SEEDS." I haven't figured the seeds out yet. Too many sites; too little time. The serious sites monitor, often daily, the actions of the Bush White House. On Aug. 14, americaheldhostile.com, reported on Bush attempts to get Russian endorsement of the anti- missile defense system. A story on the site said in part, "Today's failure to bring the Russians on board to one of his schemes shows just how ineffective Shrub and his minions are in foreign affairs. Perhaps he should be like his father and bomb Iraq again to show Americans what a world leader he is..." (Bush, of course, has been doing THAT all along. He is following in Clinton's footsteps by continuing to wage the war his father started against Iraq 10 years ago.) At http://islandimage.net/organizenow/13myths/ a group called 13myths.org offers a series of fact Sheets on the 2000 Election Results, Tax Cuts, and Public Education/ School Vouchers. The site slogan: organizing a response to antidemocratic distortion of the truth. Democraticunderground.com features a list of the top 10 Conservative Idiots, led the week of Aug. 13 by Katherine Harris. Many of the serious sites offer prescriptions for activism, and many offer chat and message boards where folks can get together and cheerfully bash the Bush. Another starting place for touring the anti-Bush world is Hated.com, whose slogan is: The Will Of The People vs The Never-Elected President Hated.com offers reviews of numerous other sites, e.g.: BushDuster.com: Bush bashing with some of the most tasteless and obnoxious animations and phototoons of the Bushits on the Web. We will try to make you laugh so hard you throw up. On second thought don't throw up, that's Poppy's job. That's a fact! PresidentMoron.com: President Moron Political Satire Daily News Link Crusader: A directory of over 500 links to anti-Bush sites, 120 message boards, Progressive sites, Activist Alerts & Tools, Democrat sites, News sites, & Campus Activist sites. Dubya's Dayly Diary: Satirical White House diary by humorist and Presidential channeler Madeleine Kane. This daily humor feature has been named USATODAY.com's Fun Site of the Week and won an About.com Bushie Award for best Bush-inspired parody on the Net. As Fox Mulder would say, The truth is out there. And maybe, just maybe, it's beginning to get out. Deck Deckert has spent nearly two decades as copy editor, wire editor and news editor at several metropolitan newspapers, including the Miami Herald and Miami News, before becoming a freelance writer. His articles and stories on everything from alligator farming to UFOs have appeared in numerous U.S. publications. He has written two young adult novels under a pen name, and co-authored a novel about the NATO war on Yugoslavia, Letters from the Fire, with Alma Hromic, who he met in an Internet discussion group. Deckert and Hromic subsequently married and are writing a book about their experience with Internet romance, Cyberdance. Please, DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work without the expressed written authorization of Swans, which will seek permission from the author. This material is copyrighted, © Deck Deckert 2001. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. |
This Week's Internal Links
Iraqi Sanctions: Myth and Fact - by Jeff Lindemyer
Inhumane Civilization - by Stephen Gowans
Dirty War - by Milo Clark
Heartless America - by Peter Phillips
Media Downplay Bigotry of Jesse Helms - by FAIR
Quotes to Ponder - by Stephen Gowans
Questions - by Milo Clark
Clown Del Ponte - by Pedja Zoric
Mausoleum of Parliament - A Poem by David Morgan
Deck Deckert on Swans
Coming to America: Navigating the INS Maze - Part II
Coming to America: Navigating the INS Maze - Part I
Articles Published on Swans Regarding the War in Yugoslavia and its Aftermath