Donkeyphant
Volume 4

December 2000

What a Surprise -- Another School Bond!

It still amazes me how politicians think they have a mandate to collect more and more money from their fellow Americans.  After all, it says so right there in the Constitution.  Taxation seems to be the answer to everything, as if the money comes from thin air.  Or maybe it's because they think taxpayers are an easy target.

I'm talking, of course, about school bonds.  In the Bay Area of California, housing prices appreciated 30% in the year 2000.  30%!  This of course  immediately increases property tax revenues.  So where does the money go?  Why is there yet another bond issue on the ballot?

And no, I'm not a Libertarian.  If outcomes matched up with promises, increasing taxes would be fine.  But time after time, the money - somehow - doesn't go as far as promised.  Facilities are inadequate and faculty are underpaid.  Meanwhile the prison industry seems to be booming.  So another bond issue goes on the ballot.  When is it going to end?  These assessments stacked one on top of their other amount to a significant amount of money per household.

There are still some fortunate Americans who own a home, pay their taxes, and don't get to take advantage of the fat cats' tax shelters.  They pay and pay and pay and they donate and donate and donate.  And then they're asked to pay more.  Some simply can't afford it anymore.  It has to stop.  There must be another way to fund the schools, perhaps by reducing the military budget, or by making white collar criminals build elementary schools, or by enriching fewer prison-building developers.

Renters get screwed even though they don't directly pay property taxes.  When landlords increase their rents the money goes into their pockets, and not one extra nickel goes to the schools.  So perhaps it's time to cap rents on the condition that renters pay their share of property taxes.  Perhaps then bond measures would lose their favor, because all citizens would be directly impacted by them.  Where it counts -- right in their wallets.

This Bud's for You

Donkeyphant has been sounding a little too pro-Republican lately so it's time to dispel rumors that we're a bunch of trickle-down-Ayn-Rand-worshipping right-wingers.

To quote Ralph Nader, George Dubya Busch is nothing but an oil corporation dressed like a human.  He has all the interpersonal skills of a weasel, and that's an insult to weasels.  He pulls off the charade about as well as Chevron's "people do" commercials.  Busch'll do ya too!  Just drop your trousers.

Busch definitely inhaled.  Dubya can't shake his reefer addict persona.  We Americans have to suffer four years with Dubya and the majority of us didn't even vote for him!  Those that even bothered voting, that is.

The fact that so many voters chose Busch over Gore is nothing but a comment on Gore.  Gore was pathetic.  By betraying his own personal views (if he had any), Gore became as appealing as a wax museum doll.  Albert, I know there's a real good guy in there!  Too bad you didn't trust your "fellow" Americans enough to show it to them.  I'm glad you lost because we don't need any more posers in the White House.  At least we have a greedy son-of-a-bitch white male for President who doesn't pretend to be Mother Theresa.

Bush's idiot persona is easy to attack.  This good-American-who's-doing-his-best-with-what-he's-got image is great at deflecting critical analysis.  First of all, Gore won the election and the Bushes, with the help of down-home brother Jeb and the bought-off Supreme Court, stole it.  Secondly, and more heinously, George W. Bush sent many innocent Texas inmates to their deaths just because they couldn't afford a fair trial.  The man isn't really a bumbling idiot -- he's cold and calculating.  He murdered the unfortunate for his own gain, kind of like, um, er, Hitler.  Underneath his boyish exterior lives a murderous, power-hungry, selfish man who hasn't worked a day in his life.

With the bumbling Dubya in office (Sorry Mr. Castro, didn't mean to call you Mr. Hussein -- just a little slip you know, tired, kinda tired, it's scary -- have I ever told you the story about my gerbil?), things are going to get much worse.

eCommerce Heaven

Lately we've been hearing grumblings, make that outright screams, about the stock market.  Well, newsflash everyone:  it's not Greenspan's fault.  It isn't Busch's either.

Millions of unlucky gamblers were parted from their burdensome money in the new century.  The predictions about Y2K came true after all.  The market had to come crashing down some time.  A car whose gas tank is filled with optimism only goes so far.  Eventually reality catches up and the car comes to a dead stop.

I predicted the crash of 2000 over two years ago.  I also predicted it last February when the DOJ launched its advanced attack on Microsoft.  You see, it's real easy to do.  It always happens.  Like Benjamin Franklin said about fools and their money, if you overextend yourself, you know who to blame.

Greenspan doesn't want to Busch to lower taxes and instead wants him to pay down the national debt.  Greenspan is a banker, after all.  What we saw yesterday was a little flexing of his mighty member.  I mean muscle.  Someone get a mop and clean up the spray.

Ironically, while investors' money was going up in smoke, CEO pay reached an all-time high.  CEOs were actually paid to lose money.  None of them will be arrested and few will be sued.  Dollars were wasted on extravagant offices, overpriced computer equipment (can you say Sun and Cisco?), parties, and frivolous ego-pumping televised advertising campaigns.  I doubt so many Americans expected the fruits of their savings to be wasted so quickly by so many young and irresponsible upstarts.  But that's what happened.

Hindsight up-close is painful.  As a friend told me, your money has gone to be with God.  Along with your deceased pets and loved ones.  If you're not a religious person you might want to reconsider.  I hear there are some online churches ready to take your donation by credit card -- free shipping!

Evil Has No Mask in the White House

(For now)

The Democrats have fallen on their sword.  Even when the law is on their side, they can't fight worth a crap.

Now that Democrats no longer sleep in the White House, they can awaken from their slumber and once again call attention to the atrocities inflicted by a Republican administration:

1. The bombing and starving of defenseless Iraqis
2. Crude oil dependency at a time when the technology exists for cars, heaters, etc., to run on water (water!) and the sun
3. The collusion of corporations and politicians that result in mergers like Exxon-Mobil and AOL Time-Warner
4. Billions of wasted dollars spent on boy toys ten years after the cold war
5. Massive ecological devastation, concentrated near poor communities
6. The loss of tens of thousands of good jobs to exploited Mexicans, Chinese, US prisoners, etc.
7. A minimum wage that keeps most working Americans in a constant state of uncertainty and ensures CEOs are eyeball-high in cash
8. The grand-daddy of them all -- election fraud!

It'll be like 1984 all over again!  Hooray!  Unleash the paper tigers!

Until the Democrats get back into the White House, that is.

Choice and President Bore

Throughout the 2000 campaign, there was a single issue that voters had a visceral response to -- abortion.  As if women could actually get an abortion in the U.S. after 8 years of Democratic rule.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, visit the office of a doctor that performs abortions without getting harassed by demonstrators or being creeped out by bulletproof glass. 

That is, if you can even find such a doctor.  After all, it's the Vatican's goal to acquire hospitals that perform abortions and make women go "somewhere else" for reproductive services.  What's that you say?  You don't believe those nice nuns and priests have their eyes on world domination?  Gee, that's never happened before!

If the Republicans were going to eliminate abortion, they would have done it when Regan was president.  Or Bush.  Or Ford.  They certainly had their chance.  So why is abortion still (technically at least) legal?

The answer is politics.  Being pro-choice keeps most politicians in office because the majority of voters are, by far, pro-choice.  Therefore both Gore and Bush claim to be pro-choice regardless of what that really means to women or society.  They don't care one way or the other, but they do care about their careers.  They are both whores.

But Gore and Bush will protect abortion rights, and womens' rights in general, equally poorly.  Their track records show it.  After all, there are a lot of Catholics out there.  In order to get votes both ways, either candidate will do the absolute minimum to appear to be pro-choice or, for that matter, pro-woman.  Why LBJ felt the responsibility to send in the national guard so that one Afro-American student could attend college, I'll never know.  Bush and Gore would never do the same for the thousands of women who are taunted daily because they happen to have a uterus.  Send the troops to the clinics and to doctors' homes.

Compare Al Gore to Democrat Walter Mondale who selected Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in 1984.  Compare Al Gore to Green Ralph Nader who selected Winona LaDuke as his in 2000.  Compare Al Gore to Independent Pat Buchanan, of all people, who chose Ezola Foster in 2000.  The Democrats of 2000 are less progressive than Pat Buchanan??  A lot can happen in 16 years.  Then again, a lot can not happen.

The silent war that CNN refuses to cover continues to be waged.  Doctors, primarily women, endure daily threats on themselves and on their families.  Doctors, nurses, and bystanders have died from bombs and snipers' bullets.  The killers drape themselves in religious righteousness.  Pro-choicers don't seem to be too eager to get into the fray, except by supporting their tired Democrats and shoveling their dollars down the rat hole of organizations like Naral.  Such is the commitment level from most liberals who would rather not be bothered in their upper middle-class neighborhoods.

But it is time to join the war.  Get the signs, hit the streets, and protect what rights women have left.  Otherwise we've lost.  Who has time for that?  A few thousand of anti-abortion zealots have lots of time on their hands.  Many of them are unemployed and take donations from the church to fight the "good" fight.  Pro-choicers who live fairly comfortable lives have that sinking feeling that anyone who gets involved is going to take a bullet.  We're either up to the sacrifice or we're not.

The issue of abortion is tightly intertwined with entrenched gender and sexual discrimination in the U.S..  Can women do what they want?  Are they in charge of their bodies?  Are women human beings or are they ornaments for men?  The movie Fried Green Tomatoes tells the story well.  I despise the treatment that most women get in this country.

More women should carry revolvers and shoot to kill.  That would get women the respect they deserve and there's no other way.  Just ask a gang member about respect and violence.  They know it better than anyone.  America is a nation of hypocrites.  Americans drape themselves in child protection rhetoric while producing and purchasing more violent programming geared for children than any other nation.

We can all argue until we're blue in the face about which candidate is more pro-choice than the other.  Meanwhile doctors continue to die.  Unwanted children continue to suffer the consequences, hoping that some anonymous liberal will be kind enough to buy them a Play Station 2 for Christmas this year.  Take action or shut the fuck up.