Letter to a Representative from a Disaffected Patriot

Dear Sen. X,

With all respect, I appreciate your sincere desire to serve the Nation and our fine State of residence, but I have serious doubts as to whether this can at all be accomplished through political affiliation with the Two-Party System as presently constituted.

When I wrote to you expressing my dismay at the Vice President's arguments concerning the legal classification of his Office (relative to the system articulated by the US Constitution), my concern was not for the timely reconciliation of rhetorical positions among various interested parties.

Perhaps, when I wrote you, my concerns were expressed in a simplistic manner. The content of my correspondence contained only a citation from a White House press conference (referencing the Vice President's recent claims about the legal status of his Office) and the statement "THIS IS FLAT OUT UNACCEPTABLE." The correspondence was not particularly intended to elicit a direct response, but rather to serve as a means by which I, an engaged citizen, might communicate my perceptions to one of my elected representatives in the Federal Government.

You wrote back, "our democracy is not perfect." My concern, Sir, is not whether our Democracy is perfectly implemented, but rather, whether it presently can be said to exist at all.

You wrote, "our government does successfully balance the many interests and concerns of our diverse nation in a manner that is representative and fair," but I see violence in the streets comparable to a theatre of war, increasing numbers of high school graduates sold into indentured servitude to procure funding for college, orchestrated disinformation campaigns by the Federal Government designed to keep the citizenry ignorant or perplexed, more incarcerations than any other country, state socialism for corporations and the fascist sheepherding of individuals. I hear politicians twisting language to serve their ends. I see high crimes and misdemeanors in the White House.

You wrote, "the process works because there are public servants...dedicated to the ideas of democracy." This assumes the existence of an effective means by which Democratic ideals might be implemented; I see diminishing evidence to support the validity of this assumption.

An Administration installed on contentious grounds, which of late appears to have abandoned even the facade of legitimacy, does little to mitigate my concerns. Under such circumstances, neither does a reply from an elected representative to the effect that I ought not worry because this will work itself out do much to instill confidence that our Democracy is functioning as intended.

I regret to inform you that you will not receive my votes in the future. This is due in no small part to your affiliation with the Two-Party System, as I see increasing evidence of late that this System is not operating in the service of individual US citizens. I will use all peaceful and civilized means at my disposal to persuade others of my position.

Sincerely,

XXX

2008 Elections - USA #1

The best thing that might come to the United States from the War in Iraq is not oil, but an opportunity to examine the collective hallucination of USA #1 that makes our people so easily manipulated.

Think for just a minute: we denied blacks and women suffrage for most of our history, and now everything is run by corporations. The dollar has subverted the vote. When have we ever been THE GREAT DEMOCRACY? To what do we lay claim with our attitude of moral superiority? We were just as willing to destroy the planet as the Soviets, for the sake of a claim to victory in the Cold War.


We are started quite young. Once the hallucination of USA #1 takes hold, various "leaders" can lay claim to accounts of how and why USA #1 came to be, and what we can do to ensure that USA #1 continues.

Of course, everybody wants USA #1 to continue. USA #1 feels good for Americans. USA #1 is good for China. But it's a lie, and one that Democrats are just as willing as Republicans to exploit.

What is a vote for Barack Obama? We feel good to have overcome slavery. What an odd thing to feel so good about. As though it were ever sensible to keep humans in such brutal bondage. It is like we are children making our first marks in ink on paper, at once celebrating the completion of our latest and greatest novel. Preposterous.

What is a vote for Hillary Clinton? We prefer that the Revolution had never taken place? Give us back a Monarchy? Sure the Democrats can be tough on Terror. When Bill Clinton signed CALEA, he did just as much to get the permanent war started as George Bush did by signing PATRIOT.

What is a vote for a Republican? They align themselves with the 1/4 of Americans who "don't believe" in evolution, have never heard of global warming, don't know whether New York is east or west of the Mississippi, and can't name more than two or three other nations currently in possession of nuCLEAR weapons. Republicans are scoundrels, all of them, to exploit such people on such a scale.

Two-party rule is broken, and we should not continue to legitimize it.

In such a political climate, the only way to be sure you're not voting for a Fascist is to vote for yourself. Unless, of course, you ARE a Fascist, in which case you should write in "America Jones" wherever you vote next.

Diversity in American Politics

I feel like race is something that everybody in America has to live with, but which many people feel as though, in order to discuss it with anybody but close friends, they must go out on a limb. There are a few things that can be said about race with reasonable certainty: race is first and foremost a cultural and linguistic construct because genetic variation is continuous among the human population. Genetically, skin color is about as meaningful as hair color.

Then there is the sand of time, the ocean of language, the tree of life, and the dollar. Sometimes there is harmony, too often discord, always this beat of a collective march towards something greater. Blind marchers and marchers who see, sleepwalking or awake but dreaming, never too long complacent with complacency; in America, by and large, people get along so long as they are left alone.

American culture has this paradox: we say the Civil War is over and that we live amongst ourselves in peace; yet judging by the number of gun deaths here, a foreigner may be hard-pressed to say there is not a war underway.

Is politics really war without bloodshed, or are there bodies in the streets? Why are these deaths not shown on the news like the faces of soldiers brought home from Iraq in flag-draped coffins?

I would argue that cultural diversity contributes to much of the beauty in American society. I would also argue that it continues to contribute to much sadness. I will not argue for a beauty of sadness, but I will speak to the transformative power of sadness, and for the nobility of a just struggle.

The democratic struggle begins and ends with a voice; the interim need not see bloodshed, but too often does. What is the struggle of democracy, if not to end political bloodshed?

Too many of our political struggles end in complacency: polarization in American politics is a rhetorical illusion, which suggests that, for example, Democrats and Republicans exist at opposite ends of a continuum. Yet these two parties encapsulate the diversity of neither American culture nor American politics. There should be not one black party, but multiple; not one conservative voice, but many; and many revolutionary voices to define the centrism of their parties.

The United States of America is a republican democracy, with constituencies that believe in fiscal conservatism, liberalism, communism, and anarchism. Those constituencies interested in the pure pursuit of power leverage their influence to engineer self-reinforcing social systems, such that most citizens can only participate in politics if they vote to reinforce the illusion of polarity.

Our government collects so much information about us, and makes so many decisions based on derivative information, that the Democrat/Republican/Yes/No vote we are offered (depending on the most popular spin) is drowned out by all the other votes we make with our consumer habits. It seems to me that if we had a greater number of viable parties in our politics, we could express more articulately what we would like to see in our government. Politics could become a forum for popular discourse, rather than an elitist form of oppression.

But democracy starts and ends with the people, and a diverse body politic is not something a government can give a people, like a government might give people safe food, national security, or roads.

This election season, Americans have a number of viable candidates seeking the Presidency. If John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Ron Paul, and Mike Huckabee stopped competing for candidacy under the same two parties, and sought instead to represent other parties in our upcoming Presidential election, Americans could use their votes to help create viable third parties. A third party candidate only needs to earn 5% of the vote in a Presidential election to qualify for federal matching funds the following season. Viable third parties could create a situation where, if a candidate wins the Presidency with one third of the popular vote, the President will have no choice but to cooperate with other constituencies in order to get anything done. If we continue under our current two-party system, we have rule not by the majority, but by the handful of Representatives willing to vote across party lines.

Perhaps a vote should be viewed as an investment in democracy rather than as a payday wad to blow uptown. A vote for a third party candidate is an investment in American cultural and political diversity. If you don't vote at all, the government won't hear what you have to say.

vote for america jones.

greetings, voters, citizens, whoever you are. as we near
our elections here in americana, i would like to take this
opportunity to remind you to vote for america jones wherever
you vote next.

in this age, when our environment is over-saturated with media
technologies and powerful messages of conflicting values and
intentions, it is becoming harder than ever to figure out where
major-ticket candidates stand. it would seem the only remedy for
this is a greater simplicity. therefore, by campaigning on the fascist
ticket, the message of america jones is rendered most articulately:
"vote for me once and you'll never have to vote again."

beyond the obvious appeal of this message to the convenience-
oriented sensibilities of americanians, it would be foolish
not to acknowledge that, despite the bad rap fascism has picked
up in recent years, voting for a third party candidate is an
important way to register one's discontent with the two-party
rule that seems, of late, to have jammed up our fine democracy
so profoundly. if a voter should becomes apathetic and simply
choose to give up on voting, that voter's apathy becomes
defeat, and that voter's discontent remains unheard and
unregistered.

at the end of the day, this is the beauty of america jones:
by bringing together the apathetic with the fanatical,
america jones becomes a uniter and not a divider. america jones
represents compassionate fascism at its finest.

so remember when you head to the polls this tuesday november 7,
and every time you head to the polls confused or disenfranchised
or with a bone to pick: a vote for a fascist is a vote for
independence!