Does anyone still worry about the electronic voting machines?
Australian law enforcement officers, when they apprehended the outlaw Ned Kelly, shot him 28 times in the process. They nursed him back to health and then put him on trial for his life. They found him guilty and his last words, before they hanged him, were: "Such is life."
For a columnist desperate for a metaphor, it seems like the doomed man could be a symbol for the Democratic Party in the USA. After eight years of being pummeled by the Bush Administration, the Democratic Party got a slim majority in the House and Senate. (Nursed him back to health.) Then the new Democratic President faced the task of running the gauntlet of conservative talk show hosts. (Put him on trial.) Are Australians familiar with the concept of a "kangaroo court"?
Optimistic Democrats see the coming midterm elections as a chance to continue the repeal of the Bush-Republican debacle. Curmudgeonly columnists see the stories about the electronic voting machines and the impending quagmire that will be caused by Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) as something that can be portrayed as another version of: "Dead man walking."
The analogy can be extended. When Democratic candidates talk about listening to their constituents during 2010, the pessimists imagine they are hearing the song about "The green, green grass of home." The sad old padre would be played by radio host Mike Malloy who has resigned from the Democratic Party and renounced them as not being his kindred spirits.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are very vocal in their assertions of being the true living patriots, while voting against every motion in sight. Do you suppose that they know something about the unverifiable results that the electronic voting machines will produce next fall, that he Democrats don’t see coming? Maybe they should emphasis the point by making Merle Haggard’s "Sing Me Back Home" their official song for next year’s elections and each time they play it, dedicate it to the Democratic candidates?
For an ambush to be successful the victims have to be blissfully unaware of what’s just about to happen and it helps if they enthusiastically rush into the trap. "Heck, those electronic voting machines were what were used when President Obama got hizself elected, so they must be reliable." Will who ever is using the radio playing "Please, Mr. Custer, I don’t wanna go" turn down the volume? Thank you.
The role of the forth estate has traditionally been to challenge and question society’s leaders. How much of an effort does it take to imagine that if the Republicans score a disproportionate number of upset victories in 2010, the media will meekly respond with a chorus of "once again the voters have confounded the pollsters" stories that are Xerox copies of each other?
In the news business, prewritten stories are usually called Hand Out’s (H.O.’s [you figure out how to pronounce the acronym]) because it not extremely unusual for the overworked and under paid newspaper reporters to use prepackaged material that requires no effort or thinking. Another good reason is that management knows that using such items will please the capitalist corporations who run big ads. Please Note: Uncle Rushbo has asserted very strongly that no political organization provides him with talking points or monologues.
At this stage of the game, any attempt to raise concerns about such a looming catastrophe will be treated by the Republican Noise Machine as the hysterical nonsense of an alarmist and will be drowned out by the tumult caused by Uncle Rushbo’s sing-along efforts to wave the flag and disarm any lingering concerns about the computer machines that produce unverifiable results.
Wouldn’t any such alarmist efforts be just as rude as Johnny Cash’s comments about the glass of water he was given while recording a live concert at Folsom Prison?
Did you know that the guy who wrote "A Boy Named Sue," also produced a bawdy vulgar ditty titled "the Father of a Boy Named Sue"? Check on Youtube if you challenge that fact. If the original song was so very popular, why don’t folks know about the companion item? Do you think that the news in America’s "free press" really is managed?
Speaking of Australia and things you might not know; did you know that the Australian entertainer "Little Patti" received a military (Vietnam Logistic and Support) medal for putting on the show that coincided with the battle of Long Tan, in Vietnam?
In the movie, "Ned Kelly," Mick Jagger sings a song that is one of the very few (only one?) that was also, in a different movie, sung by John Wayne. Can you name it? In "The Quiet Man," Wayne sang "Wild Colonial Boy." (Wouldn’t ya love to hear an electronically mixed version of those two guys singing the same song?)
Yeah, the Democratic Party, just like Ned Kelly, has been nursed back to health. Now, they have to face the Sisyphus task of winning a majority of contests on those electronic voting machines. When the final votes have been tallied, we fully expect some media tool to make the glib jibe: "Such is life" and shrug off any "unforeseen" rash of upsets.
Don’t say we didn’t warn ya.
BTW, how is the effort to replace Bush’s Republican Attorneys General going? Wouldn’t it come in handy, if a Republican wins in 2012, to still have them in place?
Oscar Wilde quote
Uh-oh! The disk jockey has gone nuts and wants to play the top 10 prison songs of all time. This is his call:
Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
The Cool Hand Luke soundtrack album
Tom Dooley (Kingston Trio)
Long Black Veil (Johnny Cash)
Mama Tried (Merle Haggard)
I’m the Only Hell (My Mama Ever Raised) (Merle again)
For They’re hanging Danny Deever in the morning. (traditional)
Midnight Special (Leadbelly)
Your in the Jailhouse Now (Clint Eastwood)
The Green Green Grass of Home (Tom Jones)
Well, we gotta slip out of here. Maybe go over to the Purple Porpoise and have a glass of sarsaparilla. Have a "Far, far better thing I do" type week.