Yes, he finally kicked it...

Brutally Honest Rant - 11/08/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: The Big Post-Election Rant
Audio Transcripts
11/08/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Well my friends, as of this rant, it is the day AFTER Election Day, and I’ve got a few things to talk about here.

First of all, YES I DID VOTE! I took time out from my bill-paying job, hauled my ass over to the polling place, went through all of the bells and whistles, and I VOTED! I did exactly what I said I would do, I voted with my heart and my conscience, and since I don’t like the way things are right now I voted AGAINST the incumbent in EVERY race, even the ones that were uncontested. (And yes, that means a LOT of write-ins!)

But I DID my bit! Unlike members of Congress, I did not tell people one thing and then did the opposite. I voted and I got my little "I voted" peach sticker to prove it.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m not concerned somewhat about voter fraud. I DO have some concerns about the integrity of the voting machines. Now normally I’d dismiss such talk, but the one thing that bothers me is an alleged statement made by an executive of Diebold, the company that manufactures half of the electronic voting machines in America. In 2004, this executive ALLEGEDLY promised to help deliver the state of Ohio to the Republican Party.

Now I’d love to dismiss that statement as simply the PERSONAL expression of a Republican supporter during a very caustic political season. I really would like to dismiss it as that. Seriously. Except for two things… first, it was OHIO that became the most contested and closest state in the whole damned election, and second, this WAS a senior executive for the company that MAKES the electronic voting machines used in that election!

In order for you to understand how this could fire off some red flags here, I want you to go back to earlier this year to the 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit between the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Let’s suppose that the Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, went in front of a Steelers rally the night before the big game and openly PROMISED that Pittsburgh would win the Super Bowl. Since Detroit is supposed to be a neutral area as the host of the big game, one would have to suspect if Pittsburg’s victory had ANYTHING to do with their achievement, or did a little backstage manipulation give them an edge? Even if nothing can be proven, the mere implication of bias is enough to taint the victory.

Now let’s go back to Ohio in 2004. Here you have an executive of the company that MAKES these electronic voting machines making a clearly partisan promise… not a guess or a prediction but an ASSURANCE that OHIO will carry the Bush Imperium victory. Even if it isn’t true, even if there is NO evidence of manipulation, the mere implication of bias is enough to bring that state’s close results into doubt.

Of course you didn’t hear about any kind of investigation into that, did you? Nope. And you probably won’t. Because there’s nothing that can be done, even IF some kind of proof could ever be provided, which I seriously doubt would ever exist.

Look, whether you like them or not, electronic voting machines ARE the future of elections. After what happened with Florida in 2000, the whole election system was BOUND for change. And it’s not easy putting in a new method of voting, especially one that doesn’t leave a paper trail. Hey, I work with computers for a living, I KNOW that paperless isn’t always 100% efficient.

So it doesn’t help the integrity of that new method to have any kind of statement come into play like the one allegedly made by the Diebold executive. If you’re making the machines that host the election, then your company’s name and image should be as non-partisan as can possibly be.

Of course the TIMING of some of these stories about how accurate these voting machines are is also suspect.

HBO ran their special documentary on the subject pretty damned close to the election, and the rationality for THAT is questionable. If your mission is to alert the public about this kind of problem, then you don’t do it right before the elections when nothing can be done to change the process. You do this sort of stuff six months or even a year before the elections, giving the masses enough time to demand and carry out the needed changes in the state and local governments so they can be ready on Election Day. Alerting the masses RIGHT before an election that the machines they’re voting on may or may not be safe and secure doesn’t "inform" them, it actually DETERS them from voting! You’re not helping people… you’re actually INTIMIDATING them from fulfilling their individual responsibilities as citizens of the United States of America.

But then again, that is just a part of a much larger problem, which was made even clear in the past few days.

We have a political system that is obsessed with winning at ANY AND ALL costs! The two dominant parties no longer ask if a certain tactic is right; they ask if they can get away with it!

And that’s something that really needs to be put to an end RIGHT NOW! We have out-and-out cases of physical ASSAULTS caught on camera from Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney’s primary loss in Georgia to Senator George Allan’s GOP goon squad attacking a blogger for simply for asking a question. We have outright cases of voter intimidation on tape. And ALL of it… every single incident… will no doubt be easily excused and whitewashed by the government as simply part of the caustic campaign season. The assault caught on tape committed by Congresswoman McKinney’s staff was already excused by local police, and no doubt the GOP goon in Virginia will also get away with his criminal actions.

Anyone remember when the phrase "boys will be boys" was used to excuse some of the most vile criminal acts? It’s still used, but that doesn’t mean that it’s still an acceptable excuse. Well we need to apply the same thing here with the actions of ALL participants in the political campaigns. Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. The dirty tricks and outright criminal activities need to come to an end. And the only way they will is when we start seeing campaign officials being led away in handcuffs. We need to see some perp walks. We need to see goon squad members hauled away by the police.

These are campaigns that are supposed to represent the honesty and integrity of their so-called "champions". Well those standards need to apply to their campaigns as well, and it is high time that they be BOUND to them.

(Quick pause)

And that of course brings us to the big news… the really, really big news for America. This Election Day was also JUDGEMENT DAY, not only for the GOP and their 12 years in control of Congress, but also to some extent for the Bush Imperium.

The White House spin doctors were pretty much planning on using the mid-term elections as their way of anointing their Machiavellian strategist Karl Rove as a GOP kingmaker, someone that can be trusted to carry the GOP on to further victory in the 2008 presidential elections and beyond. Rove himself even INSISTED that the GOP would continue their 2004 victory. The other week he told National Public Radio in an on-air phone call that he was looking at poll after poll after poll that said that the GOP would survive the election unscathed. He even went so far as to accuse NPR of looking at the WRONG polls.

Well guess what Karl? YOU were the one that was WRONG! And so were the Republicans!

The full numbers of course won’t be out yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if this election produced the highest voter turnout for a non-presidential election in recent history. And that says something about how pissed off voters are, because that’s really the only thing that would bring them out to the ballot box, especially here in my home state of Georgia where it RAINED most of the day.

The end result is this: 12 years of GOP rule in the House of Representatives came to an end last night. The Democrats not only gained enough seats to take over control of the House, but they threw in several more for good measure. As of tonight, the GOP still retains control of the Senate, but that’s only by the slimmest of margins – with the obligatory recounts pending. That means that Vice President Dick Cheney may actually have to come out of his bunker more often to carry out his constitutional role as President of the Senate. The Democrats even took the majority of governors races, which really doesn’t give them any additional power, but it just shows how successful they were in putting an end to the "Republican Revolution".

New Hampshire voters voted for a DEMOCRAT to run their state. Massachusetts not only voted in a Democrat, but also their first black governor. US Senator Rick Santorum, the uber-conservative moralist, got kicked out of office. Kathryn Harris, who was told not to run for a Senate seat but did anyway by playing up to the religious extremists, lost badly.

And now of course the sour grapes will be coming out. The sour grapes will come out from the conservative talk show hosts. They’ll come out from the columnists and the radio callers and the ordinary people who have been conditioned like Pavlovian dogs to think in zero-sum terms. They will cry and wail and moan that America has somehow "lost the war" against the bad guys. They will wail and cry and moan that we gave up our security and our prosperity. And some of them will no doubt go so far as to claim that we even gave up GOD in this election.

Well the truth of the matter is that WE’VE BEEN LOSING the war against the bad guys. We’ve BEEN losing it because we lost focus of who and what the enemy is! The terrorists have continued to play this as being a battle of Christianity and Judaism versus Islam. And what have the Republicans been doing? Caving in on that argument. They’ve catered to our own religious extremists who ALSO subscribe to this idea that this is a war between Christians (and grudgingly the Jews) against Muslims.

Conservatives claim that we don’t know that we are in a war… I challenge them to specifically identify who we are at war against! I KNOW who and what the enemy is. I was doing college term papers on this very subject back when Rush Limbaugh was still trying to keep his marriage and his day job as a music disc jockey and back when most of today’s conservative attack dogs were doing Jell-O shots off of coeds and masturbating to pictures of Ronald Reagan.

You don’t "preserve" freedom by depriving it from Americans and calling it a "needed tool". You don’t "promote" freedom by simply advocating that democracy by itself will solve all of their problems. And you certainly don’t "defend" our own freedom-based framework by subverting it with signing statements and questioning the patriotism of judges who rule against you as part of their jobs.

As for prosperity? Well guess what? It really wasn’t as great as the White House has been spinning it. In the next two years, the bulk of the corporate layoffs announced over the past three years will start to come to fruition. The tax cuts that the Imperium have been touting will soon start to expire. The GOP-controlled Congress never did make them permanent. And it doesn’t matter which party is in charge of things, the economy is destined to sink around 2008 unless something DRASTIC is done to fundamentally change the economy for the better. It’s not a matter of "if"… it’s a matter of "how bad". The GOP has had two years of unquestionable control in Washington to change that forecast and it instead spent more time dealing with gay marriage and flag burning and coming up with new ways to keep us addicted to foreign oil and thus beholden to foreign nations.

Let’s get brutally honest here… the only reason why the Democrats won and won big in this election is because the Republican Party and the Bush Junior White House GAVE IT TO THEM!

The Democrats didn’t win because they had a better plan or gave any indication that they were the better alternative. They were JUST "the alternative", and not even a good one. They won because they weren’t Republicans.

The GOP pretty much pissed away any kind of confidence the American people had of them. They had unquestionable power to do whatever they wanted to do, and instead of less government and less government spending, we got more of BOTH. Instead of government officials with morals and integrity, we got hypocritical government moralists subverting the rule of law and imposing the rule of the Republicans. Mark Foley, Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, and Randy "Duke" Cunningham were mistakes that should have been quietly purged the moment the GOP hierarchy heard of trouble. Instead, they helped to drag the GOP into the toilet.

Let’s not forget the Bush Imperium. These guys played the FEAR card more times than George Romero! Cripes, I even thought I saw a zombie show up on camera at the White House… until I realized it was just Karl Rove pulling an all-nighter with his "infallible" polls. (Rimshot) Hey, here’s a quick lesson for the Imperium… when you have nothing to campaign on but fear itself, you sorta kinda start to act like the very bad guys that we’re going to war against. I mean, if you want to continue to play that card, then do us all a favor and grow a super-thick moustache so we can start calling you "Saddam".

And hey, I’m an equal-opportunity basher here… if the Democrats had failed to win control of either house of Congress, then I’d be telling John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Howard Dean to pack it up and get the hell out of Washington. But, of course, they won, so they get to bask in the glory of their victory for the next two years… except for maybe John Kerry. He probably should keep his mouth shut and keep his Clinton-coifed Worchester head out of the limelight for a while. Take a lesson from the GOP and let the people at the top of the hierarchy make their own mistakes.

Meanwhile, of course, the White House will have some serious rethinking to do as they chow down on their mandatory blue-plate special of crow. Some folks who thought their jobs were secure could seriously find themselves being the next Michael Brown. Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense and Zen master of Pentagon poppycock, has already been given the boot, and it was believed that he was a permanent fixture of the Imperium’s inner circle. The Bush Imperium had to bet the farm in order to keep their power in Washington, and now they’ve lost. Now they have some serious explaining to do as they wrap up the last quarter of their two terms in office and I have a feeling that the American people are not going to like what some of those explanations will be.

(Computer – yeah, you know I’ll have some political mixes for you!)
(Fade Music In – "Mythodea" by Vangelis)

Listen, folks, I’m a Libertarian, so I don’t have any grand delusions about what the next two years will bring with a mixed party running things in Washington. I’m not going to believe that people there will suddenly remember what freedom is or take even the vaguest measures of responsibility for their actions. The only thing that this election did was to slow down the expansion of government to a modest creep. And the word "creep" is aptly put given some of the dirty players in this political game.

I remember quite well the empty words of a certain narcissist when he described the last power-change in the House as being the end of the era of big government. Of course, as we all know, big government never did go away. It just gave itself a new moniker. Instead of "big brother", we started calling it the "nanny state", or, as I called it, "Big Babysitter". Now we just call it "9/11". If we want smaller government, then we have to vote for the people that will actually PROVIDE it instead of just wasting our time TALKING about it. We didn’t do that this time around. Maybe the next time we will.

This election is the GOP’s much-needed time out so they can clean up their act. They have pissed away our trust and our confidence, and now they have to atone for it and rebuild themselves so they can actually BE better the next time around. And if they want to PROVE that they really are better than the Democrats, then they would do well to follow my advice and take their defeat with honor and grace. Step down, step aside, and remember who it was that originally put you IN office and who it was that just took you OUT of office. They’re called your constituents. It’s about time that you reacquainted yourselves with them.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
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Britney’s back in the dating game?

So Britney Spears, the perpetual blonde pop-tease, has thrown yet another curve ball by announcing her separation and pending divorce from her so-called "perfect man"…. K-Fed… K-Frog… K-Rap… P-Kevvy… whatever he calls himself nowadays.

I suppose the timing’s good for this news. The "family values" hucksters are busy licking their wounds after getting kicked in the nuts in yesterday’s election. And her soon-to-be-ex is trying to reinvent himself as a professional wrestler since nobody’s buying his music or showing up at his performances.

Here’s a little piece of advice for K-rud: entertainers who go into professional wrestling don’t become better entertainers because of it. Ask the rappers who wrestled on WCW if their exposure got them any extra credibility. You know David Arquette even became a wrestling champion for all of a couple of weeks. It didn’t make him a mega-star. All it did was to serve as a cheesy promo for his movie about fans of professional wrestling.

Of course I’d be more excited about Britney’s decision to leave her so-called "perfect man" if she didn’t pop out two tax exemptions before this moment of clarity. As it is right now, until she can remember what it was that gave her that celebrity status, she’s still just a media oddity.

Breaking News: Rummy, you're FIRED!

This just in folks… Bush Junior is eating crow, and Donald Rumsfeld is going away!

Okay I’m obviously going to be talking about the election aftermath in the rant tonight, so stay tuned. This will be a big one!

It's Election Day!

Well... it's time. All of those BS ads come to an end (for now) and the time has come for us to do our bit and VOTE!

I know where my polling place is, I know how I'll be voting (I gave you guys enough hints in last week's audio rant), and I know when I'll be voting.

Remember, if you don't vote, you lose any justification to complain about how things are in government. So get your sorry asses out there and fulfill your responsibility.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post-election rant.

Saddam Hussein: GUILTY!

The verdict is in… Saddam Hussein is GUILTY of crimes against humanity and has been sentenced to DIE by hangman’s noose.

I’m really not surprised by the verdict. I am surprised by the death sentence, but not of the verdict itself. This is a guy who gassed his own people… which, by the way, he still has to face trial for. This was a long trial full of changes in judges and attorneys. I’m glad that they completed it, though, which is something that was NOT done with the Serb bastard Slobodan Milosevic because the prick DIED before his year-plus-long trial could end. I half-expected Saddam to die before the verdict was issued as well.

From this point on, though, the rest of the trials against him are pretty much formalities. He’s sentenced to die, and you can only execute him once. The Iraqi courts can only add to the convictions that he is to die for, which they should go ahead and do. Saddam NEEDS to know the full extent of the horrors that he committed in his life and to face justice on them.

The name of the game at this point is to get him to the gallows so he can face justice. Saddam still expects to be released and still expects to regain power of Iraq. As long as he lives, he is considered a bargaining chip for both terrorists and his Sunni supporters. They can try to negate his death sentence, or require that his method of execution be changed, or they could outright try to terrorize the country, the region, or the world with even more horrors unless he is given his release.

We’re coming close to the anniversary of his capture. I said it then and I still believe that it was a mistake to let him live this long. The people of Iraq had to put up with his tantrums and his games while awaiting trial. Now they have to endure things long enough to get him to the hangman’s noose so he can face a punishment that will be way too easy for him for the monstrosities done in his name.

Oh, btw, read your history… Italy’s thug dictator Mussolini was hanged as well. Not only that, but his carcass was then put on display for all of Italy to spit on.

Armey puts moralists in their place... sort of

Why is it that the only really GOOD politicians are only that way AFTER they leave office?

Seriously! Bob Barr was a moralistic politican when he was in office in the 1990's as part of the "Republican Revolution". Then after he leaves office he not only remembers things like personal liberty and freedom, but he actually joins the "dreaded" ACLU!

Well I guess we now can include former House Majority Leader Dick Armey in that same category.

Armey was one of the key leaders of the "Republican Revolution" until he got more or less bossed out by the corrupt SOB Tom DeLay. Now he runs his own little special interest group pushing for things like individual freedom and less government.

Well it seems Armey wasn't happy with the dictatorial tones of the bible-thumping freedom-hating moralists that are throwing thier weight around in the GOP. Specifically, he targeted God Squad leader James Dobson of the wrongly-named "Focus on the Family" and said that he and his fellow freedom-haters are the reason why the GOP are losing ground in America.

True to his dysfunction, Dobson thought he would take Armey to the woodshed with a scathing rebuttal posted on the Fox News website. But it was Armey's rebuttal that really took Dobson and his ilk to task for their sins.

Here's a snippet...

The very real tragedy of the past 60 years is the ongoing expansion and intrusion of the federal government into the traditionally private sphere of American life. Activist judges are clearly responsible for much of the damage, but just as corrosive is the expansion of the federal bureaucracy into education, welfare, and health care and retirement. The result is that private, social decisions once left to individuals and communities are now under the control of Washington powerbrokers. Our cultural debate has become politicized.

In fact, the specific demands constantly made by Dobson and his gang in the name of “values voters” feel a lot like the group identity politics employed by the left wing that every conservative should abhor. The politicization of the culture war cheapens the political participation of millions of Christians by turning us into just another “special interest” group to be appeased by meaningless symbolism.

Meanwhile, the growth of government spending and regulation continues unchecked.

What Armey doesn't realize is that the so-called "culture war" is just a fraud. It's a Trojan Horse scheme designed to cover up the real purpose, which is to seize power and control of society and transform it into a theocracy.

Armey also doesn't realize that so-called "activist judges" aren't destroying either society or the government... they're trying to stop the abuses of an over-reaching government, egged on by special interest groups from both liberal AND conservative sources. And yes, that includes the special interest groups run by people like James Dobson.

You want to get rid of "activist judges"? Then stop seizing power! Stop using government to solve every minor misstep. Stop using government as your personal mob enforcer. Stop using government in your dysfunctional attempts to "save families" and "save children" and "save" institutions that don't need saving! Stop giving these judges a reason to do their jobs!

Armey thinks that the only way the GOP can survive is by keeping the "big tent" around. But he doesn't realize that people like Dobson ALSO want that "big tent" around... but only as long as it is a big REVIVAL tent.

It's a pity that Armey doesn't get it completely, but at least he's starting to. Pity it didn't happen while he was in office.

You know this is next...

Brutally Honest Rant - 11/01/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Pre-Election Thoughts
Audio Transcripts
11/01/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Well my friends as of tonight, we are just a couple of days away from the November mid-term elections, and I’ve got a couple of bones to pick with both conservative and liberal groups.

BUT FIRST… let me start with a very important message. Listen very carefully now. X equals 1.

Do you get it? X equals 1. Let me repeat that for you. X equals 1.

Now it’s important that you know that X equals 1. It’s important because where I’m going with this will either confirm your political suspicions or kick them squarely in the nuts. But right now, the important thing for you to remember is that X equals 1.

Okay, the first bone to pick is with the Old Fart’s Club… the AARP. You see, two years ago a certain musician decided to have a special campaign slogan called "Vote or Die". He tried to motivate the young generation into voting in the 2004 presidential elections by giving them a rather absurd idea that if they don’t vote, then they would die. It was a stupid idea but MTV ran with it anyway. Unfortunately it didn’t really motivate the Generation Y crowd, although they would have had a better chance of getting interest if MTV didn’t fill their schedules with mindless programming that borderlines on reality that nobody ever watches.

Well the Old Fart’s Club came out with a different take. Instead of getting people to vote, they’re telling people to NOT VOTE!

I’m serious! That’s their whole campaign! "Don’t Vote!" They even have a commercial featuring a Stepford Pod Person who croons about how he’s such a GREAT guy and a loving husband and the PERFECT candidate for the unnamed political office, but just don’t ask him about Social Security.

Of course the rest of that message goes as follows: "don’t vote until you know where the candidates stand on certain issues." And by "certain issues", of course, they mean Social Security and other elderly programs.

Well I’ve got problems with that general idea. First of all, one of the old political tactics is to have a bus pull up at some retirement community, load it up with seniors, maybe offer them some coffee for the trip, and then on the way to the polling place remind them which party or which candidate was responsible for this little favor. You don’t need to be a mind reader to know how those free passengers are going to vote.

Second, I grew up in small towns and small communities, with people who have small minds to match, and I KNOW from experience that unless a candidate actually does something to specifically piss that group off, old farts will ALWAYS vote for the incumbent. ALWAYS. You know why? (Old voice) "’Cuz that’s the way it’s been, and we like it that way."

Third, a hard and bitter reality is that our caustic political system has CREATED the Stepford Pod Person personae that the candidates are using. It’s plastic and it’s phony and it’s fake because that’s the only way that a candidate can survive nowadays. They can’t deal with any kind of sensitive political issue unless they can count on certain special interest groups to deliver them the win. So that smarmy, crooning, Pod Person is never going to talk about Social Security as long as he plans on pulling that Election Day bus up to pick up a bunch of old farts to get their vote.

And fourth… while I appreciate the general idea that people should be INFORMED about those that they vote for, I don’t think that telling people NOT to vote without that information is the way to go. We have a hard enough time just getting people TO the ballot box… especially for mid-term elections! And that same caustic political system is intentionally and systematically designed to turn people AWAY from the ballot box!

Let’s get brutally honest here… The Democrats and the Republicans DO NOT want you to be anywhere NEAR that ballot box if they cannot absolutely secure your vote! If they can’t put you down as 100% on their side, then you are considered a threat to their campaign. THAT’S why you see negative campaign ads! THAT’S why you see mud slinging, especially in this year’s season. That’s why you’re hearing about horror stories about these electronic voting machines and threats of hacking and vote-changing. It’s not to "enlighten" the voters. It is all done intentionally, deliberately, and systematically to KEEP YOU AWAY from the ballot box!

Is any of this sinking in yet? THEY DO NOT WANT YOU TO VOTE!

So I say a POX on the Old Fart’s Club and any other special interest group or talk show host that tries, either in jest, inference, or outright, to keep you away from that ballot box! YOU NEED to be at that ballot box. YOU NEED to fulfill your end of the deal here. If you don’t like how the way things are right now, if you don’t like the pissing games and the name-calling and the ineptitude and the corruption, then it is YOUR JOB and YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to get your sorry asses out to the ballot box and VOTE!

And if you don’t know who to vote for, I’ll make it really simple for you. If you don’t like the way things are right now, then you vote AGAINST the incumbent. I don’t care which party they represent! Vote them out! Vote third party if you have to. Put your own name down as a write-in candidate. If your state allows a "none-of-the-above" option then use it! But DON’T YOU DARE tell me that your vote doesn’t count! We spent a whole frigging MONTH in 2000 arguing over who won in Florida, and then again in Ohio in 2004. The only way that your vote will never count is if you never cast it! THAT is the ONLY wasted vote in America, and every single eligible voter who refuses to do their part in that regard has wasted not only their vote, but they also forfeit any justification to complain about how screwed up things are.

THIS is your system. THIS is your time! This is the ONLY time that polls and spin-doctors and the air-fluffed media have NO SAY on the course of action. It’s all up to YOU.

Now, on to that other matter… earlier in this rant I mentioned a little statement that I said was important. Three little words. "X equals 1". I said those words over and over and over again.

Now let’s suppose that I were to continually reiterate that statement of "X equals 1" over the course of… oh, I don’t know… let’s say three years. Bring it up at EVERY opportunity. Make it a regular talking point for all conversation. Recite it as a mantra, and get others to recite it as well.

Obviously, the statement itself…. "X equals 1"… really means nothing. It’s just a substitute for any kind of talking point mantra that you want to insert in its place. Like… oh, I don’t know… "keep on trucking"… or… "keep it going"… or something along those lines that I’m sure you’ve heard over and over and over again.

So now let’s suppose that I’ve reiterated that certain mantra of "X equals 1" over and over and over again for three years. Then I suddenly backtrack. Not only do I say that "X doesn’t equal 1" but I go so far as to DENY THAT I EVER SAID that "X equals 1".

Guess what you would call me if I did that? Yeah, you would damn well know what you would call me if I pulled that kind of a stunt. You would call me a LIAR! Some of you might even travel long distances just to get in my face and call me that.

So here’s my problem: there’s this guy over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who had a familiar little mantra that he reiterated over and over and over again for three years. Not only was it HIS mantra, but it was also a favorite mantra of his father. You may have heard of this mantra… it was called "stay the course". Well this past week, he backtracked and actually said that the whole thing in Iraq was NEVER about "stay the course"! Not only that, but his ass-kissers then claimed that he only said that phrase maybe eight times.

Eight? Eight, you say, Mister "former Fox News anchorman"? Try almost thirty! This was HIS mantra, this was his FATHER’S mantra, and it even was Ronald Reagan’s mantra!

So if I create a buzzword mantra and say it over and over and over again and then abandon and deny it and I’m called a LIAR for doing that… then what does that make the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue when he does the very thing involving a policy that keeps thousands of Americans in harm’s way – for right reasons or not? Wouldn’t that person also be called a LIAR?

You know, eight years ago, the previous resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue got caught with a lie, and he was impeached for it. Obviously the circumstances surrounding this lie are completely different. The current resident of that address cannot be impeached for this particular lie. But we also shouldn’t cower away from calling it for what it is. It’s one thing to make a change when change is needed but you don’t start revising history to cover up the fact that you are making that change!

I know that the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue hates the reference, but that kind of action comes right out of a certain book by George Orwell. I would suggest that he include that book in his "reading list", but then again, I’m beginning to wonder if he doesn’t already have it right next to his Bible.

(Computer – oh come on, you know I’ll have a political mix for you to listen to!)
(Fade Music In – "Heretic, Hero" by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Since I am a libertarian, I know that it’s not likely that my kind of candidates will ever win an election. I will still vote for them, though, because I’m being honest with myself. I was suckered into the whole "lesser of two evils" scam once, and I will never make that kind of Faustian deal again if I have anything to say about it! And guess what? Since I vote, I do have a say!

So pretty much the only pleasure that I derive from the political season is watching arrogant people fall! It’s pure Schadenfreude, and I’m man enough to admit it. But for the 99% of the time that myself and just about every American in this country gets screwed over by these arrogant, self-righteous, dickheads and prima donna bitches and their special interest buddies, it’s good to know that we have that 1% where we get the chance to put these people in their place.

THAT’S the real reason why I vote! It’s my way of letting the system know that after spending BILLIONS of dollars and wasting THOUSANDS of airtime minutes trying to get me to not vote, that I’m still there and I’m still voting my conscience. It’s my way of giving them a message… and that message can be best described not with buzzwords or talking points or really clever mantras, but with two simple letters… F-U!

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
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Trick or Treat: Kerry's Trick

Okay, so it's after Halloween... but that doesn't mean there are a few extra tricks in store.

Specifically, Senator John Kerry's little "joke" about those who get an education and those who do not. This is certainly under the "trick" category, although no doubt Darth Rove and the Bush-brownnosers are calling this a "treat".

First let me make this clear... Kerry's gaffe WAS uncalled for. There are PLENTY of people with varying degrees of intelligence and education that are serving in the military, leaving open spaces in our homes and in our hearts as well as in the workforce. Instead of saying they "serve in Iraq", Kerry should have said that the undereducated can work in the White House.

But there is something that you need to understand: from John Kerry's generation - the one that fought in Vietnam - IT WAS about education!

Remember, unlike our current wars (both real and phony political), the young male generation of the 60's had to worry about being DRAFTED. Unless they had a college exemption (Bill Clinton), or got some sort of cushy reassignment (Ted Kennedy and Bush Junior), they had to worry about being DRAFTED and sent over to Vietnam to fight and possibly die.

Is this sinking in yet? In the 1960's, if you male and you went to college, you stayed alive. If you couldn't afford college, then you went to Vietnam!

THAT is why Kerry made the joke. It was still a bad one, and it was still uncalled for, but I wanted you to know the history behind it.

And even in bad taste, the joke would have made more sense if there was a draft in place.