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The Rev gives it to you like it is: election day blues.
So, you made it through another election season and all your paranoid,
apathetic beliefs found justification. Big corporations bought out both
Bush and Gore, Nader was thumped by those same big corps, and the People
lined up to get their usual raping at the ballot box. Billions of dollars
were spent and all you got was this lousy status quo. Oh, get over
yourself. We obviously didn't see the same election.
Sure, big money did buy out two candidates and it's still the 800-pound
gorilla of the American Electorate. However, you need to look beyond the
obvious to see just what you got for your money.
A billion dollars on correspondents, satellites, pundits and pancake makeup
couldn't save Ted Turner from the egg on his face resulting from his network
reporting 1) that Gore had already won Florida and 2) that Bush had won the
election. Blunders like this don't lead to the kind of viewer loyalty that
will earn CNN those much-needed ratings points. After all, who would trust
a news network that uses a dog track betting approach to election coverage?
Thanks, Ted, for being the sacrificial lamb evidencing the little-known
inverse relation between money and intelligence.
Speaking of intelligence, how about Al Gore for being the fool who followed
CNN's foolishness? There's Big Al, calling Dubyah to congratulate him on
the victory CNN has just announced. Picture the system-crash stare on
Gore's face about an hour later when he realizes that the Fat Lady he heard
was just an anorexic with a Marshall stack and a mic. Poor schmuck-30
straight hours of campaigning across three states he ultimately won and his
need for sleep causes him to rely on a network that goes on to make him look
like an idiot.
Hung up on the idea that your individual vote is pretty worthless? In
California, that may be true. Then there's that funny case of Florida. At
this point, it's entirely conceivable that less than a thousand people will
determine the winner of the election. If those thousand or so hadn't cared
enough to vote or felt unimportant, it'd all be over now. Consider this the
next time you consider avoiding the ballot box.
I know you're feeling sorry for Nader and pissed off that he didn't even get
to debate. You're right: that sucks. But you must have missed the press
coverage he got after his concession speech, when he derided both Gore and
Bush as being corporate stooges. That's the kind of coverage opportunity
that money just can't buy, or stifle.
And so goes the range-watching here on the campaign fence. $ 3 billion
bucks and some high-priced laughs.
uaka@pigdog.org
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