Stupid.
I know, it’s rude to call anyone stupid. But this year’s presidential race is totally full of stupid. That’s why you should vote for me. I may not be Mr. Personality or known by all or have any experience running a country or whatever but at least I have half a brain and I am NOT stupid.
The non-stupid part of this race is the bickering and ugliness going on in the Democratic primary. Racial jokes, taking sides because of color, rude and nasty and selfish and self-serving… all the above, but not very much Stupid. It’s shameful how uncivil the race has become since the nice guy (Bill Richardson) left the race. Come back Bill, please! Please! Please! Rescue us from the smug Obama, self-serving Hillary and the mean-spirited Edwards!
OK, on to Mr. Stupid, aka, Huckabee. I read many comments on the net that are nasty, vulgar, ugly, judgmental. I do not like that kind of posting and I hesitate to be unkind but dammit that Baptist drives me up the wall.
I was raised in the culture from whence he came. I was raised East Texas Baptist. Like the old cliché says, there are many good people in the Baptist church. Nevertheless I know how stubborn, prejudiced, self-righteous and bigoted people from this culture can be. I was raised in a culture that used the “N” word to reference African-Americans, that saw all other races as inferior, that spoke of “people” being in their “place.” I cannot speak specifically about Huckabee’s true attitude, I do not know him, but frankly I really doubt he has completely dumped the racism of this culture. He’s just done what many have learned to do here: keep one’s mouth shut.
I was born with a genetic flaw, I suppose. I am incapable of hating people because of their race. Neither can I understand cruelty or meanness nor why people hate other people. There are things people do which I despise but the person I cannot hate. So I don’t really understand anyone from this culture. I do not understand Huckabee. I am a man without a country, more or less. So on that level many things he says and does doesn’t make much sense.
On another level, I’ve known many Southerners who were prejudiced, selfish, self-righteous, but not nearly so stupid as Huckabee sounds like sometimes. I have known some whose views were so screwy and asinine that they became caricatures of Southern Fundamentalism but those guys were always fringe, not main-stream and certainly not on a national ticket. Huckabee sounds like he just stepped from the back porch of his church onto the national stage. It’s incredible that he’s where he is. And scary.
This is not going to sound very nice and I can’t help it but the truth is that Arkansas isn’t anything like the rest of the U.S.A.. Bill Clinton may have grown up in Arkansas but he at least has half a brain and plenty of Eastern connections and an education apart from what one gets pastoring Baptist churches in the South. I am not only Southern by birth (Texas!), my relatives are ALL from Aw-kan-saw. I do not claim them. Most of my blood relatives live in the back woods of southwestern Arkansas and they STILL use the “N” word without any thought at all. It is entirely understandable how Huckastupid made it to governorship of Arkansas. It’s beyond incredible how he has made it to the national stage and how so many evangelicals vote for him so far.
Evangelicals come in many colors. Though I very much disagree with their theology and cringe at their End-Times weirdness and ultra-conservative politics I still do not understand why they would surrender their country to someone so obviously out of touch and totally stupid as Huckabee.
Don’t get me wrong. Huckabee has every right to believe what he believes. He has every right to be prejudiced, hair-brained, religiously fundamental, all that. If he were the pastor of the church down the road I would respect his person and his faith. But the thought of him being President of this country literally scares the hell out of me. Because he is on the national stage I am compelled to say something to prevent that from happening, however humble or under-circulated my words may be.
So what was it that brought on this tirade by yours truly? This headline: “Huckabee vows to send all illegal aliens home.” These words from the Washington Times represent one of the stupidest comments anybody could ever make. I understand that some knucklehead racists want a “white” America and that there is a totally misguided anti-immigration lobby saying the same stupid things but to make that pledge as a presidential candidate shows how totally out of touch Huckabumble is. Does he have the slightest idea what he is saying? Hello?
People from Mexico and points south make up a huge portion of the population of this country. There are BILLIONS of undocumented, illegal people here. What’s he gonna do, round them all up and bus them down past the river? Has anyone considered what a nightmare that would be? Just the act itself would completely destroy this country.
Those undocumented people are not prowling our streets, stealing and pillaging. If this was true it would be the worst place on earth to live. What they are doing is working incredibly low wages doing jobs many people (including myself) wouldn’t do for four times their wage, spending quite a bit of those wages within a community, paying income taxes they can’t claim, doing without health care, and generally being abused in a dozen different ways. I know the East Texas economy would collapse without them. It fractured rather badly last year when an INS scare caused employers to start requiring documentation. Several local industries almost went belly up.
No, it’s not fair to the economy nor the illegals but that’s the way it is. It’s not the country getting screwed by undocumented workers. It’s undocumented workers getting screwed by the country. The operative word is “work.” Of course there are gang bangers, thieves, crooks and drug runners crossing the border. But most, the vast majority, who seek out coyotes to get them across the line just want to earn a living. That is all.
Every bit of that aside, however, just consider the scenario Huckabee suggests. Let’s take a few minutes to reminisce about just what might happen if he became President and started the Great American Roundup.
First of all, such an act would require a Gestapo of such proportion that a fourth of the country (citizens, of course) would have to be in uniform. Every single neighborhood where Hispanics live would have to be raided. For the billions of undocumented there are also many billions more who ARE here legally or who are citizens by birth with parents who are not here legally. Every single Hispanic family would have to be screened. To do that there would have to be an expansion of federal power beyond anything ever deployed in Soviet Russia or China.
What of the families who are mixed, legal and illegal? Do we split all those families or add American citizens to the expulsion? Do we rip babies from mothers arms or do we retroactively change our national law to make every child born here an illegal? How far back do we go? What another huge can of worms that would open!
So now, we’ll say that somehow the Feds have managed to round up the billions who are truly undocumented. They put them in camps in every state with thousands in each camp. All of them must be fed something and must be given housing. Better call all the troops home and cut the whole Federal budget so detainees can be fed a few tortillas and some beans. Consider how shameful the episode when the U.S. detained a few thousand Japanese during WWII. Multiply that a hundred fold. That’s what we now have once we’ve completed our Huckabee roundup.
Next comes the actual deportation. Obviously the appellate system that deals with immigration has already crumbled. It was entirely overwhelmed. There is no longer any appeal, they all must go. Schools are dismissed all across the country. Buses are commandeered. Convoy after convoy leave the camps loaded with angry people, Mexican nationals, people from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and all other places. These days people get sent back to home countries directly but how, exactly, would the Huckabee expulsion do that? Sorting them all out would be almost impossible since none of them have papers and the logistics of such a move would be impossible. All buses head south.
There are a lot of Hispanic-looking middle-easterners here illegally too. (Heck, maybe a few “terrorists.”) They wouldn’t speak Spanish so they’d be doubly isolated. The buses headed south are filled with broken families and poor people, people who were so poor and hungry in their own country that they risked their lives entering the U.S. to find work. Guarding them is the Huckabee Gestapo, Brown Shirts with shotguns prepared to kill. It’s the only way such an operation would work. Most likely tanks or some kind of military machinery would be required to keep the convoy together. Towns like my own, Lufkin, would witness an incessant train of yellow school buses, military vehicles, armed federal agents, passing through from points north and east as far away as Chicago and New York, headed for the border.
By the time buses from Illinois or New York got here it’s a pretty good bet south bound deportation convoys would be backed up from Brownsville and Laredo up to San Antonio, Corpus, maybe even Houston. Why? Simple. Is there anyone, anywhere who believes the government of Mexico would allow all those people to come over the border? Dream on. The new President of the U.S. might be stupid enough to turn his country into a new Fascist State. It’s hard to believe the President of Mexico would let his country be the dumping ground for billions of unwanted people. Barriers and road blocks would go up along the Mexican border unlike anything the U.S. ever put up to keep illegals out. The Mexican Army would be deployed all along the border. Now what?
Now Huckabooboo has two options. Try to negotiate an impossible situation or simply use the military to clear the way. Negotiation would be impossible. Anybody with half a brain could see that. If Mexico was in such a bad way that hundreds of thousands of its citizens had to flea north every year what kind of horror would it be in for if billions all came back at once? Especially since many deportees were not even Mexican in the first place. Why should Mexico let them in? They shouldn’t. They wouldn’t. So force is the only answer.
Nervous commanders begin to lead convoys towards the river. Across the Rio Grande the Mexican army fires mortars and artillery at the bridges. Soon every crossing is strewn with rubble, bridges are gone. Battles between U.S. troops and Mexican soldiers start breaking out from the Gulf to the Pacific. All of a sudden the entire southern border of the U.S. becomes a war zone. Thousands of Americans are caught in the crossfire. The Rio Grande runs red. The Mexican-American war of the 21st century is underway.
Meanwhile there’s the billions of displaced deportees with nothing to loose sitting in hot buses just behind American lines. In all the chaos guards are overwhelmed. Deportees run a muck. Men and women who would react civilly in a civil situation become very uncivil when their whole lives are disrupted. The deportees form into mobs after they break free. It would not be a pretty thing. They would be angry, hungry, and bent upon revenge. At the border the war might be fought somewhere close to military standards, aka, Geneva Convention. Not so with this mob. Non-Hispanic people would be torn from their homes, tortured, murdered, raped. This would happen not because the deportees were bad people but because mobs never have any conscience, direction or mercy. Mobs follow leaders who are the most cruel. There would be carnage all across my beloved state and all the way to California. The mother of all race wars now ravages the entire Southwest with mobs forming in places up north like Chicago, New York and anywhere else there are large Hispanic communities.
The billions from the buses would be joined by a few billion more true American citizens of Mexican or Hispanic descent. They did not vote for Huckabee. They never approved of his policies. All they ever wanted was a peaceful place to live and to be able to earn a living. They stayed out of the political arena. They cannot stand by when their friends and relatives are packed into buses and cursed by non-Hispanic neighbors. Once the race hatred erupts brown-skinned American citizens are no more safe than the deportees. Suddenly everybody is everybody else’s enemy.
My family, here on our little hill, are now in mortal danger. Half a mile from our home is a large Hispanic community. Should we run? Would it be possible? Should I just park the van across our long drive and hunker down? Soon the lights will be out, the water off, we’ll be hungry. What then? The horrific policies of the Huckabee Gestapo threatens my own family’s life. I’m not Hispanic, I’m as legal as one can be, but that no longer matters. We escape, abandon our home, become fugitives, or we stand, fight, and probably loose.
The American military is a pretty effective force. Most likely in a few weeks they’ll reach Mexico City. It’d be a bloody war but they’ll probably win. In a month or two the insane war ends. Mexico is in shambles. Its economy, not anything like ours when the madness began, is now pretty much gone. Marauding mobs continue to be rounded up by the powerful American military across the U.S. Soldiers are now policing all of the continental U.S. under the martial law decree Huckabee had no choice than to enact. Every state in the U.S. has suffered but none like the border states. California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas may never recover. Hundreds of thousands of American citizens and foreign nationals were killed or wounded in the Malay that broke out when the buses stopped rolling.
I have managed to keep my family alive but there’s not much left of our home. We escaped but our house was raided, burned, and destroyed. There is no electricity, no water, no gas. Burned shells of houses litter the landscape. Fires still smolder. The woodlands may still hide small bands of deportees. Many of my neighbors, some who are related, are now dead. They had guns. They fought. They died. Their homes, like ours, are gone. From Louisiana to the Pacific there’s nothing but destruction.
Race hate continues to boil. It’s fueled by horrific acts performed in the heat of war and civil unrest. Both sides are guilty. Nobody can forget how the horror movies they’d been watching suddenly became terrifyingly real. Blood and guts, torture and cruelty, these are the tools of civil unrest. These things happen in Africa or in the East. Not here. Not here… until now. My wife, my children and I clean up the land quietly, learning how to make do with very little. We bury the bodies we find on our little patch of ground. We live in the shack I build from what’s left of our home. My wife or I, or both of us, join in the cues of people trying to get meager rations from a haggard military outpost down the road given the responsibility of providing food for refugees. The America I once knew is gone forever.
Perhaps in the years to come the world will once again make sense. Maybe Mexico will rise from the ashes and become a good neighbor. Maybe it will become part of the United States. Or maybe the whole of the U.S. will disappear beneath a green, white and red flag and Spanish will be our official language. Who really believes Mexico will have to fight alone? All of Central and South America would be outraged at the war and American aggression. Some nations to the south don’t like us very much. Some have pretty darn good militaries and a whole lot of dough. Maybe Canada will have come in on our side… nah, probably not. Of course if the deportation started before the U.S. got out of Iraq and Afghanistan our forces would be spread so thin we might not be able to pull the war off. Or we abandon those fields of battle and loose the global war to militant Islam—a far worse fate than loosing to Mexico. At least Mexico is predominantly Catholic and doesn’t want all Christians dead.
Of course, on this little hill here in the shattered woods of East Texas all that stuff is far, far away. We who live here, in the new America, and especially in the militarized South West, must survive under martial law. There’s severe food shortages. The infrastructure will take years to repair. For the rest of our lives, shortened by all the insanity, my wife and I will be involved in a single-minded effort to protect our children, keep them alive, and help them find a way to survive this post-war world.
Like I said, Huckabee is stupid. There are few ideas floating around in this country more lame brained than the one that says we must “ship them all home.” It will never, ever be done. Even to try would mean an end to everything America ever stood for. But do we really believe Huckabee is all that stupid? No, not really. He is a politician. He is a dishonest politician who will sign pacts with whomever necessary to get himself a constituency. Nobody in their right mind would ever try to deport every “illegal alien.” At least nobody who understood the true situation and the true nature of man. One would hope Huckabee would have a handle on the national population and so forth. One would think Huckabee, having been a minister, would have an inkling about what the nature of mankind is, too. Either Huckabee is entirely stupid or he’s a little stupid and a big liar or he’s a lot stupid and a little bit of a liar. Either way, if he gets elected, God help us.
Does anybody expect him to get elected? No, of course not. The media is shoving him to the top hoping he will get the Republican nomination. Then they’ll crucify him in the general election and put who they want in office. Just consider how not too long ago immigration people were chastising Huckabee because he supported giving illegals aid in Arkansas and would not let the state police help with deportations. Like I said, a politician. He’ll sleep with the devil and then claim he was raped.
I tend to believe it’ll be Clinton with Obama taking the second seat. So why did I go to all this trouble to write this scenario? Because it proves how stupid politics has become in this country. And it shows how little thought politicians put in what they say and how little thought supporters put into what their politician says. We are all eat up with stupid. Gump’s mom was right, Stupid is as Stupid Does. One look at who sits in the White House today makes that pretty clear.
The crisis of immigration is only one of many crises we face. The insane war in Iraq is another. Huckabee is the one most likely to turn Iraq into a global conflict we cannot win. There’s a whole lot of other things he’s likely to do that would make me put my family on one of those buses headed south if he is elected.
My wife says I’m being ridiculous. I look stupid when I say, “vote for me.” Ha. It may be a little absurd for a nobody like me to run for national office without a dime in my pocket. But at least I know better than to say or promise the dumb things those other candidates come up with. I know war and confrontation never accomplished any good thing. I know hatred and anger never accomplished any good thing. I know working together, respecting each other, learning to cooperate and coordinate efforts, giving others the benefit of the doubt, these accomplish something. I know America is not good because of many things we’ve done but in spite of it. I know every hero can quickly become a villain in a different circumstance. If these are the kinds of thoughts you want your President to have, vote for me. I am going to.
I’ve known a few Huckabees in my lifetime. Them I could escape. They were not president. If you people don’t vote for me and you let that knucklehead get in office I’m out’a here! ¡Adios Muchachos!
And don’t be surprised when you hear me whisper from somewhere down south, “I told you so!”
VOTE FOR ME!
Today I watched as one of the greatest men ever to run for President in recent times stepped down from his campaign. My disappointment is deep and emotional. A lump rose in my throat and I felt like crying. Some men might not cry. I do.
For many years I’ve watched the country I’ve cared for very deeply since I was a very young boy continue to fall apart. The truth is that the best man has never won the presidency. Most have had at least a few redeeming values but not since the era of reconstruction has the country suffered as much as it has under the current administration. I doubt anyone now running on either side, Democrat or Republican, will have the resolve, the wherewithal, or the determination to turn this nation around. Certainly nobody has the qualifications nor the platform of Bill Richardson. There’s nobody I trust.
Mr. Richardson faced a media jugernaut that truly overwhelmed his every effort. Never forget, people, that the media is a consolidated voice for the corporate elite. They did not want Richardson to win. What did they do? They ignored him completely and pushed him out of the race.
Here are some very important words: “…when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce [mankind] …under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.” Those words, from the Declaration of Independence, are as valid today as they were July 4, 1776.
I read these words to my children today as we began learning the history of this nation. Despots across a distant sea trampled on the liberties of colonists. Today despots in glass towers supported by despots in Washington, D.C. are once again trampling on the rights of the people, people who are the descendants in blood and spirit of those who faced death when they signed and supported the Declaration of Independence.
The Truths declared upon that day remain self-evident. We have the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness–the ability to live a quality life and insure our families live healthy and in peace. It is not necessary that our government be replaced. What is necessary is that the individuals controling our government be replaced. We must throw out the scoundrels. The poor have suffered too long. The elderly have been abused and ignored too often. Children have been neglected too much. Nations around the world have suffered the wrath of an out-of-control military for too many years. Our grievances are many. We’ve been longsuffering. It’s now time to bring it to an end.
When today’s candidates say they want change they mean the jingle in their pocket and nothing more. It is time for a revolution. I don’t mean a revolution of arms but a revolution of ideals. We don’t need a revolution of violence but a revolution of peace. I speak not of a revolution of division but a revolution of unity. It’s time Americans reclaimed America. It’s time to put a little man in the big job. It’s time time for this nation to stand up and live out the full meaning of its creed.
I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. Vote for me. Join with me. Send a clear message that you’re fed up with the way things are.
In the days to come I shall publish my platform in detail. My administration will be an admistration of inclusion. My administration will be an administration of fairness and equal treatment under the law. My administration will be an administration of peace. My administration will be a triumph of good. Vote for me! It’s time the little guy had a true voice. It’s time we reclaim America for Americans!
It’s time friend! Make the impossible possible.
Thank you and God Bless America!
H.J. Ted Gresham
January 10, 2008
Vote for Me!
It was very disappointing to see the best candidate step out of the race. I’m quite sure Mr. Richardson had his reasons and was given plenty of political advice. I still believe, though, that he had a much better chance, or could have, if his campaign had been handled differently.
But who am I to second guess? I’m just a nobody living in a tin can in the East Texas woods.
Except, I’m not a nobody. The Declaration of Independence says we’re all created equal. It also says we have a right to affect our government. It says if we can’t, if the government is no longer responsive to the people we have a right to change our government. I ask you, do we as ordinary citizens have the ability to affect how our government does things? The answer is no, we don’t. For all the wonderful talk about our freedom and how our vote counts we still keep listening to media bull and electing self-serving and/or incompetent people to national offices. I, for one, am tired of the rhetoric.
There is no other candidate in either party I am prepared to support. There’s nobody I trust to speak the truth, nobody I believe cares about the issues that are most important, nobody who understands what life is like down here on the bottom.
I have decided that there’s only one candidate I can trust. That candidate is me. The only “change” candidates in the race want is the kind that jingles in their pockets. They are all part of the status quo and they will do nothing to rattle it. I will. I will stand up for the poor man, for children, for the elderly, for the uninsured and the unwanted.
Vote for me, H.J. Ted Gresham, independent candidate for President of the United States. Join me. Make your voice heard. It’s time, friend, for this country to live up to its potential. It’s time for a peaceful revolution at the balot box. It’s time to toss out the regime and put in common men with common sense. It’s time to Reclaim America!
Vote your conscience. Vote for me. Make the impossible possible!
Thank you very much!
H.J. Ted Gresham – January 10, 2008
Rambling
OK, so it’s Friday. Today I created a web active wallpaper. It’s cool. Makes accessing the BLog easier. …I still hate the word BLOG. Ick.
Anyway, so Richardson didn’t do so well in the caucus. Disappointing but not surprising considering their wacky way of doing things. Crossed fingers for the next few states.
OMG PLEASE not Obambam or Huckabutt. Obama the Smug and Huckabee the fundamentalist nut.
Tell you what, folks, just write my name in. I could do better than either of them hands down and I really do care for the people.
Prediction? Clinton – Obambam for four years. Ewe.
Next week, new adventure: Home School. Today, goofing off.
Have to fix the kids lunch.
God Bless!
Ted
Home Again!
Almost two weeks in New Mexico and we didn’t want to come home! But alas, our great adventure has come to an end. We explored the distant past and the future. We visited the New Mexico state capitol, ancient ruins, a Space museum, and climbed mountains to play in the snow and enjoy a spectacular view of the city of Santa Fe from high above. We lived, we played, we learned, we grew as a family. Now it’s back to routine. Sort’of.
Our routine is not going to be the same as before. Next week we begin another new adventure: home school. The reasons we’ve decided to school our kids at home are legion. I’ll give a rundown on them some time later. Mostly it’s about a school that can’t be trusted to provide a quality education, peer pressure and an environment where kids learn all the worst habits from friends whose families have lower standards than we have, a paranoid security system that works against families and distrusts parents, and a good-ol’-boy cronyism that supercedes proper treatment of children. These words sound unkind. They’re not meant to be. They are simply how things are. We choose not to participate. It’s been a long time coming.
One thing I didn’t accomplish was a visit to the Richardson headquarters. The office was tucked away in a nondescript office building and a bit difficult to find. We tried to find it on Friday after we got there but my wife was anxious to go shopping so we gave up the search. I found it Christmas Eve but, of course, there was nobody there. I called on Thursday after Christmas and they said they didn’t have anything there and I could buy stickers and such from the website. Not much use in going by. So much for that idea.
Something we did run across was a group called Food Not Bombs. There was a young woman from Vancouver handing out vegetarian food on the plaza in Taos for the organization. The temp was around freezing and there was half a foot of snow on the ground but she was braving the weather under the roof of a gazebo to make a statement for peace. Very admirable. Check out the new link for them I’ve posted.
Northern New Mexico is a great place. Not only is the weather better and the scenery totally magnificent but the political and social climate is very liberal. Santa Fe has long been a haven for artists and free thinkers. Taos, too, has a large population of peace minded activists. An ecclectic bohemian like myself fits in very well there.
Our new family motto is “Next Year in New Mexico.” Some day we hope to live there. It won’t be any time soon. Between now and then our lives are dedicated to learning and doing for others while we dream of mountain vistas and wide open skies.
Until next time… God Bless!
