ima take a stroll through the pumpkin patch, today-

president bush is attempting to use the events of 9/11 to secure himself the reelection. if you believe that any contest should be won and that there are (in actuality) no rules of engagement, then more power to him. i have always been of the mindset that if you give one enough rope they will either make a noose or a lasso… can w. reign in another four years or will his family history repeat itself? not really sure, in nyc we like to bitch and moan and talk about the presidency this and the presidency that. poetry stages are over flowing with references to our current administration to high applause and i ask this question…

if tomorrow, we woke up and the democrats had firm control of all three branches of power- would the ghettos be clean? would schools be filled with better teachers? would there be no drugs on the streets? could bullets turn to rainbows? me, i dont think so but thats what i am led to believe by the pseudo-revolutionaries that think wiping out what we have is the answer (well, thats what they’re poems say)

back to w.- after 9/11 george did something that his father wasn’t able to do. something that clinton, carter, ford or even nixon wasn’t able to do- he provided his presidency a damn decent sound bite.

reagan- “tear down that wall!”

jfk- “ask not what your government…”

the others listed above will have these statements live on in infamy-

nixon- “i am not a crook!”

clinton- “i did not have sexual relations with that woman”

bush, senior- “read my lips- no new taxes”

and junior?

he gets this little ditty- “we hear you. the whole world will hear you!”

not bad. bush is quite the lucky individual- he gets a disaster that leaves the country shaken to the core dropped right in his lap and he responds with his soulless sunken eyes and his “what the fuck am i gonna do now look?” that he always carries around. ask him about free trade, international diplomacy, military intel or why sosa got traded and all you get is the same damn look.

like keanu in the matrix- the first movie really works because you have the surfer dude caught up in a world that he has no answers for. he is the cyberspace’s first messiah and all he can marvel at is the fact that he just learned kung fu (whoa!). in only two scenes in the movie does he half to act (keyword) like he knows what to do with all the power in his command, when he dispatches smith and the phone call to the machines (notice there are no shots of his face during that last pivotal scene) in the end, we are led to believe that our hero has figured it all out and can guide us to zion…

much like our current face of american democracy. if there is one thing that i am the most astonished about w. is his total inability to project when he does a speech. how he was able to get enough votes to make the election close enough to steal is just amazing. shit, how he got out of some of those dwi is pretty fuckin phenomenal.

sadly, kerry seems just as wooden and lacks the charismatic properties that clinton was able to parlay into am eight year run on the top. the reality of our situation is that most of this country can’t tell an afghani insurgent from a pissed off dominican and as long as the blood runs brown- they will be quite happy to get themselves some payback. new york may feel like the capital of the world but it isn’t. the great disaster that was enough to let w. avoid domestic issues for the last two and a half years happened in our own backyard and most people here (that i know) don’t want revenge- just jobs.

ok- this stream of conscience rant works a bit better with poetry than politics, me thinks. then again, what’s the difference?