By Will Phillips

News from the southwest corridor of America’s final frontier: A high desert blooming with deciduous trees and perennials, cowboys and Indians, (we’re supposed to call them Native Americans), developers, and two-ton monolithic vehicles which sport wireless DVD players and “Who would Ossama Vote For?” stickers. I passed one of these oddities on the way to work this morning. One sticker said “Flush the Johns in 2004” and the other was a simple pro-Bush slogan, along with the aforementioned assumption that Ossama Bin Laden, a man on the C.I.A. payroll until dying from renal kidney failure before the 2004 election, had a stake in the outcome of our symbolic voting system. Albeit, Santa Fe is America’s oldest capital and home to many a liberal, but let’s not pigeon-hole Americans with this left VS right paradigm. It’s utter nonsense and a pathetic excuse for FOX ‘news’ to force decent Americans to debate non-issues with more vigor than is necessary.

My friends, the news is in: The Downing Memo has failed to create more than a whisper in the dark halls of The Hill, where our own White House refuses to comment on the fact that our president was caught red-handed conspiring with Blair to systematically blow up and take over Iraq. Why you ask? Because history goes to the victors and American media is owned wholly by the victors. We have one public television station called P.B.S. and one public radio network called N.P.R. Is it no surprise that the Bush team has worked tirelessly to eliminate funding from both programs? Hello 1984. All I’m missing is my complimentary microchip, which brings me to the issue of socialism.

I am fond of innocently entering yahoo! chat rooms and listening to all sorts of banter. You’d be shocked and awed by the sheer volume of troglodytes that peruse these venues. In America, we call them ‘ditto-heads’-ditto meaning “I agree completely with what you just said”. Ditto-heads are individuals who are interesting in one thing and one thing only: Defending everything American and everything Bush. These rooms usually have the combined IQ of a potato and they are literally enraged by this thing called socialism. I try to explain that in any system, any ‘ism’ is prone to polarities. Communism, capitalism, socialism. Who gives a fuckism! This is what irks them about the French-the French are socialists along with the Czechs and most of Europe. “They’re socialist!” You have to pay half of your wages to the government! That’s not freedom! That’s leftist commie-bullshit!” Sure it is. The difference is that I can go to Prague and have a conversation with someone who has the capacity for abstract thought and doesn’t refer to democrats and Muslims as ‘ragheads’. This is the beauty of socialism: The simple fact that you’re not raised without an education and therefore subject to under-funded excuses for schools under a system that tried to refer to ketchup as a viable vegetable source, whose cafeterias and schoolyards are owned by Pepsi and stocked with every poisonous chemical compound known to man, where you have to subject yourself to a strip-search and some trained to kill German Shepard to get to first period, et-cetera.

But you know-I love America. When I returned from Venice with a quarter in my pocket and an alcohol problem (thanks guys), I rediscovered some hidden beauty that I had taken for granted my whole life. I walked through Wal-Mart, carefully edging past enormous, white human beings, through isles of XXX-large Loony Toons T-shirts and TV dinners, beyond the throngs of cell phones and dated copies of “Unraveling the DaVinci Code”, further than the parking lot which stretched five miles into a smog-laden sunset, and over the spider web of highways. It was here that I found America’s greatest asset: Space. Ninety percent of this place is absolute, abject, and forsaken space. I tell you right now-I can look out of my window almost 100 miles into the distance, where the atmosphere blurs the mountains into a blue line against the sky, knowing that tonight, there will be uncountable stars and a brilliant yellow moon rising against our tiny Pueblo. If there’s anything worth saving here, it’s the sense of wonder you get when you stare at the Grand Canyon or drive through Zion National Park or find yourself alone on the Washington Coastline with a few seagulls and miles of polished granite. That’s the America I love. It’s Caligula and it’s heaven-you just have to know where to look.

On the political front. Things are fucked up. We’re owned by a few lobbyists whose express aim to loosen the legal system in favor of international finance. Virtually everyone in Bush’s cabinet and the Project for a New American Century (I’m trying to find the difference) has a portfolio lined with options in the defense and oil industries and these lizards have somehow aligned themselves with the religious voice in our country. Namely retarded Christians with a lot of money who think that killing 100,000 innocent civilians in Iraq is part of some biblical prophecy. It’s a shite state of affairs I agree, but I urge you to ignore everything you see on television about America. Number 1.) We didn’t vote for that scumbag Bush. If you know anything, you know that the 2000 elections were the most fraudulent scam in American history. You should also be aware that in America we choose out presidents with an electoral college which means that each state is worth a certain amount of points and whoever ends up with the most points wins. It’s like football for the love of God. The thing is: After Greg Palast broke the story about voter fraud and the blatant disenfranchisement that occurred with African voters, the solution our powers saw most fit was bringing voting machines “because Americans are obviously too stupid to choose a president without a computer”. Many states fought against this legislation because the computers leave no paper trail and therefore who’s to say if the outcomes are legitimate! It’s ridiculous. We have states called ‘swing states’ because elections are usually decided by these key college votes. One is Ohio and the other is Florida. Do you know which states were among the first to have these voting robots hoisted upon them? You got it. After the 2004 elections, there were hundreds of irregularities. Namely thousands of votes being cast in counties that had around two people in them and outcomes that in no way reflected the exit polls. The thing is, most Americans are aware that this is occurring, but aren’t sure what to do. We know the system is fucked, but putting this cat in check is like trying to piss yourself out of an argument. How many times have we sent our remarks to the Hill and had them completely ignored? How many thousands of people came out in record numbers to protest this phony war? How many letters have we sent to congressmen and women and how many times has Bush been exposed as a slime ball with tentacles in the very industries making bank off this war? It’s countless. Absolutely countless.

So, don’t call us lazy (even though we are). Just understand that we’re all sand-niggers here in the land of the free. The whole lot. Americans mean as much to Bush as Czechs.

Next month: “Let’s talk about Israel!”

Will is a writer based in Santa Fe, NM. He also drums for the Cherry Tempo and makes hellacious music on his computer. Contact at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it orwww.myspace.com/pincheromantico

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