Bringing Down the House

With less than a month left until the 4th, there is still a small chance that McCain will pull his head out of Palin’s ass long enough to win this election.  Bush managed to win twice, and the way McCain’s campaign has been courting the scatological lately, we won’t be surprised if he tries even more nefarious tactics.  The perennial favorite of disenfranchised Republicans is the classic Voter Intimidation-omatic, and we’re already hearing and reading stories about that.

There’s no reason to panic, however.  No matter the winner of the presidency, we’ll still be Americans–spunky, hard-working, not-terrorists, Joe Six-Packs packing away the pork rinds during the Super Bowl.  And taxes.  We can deal.  Of course we would like to see Obama end up with the rubble that Bush has left, but McCain we can handle–it’ll just take a tetch more creativity.

To that end, we have compiled a handy starter kit for all of your pissed-off-at-McCain’s-government needs.  Should the need arise to use any of these brilliant suggestions, a small disclaimer:  it may already be too late.  But hey!  No point in crying over stolen elections.  As we learned from that one time we cut school to drive down to Dallas:  preparedness is not only fun, it can help you avoid calling your parents to ask for bus fare (thanks again, by the way). 

Option #1:  Inauguration Day

Contrary to most people, I believe too much bipartisanship is a bad thing.  So you won’t catch me sucking it up and standing behind the President of the United States because, gosh darnit, we’re all Americans and we have to stick together.  No, ma’am–I’ll be in Washington selling rotten tomatoes.  Nothing momentarily relieves a little bitter disillusionment better than the soft splat of a squishy fruit against the tinted windows of The Man.  It isn’t constructive, it isn’t nice, and it isn’t conducive to furthering a healthy and fulfilling relationship with somebody that you might end up liking, if only you gave them half a chance.  But it is fun, and I wonder what kind of signal it would send if they had to delay the president’s arrival to the White House because of produce.

You might argue that from a symbolic point of view, food just doesn’t carry the same gravitas as it may have in the past.  It is true that the impact (psychologically speaking) of flung fruit or veggies is somewhat diminished because we aren’t a hungry nation (yet).  We most often throw fruit not because, sure, we could eat this food, but we would rather risk death and throw it at you to express our discontent–but because that’s what we’ve always seen done in the movies.  My first impulse for a more modern political projectile would be a gas card, but that just doesn’t fly as well, unless you’re Ricky Jay.  Throwing actual gasoline could get waaaaaay out of hand, so you didn’t hear it from us.  Other possible things to fling in rage might be:  wadded up stock options, copies of any newspaper (Sarah will recognize it), or lastly, a brick from the home you used to own.

Option #2:  Mass Convergence on the White House

For the first month, gather around the White House–surround it.  This isn’t technically a protest, we’re just here to watch.  Let them know that we are paying very close attention to everything that they are doing.  This should be an everyday, around-the-clock presence.  Probably, there shouldn’t be signs, or if there are, they should only depict a set of watching eyes.  Let the new bosses feel exposed–we intend for a McCain/Palin administration to be fully transparent and wholly accountable; not to those that elected them, but to the millions that didn’t.  We’re not going to go home with our heads hung, ho hum, and wait out the next four years.  We are going to be even more involved in their government than they are.  It’d be great if a million people did this, but it can’t be effective with less than a couple of thousand.  Sign up for your shift now!

Option #3:  Send Bibles to Palin

Preferably just the New Testament, although if you feel so compelled, the complete Bible will do fine.  Read it first, then sign the inside cover attesting to your accomplishment.  Attach a note saying that you understand that Sarah governs with inspirations culled from these hallowed pages; you have read it, too, and have highlighted relevant passages that you would like her to focus on.  Put Post-It notes on these pages, particularly the Sermon on the Mount.  A hundred thousand highlighted Bibles arriving at the White House in the first month would be quite a mandate, no?

Option #4:  Move to Alaska

The population of Alaska is less than 700,000 people.  If we assume a lot, and imagine an eligible voting population of 475,000, we’d need maybe 250,000 eligible voters to take up residence in the “Last Frontier.”  If you happen to live in a swing state, don’t move, they need you there.  However, in the solid red or blue states, there’s enough of you there that they could afford to “volunteer” you for relief efforts to the 49th state.  Once you’re there, vote, open business, spend money, make money, whatever.  Just stick together and change the political landscape (and maybe keep McCain and Palin from changing the physical landscape.  Bonus!).

This option is really more for fun than anything else:  it would at least create interesting moments for Palin if she tried to align her policies with the (now) great liberal state of Alaska.  If people did this and it actually worked, it might become an interesting tactic for future campaigns.  Mass preemptive political migrations could be the protest medium of the future.  Who knows?

Option #5:  Enlist in the Military

We all know how much disdain Bush has for public opinion, and we shouldn’t expect John McCain to be much different.  We’re all his friends but, hey, he’s a maverick and does what he wants.  We can, however, count on one thing from McCain:  more war.  Oh, it’s comin’–with Iran, or North Korea, or Massachussets, whatever.  And I’ll tell you, my friends, this time, traditional placards-for-peace style protests are going to work even less than they did in the last two wars (they didn’t, remember?)  So, if you want to stop war, here’s your best bet.  Don’t do this by yourself, though–you should have at least half a battalion.

Here’s how it works:  You and your half battalion sign up for service, you do the training and all of that.  Fine.  Now there’s a war and the McCain wants to ship you out and you say “No, sir.”  Lock yourself in your room, sit on your hands, but don’t fight for them.  It’s an interesting problem.  Would they court-martial an entire regiment?  How about an entire branch of the Army?  How scary is it when the military starts making its own decisions?   What if they’re the right decisions?

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That’s the starter guide to dissent in the Golden Age that we hope we never see.  If anyone else has ideas for derailing a McCain/Palin administration, we’d love to hear them.  I’ll put ‘em in a post that we’ll call Bringing Down the House, Chapter 2.  Apparently, you can type it in a little box that ought to appear below this paragraph.  That’ll email them to us.  Thanks!  (Oh, the best idea gets a first edition Terrace Agenda brick!  Great for…well, you know what.)