The Lucinator and the Gropinator

SCHWARTZENEGGER�S VICTORY: It is over. California has a new Republican Governor. What this means will be debated by far wiser and more experienced heads than mine.

But this might be the place to add one little something about the �why� of Arnold�s stunning win. It goes far further than anger built up against Gray Davis or the hope of lower taxes and the return of a more business-favorable climate. It transcends the questions of race and entitlement, of immigration and homesteaders, of Hollywood elite and the tax and spenders in Sacramento.

In his acceptance speech a few moments ago, the Governor-elect made the statement that he came to the Golden State as a young immigrant with nothing and he now heads the state which gave him everything.

This notion has been pretty much missed by the media and the pundidti outside California at least. In its simplest terms, Arnold�s massive victory means simply that the American Dream, the dream of millions of immigrants fleeing the dungeons, slums, and sweat-shops of Europe and Asia, is alive and well at least in the hearts of many.

If this lesson is not taken to heart; if politicians of both major parties do not heed these few, simple words, they are in danger of becoming politically extinct in the very near future. �Being American� truly means something special in this best of all possible worlds. In every family there is a favorite child; in the family of nations there is one kid who is head and shoulders above the rest. That�s us, gang, no matter what our former friends and allies have come to believe.

MOVEON.ORG: Ian�s timely message this week in which he sent along a copy of MOVE ON�s plea to bury Arnold Schwartzenegger was a work of art. Let�s see if I got this right. MOVE.ON was founded during the Lewinsky-Clinton-Impeachment mess in an attempt to �get beyond� the Clinton�s decades of groping women. It now wants the voters of California to defeat Arnold for groping women over the last twenty or thirty years. Can you say �two faced�, boys and girls?

There is a well-known politician whose name I am not at liberty to reveal at this point in time who has decided �join �em since you can�t lick �em�. This previously announced candidate for national office will roll out over the next few weeks a new campaign strategy encapsulated in the slogan: �Grind Groins In A Group Grope�. That�s about as honest as any pol can get.

Sex doesn�t seem to get a candidate in trouble anymore it seems. I wonder about the old saying, �unless they catch me in bed with a dead girl or a live boy�, would even that be enough to scuttle a megabuck campaign? And why should it since musical beds is the name of the game from white suburbia to the urban ghetto, from homestead to trailer park. Of course, in one of our southern Mobile Home Parks partner swapping will most likely get you in bed with a blood relative.

NEWSFLASH: Your humble correspondent attended a day-long gun show last Saturday here in Macon (Georgia, of course) wearing one of Ian Kleinfeld's famous campaign buttons that boasts BUSH/SATAN 2004.

You have to use your imagination a little. But there I was, all alone, isolated from any support group since my companions had taken off in another direction. All alone but in a vast meeting room with two or three thousand other people. All alone as it became obvious that I was being stared at and talked about, the center of unwanted attention.

Now the crowd that drew closer and closer to me was pretty much all white, not the norm for a Macon gun show which is usually a nicely egalitarian affair. Most of the men and women near me kept their gazes fixed�directly at my left pap, where sat the infamous Kleinfeld button. There were nervous whispers back and forth, some head scratching (some of these trailer park denizens don�t bathe very much), lots of puzzled looks. I wouldn�t have felt uncomfortable except that some of the good people wore large caliber guns strapped to their persons.

Finally, one dental challenged, fortyish lout wearing faded jeans and a t-shirt bearing the slogan GUNS GUTS AND GLORY MADE AMERICA GREAT thrust his head directly into my face. I could smell the stale beer on his breath along with the breakfast burrito that had obviously given him a bad case of internal distress.

�B..b..boy,� he stammered, �What�s wrong witch you? Doncha like the preseedant (spelling phonetic)? You some kinda liberal. You know one of them soshulists? � There was a kind of menace to his tone, ominous, I guess, and the odds weren�t very good. Besides I don�t do well in a fight and have managed to avoid them since middle school except once.

I took a single step backward, bumping into a display table upon which were several dozen �previously fired� (used) long guns. Fixing the gap-toothed antagonist with my best baleful stare I said simply, �Don�t you know that your Mr. Bush wants to continue the ban on assault rifles? And you call him a �true conservative�! I bet he never even read the Second Amendment.�

The poor red-necked soul looked puzzled as the words painfully sunk into his permanently beer-fuddled brain. Others had heard them too, and slowly, ever so slowly, the fog of confusion lifted from their collective persons.

�Y�all mean Mr. Bush don�t want us to have our Bushmasters and AK-47�s,� the poor fellow wailed. And I knew I had them. These staunch defenders of the Second Amendment, you see, had never read the United States Constitution. Heck, many of them could barely read a Spiderman Comic. I simply nodded my head. All they knew was that something called THE SECOMEN AMENDMENT guaranteed their right to bear and fire their myriad firearms. �And I can get you a real nice German 88. It�s a bargain.�

That was about it. Mr. Kleinfeld�s button was the object of occasional curiosity for the rest of the afternoon, but my person was not in any further physical danger. Which is a good thing because I really am a coward when it comes to physical confrontation. My mouth got me into and out of hot water all through middle and high school.

Way OVER IN THAT OTHER WEBSITE that has generously supported my particular brand of juvenile paranoia (http://politicalpulpit.com) I was bemoaning the other day the fact that politics has become something considerably less than an honorable calling.

Pundits say, and I tend to agree, that on the national level, political candidates are more interested in grabbing power than they are in service. Once elected their primary goal is, simply, re-election. Subsequent election victories accrue more power. The real acme of influence in the nation is concentrated in Washington, although many would argue it is to be found on Wall Street where the modern corporate robber baron tends to share the same general world view as the D.C. based power broker. For all the confluence of synergy into those two limited locales, most at the center of power absolute tend to forget that the majority of us live elsewhere and don�t think like they do. �Inside the beltway� is a curse in far off Keokuck.

This is a pretty cynical view of politics, but in recent years the election process seems to have brought out the very worst in many Americans. There is an intensity, a hatred, cutting across party lines which makes it increasingly difficult to conduct business in the old adversarial way ending in meaningful compromise. The current logjam in the Senate over judicial nominations is but one sign of the decline of our traditional process.

It has been estimated that fully twenty-five percent of those calling themselves Republicans absolutely detest the Clintons; an equal number of Democrats hate George Bush with passion just as intense and irrational.

And here it gets personal with me. For I am asked several times a week without fail something like, �Luke, will you ever run for political office?�

The answer is a clear, simple, and heartfelt, �Hell, no, I won�t go!!!� My privacy means too much to me and the system is so destructive that once it is entered upon, the individual has none. Privacy.

Blame the times, blame TV, blame the idiots who know who is featured on American Idol but cannot name their state�s Senators, blame the 24/7 news pigs, blame the DNC, the RNC, Carl Rove, Terry McAuliffe. Blame �The System�. Hell, blame the �Net. It doesn�t really matter much. All I know is that a young person entering politics at this point in time is pre-doomed to a life during which he will walk naked among his fellow man, the object of scorn, ridicule, and disbelief no matter how good and noble his intentions might be. For winning he will lose; for losing he will not win.

The example used comes from my own middle school days. Three times I went through the juvenile court system. One of those times is chronicled beginning at http://expage.com/luciusson42 and tells of a car jacking cum joyride from my sixth grade year. The other two are known to my family and the few people inside the courtroom. Should Luke run for, say, city council in a few years, will these events be brought up, dissected, discussed in print and electronic media, talked about on street corners and in bars and barber shops. No thanks. I won�t be part of a system that will search for evidence of every trip I ever made to a principal�s office, every ticket I garnered driving my poor Pop�s car, or every instance of telling some official martinet to �go forth, multiply, and be fruitful� (not in so many words, of course).

Any person entering the political lists will most likely lose his sense of humor and irony, the quality that truly separates the fully human from the lesser mortals. I would rather stand outside the political process as it now exists and cast barbs, jibes, aspersions, and verbal arrows letting them fall where they will, earning if necessary the enmity of all political animals, but preserving the sanctity of my own conscience. Don�t you like to sleep at night?

Watch out!

If you have a minute, please visit our TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE at http://members.aol.com/luciusson/contents.html and click on a few of our raves, rants, political writings, bios, history, and general cultural insanity. This has been going on since before my thirteenth birthday and we hope it will continue for a long, long time to come.

Ciao,

Luke Angelo
The CyberBrat Out Of Hell
Macon, Georgia

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Luke Angelo, Cyberbrat Out Of Hell, lives in Macon, GA, where he regularly causes trouble and proves that the pen is far mightier than the Mayor