From: ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick A. Townson)
Subject: Re: This Time Around, DON'T VOTE !!
Organization: EECS Department, Northwestern University
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 05:45:44 GMT


In article <1992Oct9.142304.10608@cbnewsi.cb.att.com> gadfly@cbnewsi.
cb.att.com (Gadfly) writes:

> In article <1992Oct9.044339.30062@eecs.nwu.edu>, ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu
> (Patrick A. Townson) writes:

>> REMEMBER: Above all, do not patronize the politicians and their
>> cronies in government ... STAY AWAY from the polls next month.
>> Instead, contact them and suggest they perform an anatomically
>> impossible act upon themselves, and DO NOT VOTE!

> Methinks you don't understand the process, Patrick.  Nobody suggests
> that their vote will in any way change the system, nor even make
> their life substantially different.  When I resolutely cast my vote
> for Bill Clinton, I have no delusions that Slick Willie is going to
> do anything but try to poke holes in my pockets.  

Then why bother? You know nothing will change; I know nothing will
change; if nothing changes and the bottom line stays the same, why
spend the $1 for bus fare to go to the polling place and stand in line
for an hour?  

> It's just that I'm so sick and tired of the ever more pathetic
> mewlings of the mean-spirited and cowardly bully who became the most
> powerful person in the world by making nasty into an art form.  That's
> all.

Oh, he's a bully alright ... and unless something changes this time
around, he will be retained in office for four more years. Incumbents
are rarely voted out at the four year mark. Reagan got two terms,
Nixon got two terms, Kennedy/Johnson got in effect two terms with him
finishing off the one term and taking four years more. Eisenhower got
two terms, Harry S Truman got relected after finishing the last three
years of Roosevelt's fourth term. The only exception to the rule of
the incumbent sticking around for a second term was Carter, now some
12 years ago. When the Republicans got the office in 1980, a good many
people said it seemed likely they would hold it until 1988 at the
minimum, and most likely until 1996. In the past forty years, there
have only been three Democratic presidents, but in the forty years
before that there were only a couple Republican presidents, and none
at all for the twenty year stretch from 1932 through 1952.  The
Democrats would have done well to save Clinton for 1996 when there
will be an 'open election', i.e. no incumbent possibility, and surely
Clinton would beat Mr. Q. should he try to run in 1996 ... but I don't
think he will have the nerve, and I doubt the Republicans would dare
to run him against any strong Democrat. 

> I mean, sheesh, in Europe it is customary to elect to high office
> their most literate citizens.  We've got one who can't even speak in
> complete sentences and his steppin-fetchit who can't even spell at the
> 5th-grade level.  Says a lot about us as a nation, doesn't it?

It sure does. But literate, well-educated people have no place in the
government here. For many of them, I suspect they feel the same way I
do about running for political office or even being appointed to a
high position: they don't have the stomach for it ... neither do I.

Funny but sad:  The director of our Department of Children and Family
Services here in Illinois resigned a few weeks ago. They've been
looking everywhere for a replacement -- no one wants the job. They
have contacted people in similar positions in other states inviting
them to apply and have received back responses saying "I really could
not apply in Illinois, after all, I have a professional reputation to
uphold."  Stuff like that ... 

Did you ever notice how all the laws the government passes never apply
to itself?  Sexual harassment and job discrimination: who is the
biggest offender of all? Wny the Senate of the United States, of
course.  Senators who rape the kitchen help; senators who molest the
page boys; senators whose employees are treated like slaves ...

The City of Chicago has the NERVE to harass landlords with all kinds
of building code regulations which are unneeded and with various laws
governing tenant/landlord relationships ... who is the biggest
slumlord in the USA?  The Chicago Housing Authority.  Dozens of high
rise buildings on the verge of collapse; thousands of vacant
apartments unusable due to decay while at the same time thousands of
homeless people are not permitted to live in them because they do not
meet the proper bureaucratic qualifications. Imagine a thirty story
building (actually many of them) where the top fifteen floors are all
vacant and unused because the elevators in the building are
chronically out of order or in dangerous disrepair, etc ... and it is
easier to vacate the top floors and board them off (to keep gangs from
taking them over as lookout points, etc) than to get the elevators
fixed.  Sometimes the doors do not close and little children living in
the 'housing projects' play there and fall down the shafts fifteen
floors to their death ... the tenants get to walk up and down to the
fifteenth floor in dingy little darkened stairways where the
lightbulbs are always broken out and non-residents go to the toilet.

Here in Chicago, the way the city wins lawsuits against it is by
blackmailing the judge to give a ruling they like. Every judge gets to
be a judge after first being a loyal political worker. They keep
dosiers on them and use them when appropriate to keep the judge in
line. This is the same reason the {Chicago Tribune} never ever loses a
lawsuit against it: they have something on everyone, including all the
judges. 

A few years ago when Mike Royko jumped ship from the {Sun Times} to
the {Tribune} the former paper actually had contract law on their
side. They had Royko in a contract for a few more years .. but they
forgot the {Tribune} has an extensive picture file and lots of stories
they only run when it is convenient for them to do so ... 

So the {Sun Times} sued the {Tribune} for printing Royko's stuff when
he was under contract to them.  The {Tribune} attorney had a private
chat with the judge in his chambers:

   "Hey judge, remember those pictures the paper has in their files
   and the story they were going to run a few years ago?  Maybe now 
   would be a good time to do the story, eh? ... "

And the aldermen! Another laugh if it were not so sad ... the
stupidest bunch of people you would ever want to meet. Imagine a
Chicago alderman speaking against the idea of women on our police
force a few years ago:

He said, "The reason women would not make very good police officers is
because they would have to miss at least a couple days work every
month when they had their minister (sic) periods ... "

I did NOT make that up!  And those people want me to vote in the
election coming up ... 

On a national level, the players are different but the games are the
same.  Here in Chicago, the IRS has blackmailed a certain federal
judge (Paul Plunkett) for several years ... they caught *him* cheating
on his taxes ... now they use him to hear all the tax protestor cases.
Guess who always wins!  And the judges are interconnected with the
banks and other business concerns in the city ... 

Streets and Sanitation workers punch the clock to start work each
morning then spend the day at a second full time job and return to the
ward office to punch the clock when it is time to go home ... 

Clinton will change nothing; Bush will change nothing; Perot might
make a few changes, not necessarily for the better ... 

DO NOT VOTE IN NOVEMBER!


Pat






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