From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: More Notes from the Decline
Date: 15 Oct 92 20:28:48 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Oct14.204334.11808@netcom.com>, tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
> In article <12741@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>[gratuitous insults by Tom Maddox deleted]
# #What sort of
# #books do they read?  Stephen King novels.  History books by Barbara
# #Tuchman.  _Moby Dick_.  _Rise and Fall of the Great Powers_.
# #Books on sailing.  
# 
# 	Is this list meant to be inclusive, exemplary, or merely speculative
# and entirely random, as it appears?  

Based on conversations about what they've recently read.

# #But the snotty elitist
# #tone makes me wonder how far removed Mr. Brown and Maddox are from
# #ordinary Americans.
# 
# 	Actually, I (I won't presume for speak for Mr. Brown, as we have not
# traded secret handshakes) am a member of the Elders of Hollywood, a group
# whose "Protocols" are buried under a star on Hollywood Boulevard, the name of
# which is known only to a few.  I am of course entirely removed from ordinary
# Americans. I live swaddled in velvet and eat only caviar and truffles; I
# am carried from place to place by careworn middle-class conservatives who 
# lost their jobs to Negroes and are forced to live in squalid apartments
# where pornographic films play ceaselessly on televisions that will not
# turn off; I consort only with homosexuals and the divorced, both of whom I
# meet at gatherings where we plot the elimination of All That Is American.  

Have you had this problem of yours long?

# #It's not like Republicans are an obscure, rare, seldom met
# #minority group.  They are about 1/3 of the adults in this country,
# #many of whom are struggling to remain middle class.  
# 
# 	Actually, most adults I know are struggling, period.  And many of 

Odd.  MOST adults I know aren't struggling at all.  A few are.
They are usually Republicans.  I know a number of rich people
(that is to say, not millionaires, but probably in striking 
distance).  They are ALL Democrats.

# them believe that Ronald Reagan (he wasn't a president but played one on tv)
# and George Bush (he wasn't a CIA Director, but he does what they tell him)
# have presided over the looting of the United States into several generations
# and thereby contributed mightily to everyone's troubles.  

The looting's been going on ever since the government stopped balancing
the budget.  It's a bipartisan deal, anyway.  You'll notice the recent
conviction of Teddy Kennedy's father-in-law for S&L fraud.

# #They don't
# #agree with a lot of the liberal ideas, but that hardly means that
# #they are aliterate, or are limited to comic books.
# 
# 	Neither of which I asserted.  I merely remarked that the fuckers
# are deranged, and hence I'm not sure what they read.  I should add that I
# can't believe that knowing this would be of much interest aside from its
# comic possibilities.
# 
# 				Tom Maddox

The traditional liberal position: those who disagree with the
pursuit of unlimited power over the individual, "are deranged,"
and therefore belong in mental hospitals, such as Mr. Maddox's
cohorts in the former Soviet Union found convenient to do with
those who refused to worship at the idol of conformity.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Lesson learned from Gov. Wilson's signing of AB 2601: if you don't get 
your way, have a riot.  Next time, Gov. Wilson will cower appropriately.