(Originally a post on the forums at Desperance Dot Net.)

I would like to share with you all a humorous series of events on the abcnews.com forums. Inspired by http://www.thestranger.com/current/feature2.html I decided to Google for message boards that could potentially contain political topics. On the first page was abcnews.com’s forums, and I promptly registered an account (AGuggenheim) and started posting.

“I just wish the liberals would drop the whole thing with Jenna’s abortion. If they let it go and it doesn’t get too much attention from the media, we’ll have this election in the bag!”

That was the first. In response to the topic, “Why is Al-Qaeda Winning?”:

Well, we conservatives believe that once the president finishes the rite of Arag’Nhoul, which he began with the cult in Massachusetts twelve years ago in order to gain entry to a very exclusive New England club, the foes will all be vanquished with the coming of the Apocalypse, which will leave only the Born Again Christians to rule the planet. Al-Qaeda is only winning /now/ because the rite is not completed!

And in response to something about Bush being bad on terror,

Would you liberals all stop it already? Of /course/ Bush wants to bring on the apocalypse! His father was the vice president of Reagan, or, as he was known to the New England branch of the Boran-Aegean cult, Rea’a'ganos. Rea’a'ganos wanted desperately to bring the world to apocalypse. He rejected the opportunity to disarm massive amounts of nuclear weapons because of this belief. All of the Boran-Aegeans will inherit the earth afterward, and it will be a paradise. Bush Senior, or as he is known to the Boran-Aegeans, Goherba’wa’alker, planted his son in the White House to destroy the United States, a formerly peace-making country that had been working on bringing the world together, by pretending to be one of the worst leaders in history. The Boran-Aegeans know this, and do not fear, for they will inherit the earth after the preordained war with North Korea.

Then, I decided to get off of the “Impersonate a Batshit Insane Conservative” track and get back to that Jenna abortion:

At the time of the attacks, they were all too concerned with the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of Jenna. Hard to prevent attacks on the nation when your daughter is off “having tea with mister coat hanger.”

Unfortunately, I later realized I was in a part of the forums that didn’t get as much traffic as the rest, “Global Terrorism”. It took them about eight hours to find them and delete them.

At work, I decided to post an actual topic this time, but I had to make it good because I knew that, despite my not technically breaking any of their “House Rules”, I was engaging in slander, and the mods were bound to ban me soon. I decided to take a more-or-less subtle approach.

The title of the new topic was “Rumors of Jenna Bush Abortion”. Since it was a topic, this appeared on the front page of the forums for “Newest Post” for a while as well. I believe this lasted for about an hour with no other posts in the “Global Terrorism” section before they finally deleted it. The actual content of the message, however, was as follows:

…are completely unfounded. But word is spreading, and it’s just plain wrong. This is a request to all of you: Please don’t spread this vicious rumour around on the internet. And no, I’m not boning up on my reverse psychology. It would be unfair to the election to start or perpetuate unfounded rumours about one of the candidates or a relation thereof. So please, please don’t go posting onto messageboards that Jenna aborted a child that she had out of wedlock with the son of one of her father’s friends, because this upcoming election is important, and should be played on a level battleground.

This was inspired by a Karl Rove Brandâ„¢ campaign tactic: a telephone poll asking people questions along the lines of “If you heard that John McCain had an illegitimate child with a woman he raped in Vietnam, would you still vote for him?” It’s a rumor in the form of a question, and even though it isn’t true, and they never actually state that it is, it still creates doubt in the mind of the person being “polled”. This rumor was particularly harsh because McCain and his wife had adopted an Asian daughter, and were frequently seen in her presence. Fucking sinister fucks. They betray their own with as sharp of knives as they use on their opponents.

Anyway, as you can guess, this post was also deleted, even though it didn’t break any of the rules and I wasn’t even saying anything slanderous. I was merely being mildly deceptive, and subtlely ironic.

I figured maybe they deleted it because I posted it in an irrelevant part of the forums. So I reposted it over in “Election Board”, with a Blatant Troll addendum:

There! I posted it in a more relevant section. It doesn’t conflict with any of your “House Rules”. (Yes, I’ve actually read them.) And if you mods censor me again, then the terrorists have truly won. Well, not to mention the conservatives as well, who spew unfounded rumors about liberals all the time without any real moderation. In fact, they even have their own national news network for it, where they can come up with whatever deceitful evil wordspew they want and pass it on to a broader audience. If nobody lets the liberals get a foothold in this mudslide from the right, then there’s no hope left for any kind of equality in this country, nor is there even a faint glimmer of a chance for freedom of speech.

Which, y’know, gave away everything I was trying for, and eliminated the subltety, but I knew it was going to be deleted anyway, and I wanted to imply that the moderators were neo-conservative freedom-haters before I disappeared, never to post there again.

Anyway, this gives me an idea: A campaign to spread the Jenna Bush Abortion rumor across the internet. (And any others that flare up along the way.) Howard Dean used the internet to build an astonishing campaign fund for the primaries. (Even though his manager ended up embezzling a good chunk of it.) The internet can be quite a powerful tool. It could potentially change the outcome of the election, if manipulated properly. They republicans may be a bunch of evil, greedy, moral-lacking baby-rapers, but they know how to herd the cattle. They know that people buy into sensational lies. If we’re going to win this election, we can’t take the high road and hope that people will admire our “standards” and “ethics” and “morals”. We have to fight bullshit slander with bullshit slander. I encourage you all to start fighting dirty; our future depends on it.

Just a quick little comment, here:

Guess who’ll be running the cameras from which every news station will be feeding for this first debate? You guessed it: Fox.

It’s not really a huge deal or anything, but I’m sure there are some subtle things they can do to make one candidate look more appealing than the other, and I’m sure they’ve all been instructed or encouraged to do so.

At long last, tomorrow night is the first debate between George Bush and John Kerry.

Well, if you can call it a debate. With all the conditions and special requests that have been made (i.e. “no direct questions”; “both podiums must be equal height” (I’ll address that one later); et cetera), it’ll probably end up being more of a dog-and-pony show.

See, they’re trying to manipulate things to play into Bush’s strong points. He’s an excellent liar, and a fantastic actor. Under certain circumstances, he can be a great crowd-pleaser. (Anyone remember “No Fuzzy Numbers”? It didn’t have much of a meaning, and so-called “fuzzy math” is a fuckload better than clear-cut numbers that are intentionally deceptive, but it sure got the crowd chanting and became quite a popular catch phrase, didn’t it?) He also has the ability to appeal to certain people’s “buddy” sensors, which is why the Bush campaign is trying to turn this into a popularity contest, and trying to veer things as far away as possible from the real issues. Let’s stay away from things like the fucking joke that has become The War Against Terror (or, as the kids like to call it, “TWAT”), and focus very intensely on whether or not one of Kerry’s several war injuries was actually worthy of the Purple Heart. Why does this matter? Oh, right, it fucking doesn’t.

Unfortunately, however, there is a bias in the media. I’m not talking about a liberal or conservative bias (though anyone with intelligence enough to read and chew gum at the same time could tell you that that particular bias is, in fact, conservative); the bias of which I speak is the “simple, entertaining bullshit” bias. It’s the same reason “What Martha Stewart Thinks About Jail Time” is news. The typical American doesn’t give a shit about the important issues; they’d rather spread gossip. “Social Security is B-O-R-I-N-G. I don’t have the time or the intellect to research and understand things like that! But I understand Kerry might not have actually earned one of his many medals. That’s easy, and I don’t have to actually do any research! I can just believe what Bill O’Reilly tells me, because his news station says ‘Fair and Balanced’, so it must really be, right? If it’s on TV, it HAS to be TRUE, RIGHT? RIGHT?” So hey, let’s all put on our Band-Aids with little hearts drawn on them in purple and it will be FUNNY, RIGHT? That won’t be INSULTING to VETERANS AT ALL, RIGHT? Hahaha, Kerry might have only gotten grazed by a bullet! (There is one single image that has grown to represent my burning hatred for neo-conservatives. In fact, it’s most of the reason I briefly wept while watching the news coverage of the Republican National Convention. This image is the one of the fat, greasy, pig of a woman grinning with her enormous, disgusting mouth with a Purple Heart Band-Aid on her chin. You may or may not have seen this, but it has cemented my rage dial to “high”. If I can find a copy, I’ll put it on the site, here, at some point.)

Personality should not be an issue in this election, but it inevitably will be. This is dangerous, because of Bush’s strange appeal. Again, as in 2000, this is going to be a “Jock vs. Nerd” contest–intellectual class warfare. People don’t like Kerry, apparently, because he “uses big words”. Bush comes across as simpler and duller. But, see, here’s something a lot of people don’t really realize: George W. Bush is not stupid. He pretends to be stupid so his “evil” won’t show through. See, if people think he’s just a dumb leader, and that he’s just a down-home good ol’ boy who makie mistakie like all y’all, they’ll be more likely to forgive certain fuckups. “Well, shucks, it’s the office of the president, for fuck’s sake! Hell, as a southern yokel, I don’t think I could pull that one off perfectly, either! He’s just like me! I identify with him!” And that’s one of the major dangers we’re facing: people identifying with George W. Bush’s stupidity facade, with personality being, stupidly, one of the key issues in this election. I suppose people do have an easier time identifying with fictional characters than they do real ones.

I don’t know, maybe if John Kerry pretended to be stupid, more people would vote for him. You know, the whole “birds of a feather” thing, I guess.

But anyway, one of the requirements in this debate is that both podiums be the same height. This is going to hurt Kerry, of course, because of the rather significant height difference. Kerry’s notes will be further from his face, and he’ll either have to bend or droop to look at them or settle with difficulty reading them at a distance. Do I really have to point out how additional drooping will make Kerry appear less “attractive”? And since this whole thing is going to be a show of candidates’ furs and claws, that may possibly result in him “losing” this “debate”.

Everyone knows that this is an important election. But, see, what I don’t understand is why it’s so important to the conservatives, or why they think we think it’s imporant. If they truly understood why we think it’s one of the most important elections in the history of America, they wouldn’t be voting Republican. Are we so passionate about it because we think John Kerry is the best leader ever, and that it’s absolutely imperative he get into office? No. We’re passionate because this election just may possibly decide whether America remains democratic or continues along its current path to despotism. We’re passionate because there may not BE an election four years from now if Bush is elected. We’re passionate because Bush is fucking evil, and the thought of him in office for another four years is a great deal of scary. I mean, talk about a War Against Terror–there are very few things that scare me more than the idea of another four (or more?) years of Bush. If he really wants to eliminate terror, he should fucking resign.

But why are the conservatives so passionate? Do they really think Bush is that fantastic a leader? I don’t remember them rallying this hard for his father. If any of my theories on this happen to be correct, I think we face a terror even greater than Al Qaeda and another four years of Bush combined.

More to come after the debate. Next time, I shall speak of “smear tactics”, and of Jenna Bush’s abortion.