Three views of California politics-as-unusual: I Don’t Recall


By Carol Fondiller

California’s been the butt of jokes since late night talk shows have discovered land west of the Rockies.
Of course Californians have contributed to the fun by promoting mood rings, pyramid power, hot tubs, Esalen, macrobiotic diets, and roller-skating for adults.


But the fun, the sheer joy, of California has been politics.

But now the political process has been transmogrified from populist idea into a plaything for the elite.
Of course I’m speaking of ballot initiatives and the comparatively easy recall method.

The ballot initiative was instituted by a reform minded governor, Hiram Johnson, in the early part of the twentieth century as a method to fight corrupt and giant entities, to make the process of instituting laws for and by the people more accessible to the voters.

Fellow Californicators, we’ve been had. We are the victims of a gigantic shell game.

While we are told to watch the candidate for the steroid manufacturing companies, the moneybags are busily deconstructing the underpinnings of California democracy. We are being transformed from a democratic republic form of government to a mobocracy.

Because of the swiftness of modern communication many people are called upon to make instant decisions. We are treated to a thirty-second commercial where a candidate announces that he/she is for clean government, good schools, lower taxes, and a chance for everyone to be on a reality show.

I myself always vote the pro-crime pro-pedophile candidate.

One person announced his candidacy for California governor on the Jay Leno show.

The punditocracy was shocked. Why, he’s turned the whole process into a circus.

Oh, as if!

No it hasn’t been turned into a circus; it’s been turned into a giant carnival where the aforementioned shell game gives us poor rubes the illusion of having some say about our government.

And it hasn’t been turned into a carney game by Arnold; he’s just an opportunist taking advantage of a very silly situation.

Darrell Issa took advantage of the floundering recall Gray Davis movement. He pumped money into the recall movement, and with the help of paid volunteers (is that an oxymoron?) revived it and got it into high gear.

At last Darrell Issa has created something even more useless, pernicious, and annoying than his car alarm—and they said it couldn’t be done!!

So, thanks to Darrell Issa, millionaire creator of the car alarm, the rightfully elected governor of California is in danger of being cancelled on account of money and the politics of perversion.

As someone said, “They talk about Governor Davis the way liberals talk about Saddam Hussein: ‘He’s a terrible guy, but we shouldn’t invade his country—he’s a lousy governor but it’s not fair to drum him out of office.’”

Well hey we’re not talking about some floor sweeper being fired because he/she didn’t get the dust bunnies under the bed; we’re talking about a governor of the state that has the sixth largest economy in the world. Also, if he did something traitorous or fraudulent or evil he should be recalled.

But he didn’t. If we stopped the world, the constant dot-com drum of e-mail paranoia, the instant perennial gossip and manufacturing of candidates, and just thought, Davis hasn’t been a bad governor. He hasn’t been perfect, but he’s instituted and signed off on some fairly decent legislation.

He’s being framed by con artists of the highest order.

Blame Governor Beige for the energy fiasco and the billions he wasted on making sure California had its lights on.

The con is of course while the Gov. is being nailed to the wall for this, it was Darrell Issa's neo-con buddies Enron, Halliburton, et al who are squirreling away the booty.

It was the “privatize necessary services such as schools, jails, electricity—deregulate and allow monopolies and duopolies to control essential services” that caused the artificial energy crisis. Exactly what was Davis supposed to do when the power crunch came down?

It might have been nobler for him to stand firm and say “Not another penny to you usurers, you black mailers—we’ll go without electricity. Let a thousand candles burn, a billion toilets go unflushed, let us have a state filled with wild-eyed desperate TV and computer junkies deprived of their fixes, gas pumps that are unpumpable, emergency rooms lit by gasoline lanterns, ice mochas melting—no air-conditioning in buildings whose windows don’t open, I’m taking the moral high ground and the next plane to Nevada!”

Only parts of California would have survived—those parts that use the Department of Water and Power. Los Angeles might have been immune, but not Santa Monica or parts of Culver City. So Davis sucked it up and did the right, very unpopular, but sensible thing. He caved to Halliburton, et al.

Davis has made affordable housing more of a reality. He has re-instituted the tax rebate for low-income renters—renters get a rebate on the taxes they indirectly pay to their landlords. He’s signed off on sane legislation regarding schools, the environment, and has been supportive of the Coastal Commission. For all you Californians who were living here in the 1980s—remember Deukmejian and Wilson who promised to destroy the Coastal Commission?

Meanwhile, the only things the opponent on the other side has, is that he enjoyed group sex, and smoked a lot of hash and grass during his youth, but can’t remember it now. I suppose he also forgot that he was on some president’s fitness promotion, while smoking illicit Cuban cigars—well, short-term memory loss will do that to you.

He also got a measure (Proposition 49) on the ballot in the last gubernatorial election, that is for after-school programs but takes away money from established programs such as Head Start.

Larry Flynt has a comparable record except for the Prop 49 thing and the fact that he believes in the first amendment. But Larry remembers what he did and is not ashamed.

Arianna, oh what can I say about the coiner of the phrase ‘compassionate conservative,’ and former buddy of the former Speaker of the House, bodacious adulterer and promulgator of the return of orphanages, Newt Gingrich?

If the wind blows from a different direction will this weather cocquette do a different turn?

I did like her book on Picasso.

Well, I’m voting no on the recall even though it might be fun to have a steroid crazed muscleman for Gov., so different from the bland Governor Beige, but I’m having difficulty choosing from the other 135 candidates.
Maybe I’ll vote for Bustamante. He looks reassuring—like President Taft without all the facial hair, and California was stolen from Mexico. It might be time for a Latino as Gov.

Or maybe Larry Flynt, at least we’ll know we’ve been SCREWED.

P.S. Vote No on 54, please! Wouldn’t you like to know which ethnic group is more susceptible to different kinds of cancer and why? Wouldn’t you like to know which group has fewer heart attacks and why?

That’s the shell game—the pea under the shell from which the neo-cons are distracting us.

The reactionaries who instituted the recall are also sliding in this very dangerous piece of legislation.

They’re hoping that the disaffected and angry minority of previously non-voters will vote for the recall, vote in Arnold or arch-reactionary McClintock and vote for Prop 54. Fool them! Show the country we lead in thinking!

Posted: Mon - September 1, 2003 at 04:45 PM          


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