Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [95]
But that’s the difference—Democrats have no spine. They always back down. There is no one on their side of the aisle willing to go to battle for us the way a Tom Delay or Trent Lott will for his side. Those guys will not rest until they win, no matter how many bodies the road is littered with.
Democrats have become nothing more than Republican wannabes. And so I propose a course of action: the Democrats must merge with the Republican Party. That way, they can keep doing what they both do very well—representing the rich—and save a lot of money by consolidating staff and headquarters into one tight, fit fighting machine for the top 10 percent.
The good news about such a merger? The working people of this country will finally get to have their own party! What’s so terribly wrong with that? It’ll be the second party of the two party system. Except it’ll represent the other 90 percent of us.
To speed things along, I now make this offer to the Democrats and Republicans: I will personally pay, out of my own pocket, for the legal charges and other fees to file the papers with the Federal Elections Commission making the merger official: the all-new Democratic-Republican Party! As a gift, I’ll even let you keep the ass, the Democrats’ mascot, which you can breed with the Republican elephant. Now that oughta. be fun!
Therefore, I’m asking that by midnight on December 3 1, 2001, the leaders of the Democratic Party turn over the keys to the Party’s headquarters at 430 South Capital Street in Washington, D.C., to me (or anybody else who wants to be responsible for the keys, ‘cause I’ll probably lose them). There are about 200 plus million of us who would like to see a real two-party system (or three-party, or four-party—hey, it’s a big country!), with one party fighting for the right to write off one’s backyard tennis court as a business expense and the other fighting for the right to see a doctor if one gets sick. It really is that simple.
If the current Democratic leadership is unwilling to give me the keys, then I plan to file a class-action suit on behalf of any of us who ever voted for a Democrat, charging fraud and trademark infringement. After all, these so-called “Democrats” are actually impersonating Republicans, and therefore committing a deception against the citizens who gave them their money, time, and votes. I will seek an injunction to prohibit them from continuing to use the word “Democrat” without “Republican” attached to it.
The rest of us, then, can move on. We can call our party the
New Democrats or the Green Democrats or the Free Beer Democrats. We’ll work that out later in committee.
(Readers who wish to save me the cost of this lawsuit can promise to vote out all the phony Democrats and vote for honest, progressive candidates fighting for the opposite of what the Republicans stand for.)
Meanwhile, to those Democratic officials who want to survive the political carnage ahead, I have one piece of advice for you: Quit moonlighting for the competition. That’s my last bit of free advice to the party that sent nine boys from my high school to their graves in Vietnam. If you can’t clean up your act, fuck you and the donkey you rode in on.
Chapter 10 notes
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Clinton Attempts a Legacy: Last-Minute Executive Orders and Regulations
Clinton waited eight years before he finally got around to doing some good—the last days of his presidency. On the way out the door, he issued directives that ...
• Protected sixty million acres of national forests from logging and road-building
• Instituted rules to prevent workplace injuries, including ergonomic and “repetitive stress” regulations
• Raised standards concerning lead in paint, soil and dust, and truck diesel fuel
• Issued new EPA clean air regulations on diesel fuel for large trucks that would force sulfur levels in the fuel be reduced by 95 percent
• Required makers of hot dogs