The Mule You Know

Some Thoughts on The Mule (2018)

Art is a funny thing. I've seen a lot of good movies this past year-- both new and old. I've also seen some real clunkers. Some real shitty movies that just got my goat and really made me angry. The Mule, the latest film by famed film-maker and shitty boyfriend, Clint Eastwood, is neither of these things.

And yet, I can't stop thinking about it.

It's not good. It's not bad*. It's just inherently strange and that it isn't one thing or another is what is so exceptionally strange about it. That a man who felt so strongly about Barack Obama that he rambled at a chair in front of a live studio audience, at a time where the nation is run by a mentally-deficient sex-offending, con artist-- where the panic against Latinx people and refugees requires a big dumb wall and where children are being put in concentration camps and are dying-- you'd think that some sort of passion would be present. That there was something about this story that had to be told. That something, even something truly ugly, would slip out.

And it doesn't.

It goes on for two hours and then it just sort of ends.

It's a truly baffling picture, because at least I understand the impetus of Sully or American Sniper or, especially, Gran Torino. One would almost have to go out of their way not to cast their lots one way or the other when it comes to something as sensitive and as fraught with controversy as the border and the War on Drugs. And yet, no decision seems to be made at any point for any reason other than to make a picture.

And yes, what I'm saying is that I kind of wish that Eastwood had been a little more racist. That baring his blackened heart would have at least been art of some kind.

At 200 years old, you'd think that the only thing that could tempt Eastwood out of his crypt would be a story that he really needs to tell. One that really speaks to him. Presumably a story where he gets to say racial slurs for millions and millions of dollars. The Mule doesn't seem to be it. That the one bicentennarian on earth who doesn't have an opinion about Those People directs movies is actually more fascinating than the movie itself.

I was talking to Cruz, a friend of mine with whom I co-host A Quality Interruption, and I was explaining this movie to him, trying to make sense of it and how I felt about it and, really, I was just dropping the ball on it (as if you couldn't tell). I

He described to me a character from One-Hundred Years of Solitude**. The character is an old man who lived this full, long life-- adventure, war, romance, all that-- and now he was at the end of his life and all he did to fill his time was making aluminum fish. Once he's done making his little fish, he then melts it down and starts all over again. That seems to be what Clint Eastwood is doing. He's tinkering. He's making movies to stay busy. In its own way that's admirable. The hitch I'm having is why make this movie just to stay busy?

What is more than that-- how in all of the time of staying busy do you make a movie so listless and basic after nearly fifty years of directing your own movie?

Here are some highlights that before I go:

• This movie has Michael Pena in it. That's always a good sign. 
• Diane Wiest is in this? That's great!
• In this film, the titular mule (as played by Clint Eastwood) has not one, but two threesomes. People give Tom Cruise shit for always making sure that his romantic interest is hotter and younger that he can actually pull (lest we start wondering about things), but Eastwood is the master of this. He did the same shit twenty years ago with Blood Simple and here it's even stranger and sadder. Now, while, we all love a dirty old man, I have to wonder about the motives of Eastwood making sure that people know that grandpa can still fuck.
• In this movie Eastwood's character is a florist. I swear to god. It's literally the first scene.
• You would only have to change, like, three things, and this would just be an episode of The Simpsons where grandpa accidentally gets recruited by Los Zetas. And, actually, I'd kind of like to see that.
• Most of the movie is just an old man driving through the mid-west listening to Oldies. Honestly, if there was one actual reason a pre-Boomer lith made this movie, that might be it.

FOOTNOTE:
* We all thought abut completing that joke, but not all of us did it. Sometimes the best writing happens because of what you decide not to do.
** A book that I'm not even going to pretend that I've read.

James Kislingbury is a writer, podcaster, and bakery clerk. You can listen to him here and here. You can shovel piles of lucre at him here and here.

Current Mood:

For some reason this scene is becoming more and more topical as time goes on.

Naturally, Germany

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before

It was last spring and I getting hammered in a basement bar in Germany. The place was located underneath a hostel named after a Gunter Grass story I had never heard of, much less ever read. I was sitting next to this Australian guy, because I was in a foreign country and of course I was. Of course all of it. I wasn’t ever going to spend a night, alone in Germany not trying to figure out whether or not their beer was better than ours (it is).

And of course Gunter Grass and of course it’s an Australian because it’s always an Australian. I have this sneaking suspicion that if I finally ever got over there, south of the equator, I’d find the entire country emptied out except for a bunch of Aborigines desperate for you not to remind the world that Australia is there and empty. They’ve had a bad run of that before.

And of course we get to talking about politics, me and this Australian (can’t remember his name for the life of me. Feel kind of bad about that, especially nowadays). Despite every reason to come at me (we’re drunk and on his home turf, a bar), he doesn’t. We talk like human beings and we have a good time and get to know each other and understand each other in a way that only two drunk strangers in the middle of nowhere can ever get to know each other. And he brings up Trump. Or I bring up Trump. Because you can’t not bring up Trump. He’s this thing. The Great Orange Juggernaut.

I start talking to him about the whys and hows of it. Not apologia, just yeah, this is us. Not all of us, but us. We’re family. Families can be fucked up and fight and hate each other, but we’re all of a single bloodline for better or for worse. One nation. E plurbus. All that Latin stuff. Don't ask me what any of it is in German.

And I tell him, if we get Trump, we deserve it. Not out of sadism or snideness or because I don’t understand what him or his cabal (then only hypotheticals, boogeymen of the lowest order) want to do to my fellow Americans, but because if we get him, it’s because America is too idealistic to see this shit coming or to stop it. Because of course somebody will see the light of day and do the right thing. Because we’re Americas. Except that, of course, we’re Americans. Fucking up stuff is what we do. Not seeing things coming is what we do. We're the nation that gave Jackass three movies.

So, yeah, of course we got Trump. Of course of course. The American experience is built on the belief that we should get better than we deserve. Whether its your great grandpa escaped the Cossacks or your grandma coming north for work or my own dumb family looking to get into mining or for some place with enough space to pop out ten kids at a go. We’re dreamers. We believe that all of the Indian killing and slaving and civil wars and basic depredations that we inflict on each other aren’t our character, rather that they’re somehow exceptions. And maybe they are (but probably not).

So, of course Trump. Because that’s the world we built. I don’t know if this bullshit has come home to roost, but it’s gotta go somewhere. It's what happens when you don't plan for the future. When you don't see these things coming. When you've heard this story before, but you refuse to remember how it ends. Maybe. I don’t know.

Thinking on this, I started thinking on something else that’s been going through my head this past year or so and I hate it almost as much as I hate the fact that the next time I’m blotto in a subterranean biergarten I’m going to have to either apologize and beg for forgiveness. It’s a quote from True Detective Season 2 and I hate that it makes more sense to me than anything Latin that I’ve heard in the past five years.

“I strong suspect we get the world we deserve.”

That bullshit cowpoke was right. We get the world we deserve. We always do. Even if we don’t see it. And maybe that’s the most disappointing thing in this whole goddamn mess.

Except it isn’t.

And it wasn’t. I woke up late with only a bit of a hangover. Just enough to want to sleep in a bit longer. After that I got a breakfast of hardboiled egg and Redwall-esque lunch meats and got a street car down to the Reichstag. I had myself a balmy walking tour. Saw the Rhine. Saw the Holocaust Memorial. Saw the wall. And I was walking along, the feeling of deja vu suddenly hit me like a brick. It was like I had walked over somebody's grave. As it turns out, it was Hitler's. Because of course it was. Ugly apartment building. Crowded with tourists. And the Fuhrerbunker. Because of I accidentally walk into one of the most evil places in the world (which, as I recall, had a tennis court across the street).

Then I moved on. I met up with the friends that I was looking for. I got a coffee. I saw Checkpoint Charlie and I moved on with my life and walked all the way back to Mitte to my hostel and proceded to start drinking again. Because, fuck it, I was on vacation.

Sorry. You’ve probably heard that one before.

An Addendum

The monster won.

Hate won. Ugliness won. Lying won. Spite won. Fear won. Desperation won. Revanchism won. The wrong person won. A lot of bad things are coming with him.

There's a lot of things that we could talk about now. Why such a man could get so many votes. How it came as a surprise. Why she didn't win. I don't know. A million other things. Frankly. I'm at a loss. Smarter people than myself are at a loss and I don't think they're as many beers into the evening as I am (I'm working on my third and it's Stella, so I think I'm good).

I am at a loss.

Still, I stand by what I said. Tomorrow is going to mark the beginning of a long project. It's not the project that's going to be about fucking up this man and his hostility towards basic human rights and democracy. That is only one aspect of what we have to do. We have to help out our fellow man. Not just the ones that vote like us, but all of them, because obviously they're hurting too. They're going to hurt worse by the time this thing has run its course. And it will run its course. We have to get to work building each other and our country back up as much as we have to tear down the things they're going to build to destroy us. And they will try to destroy us. We're going to survive and we're going to do it by being smarter, wiser, and better.

And I don't know.

We're all in this together. All of us. E plurbus unum. You know this.

Things will change. The anger will die off and his supporters will be left out in the cold again. Spurned, used, abandoned. It is what he does. When the tables turn and they learn what they have elected into office, we have to be there to bring them along with us. It's a long road and we're going to get there together. I believe that. I have to. Because if I don't, then I don't know what I stand for. I don't know why I am against this man. If we don't believe that we're together, only then does he really and truly win.

As I said before, they do not get to win.

Tomorrow, I am going to get up, hungover and with dread in my gut and a bitterness knowing that in the other room my dad is actively cheering on the destruction of the country he proports to care about. And I am going to get to work. I am going to find charities. I am going to find organizations. I am going to talk to people that need my help (or don't need my help or don't even want my help). I am going to get to work. That's just me. That's what I have to do.

I'll be looking, but I am all ears. I'm here to learn. I'm here to help.

I swear I'll get to

Upsidedown States of America

As of my writing this, neither side has lost. Neither Trump has lost, nor has America lost. Not yet. It isn't looking good.

I am tentatively holding on to the delusion of hope. I'm clinging to it. Not that Hillary will win. Even if she does, she still has to contend with 40% of America that are okay with a profoundly unstable and ignorant man in office (to say nothing of his more specific biases). I'm hopeful because this is still America.

And in America the bad guys do not get to win.

Even when this ends, and if it looks like it's over, nothing is over. Even if it's over, it isn't over. As Barack Obama said tonight, "The sun will rise in the morning." And it will. And it will again and again and again. There's a hope in that. There has to be. For as long as the decent people of the world, on every side of the political spectrum draw breath, we can still fight this cancer that has slowly spread across this country. Despair won't beat it. Despair is what built it.

And fuck that. To quote somebody else, long lost to the Internet's interlocking spheres of re-purposing, it isn't fair that Donald Trump can look in the mirror and feel good about himself and you look in the mirror and you feel terrible.

There's another quote, one we all cling to, one built into the myth of this country's fourth estate. Or at least, it is amongst the pantheon of liberal America. It's from Edward R Murrow. It's from a longer speech, which you can easily watch on your own. The line that sticks out to me, though is this:

We are not descended from fearful men.

It's a beautiful sentiment. It's also a fantasy. Of course we are. We are descended from Indian-killing, witch-burning, slave-driving, segregating, lynching men. We are also descended from men that stood by the wayside for centuries while these things went on.

We are also descended from heroes. Great men and women of all shades, all genders, all religions, all sexualities. People like Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman. Clifford Clinton and Abraham Lincoln. Audy Murphy and Joshua Chamberlain. Harvey Milk and Mary Harris Jones. There are victims, as well. Names and places and people that are too numerous to name. They do not deserve to be lumped in with the stains that cover our history. But the fearful men's blood is in our own. It's alive tonight. It's speaking to us.

Elections have always been carnivals of horrors. They rarely seem to be civil, they only ever seem to be less terrible. The past two elections were rather tame compared to 2004. Especially when compared to 2000. The fearful men were at work there, as well. It's always been this way. From LBJ back to Andrew Jackson. Fear and loathing is an intrinsic part of the American process.

Which is why the American experiment is so expectional. It is that despite the worst of the worst being allowed to live amongst us and occasionally rule over us, we prosper. What makes America exceptional is that despite

Donald Trump is not strong enough to break our Union. Neither is his lapdog Mike Pence. Nor are the cowards in congress or the criminals advising him. He does not get to do that. They do not get to do that. Neither do his supporters. To us liberals it might seem like the United States has been turned upside down. It hasn't. It's doing what it is always doing. It is carrying on. It is continuing an ugly, uneven legacy. Despite that, it will work.

Tomorrow the sun will rise. We will know the kind of men that live among us. And then we get to work.

We donate. We volunteer. We march. We picket. We demonstrate. We become allies. We vote. We fight. We act like decent human beings. We tell ourselves that we might be descended from fearful men, but we do not have to be.

Because this is America, damnit.

That means something.

It is up to us to determine what that means.

The Show Men the Way Out State Part VIII

Every time I dislike something this far away from home, I get this feeling n the back of my head that I'm just that way because I'm a snooty, delicate Los Angeles douchebag.

But fuck Wyoming. It's a sea of nothing.

None of this is helped by the fact that I started my day watching Dick Cheney talk about how the NSA domestic spying program isn't being sold well because the executive branch has lost some of its respect and prestiege. Dick Cheney said that. I don't think he was being ironic.The rest of the day went kind of like that.

Being stuck in a car with my dad for the eighth day in the row is start to wear on me. I hate this state. I hate going through it. There's nothing here worth looking at any longer. I know I'll be better with it behind me. I have to be.

Alright. I'm going to finish this coffee and meet the day.

High Point of the Day: Sleep. Because Wyoming can't hurt you in your sleep.

Low Point of the Day: All of it. It just kept on going and going and then there's the tears.

Waldoism of the Day: “Just close down the border!” – His solution to our current immigration problem (note that border isn't the Canadian border for some dang reason).

I've got something to say!

All this talk about Ann Coulter being a "racist." Pleas! Sell you sad story somewhere else! Muslim isn't a race! It's a choice! Same thing being a papist or in a trade union or Arab. And as for my so called "distasteful" flaming cross display, if you want to scare somebody out of the neighborhood, I'd like you to come up with a better idea.

Oh, what's that? Use ghosts? It's 2013, people aren't even scared of vampires anymore and people give so little of a fuck about werewolves they carry them in handbags. Ghosts? Please. Sit back down.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, yes you can drive a lawn mower on city streets while drunk, but you can't drink while driving. Fun law fact. Next question.

Hope I'm not too late on this one. . .

ZERO DARK THIRTY
a review by James Kislingbury

Fear and pain can do incredible things and Zero Dark Thirty reminds us of that. It’s a well played procedural thriller that is based firmly in the characters of this world. It’s as much a piece of art as it is a remembrance of the past twelve years. It’s both exciting without being crass and mournful without being a dirge.This careful balance of fiction and facts is what makes it such a deeply satisfying work of art.

This movie is based on known quantities. It’s reliant on them. From the very first seconds of the film, we’re reminded of what kicked off this whole mess in the first place. From there it launches into another topic (and another important plot point), which is the government’s policy of, ahem, “enhanced interrogations.” It’s one of a few things we already have feelings about, which range from suicide bombs to government incompetence to the raid itself, but where the movie becomes more than a collection of facts is how these things are handled.

It doesn’t take much to recite what we know (we have 60 Minutes for that) and it isn’t much of a leap after that to make us feel how we’re supposed to feel (Answer: Bad.), what does take skill is to use these images (or not use them in the case of 9/11) to tell a compelling story in a way that isn’t obvious or exploitative. It can’t be easy to draw up a film like that and maybe there’s a reason it took 11 years for a movie like this to happen.

It is either because of or in spite of this irony that Zero Dark Thirty works so well. The scenes where you don’t know what is going to happen are just as riveting as the ones where you know exactly how they will end. I find it incredible that this film can lean so heavily on things that we already know and still find ways to surprise me. It’s for this reason that I want to avoid spoilers, for this movie is so much more than Osama bin Laden being shot in the face.

Though, that was pretty alright too.

Now, since I have to: Let’s rap about torture.

The torture is handled as brilliantly as a subject like that can be handled. It isn’t handled like an argument or a topic of discussion. It isn’t evidence or a plea for your emotions. It is just a thing that happened.

It is done dispassionately and as (seemingly) objective as possible. Bigelow doesn’t harp on about the mistakes (or even the gains) of the “detainee program,” rather it lets us develop our own opinions and feelings by showing us what it actually looks like. No news anchors or Basil Expositions in the background telling us what this means, there’s just couple of men in a room and one of them is chained to a ceiling beam and has a bucket of water being poured in their face.

But, because it is torture, it isn’t just a thing that happened. It’s torture and, worse yet, torture in our name. And we’re watching it happen to a human being and not in a way that proves that James Bond is dealing with rough customers or because Jack Bauer needs answers, but because it is an unavoidable truth of this manhunt and of a few planes stuffed full of people slamming into buildings.

Zero Dark Thirty gives its audience the credit to come to their own conclusion and, when it shows a man in a dog collar covered in his own feces, it also trust that they’ll come to the right conclusion.

What an idea.

I’m interested to watch this movie is ten or fifteen years with people who are children now. I want to see what people who couldn’t possibly remember the morning of 9/11 think about this movie, because they never felt the rage or the fear that I know I felt and that I know a lot of other people felt. I wonder how this movie is going to age, how it’s going to be felt by people who don’t remember September 11^th or people who weren’t even born when it happened.

We all live in a world affected by it, so not matter what there is that connection, there is just something about remembering what it was like to be that afraid and that angry and seeing what people do with it. There’s this sense that we are doing this for you that makes the whole of the movie that much more frightening and that much more sad. Even when we get to the end, even if it was worth it, we can’t undo the things we did because we had one bad day.

Maybe that’s too soliphistic of a point to make. With that said, with a movie as well constructed as this one, I can’t imagine it was too far outside the minds of its creators.

Without giving too much away, the final shot is something of a Kuleshov Effect. Without dialogue, without a response, and without any real anchor to the rest of the movie, it leaves you to puzzle out the meaning using what you've just seen. It’s the movie’s thesis in brief.  Looking at this character and the background and where they are and what has just happened it is clear that Kathryn Bigelow is saying much more about her subject than she needs to put into words.  

 On its surface Zero Dark Thirty is a tense, intelligent thriller that works perfectly as what its tagline claims to be, “The ultimate manhunt.” Beneath that, though, it’s an important meditation on where we are and how we got here as Americans, as well the price of fanaticism. It’s a movie about emotions as much as it is about logic, as well as obliterating these things out of fear. Zero Dark Thirty skillfully transcends all of the stumbling blocks and talking points of the War on Terror to deliver a riveting film. Basically, it’s the best movie about the mess we're in that has ever been made.

A Perfect Movie

Right now I'm working on a big, long rant about space travel, so in the mean time, I want to point out a film that you should see: The Battle of Algiers.

For those that don't know The Battle Algiers, it is an Italian directed movie about the end of French colonialism in Algeria. It documents the violent clashes, the terrorism, and the hideous tit-for-tat that eventually led to the overthrow of the French regime specifically in the city of Algiers. It's also much more than that. It's a thriller that also happens to be a highly political film-- one you could almost take any way you want. It is also as an immensely allegorical movie, but none of that meaning or weight makes the drama or the specific details of the Algerian revolution any less impactful, it's as fresh now as it was when it came out. In short, it's a classic.

For those that do know what the deal with this movie: This is me guilting you into watching it. What are you doing living a life without this movie? Do you think you are God?

And for those of you who have seen it you know that I'm stating the obvious. I might as well wax on about Breathless or Rashomon.

The overthrow of French rule in Algeria celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. I don't expect you to suddenly care one way or the other, but if that's the excuse that puts you over the edge, then that'd be just dandy.

The Battle of Algiers is currently available in a beautiful set from the Criterion Collection and the packaging alone is almost worth the purchase.

If you love politics, if you love history, if you love really stylish films, and if you just love film, you really do owe it to yourself to see this film. You're welcome ahead of time. And if you're the type of Frenchman that is still ass-hurt about Algeria, then I would recommend that you avoid The Day of the Jackal and then get over it, bro.

Point of Order

Where's the Placenta?

For all you Democrats toeing the party line out there, I want some answers about Obama's birth certificate. Oh sure his certificate "proves" that he was born in the US, but the bigger question is whether or not Obama was actually born and is not just our collective dreams manifesting themselves into office or maybe a lizardman.

Prove me wrong, pinkos. It's your move.

As an American citizen I deserve to see Barack Obama's placenta to prove that he wasn't bred in a lab. Bush showed us his placenta no problem, why does Obama keep on kicking the can down the road with his caul?

Top 5 Groups of People That Want to Kill My Dad

My dad is an old man. That isn't a relative judgment, the man is simply old and only getting older. He has has been for quite some time. What I've realized about him, though is that the older he gets the more people directly threaten his life in new an insidious ways. It's a cruel irony of life that all of the most terrible things in existence are invented in the last quarter of your life and that everything good in the world occupies the first quarter.

The threats to my father are very real and effect his life in blood-curdling ways. Every day of his life is full of threats to his life by jabbering hordes or barbarians just beyond our front gate. God help us if they ever figure out the side-gate's lock doesn't work.

I could go on and on about how and why and who his life is threatened by, but I'll let the internet's most original art form-- the list-- explain it all to you.



5. Afghans.
Here are what we know about the Afghans-- Fact: Since before time have tried to destroy the United States of America. Fact: An Afghan can keep you warm in winter and spice up a boring looking couch, but is not to be trusted. Fact: We don't know that the Afghan people aren't all Freemasons. Fact: Afghans need to be bombed.

We've been in Afghanistan (correctly pronounced "'Ghanstan") for nearly ten years and there doesn't seem to be any progress. We haven't taken any new territory in years and we yet to take the Taliban capital city (Barack Obama has had two years to take them out, why hasn't he done it yet!?). It is clear that this war can't be won by the liberal go to's of "building government" and "counter-insurgency." It is clear that we need to, as my father has pointed out on countless occasions "Bomb that whole place out."

Why the bureaucrats and intellectuals at the Department of Defense haven't thought this up yet is appalling and more than likely due to the Democratic legislature that's dominated the government since the beginning of the Bush administration. We need to drop nukes on the Afghans, it is the only reasonable way to save them from the threat of Czarist Russian marching over the Oxus River.


4. Iranians.
Iranian Muslims and their allies in Iraq are a new and frightening threat to America. We have never had a hand in the Middle East in any way shape or form and for some reason they want to kill us all and feed us all tabulleh until we start wanting more than one wife. Most of their problems can be laid at the feet of Jimmy Carter, who had the audacity not to attempt another autocratic coup like his better Dwight D. Eisnenhower. This is the only point in history in which the USA did something in the Middle East-- and even then we didn't do anything, so who looks crazy now, Iran?

The Iranians present a unique threat to my father and the American public by creating a two pronged assault on our values-- one by creating nuclear weaponry and the other by buying our restaurants and not paying rent. They both present equally nefarious threats and unfortunately with the nuclear threat, we can't just change the looks when they go away for the weekend.

Iran is also Muslim. That means that they are bad. What about Saudi Arabia, you say? No, they aren't Muslims. Who told you that? That is silly. If the Saudi Arabia was full of Muslims, then I think they'd have something to do with 9/11. Oh what's that? You were mistaken? Yeah, I thought so.

Right now an Iranian is trying to build a bomb. While I'm sure the Democrats in congress would love for them to have a fully functional bomb, what we need to do to save Israel and my dad is to get into a third land war in the Middle East. Luckily, unlike the past ten years, we have the man power and cash to fund a project like that. What's even better is that it will all be paid for and taken care of by the time my dad dies, preventing the Iranians from inflicting any sort of economic payback.

People forget about 9/11 because they don't care about our country as much as my dad does. My dad loves his country so much that during the Vietnam War, when he was asked to enlist, he signed up for the Reserve and valiantly protected his country for a week out of every four. Were there any VC sneak attacks between 1966-1968? Nope. Because a healthy mix of zeal and not wanting to leave the state.

Right now an Iranian is trying to build a mosque on Ground Zero, the holiest land in the United States, right after all of the churches and where ever else they attacked on 9/11 (I think it was a field of some kind). Muslims don't understand that Ground Zero is sacred, not unlike their wailing wall or that Cash to Gold place on Raymond Ave. Since all of New York is now a holy site, having been covered in ash, dust, and TV broadcasts of the 9/11 attacks, it is only fair that Muslims build their mosques under the East River, as our constitution dictates. That way Americans can live in safety, without any more Muslims trying to take over our country, possibly in conjunction with the Chinese or maybe rap music of some kind.


3. The Chinese
China wants to take us over. It's already and established fact that China is going to overpower us economically in ten years, forcing us up past being the number one economic power in the universe to last place. That is how lists work. I wish it were not as ugly as that, but it's a fact. China will stop at nothing to butt in line in front of us, which will only lead to a series of butts that will only stop when Zimbabwe or Czechoslovakia or some other country finally steps in front of us. When you start speaking Chinese one day, don't say that I didn't warn you. . . except that if you did say it, I wouldn't understand you, because I don't speak Chinese.

It is clear by their increasing needs to express themselves freely and demands at more government transparency that the Chinese are just trying to lull us into a false sense of security. Once that is done, they'll club us over the head and take over our country just as the Russians did between the years 1956 and 1960 and the Fire Nation did between 1989 and 2003. We cannot let this happen again. The only possible way to prevent this is to warn people by telling them that the Chinese are taking us over. Say is as many times as you need to until the words lose all meaning. That is when you know the words are working.

If the Cold War taught us anything is that the nuances of human beliefs are just smoke screens to take over Vietnam. And we all know how that went. A Communist is a Communist, no matter how much trade he does with us or no matter how much debt of ours' that he owns. They aren't to be trusted and will stop at nothing to. . . do something.

I'm not entirely sure how the Chinese are going to take us over, but their military spending has increased from 13% of our military budget to 15.2% of our military budget in just thirty years. This rapid uptick in spending can only lead to one conclusion: The Chinese are going to take us over. Either by marching over the Bering Straight, into Alaska, then catching a ferry over to the mainland, or by hiding themselves piece by piece in to-go boxes, biding their time in our fridges, waiting for their moment to reassemble and strike us as one.

Also, the Chinese can't drive.



2. Mexicans.
Mexicans are as old of an enemy of America as the Freemasons or maybe the Jews, depending on what mood they're in.

Mexicans have been stealing jobs from Americans for years. The most obvious example of this dates way back to the 19th century, when a cobbler left his shop for the day. When he returned in the morning, he found that Mexicans had broken in and finished all of his cobbling in secret, without his permission. Typical Mexicans, stealing jobs out from under good, hard-working Americans. Also, the Mexicans played crappy accordion music and one of them might have had a baby in the bathroom.

"But, James," you say, sipping your espresso, readjusting the Afghan around your neck, "Mexicans contribute so much to our society."

Oh, do they? DO THEY REALLY?

Let's do a checklist on what these "Mexicans" have and haven't given us:
* Mexicans did not invent the light bulb. If it was up to them, we'd still be lighting candles like shnooks!
* Mexicans can't even get pitas right. A tortilla, more like tortilladon't. . . Wait, that's shit, give me a moment.
* Mexicans didn't win World War II. They didn't even lose World War II. Make up your mind, Mexico.
* Mexico didn't see one of the all-time, greatest films of all time, Scoot Pilgrim Versus the Universe. Mexico said "I'll wait until it's on DVD." How are we going to get a sequel if you don't see it the first weekend, huh?
* Mexicans might be lizardpeople.
* Wait, I got it, I got it. Tortilla, more like tortillyuck! Yeah. That's good punnery.
* Mexicans stole the pyramids from Egypt. You know what else they stole? My six-speed bike.
* My geography might be off, but if you replace "Visigoths" with "Mexicans," it becomes clear that the Mexican people destroyed the Roman Empire. Do you want us to become like Rome, bloated and vain, with wars in the middle east that we can't pay for, hobbled by ineffective government and cheap farm labor? Do you?
* Mel Gibson made a movie about ancient Mexicans. . . I guess that's one stroke in their favor.

There is no job a Mexican does that can't be filled by an Irishman, who's at least white and at least seem to speaks some kind of English.


1. Liberals.
Liberals are the single greatest threat to my dad and the American people. They're everywhere. They're in our schools, they're in our government, they're in our army (when they say we should stop spending/carpet bombing people), they're on our TV, they're in our Communist parties, they're in our key parties, they're in our key clubs, and they're the number one reason Coke doesn't taste like it used to.

The best presidents in US history have all been good, old-fashioned Conservatives, like Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, and all of our worst presidents have been infamous characters like Bill Clinton and his Magical Surplus Tour and Barack Obama, the single worst president in the history of the United States, including that one year a snake got into the Oval Office and we were forced to abandon the White House. No Liberal has done anything good for the people of the United States ever.

In your ignorance of these threats you might say, "But, wait a minute, didn't a Democratic president win World War II for us?" Well, nice try, but FDR only won that war by using "conservative values." It looks like egg is on your face. Oh, and the myth of FDR pulling us out of the Great Depression? Another liberal lie. The corollary to this should be obvious: Any time a Conservative did something wrong it was because he was being liberal (not to be confused with Liberal) or, possibly, his was crippled by a Liberal congress, like George Bush was time and time again. There is no dark chapter in American history that does not have the stink of the Liberals.

For many years the Liberals stole the newspaper off my dad's front lawn. Also, they once left the fridge open and all of the dairy products went bad. Another time, my dad left his shoe-shop for Classic Liberalism.

There is no conceding to the Liberal, there is no understanding or aid to be given to them, because they are inherently stupider than the rest of us, also they chose to be this way, so they deserve everything they got coming to them. So, it works both ways. Being a Liberal is the worst thing a human being can be and about the most despicable. America wasn't founded by these men. It was founded by hard-working men with old fashioned ideas like freedom of religion, right to representation, right to bare arms, and freedom of speech. Good Conservatives like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Payne all pitched in, using their traditional, Conservative values to campaign for

Liberals, unlike the Chinese, Mexicans, and Muslims, don't want to just take everything we have, but erode it completely. They want to take away our rights to destroy the Constitution. Democrats are the greatest threat that we face as a democracy. They want to change the letter of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights by doing something. That's right, everyone, something!

Liberals don't care about the Constitution, that's why they pass laws to take away our rights. For example just look what Barack Obama has done! Just look at all of it! Taking away our rights! There was that one thing. Yeah. And that other thing! I bet you feel the pinch of the boot heel on that one. Oh, yeah, and his health care. Yeah! How about that. Taking away our rights by installing the most banal form of government health insurance imaginable! I bet in three months you'll be attatched to a government-created, life-support system that you have to feed your paycheck into just to buy another week of life. But what if you have a bi-weekly paycheck? Too bad. Welcome to Obama's America.

That isn't what our slave-owning, affair-having, rich, white, dieist forefathers had in mind when they wrote our Constitution in secret, having less than half of the approval of the American people for a revolution! They probably had something else in mind! Probably not this! And they probably had more wigs, too!

Also, our president is black! And gays might want basic civil rights! That kind of thing never used to fly in America and the trolley only cost a nickel. Now we don't even have a trolley and our nickle is made out of lead and crushed-up dreams.

If the Liberals had their way and the Constitution was undermined and changed the way they want it not only would slaves be legally treated like human beings and non-property payers be allowed to vote, but women and all kinds of minorities, as well-- including the Irish! Imagine that, a Catholic getting sworn into office! Not in my America. Not in George Washington's America.

So, when you vote this November, don't think of yourself, think of my poor father who's life is in direct and literal danger by the hordes of so and so's coming over the border/ocean/walls/congressional hearings/delis/Mexican restaurants. American liberty is in your hands American, don't fumble it.