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"We're Positive About The Negative"

A November E-dition

(C) Copyright 2002 Anti-Press   All Rights Reserved

 
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* Tautology and Terrorism *


The politician will either win or lose the election.

How true.

If elected, the candidate will bring about sweeping change.

Or he won't.

This breakfast cereal may reduce your chances of colon cancer.

Or it may not.

This same cereal can reduce your cholesterol - as part of a heart-healthy 
diet.

Of course, starvation and death can also help to reduce cholesterol.

The cereal box continues qualifying its claims in smaller print, text worthy 
of a politician who will or won't bring about sweeping change.  The great 
product contained within may reduce the risk of heart disease.  Of course, 
you have to maintain a proper diet, one low in saturated fat and cholesterol. 
 Hmmm, if you're on that diet, do you still need this particular breakfast 
food?  Well, don't think about that.  Remember: if you fall within the 
qualifications as stated on the box, the cereal may lower your chances for a 
heart attack - or it may not.    

Weasel words.  Gotta love them.  Whether hawking cereal or candidates, most 
people fall for the scam.  Mix weasel words with fear and you've got a 
winning combo. 

The Commie menace.  Yes, there was a threat.  You couldn't rule out nukes 
raining down from the sky and ruining your picnic.  But Communism was 
portrayed as a monolithic, mind-enslaving power creeping over the globe, 
entrancing citizens with its evil spell.

So if Communism was such a menace, where's the Soviet Union nowadays?  And 
why is the U.S. of A. now buddies with (Red) China?  Maybe China is trying to 
enslave us by flooding this country with cheap goods, imitating the success 
of OPEC countries who have American consumers hooked on oil.

The Power People in this country needed another a great boogeyman.  The 
Soviet Union was gone and Russia and China became our friends.  What to do?  
Then came 9/11.  Americans became aware that some other people Out There 
don't like us and they're willing to do terrible things.  (Or course, the 
fact is usually overlooked that the U.S. of A. has on occasion done terrible 
things to other people Out There.)

Yes, there are terrorists.  They will attack again, and unfortunately, more 
innocent people will be maimed and killed.  But once again, the Power People 
are saying that the Terrorist Menace is the greatest threat to our freedom 
since - well, remember the all-powerful Communist Menace?

Growing up during the Cold War era, citizens were told to be on guard.  
Commies were everywhere, undermining the moral fiber of the country with 
"race music" and drugs.  Propaganda films sounded the alarm.  One such film 
showcased a cartoon depiction of the Commie contagion spreading over the 
world like the Red Death, destroying freedom with its soul-sucking evil.

Colorization is important when you want to simplify your message to the 
unsuspecting masses.  Talk about the Menace in terms of Yellow, Black or Red. 
 But what is the color of Terrorism?  Many colors, it seems.  The Power 
People created a polychromatic chart to keep us on guard: the "Threat 
Conditions" system.  Quick: what is the alert status today?  Are we at 
Condition Red or is it Orange or Yellow?  And what is the difference between 
Orange and Yellow?  Does Orange imply that a citizen should be "moderately 
cautious" while Yellow means a citizen should be "cautious with moderation?"

For those who can't follow the Threat Conditions, there are those semi-vague 
warnings issue by the Government from time to time.  Terrorists may blow up 
monuments in L.A.  Terrorists may be targeting power lines or hydroelectric 
dams.

Or they may not.




* Signs of the Times *


Do you get bugged when someone asks you that most personal of questions: Did 
you vote?  We thought it was our right as a citizen to keep private our 
political activity - or the lack of it - if we so desire.  Why not ask people 
about religion, sexual preferences, or when did they stop beating their 
spouse?  

Another Election Day has passed, preceded by the media claiming that every 
vote counts, ergo get out and vote.  Hmmm, during the last presidential 
election, over 500,000 individual voters chose Al Gore over George Shrub in 
the popular vote - but who's sitting in the White House now, thanks to the 
rigged system called the Electoral College?  In the end the only votes that 
counted were those cast by the individuals on the Supreme Court - all of them 
political appointees.

But mention to the average sucker - we mean voter - about the Electoral 
College, how it works, and he'll think you're talking about how the Commies 
stayed in power while ruling the Soviet Union.  Tell the average American 
voter that he doesn't live in a democracy and watch him call you a Commie or 
a Terrorist.  Of course, he thinks the term "republic" means the same thing 
as "democracy" - the poor sap.

One city candidate asked us if we had voted.  We were semi-polite, saying 
that sorry, we don't vote, we're anti-social.

We usually give a more truthful reply: We don't have a million dollars to 
vote with.  What's more important to a politician: a big bag of unmarked 
hundred dollar bills, or you pulling the lever under his party's symbol, 
whether it be donkey, elephant or fetus?  The dollar sign speaks louder than 
any political sign.

They can call it a "republic" or even try to call it a "democracy" - but what 
we got here, folks, is a plain ol' plutocracy.

Remember: No vote is a vote.

It's a vote of no confidence.




* NENYland Roundup Review *


Let's take a penetrating look at mainstream media items from around the 
northeastern hinterlands of New York State...


Here we go again.  Another letter to the editor in the Plattsburgh 
(news)Paper from some woman upset because a passing car reduced her cat to 
roadkill.  We suspect the Paper must provide a convenient fill-in-the-blanks 
form for such readers, complete with suggestions for appropriate words and 
phrases.

"I am terribly [angry, saddened, or other distressed state of mind] that my 
beloved cat, [name of cat], was [killed, murdered, squished like a rotten 
pumpkin] on the [road, street] in front of my [house, trailer, shack].  The 
[uncaring, inhuman, terrorist] driver didn't stop to apologize; he didn't 
even slow down as if he didn't see my black cat on the unlit [road, street] 
in a blinding [fog, rainstorm] at 2 AM on a moonless night.  My [children, 
grandchildren, over-priced veterinarians] are deeply saddened by my cat's 
death and will suffer from the loss of [its love, something to torture, the 
money it generated]."   

Our friendly advice to such a letter-writer: Keep your fugging cat outta the 
road!  If it's not in the road, it won't get hit.  Or is that bit of 
intellectual insight too much to handle?

Speaking of pussies, a certain local columnist recently wrote ANOTHER cute 
essay about his damn cats.  Enough is enough.  Such writing is making us 
completely evil.  One more essay like that and we'll start wishing that 
columnist would wander out into the road with his maddeningly-repetitive 
subject matter.  

Here's a letter that you don't usually see: a reader complaining that a local 
Catholic school won't let him play bingo for a while because he's winning too 
much.  He spends around $200 each time and plays fair and square.  But now 
his money isn't good enough because Lady Luck - or the Virgin Mary - has been 
smiling down at him too often.  He states that he didn't do anything wrong; 
all he did was say "Bingo!"

Well, we think that guy should say "Fuggo!" to that Catholic school.  Anyway, 
why should he support a school that is part of an institution that shelters 
pedophiles from the law?  (If that cheap shot doesn't apply to you, Padre, 
then don't get hot under your collar.)

The Plattsburgh TeeVee station has really been full of itself lately.  It has 
been loudly touting the pseudo-supremacy of its local news coverage.  During 
a newscast you have to suffer through ads ad nauseam about it being the #1 
station.  For a station boasting of exemplary news coverage, it spends more 
time telling us about it then showing us.  It still has its whiz-bang hi-tech 
graphics and live reporters across the hinterlands.  All the glitter but not 
much substance.  If a newscast wants to be #1, its top priority should be 
reporting the FACTS.

During the summer heavy smoke from Canadian forest fires drifted down into 
NENYland.  One day the haze transformed the sun into a peach-colored globe.  
Everything was tinted with an eerie yellowish light, indicating that there 
was a shitload of particulate matter in the air.

We wondered if breathing that polluted air would affect our allergies and 
asthma.  But the 6 PM local newscast on the Plattsburgh TeeVee station had a 
reporter claim that there was no health threat.  Five hours later, during the 
11 PM newscast, the reporter warned that people with respiratory problems 
should use caution.

So, do you trust your local TeeVee news?  Neither do we.

When the sun turns a strange color, trust your gut instincts, not the dubious 
script handed to a meat puppet trained to read, not to report, the news.

We were surprised to open up the Monday, November 4th edition of the New York 
Times and see an article filed from the empty heart of NENYland.  There in 
the Metro Section was a department called Tupper Lake Journal.  We never knew 
that the NYT had a news bureau in Tupper Lake, an Adirondack community of 
3,935 hardy souls located twenty miles south of Nowhere.  Apparently a NYTwit 
reporter thought it newsworthy that the only department store in Tupper Lake 
had closed, resulting in a terrible calamity for the sparsely-populated area: 
no place to buy underwear.

Now Tupperites have to travel all the way here to Plattsburgh, spending about 
an hour and a half on the road each way to enjoy shopping at Wal-Mart.  (And 
what says enjoyment more than buying cheap goods produced by slave labor in 
China?)  In case we didn't understand the real point of the calamity, the 
Tupper Lake mayor was quoted, saying that she went to the Peeburg Wal-Mart 
one weekend where she noted many of her constituents were buying underwear.

So rest easy.  The New York Times is on the job, raising awareness of the 
dire shortage in NENYland of skivvies and scanties.

(Maybe the NYT should answer this question: are unmentionables in Tupper Lake 
called Tupperwear?)



* Ghost Mail *


If you glance down below you'll see we have a new policy about outside 
submissions.  Sorry, we don't take 'em.  We're tired of digging through tons 
of spam to find an "article contribution" that turns out to be disguised spam.

But we're more than happy to receive any comments on our ezine.  Just use the 
guidelines listed below.

We know you're out there.  We can hear you breathing.  The Russian government 
hasn't gassed you to death... yet. 



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WHERE WE'RE AT: Anti-Press Ezine radiates from our Precision Reality Center.  
We're presently entrapped in the alleged city of Plattsburgh, northeastern 
New York State (NENYland), USA.  ("Jeezum Crow!  I can't scare up any thermal 
underwear in my size -- those Tupper Lakers took it all!")

EMAIL: Antipress1@aol.com 

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