Australian Usenet poster lets U.S. Bush voters have it with both barrels!

[NightTrain]

Just found this posted to rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1950s:

You blithering idiots! You re-elected that imbecile George Bush as your President. He’s a complete moron and so are most of you!
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Don’t you care what the rest of the world thinks of you? Don’t you care what impact American foreign policy has on the rest of the planet? Does Iraq look like a success to anyone? Doesn’t it bother you that he’s alienated every friend you have? What were you thinking???
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Prior to this, it was American policy and the American government that was so universally hated around the world. Now it's going to be 'Americans' we hate. More sympathy for Bin Laden... More attacks on American institutions... More isolation. How blind can you dumb rednecks in middle-America be, not to see this?
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If you get hit again, or your economy goes into a deep depression, the American people will be getting exactly what they deserve!
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And here’s my response:

Dude, 56 million of us voted for Kerry. The idiots in my country are actually a minority, albeit a loud one.

Look at it this way:

The U.S. had only 60% voter turnout last Tuesday. Assuming the votes were counted honestly--which I don't, following the 2000 debacle in Florida--Bush got 51% of 60%. That works out to approximately 30% of the vote. So of all the eligible voters in my country, 70% of us did *not* want four more years of Bush!

When you hear that the American people gave Bush a "mandate," don't believe it for a second. 30% is not a mandate; it's a fucking cult! Which makes perfect sense when you consider that your typical Bushite is the political equivalent of a Moonie.

Some other stats to consider:

Bush got the narrowest margin of victory since any sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

While it's true that Bush got more votes than any other presidential candidate in history, do you know which candidate got the *second* most votes in history? John Kerry! That's right. More Americans voted for Kerry than voted even for Ronald Reagan.

One last thing: Richard Nixon was re-elected decisively in 1972 but served less than half of his second term due to a pending impeachment. As such, it's entirely possible that some time in the next few years, the Bush Junta may end up doing something so horrendous, even the GOP will be forced to throw the bastards out. Admittedly, given all the shit BushCo has pulled so far, I shudder to think of what they'd have to do to finally wake people up, but it still is possible!

So please, my friends abroad. Try not to paint all of us with the same brush. We aren't all brainwashed bigots who've perverted the teachings of Christ beyond recognition. And we'll do our best to prove it to you during the next four years.

WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER!

[havocmom]

1. Howard got re-elected in OZ

and we are sorta curious how that happened too. Some of my wayard daughter's pals down under are steamed and skeptical about how it happened.

[sandnsea]

4. No kidding

Kind of a pot and kettle thing going on there, seems to me.

[DuaneBidoux]

12. Howard is an asshole without power, Shrub is one with power

[sandnsea]

22. Excuse me?

When he supported Bush's war and continues to, he became just as guilty as Bush. And when Australians put the guy back in office, they've got no room to criticize Americans.

[DuaneBidoux]

25. Any Aussie has room to criticize any American, and vice versa

[Ithuilwen]

2. Excellent response. But I feel his pain, too. We all do. nt

[Siyahamba]

3. I don't have much sympathy for eligible voters who didn't vote

Not counting those who were given the wrong voting date and location of course, but most eligible voters who didn't vote just didn't care who was president.

[acmavm]

5. But those non-voters will think (wrongly) that they have a right to bitch

when things get worse than they are now, won't they? Politically amoral jackasses who, rather than take a stand which would have only cost them time and the inconvenience of standing in a line to cast their vote totally ignored the election and what was at stake for their poor country. I have absolutely no use for anyone who could have voted but didn't.

edit: this one issue makes me so angry I lose the ability to be coherent and to spell.

[NYC Liberal]

8. Before engaging ANYONE in political discourse,

I will first ask them if they voted. If not, I will kindly tell them to shut the fuck up.

[acmavm]

9. Do you really think they'd have the decency not to lie? The ones I know

made the remarks about 'not voting, I'm not into that political stuff' BEFORE the election. I bet they're singing a different tune now.

[NYC Liberal]

10. Well I'd say the same thing if they lied and

said they'd voted for Bush. Still no right to complain.

[KitSileya]

16. yup, I've been doing that for years.

I was taught by my parents that the right to vote is not just a <i>right</i> and a <i>privilege</i>, it is also a civic <b>duty</b>. You don't vote, you don't have the right to complain. When they counter with the 'there weren't anyone I wanted to vote <i>for</i>,' I repudiate by telling them what Heinlein said, that even if you don't have anyone to vote for, you probably have someone to vote against (in Norway, that's usually the brown Progress Party.) No voting is effectively the same as a vote for those you despise.

[NightTrain]

6. Exactly!

Those fucking non-voters don't deserve the privilege of living in what miraculously has remained a free, democratic society!

[Crunchy Frog]

7. I consider the non-voters

to be nothing more than tacit Bush voters. The fact is, 70% or thereabouts of this country either support Bush and his policies, or didn't find them objectionable enought to bother going out and voting against them.

The truth is that Bush is acceptable to the majority of America's population.

Any of them who get screwed from Bush's "New World Order" will get exectly as much sympathy from me as someone who actually voted for the bastard.

[forgethell]

11. I've always thought

that calling people idiots was NOT the way to persuade them to the correctness of your position. Unfortunately, as more and more progressives give in to frustration and despair, I think that we are going to see more and more of this.

Here on DU, it's not so bad. I mean, here is where many of us have been coming to vent. Although some of our more extreme positions have a way of appearing elsewhere and hurting us. but when widely read columnists, leaders of the party, etc. publicly vent in this manner, I think it hurts us big-time. To be brutally frank, it makes us look like losers, not just people who have suffered a defeat. And I hate that.

[KitSileya]

20. When people are too lazy

to keep themselves updated on what is going on in the society they live in, stupid is a word I'd use to describe them. A huge number (notice, I don't say all) of those who stayed at home on Nov. 2 have the means available to them to do so. Public libraries. The internet. PBS, C-Span. Walking down to the political headquarters in town and get brochures etc. Talking ot people whose opinions they trust.

Hell, even take Heinlein's advice again - if you don't know who to vote for, talk to the person you despise the most, ask him/her who they're voting for, and then vote the opposite.

[forgethell]

23. Yeah, I agree, the people

who stay home ARE idiots. But they are NOT the people that I was talking about. Disagreeing with the progressive position is not necessarily evidence that a person is an idiot. Or even uninformed.

We have to sharpen our arguments

[KitSileya]

24. I knw. It just means they're misinformed!

Sorry, just couldn't resist. if you read my post you will see that I am carefuly neutral to who these people should vote for. Could be the friend whose opinion they trust is a bushbot. Or that the idiot they talk to is a raving lunatic for Kerry.

however, as long as the voting system in the US is so complex and non-user-friendly, of course many who don't have the resources and time, friendly bosses and easy reach of both registration and polling place wil find the obstacles insurmountable.

If it weren't for blackboxvoting, I would advocate the Oregon method of voting, with mail in ballots. What was the voter turnout in Oregon? 80%? 85%?

[forgethell]

29. I have to say

I think the US voting system is extremely user-friendly. I don't really want important decisions on our leaders made by the mentally incompetent, the dead or never-existent, the stupid, the ignorant, or those too lazy to get to the ballot box or at least get an absentee ballot. I don't want the same person voting more than once. I don't want nameless electrons picking my leaders. Most of all, I don't want judges deciding.

[forgethell]

30. It may not even mean that

they are misinformed, which is, after all pretty much equivalent to uninformed in consequence. It may just mean that they have a different idea of what the issues are, what is important to them, how problems should be addressed, or what is in their own best interests.

Or, they could be stupid and ill-informed.

[DuaneBidoux]

13. Can you give me the link to that?

thanks, I'm trying to reach out to boards on the world

[NightTrain]

14. Try news:rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1950s

[DuaneBidoux]

15. Sorry I'm being an idiot here. Is that the web address? Place www.

in front of "try news..

or in front of rec.music...

[NightTrain]

17. No! You don't use the "www" prefix when accessing Usenet.

Just type news:rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1950s into your subject line. That ought to get you there.

Alternately, go to www.google.com, click "Groups," and type in the name of the newsgroup when you get to the right page.

[HamdenRice]

18. Tell him its FU*KING Australia's Fault@!#

Because they gave the world Rupert Murdock, who created the Faux News Monster, which played a big role in brainwashing all those idiots from Sisterbride Holler, Tennessee into thinking bush is babyjesus.

[Karenina]

27. Now, now HR

:spank:

I keep hearing from Aussies-at-large that they're quite put-off by the election in out back in the outback. The whole election spectacle is such a Bugsby Berkeley production of a Hieronymous Bosch painting.

[Nordic]

19. how do we ask the international community for help with voter fraud?

that's what I want to know

[KitSileya]

21. You can't

The OSCE observers have signed off on it as a relatively ok election - worse than Serbia, Kasakstan, and Venezuela, but still, not Zimbabwe or Iraq.

Edited to correct spelling mistake.

[Baja Margie]

26. Give us the link

so that we can reply too, thanks.

[NightTrain]

28. Try this one.

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=rec.music.rock-pop-r%2Bb.1950s&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search

That thread does not appear to have yet turned up in Google. Unfortunately, that can take six to nine hours. Keep trying back, though! I'd love to get some DUers posting in that thread to rattle up the right-wing fuckwads who infest the group! :evilrgin: