Will whoever is in charge of updating the list of Obama supporters who are terrorists, racists, Marxists, thugs, Muslims and American Haters please consider adding me to it? Not that I looked at the list, but I just know I’m not on it since I’m a minnow. But, I’m a local minnow and a local blog should include local villains! You know, think global but list local.

I admit my qualifications as a villain may not be outstanding but I ask for your indulgence and appeal to your sense of charity. Where there is reasonable doubt, find in my favor and include me on the list! 

You know the law: “if the glove does not fit, you must acquit.” The anarchist corollary, applicable to my situation is: “if the glove might fit, you should not acquit.” (Is “corollary” on the FCAT?)

So let’s see….
 
Am I a terrorist?  Well, in 1967 or 1968, while still in high school, I may very well have developed and detonated the prototype IED. I obtained illegal explosives (firecrackers) and used the gunpowder to fill a metallic Band-Aid can, after first putting a hole in the top with an ice pick. I tied the fuses together and stuffed the long fuse in the hole. Then, about midnight I placed this crude IED in the mailbox of someone from my school who dissed me contrary to local mores. (Yes, I should have just pounded him to near comatose but, since he wasn‘t from around those parts, I thought he might take it personally rather than as just a “cultural thang.” )

The explosion sent the mailbox into low orbit (but of course I couldn't enter that IED into the Sceince Fair since I was still a fugitive at the time) and also terrorized dogs for about a quarter mile. (The dogs were unintended collateral damage.) I drove by the house about 30 minutes later and smiled at him and the police taking the report. And he never dissed me again! (Who says violence isn't an answer?)

Also, if there had been ROTC building on my college campus, I might have helped burn it down. And I supported SDS even though there was no chapter at my college so I was never able to officially join. Surely, these intentions have some villainous value.

Finally, I did flagrantly and willfully disobey (isn't that the proper legal term?) not just one but two police orders to cease blocking traffic on a busy downtown Tampa intersection at lunchtime in either 1971 or 1972. I was in an anti-war group marching to the county courthouse as part of the nationwide March on Washington, which had satellite marches in major cities. In our revolutionary fervor, we decided to block the intersection, which of course terrorized folks who realized they’d be late for lunch, getting back to work, etc. 

The police ordered us to keep marching or be arrested but we refused. After five minutes they ordered us to move on and we again refused. I was hoping there’d be a nice melee because we’d overwhelm them. It seems they understood that and didn’t press the issue. After making the point that we were in control, not the police, we began marching again.  (Revolutionary fervor is nice but sweating and sitting on hot asphalt in May is not fun.)

I think this terrorist glove just might fit…. say "Yes"!

I may not qualify as a racist either. But what if I think poorly of trailer-dwelling, redneck Republican whites? Can that count? (OK, OK, they don’t have to live in trailers!) What if I used to hate them but then hate turned first to pity and then to indifference? Cut me some slack here! (Strangely, I first heard the term “white trash” from my mother and she never lived in this country; does that mean “white trash” is a global problem?  Is “white trash“ on the FCAT?)

I’m not a Marxist…anymore. Of course, technically I may never have been a Marxist, because I only supported a Trotskyite movement advocating world revolution. (Since the ideological debate between “one country first” Lenin and “world revolution now” Trotsky over what it meant to be “Marxist” is off topic, I won’t go far with it. But history is written by the winners and Lenin won by killing Trotsky, so Trotsky is not a “Marxist” in the eyes of Leninist-Marxists, which means I wasn‘t a “Marxist” either . But if you‘re not a Marxist, then feel free to consider a Trotskyite as a “Marxist” even if you‘d be politically incorrect to do so. Whew… I hate political hair splitting!)

Can being an anarchist count? Why aren’t anarchists included as a category? I think anarchists should qualify! Don’t be narrow minded! We are much more dangerous than Marxists! They just want to sit around splitting ideological hairs, while we are much more likely to take to the streets for the sheer existentialist enjoyment of it all! (I know you’re noticing my predilection for alliteration. Indulge me.)

Sidebar: As you know, this country is totally teeming with machinating Marxists who are busily burrowing into the fine fabric of our awesome American society. Already, certain key tenets of the Communist Manifesto are in place. Such as: the progressive income tax; free public education for all children; and the abolition of child labor. Will McCain plainly pledge to entirely eliminate these cancerous commie cysts before it is too late and we collapse completely into… socialist serfdom? If not, why not? Could McCain be a pinko in Republican disguise? Is that why Rush and Ann don‘t support him? Enquiring minds want to know! How can we cast an infirmed (sic) vote without the facts!?  

It may also be a stretch for being a thug. Can I help it if my family was wealthy and so we had servants, belonged to a private club, I attended private school K-12 and college, etc.?  (Just how was I supposed to become a thug?  That’s definitely not fair…I’m a victim because I come from a wealthy family! This is some form of reverse discrimination!

Also, I must pull a “Clinton” here and ask: what do you mean by “thug”? Because I’m sure a learned individual such as yourself is aware that “thug” comes from an Indian religious sect called Thugees, who preyed on travelers. So, relying on the original Thugee paradigm, I should qualify as a “reverse” thug if we count all the great deals I’ve made while traveling.  An excellent case can be made that these deals were, in fact, a “steal” and so that should count for being a thug. What do you say?  (Is “paradigm” on the FCAT?)

Finally, I assure you that almost every day while driving to and from work, I often want to take the 10-inch steel pipe I carry in the glove compartment for medicinal purposes and beat the you-know-what out of some stupid SUV driver who thinks he can cut me off because he’s BIG and I’m in a Corolla. (The fact that I don’t is probably causing my slightly elevated blood pressure.) So you see, I have typical thuggish tendencies…. Catholics believe that improper desires are a sin. So maybe you can take the same approach and consider these dastardly desires towards my being a thug?

I’m not a Muslim, either.  This criterion assumes all Muslims are vile villains (not just the minute minority of Muslim fanatics) but I won’t dwell on this lowly logical minutiae since it’s irrelevant to my situation. My immediate concern is that I think agnostics and atheists should be included as a category, because I vacillate between the two. Atheists and agnostics are just one small step away from being… commies! And commies are Marxists! And Marxists are on the list! Do you see the lovely logic here?

Of course, there is the minor detail of the religion of that skinny, white ex-military guy who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City. Do you think he’s a Muslim? Or an Obama supporter?
I think not… So I guess Tim goes on the list of white Protestant terrorists who support Republicans?

The sad thing is this: f it wasn’t for these Muslim terrorists, life would be so much easier for our own white Protestant terrorists.  Just another sorry example of how American jobs are going overseas! That is why we must capture Osama soon…so terrorism in America can return to its roots in homegrown white Protestants.

As for American haters, here I have to wonder whether that’s a typo. Is it American (people) haters, or is it America (country) haters that qualify for the list? I do hate Americans who think America can do no wrong because it has done, and continues to do, many wrong things. But of course that was all explained in Niebuhr’s “Moral Man, Immoral Society.”  I read that book in my sophomore year of college (how about you?) and I realize now that it’s succinct title and excellent analysis of the dynamics of organizational conformity, even in the best-intentioned organizations, planted the seed of anarchism in my mind and it bloomed decades later. (Is “succinct” on the FCAT?)

As for America (country), I neither love it nor hate it. As an anarchist, I don’t believe in “country.”  So if I’m just plain vanilla indifferent to America the country, can that qualify me as an America hater? Let me note that I'm thinking of leaving the country and retiring to Costa Rica. I might become a Costa Rican citizen too. Certainly these possibilities and thoughts should count for something! In this category, taking a holistic approach is immensely important! If I don’t love it and I might leave it, then I think that’s a positively powerful argument for being put on the list! I think it is indifference, not hate, that is the true opposite of love. So I Ithink you're on the wrong track with this "hate" thing...

 
Now I know you have high standards and won’t place just any old riff raff wannabe villain on that list, and I respect that. I wouldn’t want to be on any list that’s too easy to get on. I have superior standards too!

But, I must be honest with you ….  If I don’t get on that list, the only option I have left for redress is a 100% American one: lawyers, guns and money.  Oops.. that’s Warren Zevon! Well, maybe just lawyers then. And money. Definitely money!

If I have to take my case to Judge Judy, it would include a reasonable request for compensation for emotional distress, psychological trauma, cognitive dissonance, asymmetrical defecation, and all sorts of other horrendous hallucinated pain and suffering. All these require that I regularly receive massive amounts of ice cream, chocolate, and (this last one is non-negotiable) hard green mangoes for life! Life! And I plan  to live long and prosper. (Is “asymmetrical” on the FCAT?)

Please, please, pleeeeeese, put me on the list, ok? It’d mean so much to me. In fact, it’s my dying wish… If you must know, I’m dying of advancing age. As each day ends, I‘m another day closer to death, so please hurry!

I have no problem with a thorough background investigation to verify my statements. Just be sure to use the same fine intelligence team that established the slam dunk case for WMDs in Iraq, ok? If we left these sensitive matters to the bleeding heart, unpatriotic, pinko wussies, who knows where we might be today - a budget surplus like Clinton left but which is now in Iraq, a strong dollar because of a budget surplus, lower oil prices becuase of a strongger dollar, and low unemployment because of lower oil prices. But who the heck wants that!? Certainly not an anarchist looking to discredit government!

I thank you for your consideration!  Peace, love and Obama!