by Schuyler Bates - February 25, 2008
Hey, Ralph! 'Sup.
So, man, thank you so much for all that stuff you did with the seat belt thing and the exploding Ford Ranger on Dateline, or something. That was groovy. Thanks.
That bit with the lead paint in the Campbell's Cream Of Celery Soup was killer! Good times. Good times.
And who could forget your battle against Big Pharma that one time? I know I can't. Because those mindless zombies called your followers keep reminding me. Awesome!
Anyways, I'll try to keep this brief.
I wonder if you could harken back to 2000, when you ran as an independent and basically cost us about 17.5 civil liberties, not to mention half our privacy.
I mean, are you on the neo-conservative payroll? Does Karl Rove have pictures of you bowling with Alberto Gonzales? Because it's starting to look a little like you're a neo-con plant. And not the green kind either.
When Tim Russert asked you point blank about being a Democratic spoiler this election, right after he'd accused you of being just that in 2000, you went on a tangent about how if a Democrat couldn't beat a Republican candidate who aligns himself with Bush after 8 years of a Republican administration that's basically used the constitution as a lobster bib, then the Democratic Party should just roll it up and go home. Fair enough.
But here's the thing. Why don't you do just that. Why not at least give the Democratic candidate a fighting chance to win before you throw your propellored beanie into the ring and skim a couple million votes off the top from her because dumbassed nutcases are just delusional enough to think you can win? You can't win, Ralph. You can't. Perhaps the only thing crazier than you running for president is you being president.
Goddamn hippies!
For the first time in our history there's a distinct possibility that we could have either a woman president or a black president. Or a really old white man president. Why add your 7 decades to the mix? And that woman and that black guy? They're both really smart. Although I gotta say that if the gal runs the country anything like she's running her campaign, I think I'll move into my mom's basement and stay stoned all the time watching The Prisoner series over and over again.
I know all this is hard to stomach, Ralph, and how important it is for you that the evils of corporatism stay on the table and remain frontpage in the national debate. But that can't be you shining the light on it any more because the way you've framed it in the past is no longer relevant. You've gone from being a moral crusader to a crusading moralizer. And that's pretty much the last thing we need right now.
There's a lot of social obsolescence going around these days: NOW, NAACP, the slide rule, panty-wearing 4th tier celebrities, evangelical Christianity, margarine. The list goes on and on.
So don't run, Ralph. Don't. You won't win. You can't win. But all of us could lose.
I mean, honestly. People like you ought to have the decency to know when they've outlived their usefulness. Stay out of the way because you've become part of the problem.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to figuring out how I can make sandals from recycled corn husks from sweet corn I've grown on my organic farm commune I'm starting next Fall.
Schuyler Bates is a former snowboarder who'd like to make enough $$ to be a stay-at-home-drunk. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama and rarely blogs at The Outer Sanctum.