"Democrats: The Other White Republicans" Campaign Starts Strong

tymied and Spankied by the post-Sept. 11^th political climate and a lack of clear leadership, Democrats unveiled a paradigm-rattling new look at the first debate May 3 in Columbia, South Carolina.

At the University of South Carolina in Columbia, locally referred to as the book-learnin' building, nine presidential hopefuls engaged in sharp verbal battles over key issues such as War—what is it good for? and Christ, don't the health care system suck? But the real surprise of the night was the Democratic National Committee's announcement of their 2004 makeover: "Democrats: The Other White Republicans."

According to high-ranking Democrats and their corporate masters, the new slogan and the accompanying commercial campaign will try to unite faithful Democrats who have long stood by the party with the confused, unwashed masses who have no party affiliation and typically don't vote in elections until they know which way the swing vote among the girls at Hooters is going. Also, some speculation remains that a new, stiffer image could even win over some moderate Republican voters who are a little turned off by the Bush administration's lap-dog status to fundamentalist Christian groups and salivating Pentagon contractors.

"It is clearly a new era," said obvious-stating University of South Carolina Professor and event organizer Hazburp "Hap" Golord. "Democrats who support social programs and not using the impoverished for stem-cell research are continually losing favor with the population. Questioning and challenging military and business industrial complexes is out, being whipped and brutalized with a smile is in. Never let it be said the Democrats can't play ball—we're the party of Bill Bradley, former pro ball player."

Others, like the nine Democratic presidential candidates, echoed the sentiments.

"The day of the Kennedy Democrats is over," said some unmemorable besuited candidate. "In fact, all the good Kennedys are dead. Even George Kennedy. Clinton knew how to make the voters clap along by doing a lot of the same things the Republicans did, but reminding them, 'I feel your pain.' Not that he made it stop. It was more like a mutual thing: 'Ouch. Didn't that hurt? Well, what are you gonna do?'"

It was at that point the unnamed candidate continued to wander off topic and event moderator George Stephanopoulos chided him with a firm but kind, "Don't go there."

Candidate and Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt fervently agreed, while distancing himself from his opponent. "I say my friend, whose name I cannot recall, does not go far enough. The Democrats must distinguish themselves as a party more like the Republicans than ever before. I say more rhetoric! And when the public thinks that's un-American, denounce the rhetoric you've already said. The time of seeking to stabilize our party with the votes of minorities is long gone. After all, if Florida is a key state once again, black voters will likely be as purposely disenfranchised as last time. It is up to us to seek the votes likely to go to Bush, the votes Florida will not throw away."

Longshot candidate Al Sharpton appeared to have strident words to challenge Gephardt's statement, but his reply was not heard as no one had really plugged his microphone in.

Sitting president and pretend military leader George W. Bush said he did not have comments prepared to respond to the Democratic critiques, believing the Democrats had been ousted from power by Operation Enduring Freedom.

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Throughout all of history, human beings have gone to excessive lengths in an effort to not be so damned ugly. Few have succeeded, but we humans have kept bravely banging our ugly heads against that wall in vain hopes of fooling others into letting us be near them for purposes of a brief, sweaty sexual encounter. Has it all been worth it? The human race has survived, sure, but at what cost to our personal dignity?

Early prehistoric attempts at plastic surgery involved smashing in an ugly person's face with a rock, in the hopes that they would either stop being so ugly, or else go die somewhere. Problem solved either way. Modern plastic surgery involves the same basic principals, only due to inflation, the face-bashing is no longer provided free of charge to the afflicted.

Uglies unwilling to go to such radical extremes for the sake of modest downgrades in their retch factor have faced any number of bizarre alternatives throughout history, depending on what part of the world they'd been uglying up.

In Borneo, unattractive natives would stretch their earlobes down to shoulder level in an attempt to draw attention away from their unfortunate natural physiologies, preferring a lifetime of hearing "Holy shit! Look at them earlobes!" to cries of "I'm gonna sick up my monkey meat!" As an added benefit, the elongated earlobes could be tied behind the head for carry extra food, or let loose to give the impression that the wearer was running really, really fast.

Anyone who has ever scanned though a National Geographic magazine in search of library-sanctioned pornography is likely familiar with the Padaung of Burma, a small tribe that spices up the rather lackluster appearance of their women though the application of brass neck-rings, which elongate the neck dramatically and give the impression that the women are actually very expensive giraffes. Though the Padaung insist that the neck rings are used to prevent tiger bites, a quick blow to the throat of a Padaung woman proves that the brass rings provide little in the way of protective function. Politically-correct anthropologists have suggested that the rings were originally instituted to make the women less likely to be taken by slave traders, but any honest appraisal of the Padaung has to conclude that these uglies would have been flattered by the attention.

In Vietnam, the practice of teeth-blackening has fascinated anthropologists for years, or at least those anthropologists too dim to recognize this as the Vietnamese equivalent of the pre-emptive baldness technique of head-shaving popular among Western males. If your teeth are ugly and fucked up, you might as well make it look like you did that on purpose, right? Accordingly, the practice of chewing Betel nuts and brushing with off-brand convenience store toothpaste has provided the Vietnamese with beautiful black smiles for generations.

The same strategy has applied to cultures around the world that value fatness as a beauty ideal, perhaps wisely deciding that keeping thin was just a whole lot of work. Experts have argued that obesity was valued in 17th century Europe and China because it proved the person in question could afford plenty of food, but these are just the kind of experts with too much educational prestige on the line to call a lard-ass a lard-ass. Similar is the western reaction to the Tibetan tradition of considering excessive flatulence to be beautiful, which was supposed to prove that the flatulator could afford rich, gassy foods. Not true. Unfortunately for the revisionist historians, the Tibetans are just a naturally farty people.

The ancient Mayans and Egyptians both practiced the strange art form of binding infants' skulls to produce elongated, pointy-headed babies. Though many explanations for this odd practice have been offered, most available evidence suggests that the Maya and Egyptians just thought it was funny. And after all, what's a helpless little infant going to do to you? If the pointy-headed freak ever makes it to adulthood, providing the entire village with years of entertainment along the way, they're still not going to remember what you did to them when they were just a baby. It's a little surprising this practice ever died out in the first place.

Likewise with the tradition of foot-binding in China, where women's feet were kept unnaturally small by restricting their growth throughout childhood. While women were convinced the tiny feet would land them the most desirable husband, men just enjoyed getting drunk and watching their wives totter around and fall down like stilt-walkers on their useless, tiny little toy feet.

Modern attempts at marginal beauty have proved no less desperate, only more expensive. The plastic surgery industry has made millions off the idea that moving fat around to different parts of the body will somehow confuse the viewer into finding someone beautiful, like a mesmerizing shell game.

But the true benefactor of our collective ugliness has been the cosmetics industry. The idea that blondes have more fun, or at the very least get laid more in the back of convertibles, has fueled the sale of millions of bottles of hair coloring in the West, enriching the cosmetics corporations and fooling countless men into thinking their dates were going to end better than they actually would. Thanks to the blush and lipstick used to simulate sexual arousal in females wearing them, the cosmetics industry has made a fortune landing women dates and confusing Western males into a state of perpetual blueballs from which they may never emerge.

But hey, have you seen the alternative? Yeech.

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Dear commune:

Ed Phillips here again. I've recently returned a little wiser from the Middle East. Like most Americans, I assumed the problem was simply based in religious differences and the insurmountable tumultuous history between Islamic and Jewish religions. I was more surprised than anybody to find out it was all over a hotel bill for a room shared by Ziggy Morgenstern and Al-Adid Shabozz back in 1967. I offered to pay the bill myself, it was only $34, but leaders on both sides were quick to stress it wouldn't make a difference. It was all the principle.

Needless to say, that started me thinking: How come you're not allowed to cook in motel or hotel rooms? It seems an incredible infringement on my rights as an American to not let me fry up some eggs and bacon on a hot plate in my own hotel room, making me survive on their continental breakfast alone. I'm not talking open-flame bonfires, believe me, I've learned my lesson after that fire three years ago. But even simple electric outlet appliance cooking is outlawed. Doesn't seem right.

I have recently collapsed the ass-section of my pants, though I hope they are repairable. I'll keep you informed on this situation as more progresses.

Ed Phillips
Hackensack, New Jersey


Dear Ed:

Thanks for the letter, and please keep us informed on the whole ass/pants story as it develops.

According to our Research Editor Griswald Dreck: "The war between hotels/motels and in-room cooking dates back to 1647, when the first motel room fire was recorded starting in Ye Olde Two-Pence Inn, by a peasant guest who burned down six rooms in the inn with a small pocketfire for cooking grouse.

"Since then it has been illegal for guests of any hotel in any country, so decided by the International Terror Conspiracy of Hotel Owners and Operators, to cook in any form or fashion in any room. Part of it is fear of another hotel/motel fire, but a lot of it is because this gigantic conspiracy is just a bunch of dicks who are slow to forget grudges. In fact, it's proven that 92% of Americans are all descended from the dillhole who started the fire at the Ye Olde Two-Pence, Augustus Winterturd. So thanks to this grade-A medieval jackass we're all denied the pleasure of a hotplate-cooked hot dog, even in our enlightened age. Tough luck. Maybe if we all promise to not steal an abundance of towels, soaps, and shampoos, maybe order a few more in-room movies, they'll start giving us a little more leeway in this situation."

the commune

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Editor's Note: the commune is not responsible for the repeated publishing of letters by Ed Phillips. He sends us about 75 a month, so really, you're getting a fair statistical representative of our reality.

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