Kangaroo Jack

Hey everyone, my name is Brendan. I play in a band called the Lawrence Arms. You may have seen our name in ads, or you may have even skipped over one of our tracks on the Fat comp. The point is, I play in some band and I have something to say that at least marginally has to do with voting. Here it is:

This war on terror is a little crazy. Even without getting into specifics, we are talking about unlawful search and seizure, arrest and detainment without trial, ignoring and bypassing the democratic process, pissing off the entire world, making veiled threats against our allies, mounting a gigantic misinformation propaganda campaign against the American public, and threatening a gigantic number of innocent people with slaughter. It's fucking nuts. I know that I'm more or less preaching to the choir here, seeing as this is a punk voter website and everything, but I think that a few things need to be made entirely clear.

Firstly, George Bush is a dangerous and impulsive man. Secondly, Saddam Hussein, while incredibly evil, is NOT in any way associated with Al-Qaeda, North Korea, the Taliban, or Iran. Despite what GWB says, there is no "axis of evil". The point is that all those other countries and groups out there that have been in the news lately aren't all working together. There has NEVER been any evidence of that. WE, on the other hand, run around committing the VERY SAME abuses that we condemn these nations for EVERY FUCKING DAY!!!

Now, I know that this kind of rhetoric flies just fine on a leftist punk rock website and that your parents, conservative friends, pastors, whatever will read statements like above and chalk it up to pansy liberal jargon and conspiracy theory. Fine. That's why I want to address this new and impending war from another angle.

The entire world is against us on this push to strike against Iraq. Not just Middle Eastern nations, not just a few rogue countries in the UN. EVERYONE is against it. Our allies and our enemies all agree that this is a bad idea. A few weeks ago the largest worldwide protest in the history of civilization took place. That means that not only is it the official party line of governments worldwide, it is also the will of the people. Pretty amazing, actually. The entire world has finally come together to agree on something. It's just too bad that it's that the US government is totally fucked.

Now, throughout this whole thing, I have had faith that the American people would come around, see the way that this war is built on lies, see the way that the rest of the world opposes it, realize that to fly in the face of the entire world is the ultimate in egotism and foolishness. But then something happened.

That movie, Kangaroo Jack, came out. You've perhaps seen previews? It's about two thoroughly focus-grouped morons (one black, one white) who get the runaround from a well dressed, incredibly agile, rapping kangaroo. Oh, I agree, it sounds like the stupidest bowl of shit ever. Well, do you know what my fellow Americans did? They made it #1 at the box office for a fucking month or something!

So, there you have it. Proof positive that there is a giant gaggle of complete retards in America. If these dumb assholes will pay 9 bucks to see Kangaroo Jack in the theaters in RECORD NUMBERS, then they will definitely swallow any shit that the White House is serving. What this means is this: There is very little hope of averting this war. The White House is too arrogant to listen to the rest of the world, and the general public in the US is too busy being confused by pudding commercials to do anything. So...(wait for it)...this is where YOU, young, eager-to-be-informed person reading this, come in.

Register to vote, right here on this website, or head down to your local Post Office, DMV, etc. There are more people ages 18-35 than there are of the whole rest of the voting pool. If we are all informed and registered to vote, then when the next election comes around we can vote this dangerous douchebag out of office (hopefully there will still be free elections here) and vote in WHOMEVER we want. In the last election, the voter turnout was so low that any one giant, usually silent demographic could have dictated and controlled that election. Everyone else will be watching dumb animatronic animals outwit idiot movie stars, so letâs go vote for someone smart, and get to work on rebuilding our strained relationship with the entire rest of the world.


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