A BIT OF COMIC RELIEF…
(…from this year’s political combats…)

The American political process, especially during a presidential election year, is much given to extremes of political posturing and wild rhetoric denigrating any opponent’s character, integrity, and qualifications for that office. And for good measure, that slamming rhetoric is also applied to the competing political party and all that it stands for. At any other time that would all be considered libelous and slanderous, but as “political speech” it’s thus protected from any kind of legal sanctions.

This year’s campaigning has been no exception, and after a most vicious phase of primary campaigning by the duopoly of our two-party system, we are ending up with two less than inspiring choices for us to pick from next November.

On one hand we have a candidate who, while obviously qualified, brings along a lot of baggage bearing on her trustworthiness (viz. the recent results of the lengthy investigations about her use of a private server for her official emails). On the other hand, we voters face the prospect of finding a loudmouthed blowhard ego-centric loose cannon occupying the Oval Office…with his mitts toying with that nuclear briefcase nicknamed “The Football”, who has an equally dubious record of trustworthiness. It’s enough to give any “thinking” taxpaying voter …nightmares.

So, not wishing to add to all that heartburn folks are having about the situation, we dug around in our musty archives to pull out some old graphics from back in 1984, thirty two years ago…as a bit of comic relief from this year’s political combat.

Thanks to an issue of National Geographic back then…we chose to use a zoomorphic approach to comment about and highlight some of the issues in those times. As you’ll see nothing much has changed…beyond a few tweaks here and there along the way…since then. We taxpaying voters weren’t particularly happy with what was being offered back then…just like today. But this time we have an alternative fail-safe option available, which is this:

Regardless of whom those two conventions will confirm as their offerings to us next November…unlike their delegates…none of us taxpaying voters are duty bound to vote for these. We’re free to vote for any other names that may still be on that ballot, keeping in mind that…while these might not do any better for us…they sure as hell can’t do any worse.

CENTURION

TWO OLD VETERANS MULL OVER THE 1984 PRESIDENTIAL FIELD

The following is the transcript of the dialogue between two old war buddies that year: We’ll call them Chuck and Luke. Here’s what they had to say:

CHUCK “Well, Luke old buddy, what do you think about what they’re offering us this year?
LUKE   “Geez…none of them worth squat, Chuck, so it’s gonna really be tough to choose!”
CHUCK “Hmm…yeah… but do you see any difference between them, Luke?”
LUKE   “Nah! On the one hand…we’ve just have a pack of braying jackasses who like to play around with grand ideas…which will cost us all…a lot more money…”
CHUCK “And on the other?”
LUKE   “We just have a set of trumpeting pachyderms who like to play around with a bunch of fat cats…who’ll take…all our money!”
CHUCK “BUMMER! So what can we do, Luke?”
LUKE “I think have a great idea for doing something that will satisfy both of us, Chuck”
CHUCK “Really? I’m all ears!”
LUKE “Well…since us vets keep getting the short end from the Congress and the VA… comes November…why don’t we just…eat them… instead!”
CHUCK “Not bad…not bad…like…our own version of steak tartar…but…won’t folks think that politically incorrect, Luke?”
LUKE “Correct…Shmorrect…who cares…besides… by November we’ll be hungry enough to gobble them both…and still leave room for desert!”
CHUCK “I like the way your mind works, Luke old buddy…maybe that’s why you made Sergeant…and I didn’t” (their combined laughter here)

AN UNHAPPY TAXPAYING VOTER SURVEYS THE 1984 POLITICAL SCENE

“Acres and acres of issues…and all those bozos can yack about is…who’s got the best beef!”
 
 THE INCUMBENT PONDERS HIS 1984 PR PROBLEM

“Where do those media yahoos get off saying I have…a gender gap!”
“Unlike some others… my fly…is always zipped!”
 
A MINORITY PERSPECTIVE FOR 1984

“To paraphrase that white dude…old Henry Ford….
vote any color you want…as long as it’s black, Bro”