SMASH THE STATE
A weekly television series of political satire and commentary
Saturday, May 4, 1996
* The Monologue
* The Bottom Ten List:
"The Bottom Ten Topics for the Unabomber's Column in Penthouse"
* Viewer E-Mail
* The Official Report
* Turkey of the Week:
"Dan Rostenkowski"
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THE MONOLOGUE
By Gary Johnson, Smash the State, May 4, 1996
(Live from Austin -- hometown of Madalyn Murray O'Hair --
it's Saturday night. And now for something completely dissident,
here's Gary!)
Thank you. Good evening, this is Smash the State. Welcome to
our show.
(1) You may have noticed that gasoline prices have gone up.
Apparently, the oil companies were getting ready for the hike in
the minimum wage.
(2) The President this week sold 12 million barrels of oil
the federal government has stored in the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve. The idea is that, by taking this oil out of storage and
selling it, this action would lower oil prices in the market
place.
So, I was just thinking. If selling oil from the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve lowered oil prices in the market place, then
didn't the purchase of the oil in the first place raise oil
prices? And since the government has bought and kept in storage a
lot more oil than it has sold, hasn't the net effect of the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve been to keep oil prices higher than
they would have been?
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THE BOTTOM TEN LIST
"Bottom Ten Topics for the Unabomber's Column in Penthouse"
By Gary Johnson, Smash the State, May 4, 1996
Ladies and gentlemen, I hold in my hand this week's Bottom
Ten List. From the state headquarters on Cesar Chavez Street, the
category is the Bottom Ten Topics for the Unabomber's Column in
Penthouse.
Last year, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione offered the
Unabomber a monthly column in his magazine, saying "I am still
your only friend in the media." Now that the suspect has been
arrested, we can expect to see a new regular feature in the pages
of this renowned, scholarly journal.
Here are the Bottom Ten Topics for the Unabomber's Column in
Penthouse.
Minus 10, Dear Penthouse, I never thought I would be writing
this, but...
Minus 9, Won't you be my pen pal?
Minus 8, Sunglasses, a hooded parka, and other fashion trends.
Minus 7, The Penthouse bachelor pad, a cabin in the woods.
Minus 6, Writing tips for that 35,000-word love letter.
Minus 5, Turn her on with mathematics.
Minus 4, Doing something with your hands on nights and weekends.
Minus 3, How to pick up that girl sitting next to you on the
Greyhound Bus.
Minus 2, Dealing with sibling rivalry.
And the Minus 1 topic for the Unabomber's column in Penthouse,
What to do with the rest of your life if your girlfriend dumps
you.
We have a great show for you. There is more to come. If this
be treason, make the most of it.
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"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the
urge to rule."
-- H.L. Mencken
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VIEWER E-MAIL
Smash the State, May 4, 1996
Smash the State is on the Internet. Visit our web site at
http://members.aol.com/sedition .
Smash the State welcomes electronic mail from viewers. Here
is some actual e-mail from actual e-viewers. Letter number 1.
(Lee Giraitis-Rodgers, leebert@io.com) This letter is from
Lee Giraitis-Rodgers.
"Njoyed your show! (Esp. that right vs. left routine - a
real hoot!!!)
"Come on by my web-site's page 'You Might Be a Dupe for the
2-Party System if...' http://www.io.com/~leebert/uradupe.html .
"Oh, I forgot what your web site address is! Could you send
me your URL?
"TIA, Another Austinite, Lee"
Thank you for your letter. The "You might be a dupe for the
2-party system if" web site has 136 examples. Here are some of
them:
YOU MIGHT BE A DUPE FOR THE 2-PARTY SYSTEM IF....
(1) You accept the media propaganda that election results
brought by 17% of all eligible adults constitutes a 'mandate,' a
'landslide,' or 'majority rule.'
(2) You think that 3rd parties are unconstitutional.
(3) You think that because of [insert sensationalized issue
here], that an over-centralized Federal government is a good
thing.
(4) You think that because of [insert sensationalized issue
here], that some abrogation of Amendment [n] in the Bill of
Rights is a good thing.
(5) You don't realize that the U.S. has been in a Declared
State of Emergency since the 1930's.
(6) You don't notice that well-to-do Democrats and
Republicans already have their own version of school choice:
wealthy suburban school districts.
(7) You think that the Democratic majority in Congress was
solely responsible for the deficit and debt of the 1980's and
that Ronald Reagan had nothing to do with it.
(8) You think that Ronald Reagan was solely responsible for
the deficit and debt of the 1980's and that the Democratic
majority in Congress had nothing to do with it.
(9) You believe that our troops are still stationed in
Germany and Japan as part of their 'defense.'
(10) You forgot about the Peace Dividend.
(11) You forgot Eisenhower's warning about the
military-industrial complex.
(12) You think that Federal forfeiture laws are used only
against drug dealers.
(13) You never noticed how the major media buries the
statistics showing that the majority of the illegal drugs are
used by whites.
(14) You see no similarities between the Prohibition-era gun
violence of the 1920's and the drug trade-related gun violence we
have now.
(15) You forget that the Kennedys made their fortune from
smuggling alcohol during Prohibition.
(16) You think that use of illegal drugs is necessarily drug
abuse.
(17) You believe that George Bush invaded Panama because of
Manuel Noriega's drug activities.
(18) It never bothered you that President George Bush was
formerly a Director of the CIA.
(19) You think that the 2nd Amendment doesn't mention 'the
People.'
(20) You believed that the Oklahoma City bombing implicated
the militia movement.
(21) You think that there are only 2 sides to any one issue.
(22) You think the artificial splitting of issues between 2
sides actually represents the way Americans think.
(23) You think that the 2-party system is a result of
natural political evolution and not a Gerry-rigged electoral
system.
(24) You don't wonder why the American political system
seems to avoid solving so many problems, only to recycle the same
issues on the next election cycle.
(25) You think that one party on the right and one on the
left actually constitutes a choice.
Those are some the examples at the "You Might be a Dupe for
the 2-Party System if" web site on the Internet. You can see the
entire list at http://www.io.com/~leebert/uradupe.html .
The Smash the State URL is http://members.aol.com/sedition
or http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1166 .
Send us your electronic mail. We may read it on the air. Our
e-mail address is sedition@aol.com .
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THE OFFICIAL REPORT
By Gary Johnson, Smash the State, May 4, 1996
This is the Official Report. The stories you are about to
hear are true.
THE STATE OF THE WORLD
(1) Russian tax dollars at work: The Kremlin has ordered
6,000 sumptuous pieces of hand-crafted sterling silver, including
caviar bowls, champagne buckets, and flatware, to outfit four
presidential residences. The German silversmiths, Robbe and
Berking, won't say how much the total order was worth, but the
company's dessert spoons cost $95 a piece. At the presidential
residences, diners will enjoy several pieces created especially
for the Kremlin: a small silver bowl for a traditional hot
mushroom and sour cream appetizer, silver teacup holders, and
shell-shaped silver plates for mussels.
(2) A statue of Eleanor Roosevelt wearing her famous
traveling fur piece was dropped from the FDR Memorial that is
under construction after animal rights activists objected.
(3) The Michigan Liquor Control Commission has ruled that
Bad Frog Beer can keep a label showing a frog flipping the bird
-- if the word "obscene" is eliminated from the beer's slogan.
The label features a picture of a real frog, altered so that its
right arm is turned upward and a finger is extended in a
well-known gesture. The last line of the label reads, "He's mean,
green and obscene."
The commission's order said the label "may be clearly
offensive to some, (but) it is not so patently offensive that the
advertising and promotion of Bad Frog Beer should be banned
completely in this state." The MLCC ruling allows Bad Frog to be
sold in Michigan, provided that its promotional materials, such
as posters, be limited to bars, pubs, and taverns. But the
Commission intends to prohibit the display of Bad Frog Beer
promotional materials in establishments such as liquor stores,
grocery stores, and party stores.
Meanwhile in Virginia, an agent for the Department of
Alcoholic Beverage Control is considering banning the label in
that state and pulling it from store shelves.
THE NEW WORLD ORDER
(4) The U.S. Treasury Department has fined a piano tuner in
California, Benjamin Treuhaft, $10,000 for violating U.S. travel
restrictions by rebuilding pianos when he visited Cuba in 1994.
(5) The United Nations is broke. The organization ran out of
money from its regular operating budget, mostly because the
United States, Germany, and Japan have not paid their dues. To
pay the bills, chief U.N. financial officer Joseph Connor said he
would borrow $50 million from the separate fund which reimburses
member states participating in its 16 peacekeeping missions. The
United Nations already owes about $1 billion to the fund.
TO PROTECT AND SERVE
(6) Boston's new transportation commissioner caused three
accidents, received five speeding tickets, and was arrested twice
for driving with a suspended license before he was hired to
oversee traffic safety and parking. Also, William E. Luster was
on a list of drivers who could not renew their licenses because
he had not paid a city of Boston parking ticket, but he paid the
fine when he was under consideration for his new job.
(7) Police in Port Washington, Wisconsin, arrested,
handcuffed, and jailed overnight a 16-year-old boy because he did
not have the paperwork for his measles, mumps, and rubella shots.
The boy's mother admits she ignored two court orders to
provide her son's new school with proof of the immunizations,
which he did receive. But she could not believe authorities would
throw her child in jail over a missing piece of paper. The mother
of five said, "I didn't realize we were in such a police state."
(8) More than a dozen heavily armed police and federal
agents swarmed into the home of Paul and Patty Mueller in Saint
Charles, Missouri, and held the family at gunpoint. The Muellers
say it was an hour before agents showed a search warrant and
explained why they were there. The officers were acting on a tip
from an informant who said he had bought and sold weapons with
people living in the house. No guns were found in the raid and
authorities now say the informant lied about the guns in hopes of
getting a more lenient sentence on a car theft conviction.
Mrs. Mueller recalled: "For the first 30 seconds, I thought
they were burglars and I was going to die.... I saw my husband
with his face to the floor, hands behind his back and a gun to
his head.... I had a gun to my head. I asked where my kids were
and they told me to `sit down and shut up.'"
Pat Hynes, Assistant Director of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms, said the federal agency should not be held
accountable for the raid because just one of the officers was
from the ATF. A lawyer for St. Charles County, Joann Leykam, said
a judge issued the warrant and it was properly served. "I don't
see any liability on part of the county." Nonetheless, she said
the county would clean the carpet muddied in the raid.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
(9) The National Center for Health Statistics may have
overstated the number of unwed mothers in California and four
other states because the federal agency counted married women
with chidren who keep their maiden names as unwed mothers.
READ MY LIPS
(10) Finally, the quotation of the week. It was twelve years
ago when Berhardt Goetz shot four young men he thought were about
to mug him on a New York City subway. A jury recently ordered him
to pay $43 million to one of them and Goetz declared bankruptcy
to protect his assets. Now he says he is finally leaving New York
City. "This town won't have Bernie Goetz to kick around anymore."
And that's the Official Report, where you hear it's farce.
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TURKEY OF THE WEEK
"Dan Rostenkowski"
By Gary Johnson, Smash the State, May 4, 1996
It's time to carve some turkey. This week, Smash the State
introduces a new feature.
Who will be inducted into the Hall of Shame? Smash the State
announces that the Turkey of the Week is ex-Congressman and stamp
collector Dan Rostenkowski.
Dan Rostenkowski was a member of the U.S. House of
Representatives from Chicago and chairman of the House Ways and
Means Committee, which writes the tax laws. He was one of the
most powerful and feared men in Washington.
In 1994 he was charged with converting campaign funds for
his personal use, hiring and taking kickbacks from ghost
employees, embezzling money from the House Post Office, and
illegally spending government funds. After that, he was defeated
for re-election.
Just as he was scheduled to go on trial on these corruption
charges, he worked out a plea bargain. He pleaded guilty to two
counts of mail fraud -- admitting to putting employees on his
House payroll who perfomed personal services and using office
funds to pay for gifts. For this deal, he was fined $100,000 and
sentenced to 17 months in prison.
U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson said of the two
counts he admitted to in his plea bargain, "The guilty pleas
don't reflect the breadth of your crimes." Nevertheless, after
"Rosty" pleaded guilty, he stood outside the courthouse acting as
if he had been acquitted. Admitting his felonies "could
technically be viewed by a jury as a violation of certain laws,"
he insisted, "I have served my constitutents with dignity, honor,
and integrity."
After he leaves jail, he will still receive his generous
Congressinal pension. He is hinting he may run for office again.
Dan Rostenkowski gives unrepentant, corrupt, petty thieves
who have been in Congress a bad name.
Dan, you may be a jailbird for only 17 months, but you will
always be a turkey.
Dan Rostenkowski, Turkey of the Week.
So many turkeys, so few weeks.
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That concludes this episode of Smash the State for Saturday,
May 4, May 4, a date which will live in infamy.
Good-bye, everybody. Thank you for joining us. The
revolution will be televised.
_________________________________________________________________ (
geocities.com/capitolhill)