It has become increasingly appropriate that our November 8 “special election” comes so close to our Halloween/Day of the Dead celebrations simply because of the political costumes being used to deceive and scare the public vote. The Governator is the perfect scary character for this season. As you will recall from his Terminator film roles in which his android character exposes its machine-like nature only after having its human skin torn violently away, revealing the cold steal automaton underneath. Yes, the more we look at the campaigns to pass propositions 73 through 78 and the governor’s support for them, the more the corporate-driven rightwing – GOP political machine is exposed for all of its not-so-compassionate conservatism.

What happened to “leave no child behind” in public education? Was this just some fantasy to get boy-George elected—the exact opposite of reality in California where the Governator steals $4 billion from public schools to pay for the debt created by the phony energy crisis? It only leaves a whole generation of students short-changed.

Has the state even been paid back for a portion of the losses we suffered from Enron's gaming of the California electric market? Will Enron’s CEO ever see the inside of a prison before Bush is impeached or driven from office in disgrace?

The real problem with this election is that there are more questions on propositions 73 to 78 than there are real answers. However the only answer at the polls is to vote NO; NO to Schwarzenegger; NO to the religious right; NO to the GOP's redistricting power grab; and NO to the pharmaceutical corporations!

The scary disguise of this election is perfectly evident by the propaganda spin the GOPers are using to distract the voters from their true intentions– taking back the legislature and the congressional delegation from those “Godless Liberals.” Why don’t we just turn California into the same kind of theocracy that our idiot President George has done to the Federal government. Instead of convening the legislature, we can have a revival meeting, the Governator can pray for guidance from one of a multiple gods before making his decision to roll back Roe vs. Wade or whether he should give any money at all to public schools. And instead of redistricting our political districts after each census by population, we can just convene a rightwing evangelical conclave and divine districts by supernatural consensus.

In a true corporate-theocracy, we could even do away with this messy stuff called democracy altogether and we can just anoint our leaders, pray for grace, have faith that god will smite the evil-doers and let the corporations make the laws. Things were so much simpler when the world had kings crowned by popes.

Yes, I do exaggerate, but only slightly. Just look at our crusade to “save Iraq”. Two Thousand dead soldiers, 15,220 wounded (half of whom too severely to return to duty) and an estimated 30,000 Iraqis dead –men, women and children– all because a little man from Texas talks with God in the Oval office. Meanwhile the corporations are plundering both the US treasury and Baghdad.

If you want to know the price to our Republic for this war, just look at the third quarter profits for Exxon and Chevron – some $8.7 billion– more than Coca Cola makes in an entire year. Is George really talking to God in there or has the oil industry just bought subliminal advertising on Clear Channel and had it piped into the White House for free?

California is the key piece to the conservative counter liberalization of America. If they can bamboozle the Golden State electorate, then they can turn back more than a half a century of progressive reforms that have made this state the fifth largest economy in the world and the most liberal of state democracies. The challenge to you the voters is stop this here and to stop this now. It is an obligation we not only have to ourselves and our children, but to the nation as a whole. Corrupt corporate and evangelical rightwing conservatism will be exposed for the thread-bare sham that it is but it must first be defeated in California before the masquerade continues elsewhere.

Vote NO on Prop. 73

Vote NO on Prop. 74

Vote NO on Prop. 75

Vote NO on Prop. 76

Vote NO on Prop. 77

Vote NO on Prop. 78

Vote Yes on Prop. 79

Vote Yes on Prop. 80