kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) (02/22/88)
[This is posted to places that know and love/hate the poster. Followups firmly directed back to talk.bizarre, where they will stay unless readers act. It goes to talk.bizarre because that is where this nonsense started, to talk.politics.misc to respond to the "for whom should I vote" articles, to soc.women to attract Mikki Barry to the campaign for women's rights, to soc.men for all the socially conscious types who flame or cheer me on me from there, to sci.space because that is what this campaign is all about, to rec.humor because trying to do anything about the mess this country is in is pretty funny, to comp.sys.amiga because that is what the article is being written upon, to talk.rumors because a previous note there got a friendly response and a vote pledge, to rec.games.frp because running for president on USENet is indeed a fantasy role playing game, and to ra.slug to show that the author of _1001_Ways_to_Roast_a_Slug hasn't forgotten you. ] Folks, there is something fun, and possibly important, going on in talk.bizarre that has every chance of dying on the vine without your input. So, gang up, join in, flame, agree, broadcast, campaign, be involved. Please excuse a one time trashing of your favorite newsgroups with a big cross-post; I have taken my civic responsibility to direct follow ups back to the parent newsgroup seriously. Word was just going out too slowly as was. In article <7029@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> silverio@brahms.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Chris Silverio) writes: >In article <891@elmgate.UUCP> ram@elmgate.UUCP (Randy Martens) writes: >>Well, it's time to consider the major Presidential candidates : [...lots of cute flames of current candidates omitted...] >>Kent, the man from Xanth : Promises to spend money on useful things like >>deep space exploration instead of nuclear weapons and contras. Promises to >>sleep a lot, and therefore not cause trouble. hmmm..... >> >>and the winner is ..... > >>KENT THE MAN FROM XANTH, FOR PRESIDENT !! >>SUPPORT THE BIRTHRIGHT PARTY !!! >>VOTE KENT !!!! >> > >The advertising firm of Silverio, Silverio, and Silverio (greg) >wishes to announce its whole-hearted support of Kent, the Man >from Xanth, as the Bizarre Party candidate in the 1988 >presidential elections. > >Anything we can do, Kent, just let us know. > >The preceding announcement paid for by the Xanth Man for President >Committee. > >| C J Silverio | Identify the following: . >| ucbvax!bosco!silverio | >| | "AAAIIIGH!" Chris, The unborn children of the human race, whose future existence you have done a little bit to assure by you support, send you a huge wet kiss from the future. Keeping a race as unbalanced as ours on a single base of operations when we have the capability to destroy the utility of that base is taking too big a chance with extinction. We need to get our seed stock spread out at least to the planets, asteroids, and major moons while we try to puzzle out the requisites of star travel and surviving our own orneriness. The economic benefits of a planet sized chunk of high grade iron ore, already broken down into usable sized pieces, and with the energy to smelt it nearly free for the capture as it streams by are beyond calculation. We have whole planet sized moonfulls of fresh water, gas giants from which to harvest carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, a planet crusted with sulphur, all just waiting for us to go out and pick up the bounty. We have the choice of spending our seed corn on being able to murder the planet one more time over than the Russians while we quarrel over the diminishing resources of a limited planet, and spending it on trying to prevent poverty for everyone in a shrinking economy with an aging, growing population, or we can instead take large parts of that same money, and begin a program of moving mankind corporeally and economically off this small planet and into space, with the resultant expanded job market, increased resources, decreased energy costs, and all the other well known benefits. Our present path is doomed to fail; no one yet has proved Malthus wrong, only delayed him a bit. We can accept our failure, act as if it were inevitable, thereby making it so, and putter our way to national unimportance, or we can choose a new pathway and follow it to the stars. The choice is simple, but the path is not easy. What can you do? Stop treating this as a game, start circulating copies of notes like this where they will spread far and fast, and add your own. You all know I'm not much as a presidential candidate, but neither was Junior Senator John Kennedy. What is needed is a leader with vision, and the people willing to work with him to make that vision reality. I have that vision clearly, but I cannot do the job alone. I need you, and the rest of our audience. I need people elected with me whose _first_ priority is expanding our economy into space. Not the next water project, not protecting an antiquated military base, not protecting fools from the consequences of their own planning for poverty, not highway funds, not urban renewal, not siphoning education money from the states, not providing Social Security to able bodied, bored, and willing to work senior citizens, but getting this country going again. Cross-post, download and upload to BBS's, write your own copy, flood the newspaper editors and the magazine editors with letters, make things happen. Find out what it takes to register a new political party in your own state, convince enough of your technocrat friends that the time is now and they have to pay if they want to play, gather the funds, the signatures, stump door to door, go without sleep, get laughed at and reviled and beat up and threatened, dream the dream and fight the good fight. You need to know two things about me I may not have made clear; I am passionately committed to this cause, and I would step aside in a minute if this campaign brought forth a truly superior candidate. I just don't see one waiting in the wings, but that doesn't mean one can't be found. In the mean time, I stand as a placeholder for another person, or as a possible choice myself. Next, it is unlikely that this will happen in 1988; time is short; not impossibly short, but short. We can establish a new party, elect Congressmen and Senators (male/female, black/brown/tan/yellow/red/pink/albino, hairy/bald, young/old, gay/straight/don't-care, religous/atheist/agnostic, whoever is best qualified and most committed), make our presence felt. We are the people who understand the electronic network media, we are the ones who can spread the word faster and with less resources than the vidiots, but we are a small group; each person who hears the call must go out personally and recruit a hundred who don't share our electronic village, by power of persuasion. If this year doesn't find us ready to elect a president, I'm only 44, we can build toward it, and when this starts to look like a movement, the power hungry will come out of the woodwork like termites from a rotting house to tell you they should have the top slot, so you won't lack for other choices. So, children, can you set aside your enmity, and your napalm, and your egos big as a planet, and make a concerted effort to make this work? I have 17 vote pledges; WE need 10,000,000 times that many. Who feels like taking on the job? I am looking for a Vice Presidential candidate. She should be a minority person, to lend credence to this being a movement for the good of the whole nation. Any takers? Kent, the man from xanth, rolled over and went back to sleep, sure in his mind that not a one of them would ever realize he was serious, and, besides, he'd missed a nap and both his cats were already asleep. Kent, the (sympathetic or sarcastic, you just can't tell) man from xanth. Keep those Birthright Party presidential vote pledges coming in, kiddies. Still looking for that big #18! Just 99,999,983 to go for a win in '88! "That man sleeping in the gutter? Yeah, him, that's the one. I'm trying to get him honest work. Could you sign this petition to put his name on the ballot for 1988? Sure, the presidency. We have a tradition of sleeping presidents. The safest kind, if you ask me. Wake 'em up and they invade defenseless Caribbean islands. Last time I saw _him_ awake, he muttered something about spending _his_ invasion budget on space exploration. Hey, come back, it's not that unlikely! Damn, lost another one! What have people got against spending money where there's some chance of return, anyway?" Kent, the man from xanth. -^-" -^-" -^-" -^-" -^-" -^-" -^-" -^-" Cullinary specialist in the preparation and enjoyment of Greater Seattle Tiger\ Slug treats. Author of _1001_Ways_to_Roast_a_Slug_. Greater Seattle Tiger / Slugs (tm) are the official diet of the Birthright Party: "A food best sent " far into space." Be the first on Europa to serve Slug Dodgers! Support the \ man in space, slug in space program! Help get those slugs out of here! "-^- "-' Kent, the (Birthright Party's Choice for Chief Somnambulist) man from xanth. "The Birthright of Mankind is the Stars!" +-------------------------------------------------------+ |\~ | | |~ . o o . :;: () -O- 0 . O | | |~ ^ | |/~ | | | You are Here | | | |Wouldn't you rather be out there --> | | | |Support the Birthright Party Today! | | | |(Note: Above diagram NOT to scale.) | +-------------------------------------------------------+ [This lovely banner, available at a terminal near you for a donation of a mere 3 5/7 Quatloos, brought to you through the keyboard talents of Michael P. Seidel, Press Secretary Nominee to the Administration of the Chief Somnambulist Candidate.]