Sunday, August 1, 2010

basil marceau not a native tennessean

so, everyone is losing their fucking minds over this batshit crazy guy basil marceau who is running for governor of tennessee. now, i happen to be somewhat familiar with tennessee politics and i know... there's a grand tradition of having a wacky candidate or two. THEY take themselves seriously and the media has to mention them, to an extent, but they're in no way serious candidates. i don't know if it's absurdly easy to get on the ballot in tennessee or what, but it's not particularly easy to actually WIN the election. all i can think is having a few crazies around livens up otherwise dull political speechifying. or maybe that's just the price of allowing more people access to the political process. you'll get a few who are.. hm... marceauesque.

i thought at first, having just heard bits and pieces of what he was saying, that he was literally a joke candidate. but, upon closer examination i have noticed a few interesting things. he considers having to obey certain laws such as "traffic stops" to be a form of slavery. i suppose he's basing this on the fact that you can be arrested and taken to jail. then you'll have to get bailed out and you'll having a hearing which, more than likely, will result in punishment. i am not sure what he means by "traffic stops" btw. i really don't care. he will not get elected so it doesn't matter. he will however, run again because this isn't even his first foray into political campaigning.

i read one article where people were carrying on that he was a secessionist. hm, i don't think so since he makes a rather big deal about having been in the united states marine corps. also, he was born in pennsylvania and worked in new jersey before he eventually wound up in tennessee. i think they're basing it on his interest in the freedman's bureau. hello... the FREEDman's (past tense, freedom accomplished) bureau did not exist until 1865. and it most certainly was not run by secessionists because most of them were in deep shit in 1865 and hardly likely to be asked to run an institution of the u.s. government. also in the 1860s secessionists = democrats; runners of reconstruction programs (freedman's bureau et al) = REPUBLICANS. from his webpage, ol' basil seems to be concerned about the freedman's bureau. i don't know if he's aware that it was discontinued in 1872. fortunately, from what i've heard, stephen colbert told him about it, so now he can rest easily instead of wondering if the agents of this organization are qualified.

2 comments:

Allen the Duck Guy said...

Thing is, he's STILL a better candidate than Sarah Palin.

shampoo said...

yeah, he probably is.. at least i think he thought up his ideas himself instead of parroting words with no clue what they mean.