On Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, the United States of America elected her first black president. This is an amazing, historic event, to be sure. But some other things happened that night that we here at The Bullets feel we need to comment on.
In the state of California, voters passed Prop 2, which prohibits the confinement of farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs.
The state of California also passed Prop 8, which adds a new amendment to the California Constitution, re-writing it, which says, “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Before it passed, same-sex marriage was a constitutionally-protected right in California; a majority of the justices of the California Supreme Court affirmed this understanding of the constitution in May 2008.
That’s right, kids… we care more about the rights farm animals than we do our fellow human beings.
Congratulations, California! We here at The Bullets were worried that, even though we elected Arnold fucking Schwarzenegger as our Governor, not everone in the world thought we were a bunch of weirded-out fuck-ups with our heads jammed up our asses, and our priorities totally out of whack.
Thank you, so very much, for making it crystal clear.
PS… even Arnold fucking Schwarzenegger opposed Prop 8.
Now that you’ve had a couple of days to absorb your second straight election defeat, I thought I would let you know how you drove this former Republican away.
In the eighties and nineties I was a member of the Republican Party. In the early nineties, I briefly held a position as a precinct committeeman for the Republican Party. Even then, however, I had problems with the party. I was willing to overlook them, but they only got worse. Eventually, the Republican Party chose to elect a clearly incompetent man, George Bush. This man could not string two sentences together coherently, but he said the word God a lot. Apparently, that was more important to Republicans. When he took office I left the party. I knew it was no longer the place for me. For the record, I didn’t join the Democrats. I never considered myself one of them either. I am truly a man without a party. If you are interested in getting me and the many people who are like me, back, I’ll let you know what I stand for and against. Perhaps it will help your thinking.
Here is what I agree (in principal) with the Republican Party on.
I believe that the government cannot solve all of our problems. When in doubt, the government should just stay out of the way.
I believe in gun rights. The right to bear arms is guaranteed by the constitution and it is there for good reasons.
I believe in a balanced budget. A government that owes no money is infinitely more stable and powerful than a government that is deep in debt.
I believe in a strong defense. Our military should be strong enough to strike fear in those who mean us harm.
I believe in a flat tax. Anyone above the poverty line should pay a fixed percentage of their income with no loopholes.
I believe in the rights of the states as outlined by the constitution. States should, within those limits, be able to set their own courses.
Here are the areas in which I do not agree with the Republican Party:
I believe in the first amendment, absolutely and completely.
I believe that abortion is unfortunate but sometimes necessary. I think everything should be done to create a society in which few people ever have a reason to choose abortion, but I will not persecute those who make the choice or those who assist them.
I do not believe in “Family Values”. I could care less who marries who, or who has sex with who. I am pro human rights and opposed to laws governing consensual and private acts.
I believe in the separation of church and state. This country was founded by people who wanted to be free to worship as they chose. We should be free to worship or not worship in any way we want, as long as we do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same or break laws that have nothing to do with religion.
I believe that education should be the absolute number one priority of the government. Education lowers crime and poverty while making us more financially competitive throughout the world. A well educated population in a capitalist country cannot help but succeed. I do not believe that we should spend our time and energy bashing teachers. If the job was more appealing, better people might take the job. As it is, we have trouble finding enough people willing to take the low paying, mostly thankless job.
I do not believe that people should be tortured or executed — even our enemies. Not only is it immoral, it is poor policy for a country that wants to bring freedom and democracy to the world.
I do not believe that you can force democracy on people. Forcing any decision, even voting, on a population is not democratic.
I believe that the threat of war is sometimes useful, but actual war should really, truly be only a last resort.War damages every country involved.
I believe that freedom is not safe. Balancing our safety with our freedom is always difficult, but if there is any question of which way to go, I choose freedom.
I’m not expecting the Republican Party to come to my way of thinking, but I do think there are a lot of people out there who share most of my views. They aren’t happy with the Democrats and their government solutions to everyone’s problems, but they are just as fearful of a Republican party that thinks they speak for God, that America is always right, and that questioning our leaders is unpatriotic. Good luck reevaluating your party. I hope you make wise decisions.
The Bullets have been relatively silent during the past months leading up to tonight.
It’s mainly that we haven’t been talking the talk so much because we’ve been busier than usual walking the walk. We have friends in the military, and friends in Iraq. We have seen friends layed off. We have gay friends that we would like to see be able to marry the ones that they love, should that be where their paths lead.
But beside these facts, and apart from our own personal opinions & beliefs regarding how we truly think that you should vote, we here at The Bullets are, above it all, in love with the process. We always have been. We live in a Democracy. And tomorrow, we get to exercise what is perhaps the most important benefit of that simple fact.
And this is why we have broken our silence so close to the finish line.
Tomorrow is election day. Vote. We’re not here to tell you that you’re wrong, and that you should vote just like we’re voting. You have your reasons. You have a lifetime of thoughts and experiences that have brought you to where you are tonight. They are uniquely your own, and we wouldn’t dare to second guess them for you. We respect all of them. And we respect all of you. We’re not here to shill, or to coerce, or to condescend.
We’re just here to tell you to vote.
Vote your conscience. Vote for what is right for you.
Vote with your heart and your head… because we truly believe that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
This is the moment.
This is what all the fuss has been about.
It’s your chance to be heard. It’s your chance to to be counted. It’s your chance to not only be a part of history, but to actually make history.
Do not think that your vote doesn’t count. Do not think that the outcome won’t affect you. Do not dismiss this right that you have been endowed with.
There is nothing better to be doing.
There is nothing more important.
Now is the time.
VOTE.
The Bullets wish you a good election experience…
And we now condemn you to humming this all day.
We got our shit together to sit down and do a really good post about what’s been happening everywhere for the last few days. But there’s no way in hell we coulda said it any better than our old buddy Joss Whedon, so we’ll just let him take point on this one. Cue Tom Petty’s Won’t Back Down, please…
BTW… “Fair is fair!” is from the 1985 Delphi III Productions release The Legend Of Billie Jean. Which was written by WGA members Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, directed by DGA member Matthew Robbins, and starred SAG member, and one of our favorites, the ever-enchanting Helen Slater.
First, we’ll start by saying the we love Barack Obama. He’s from Chicago, he has amazing charisma, and he is a truly inspiring public orator. He will lead this country very well, and in the right direction, and should he be the one to win the Democratic nomination, we will have absolutely no problem supporting him.
That being said, tomorrow is Super Tuesday, and we get to vote in the California primary. And we’re voting for Hillary.
Barack has made it a cornerstone of his campaign to say that we need to “look forward, not look back.” This is a way of saying that we need to vote for someone who hasn’t been in the system for as long as Hillary has… that we need a change. But we happen to believe that words mean something. Especially those words. Hillary & Obama are so close on so many issues… in order to differentiate himself from her, Barack has repeatedly said that we shouldn’t vote for Hillary because she voted to authorize force against Iraq way back when, when our current FuckFace president was lying his ass off to all of us, and many of us believed him about it. Hillary voted for the resolution. She has said that it was a mistake. She has said that if she knew then what she knows now, she wouldn’t have. And now, here in the present, she has a plan to end the war. Barack continues to hammer her about her vote, saying that he is better served to lead us because he didn’t vote to authorize force in the first place. Our point here is… if we need to look to forward, rather than back, then why do we need to keep looking BACK to find a reason to not vote for Hillary? She’s on the right page now. She, as we all do, knows the war was a mistake. Let’s look ahead, not back, just like Obama has been saying, and look at who has an actual, viable plan to stop the war. We’ve listened to them both. In our opinion… it’s our girl.
Next up… lets talk health care. Both Barack & Hillary have great plans. Obama himself has stated that 95% of their health care plans are the same. What’s different about the remaining 5%? The ability to know what will work, and what won’t. Hillary picked up the health care livewire back when she was First Lady. Remember? She was crushed. She’s been here before, and she knows what will work, and what won’t. As nice as Obama sounds when he discusses health care, and almost all the other issues, btw, when he talks about them, he says things like “What I would try to do…” and “What I would like to do…” When Hillary talks about her plans, she says “What I will do…” and “What I can do…”
Which brings us to our next point. Experience. She has it, he doesn’t. It’s just that simple. And we’re sorry… but it’s important.
Next up… Let’s look at who the Republicans want to win. Swallow your gum, suck it up, turn on your radio, and listen to the Republican talk radio shows, like Savage, and Hannity, and Limbaugh. They want Obama to win. They do not want Hillary to win. The reason for this is simple. They can beat Obama in a general election. They can’t beat Hillary. When a total Right-wing lunatic ass-faced CUNT like Ann Coulter says she’d vote for Hillary over John McCain… you’d better start wondering why, friends. These fuckers don’t say anything without a reason.
And yes, Obama says he will bring “the young vote” to his candidacy. But ya know what? We’ve heard that before, people. Remember???? Kerry said he had “the young people” behind him. All we heard from the young people the year leading up to the last election was how inspired by him they were, and how excited they were to vote for him. Ya know what happened? When it was time to put their money where their mouths were… the young people didn’t show up on election day, and we got fucked up the ass with 4 more years of Fuckface. The Bullets likes young people. we still kinda are young people… well, we certainly feel like we are, anyway… but when the rubber hits the road… young people tend not to vote. Even when they spend a year talking about voting. Hillary’s base, while being as large as Obama’s is, is older, and more established, and more invested in the proccess than Obama’s. And they’re more likely to show up on election day and actually punch the fucking card.
On a more personal note… we have to say that one of the reasons we’re voting for Hillary is because we’ve always been with The Boss. Ah, Bill. we’ve always loved him, and we always will. He’s the only president we’ve ever voted for who’s ever won. And, if you remember correctly, when he was in charge, things were pretty fucking good. Especially when, as Obama himself noted, you look at it through the prism of the last 8 years of Bush-Fuck. So yeah… we were always with The Boss. And now, we’re with The Boss’ Old Lady.
So there it is. As we have said, we love Obama. We will vote for him in the general election… we will even campaign for him in the general election, and post many posts here on his behalf, should he be the nominee.
But tomorrow… here in California, on Super Tuesday…
Here’s a bit of Strike-related fun! Video written by Seth MacFarlane. Featuring Josh Radnor, Kat Foster, Nick Kroll, John Viener, Seth MacFarlane, and Erik Weiner. Directed by Bryan Carmel and Brendan Colthurst.
How do we know they didn’t want you to hear it? Well, as the news broke someone mysteriously reported the unitedhollywood.com blog as a “spam blog” thus locking the Strike Captains out for most of the day, before they could report it.
And, if you kept an eye on the Big Six’s media outlets like we did, you would have noticed a virtual absence of stories about the UA agreement aside from an occasional sentence sliding by on their crawls. What you would have noticed was a sharp rise in stories about how crazy Tom Cruise is, mostly by way of lots of stuff about a new hatchet-job “biography” that, although it hardly seems to share the gravitas, was strangely covered almost as thoroughly as the build-up to the New Hampshire presidential primaries.
Oh, and in case you missed the connection… Tom Cruise, it just so happens, co-owns United Artists.
Now, we here at The Bullets have, from time to time, noticed that Tom is crazy. OK… so maybe we might have even said something about him being an insane Hollywood fuck-face in a weirdo made-up religion. (heheheh… awkwaaaaaard!) But hey, even we never accused him of spawning a child with frozen L. Ron Hubbard sperm.
and for the record, we love Tom. In fact, we still cry when Maverick hugs Iceman at the end of Top Gun.
Crazy or not, the facts here remain clear. Crystal. Tom and his company United Artists negotiated in good faith, and a fair deal that was mutually beneficial to all parties was worked out, very much like Worlwide Pants did… something, strangely enough, that the Big Six very loudly proclaims isn’t possible.
That’s odd… Dave & Tom had no trouble. And the buzz is that Lion’s Gate Films is thinkin’ about negotiating a similar deal as well. Check back here for further updates.
And now, a brief word about the upcoming awards season.
The Golden Globes are kaput. Sure the awards will be given out, but they will be done so at a press conference that none of the stars will attend in their fancy get-ups, so who gives a fuck. Now, we at The Bullets enjoy drunken celebrites self-congratulatorily masturbating all over themselves as much as anyone. Hell, if it’s Scarlett Johansen masturbating all over Jessica Alba, probably more than anyone. But here’s the thing. As long as this strike is required, that little shindig had to be shut down.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the only way the Big Six will return to the negotiating table and finally begin bargaining in good faith with that Writer’s Guild is if they are forced to do so by their shareholders. Ya know what reeeeeeally motivates shareholders? Losing money. It’s simple economics, kids: cancelling awards shows will cost the congloms and their shareholders money. The cost to GE/NBC/Universal alone will be massive.
The Golden Globes. What a crock of shit anyway. They’re given out by the Hollywood Foreign Press. We don’t know who they are! Hell, Americans don’t even like the foreign press. But ever since Titanic, a film so bloated and overwrought that it took two of The Big Six to produce it, The Globes have somehow been elevated to the same gala status as the Oscars. And why?
“Hmmmm… I wasn’t going to go see Sweeney Todd, as I have several very valid reasons why I probably won’t like it, such as the fact that I don’t care for musicals, or the fact that every time I see Helena Bonham Carter I really feel like I should go buy her a box of RID… but what’s this???? Why, it says here in the newspaper advertisment that Sweeney Todd was nominated for a whole assload of GOLDEN GLOBES! I am instantly forced to reconsider my decision!”
And the sad thing is, we’re so stupid, that we buy it. Ask the congloms… a Globe or two is worth millions of dollars in extra income for a film.
Now this is an ironic statement at best, seeing that somehow we doubt many of these moguls were captains of their football teams with cheerleaders on their arms… but that aside, DON’T BUY THIS LOAD OF CRAP. The Globes telecast has been cancelled because the members of the Screen Actor’s Guild and the Director’s Guild of America, along with other industry unions, have refused to cross the Writer’s Guild of America’s picket lines. This a show of solidarity by the other unions with their brothers & sisters in the WGA. Because they all know that, with their own contracts with the Big Six up later this year, if the WGA fails they will most likely all fail. And everyone involved, from the actors all the way down to the guys who roll up cable, deserves fair payment for contributing to the content the Big Six are making billions of advertising dollars from by distributing it on the internet.
This isn’t about a bunch of nerds getting back at the jocks. This is about fairness. This is about massive corporations, run by people who are so rich that they are losing their grip on what the very concept of money is, wanting even more money.
G’head… ask a few of them who’s on the 5 dollar bill and count the seconds before they remember.
They only know that they want more of it. They want more of it so much that they won’t even sit down and talk about what might or might not be fair. It’s all for them, nothing for anyone else.
My way, or the highway.
Fuck, or walk.
And we’re sorry, but that’s just not how it’s done.
So, because the Big Bullies are unwilling to come back to the table, and begin negotiations in good faith, the Golden Globe Award telecast is gone. And as far as The Bullets are concerned, good fucking riddance. Pay everyone fairly, and we can all get back to watching a liquored-up Jack Nicholson pretend that he even recognizes whomever happens to be kissing his ass next year.
And we’ve got some more uncomfortable news for the Big Six… if they don’t pull their heads out of their collective asses soon… The Oscars just might be next.
BTW… “Fair is fair!” is from the 1985 Delphi III Productions release The Legend Of Billie Jean. Which was written by WGA members Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, directed by DGA member Matthew Robbins, and starred SAG member, and one of our favorites, the ever-enchanting Helen Slater.
And for all you procedural crime drama fans out there… here’s a lil something just for you:
As we grind out the last few weeks, we figured it was time to take stock of what was hot this summer, besides going to rehab & the inside of your car. JUN officially brings you The Officials Of Summer 2007:
Official Beverage: Smart Water (What? You’re still drinking the dumb water?)
Official Car: The Honda Fit
Official Hard-To-Pin-Down Bush Appointee: Alberto Gonzalez
Official Hard-To-Pin-Down Looney Tunes Character: Speedy Gonzalez
Be the First to Comment 
Where do we go from here?
First, we’ll start by saying the we love Barack Obama. He’s from Chicago, he has amazing charisma, and he is a truly inspiring public orator. He will lead this country very well, and in the right direction, and should he be the one to win the Democratic nomination, we will have absolutely no problem supporting him.
As we grind out the last few weeks, we figured it was time to take stock of what was hot this summer, besides going to rehab & the inside of your car. JUN officially brings you The Officials Of Summer 2007: