The Fifth of July

I woke up on the morning of July 5th and came onto U4Prez, thinking I needed to put something together to promote the upcoming MejicoJohn-Icababe run-off. This was our very first primary, for we Independents, and as a party leader who had always tried to promote out candidates widely and wildly, I was hoping to inspire the population to vote. Maybe I would set up a couple of banners, maybe I would talk the Independent Party up. I didn't plan to spend but maybe an hour or two, getting the good word out.

What I thought would be a nice brief day on U4Prez, promoting fellow Independents and having a good time all around, turned into one of the most seminal events in U4Prez history, the sort of event I hadn't seen before and haven't seen since, and most assuredly I have never seen another candidate act in quite the same way.

Because the previous day was a holiday, the moderators--Eric--neglected to set the Independent schedule accordingly. MejicoJohn and Icababe were supposed to run off, and I was to run off against the winner. The victor of all that would be the June Independent primary winner, the very first Independent to be represented in the Conventions and general election at the end of the election cycle. It's a big deal at U4Prez, to be in these run-offs, they are your foot in the door toward moving up a level, to being a real contender for President. And as Independent Leader, I took this as our party's glorious moment to shine, to present our best and brightest, to give the more veteran Independents the chance that had been screwed out of for so long. This was going to be our coming-of-age, our grand debut, and our chance to prove ourselves every bit as legitimate as the Republicans and the Democrats.

As per usual, unless it has to do with Kempite and his pack of snarling wolves, Eric was pretty lackadaisical, and there was no moderator on that morning. There had been one earlier, if I remember correctly, one had made some sort of news announcement, and in the twilight hours there were two other faces. I come back to U4Prez, and what do I see, but MY face where John's should have been. Something was wrong, and I was not sure what was going on. My first impression is, dammit, it's our first primary, and the Independents are already getting bent over!

I had chatted with MejicoJohn over the previous couple of days. John was my first choice for the run-offs. It's still ambiguous to me exactly how much input the party leaders actually have in picking run-off candidates, some have told me I get one choice, others none at all. I submitted to Eric a list of TEN candidates I thought would be fantastic choices for our inaugural primary; all four of Eric's choices happened to be on that list, so I really don't know if I had any influence or not. I do remember the moderator telling me MejicoJohn was "my" choice, so I guess I will have to go along with it, I have no reason not to.

John was in the middle of moving him and his family from San Antonio to their current home in Nuevo Laredo, so campaigning was way down in his list of priorities. The ability to even get online, let alone stage a campaign of any strength, was minimal at best. We exchanged a few notes, and I told him his time was coming, to get ready for it if he could. He was happy to just be part of the whole thing, which I think is what every candidate truly wants at U4Prez, not necessarily to win President, but to be in the thick of things, to be active in the community here, and to feel validated for his or her contributions. He wanted to be more active and knew he couldn't be, but he was happy that he was being taken seriously at all.

I am on record in saying it would not surprise me one bit if MejicoJohn won the whole thing. His charm and sense of humor have won over a lot of people, and I think he gets a kick out of laughing at the rest of us when we take ourselves way too seriously. U4Prez is a soap opera, and I'm sure, no matter what rama was playing itself out, John was always sitting there, a Budweiser in one hand, a cigarette in the other, laughing his ass off at the rest of us.

When I saw he was getting screwed out of his position, I flipped out. John was going through his own personal turmoil, fate itself was keeping him off the site, now the moderators were going to jerk with him too? Jerk with the Independents, on our inaugural primary?

I remember talking with Republicans and Democrats about how these primaries worked. They all said that mistakes were common, that candidates had been screwed out of their places in the past, it's just part of the territiory, Olivia, deal with it.

If the way the Republocrats handle incompetence is to shrug their shoulders and let it go, that's their business. No one fucks with the Independents on my watch!

I started getting very loud, trying to wake the moderator up. I know U4Prez is a fishbowl, that someone is always looking in, and I was hoping to get someone to realize a mistake had been made, and for them to get off their duffs and correct it before too much of the day had burned away.

I think it was about 9am where I was, so I have to assume it was the middle of the business day wherever the moderator was, assuming he was in America. Who knows, the job could have been outsourced, and I would have had to be yelling for hours waiting for a moderator in India to wake up.

It started to irritate people right away when I got on a comment board and started shouting things like WAKE UP! and QUIT SCREWING WITH US! Some of the names I remember that were gathering around me when this was going on were Friday, Musicman, Iron Lady, and BigDaddy. I talked nonstop about what was going on, that MejicoJohn was getting rooked, that I had to do something to change this.

While I was being loud and boisterous in public, I was sending the moderator PM's, repeating the same thing. If they were going to ignore me, they were going to ignore me on two levels, not just one.

I truly had hoped I would have gotten a quick response, that the error would have taken a few moments to correct. But these are moderators, more times than not a trained chimp can do their job faster and with greater efficiency. To think a swift reply was possible was daydreaming on my part.

So I tried setting a fire under them, and every ten minutes for an hour, I sent a commend board message and a PM, counting down that hour, and telling them if they did not make some sort of repair to this situation, I would take matters into my own hands.

I have to be honest with you, when I started the idea of an ultimatum, it was a bluff. I truly hoped a moderator was just taking a nap on the other side of the screen. For as loud and obnoxious I was being--and I was indeed saying some pretty inflammatory things, shy of cursing--I would think, if the moderator was doing his damn job, he would see me and react. Me being loud was my way of waving my hands frantically over my head, hoping the overhead plane would see me.

I think everyone stuck around just to see what I would really do. I at least think that was Friday's position. The rest--Musicman, Iron Lady, BigDaddy--took this as a golden opportunity to try to knock me down a peg. All three of them had been rather forward in their disdain for me, and I always gave at least as good as I got, if not better. They each had an axe to grind with me, and in their own way, they took this moment, when I was desperately trying to get the mods' attention, when I was trying to restore MejicoJohn's place in the run-off, when I was trying to protect the Independent Party from the same negligence that the Republocrats had become accustomed to, to get back at me. Heaven forbid they should set their petty squabbling aside for the sake of doing the right thing. When it counted the most, these three proved that pettiness is far more important to them than maintaining democratic integrity.

I had called Musicman a pussy in recent weeks, and instead of assisting me to get MejicoJohn back to where he was promised, he made a few snide remarks. What are you going to do, Olivia, call the mods names? I was floored with just how much that man snivvels. Instead of putting personal feuds aside for the moment and assisting me in getting their attention, he's pouting about how I called him names. Whatever honor he might have built up as an alleged veteran and a so-called minister evaporated at that moment, because when the shit really hits the fan, Musicman has a record of turning into a vindictive little guttersnipe. About the only constructive thing he had to say to me that hour was, maybe the moderator was in a car accident on the way to work, lighten up. I was livid with that statement, for one, a moderator had made changes to the board just a couple of hours before, so someone was there; and for another, it was simply the lamest excuse I had ever heard.

Iron Lady was merely irritated by me, wanting me to shut up. I realize the one I was protecting wasn't one of her Hard Right gigolos, so I don't think she understood how any other candidate could possibly be worthy of being protected by someone. Instead of standing up to the moderators and shouting them down to correct their mistake, she whined to me and told me over and over again to shut up. She might very well have been one of those Republicans who simply accepts mediocrity and even defends it for no other reason, save her own GOP indentity. If she chooses apathy in her democracy, that's her business, but why insist others share in that apathy?

BigDaddy was taking the position that I was grandstanding, and he was making a few snide remarks about that. He has never bitten me higher than my ankle, but Daddy, he is as relentless a viper as they have on U4Prez. Doing the right thing is always secondary to sticking it to Olivia. When a crisis hits, you can definitely count on Musicman to cry like a girl, for Iron Lady to tell you to shut up, and for BigDaddy to try to knock your legs out from under you. You wonder why I say the Hard Right on this board isn't at all concerned with democracy and completely obsessed with personal attacks? Here's two of them and one of their flunkies, with a golden opportunity to set petty bickering aside for a moment and truly stand up for democracy, and yell out to the moderators to get off their asses and do their jobs. Instead of joining me in this, their narrowmindedness took over. Their love of democracy was overshadowed by their hate for Olivia. People were dying in Iraq for their right to vote, and here were three onU4Prez, giving democracy the middle finger the very moment it was neglected and on the brink of extinction.

At the moment of truth, they picked pettiness. I will never forgive them for it.

Well, an hour of shouting at the sleeping moderator passed, and after all the comment board messages and PM's, after the chorus in the background doing everything it could to submarine me, it was time to put up or shut up. I thought it completely ridiculous that the moderators would not respond, during a business day, within an hour. I honestly thought at that point that Eric was out to screw the Independents, and whether it was on purpose or out of negligence, it really didn't matter to me. I wasn't going to be part of this. And I was not going to allow Eric's shenanigans screw MejicoJohn out of what could have been his only shot at a run-off.

Think about it. You've been at U4Prez for months, playing the game, campaigning, hoping to get just a chance at the run-offs. You finally get that chance, and the moderator makes a mistake and takes you off the schedule. How are you going to feel? Cheated? Pissed? As if a gross mistake had been made? Brokenhearted? Who would you rather have in your corner at a moment like this, Olivia, who will shout down the heavens to get you back where you're supposed to be, or the apathetic trio I had to deal with, who just would want you to deal with it, you got hosed, so what?

After that hour, I announced that I would rescind my spot in the run-off. For U4Prez, that's sort of like giving up your chance at a million dollars. No one gives up the chance at winning a primary. No one. Spots in the run-offs are hard to come by as it is, such a spot might never come back around. This might be my sole chance to get into the general election. I rescinded it in protest, hoping the notion that one of the high-profile candidates raising such a ruckus would get someone's attention.

I also said that, if the moderators STILL had no responded by that afternoon, I would have to take even more drastic measures. I was rolling them around in my head. Maybe I would give up my party leadership position, or go on hiatus. Mduminiak chimed in, and I will give him credit on this, something he would never give me on any point. When I asked him what I could do to throw a wrench in the whole thing, he served up a brilliant method of sabotage--in changing my own party affiliation, the election would come to a screeching halt. Apparently someone previously had done the same thing by mistake. I give Mike a degree of credit, which makes it even worse, because for all his potential, he chooses to use his powers for evil instead of good. Instead of being his own person, he chooses to be Kempite's monkeyboy. For one shining moment, Mduminiak set his petty differences aside for the greater good. Why his stooges couldn't do the same, I will never know. After the calamity, Mduminiak returned to his usual smarmy, thuggish self. I don't know what's worse, someone who is ignorant because he doesn't know better, or someone who is ignorant and DOES know better. Certainly the latter brings with it an ironic sadness.

Fortunately, Eric came in with a big OOPS, and corrected the mistake, apologizing to the crowd, saying the holiday screwed the schedule up, yada yada yada. He went out of his way to thank me for making such an issue of it. BigDaddy asked if the whole thing was grandstanding, which is what he does, all motives are questioned by BigDaddy.

Eric also said it would not cost me my run-off position, to which I laid in on him big time. The only way a protest has any teeth to it is if it's followed through. It means nothing to make such a big deal if there is no sacrifice. I gave up my spot in protest, and that cannot change. I was glad MejicoJohn was back, but whoever won between him and Icababe would be the June winner, end of story.

I felt a sense of validation when MejicoJohn won. Who knows, that right there could have decided the fate of the entire election. A glitch in the primary, something the Republocrats were so accustomed to that they thought it odd anyone would dare challenge the mods when they messed up, could have had far-reaching effects. This also could have been John's only chance at the run-offs, it would have been a crying shame his only shot was marred by moderator incompetence.

As I said, no one fucks with the Independents on my watch.

I am watching earnestly these days as to who will succeed me as Independent Spokesperson. I hope they will not have to deal with the kind of dangerous incompetence I dealt with when I had to talk with the moderators, either in calm or at the point of crisis. I am sure, whoever wins out, will serve as a fine candidate.

In our lives, we all have those moments of truth, when we have to take the shitstorm on, head-on. It's moments like that that define us far more than any awards we've won, or any clubs we belong to. Democracy lived on at U4Prez to fight another day. It died a few weeks later, but for at least one more day, it lived. And when such moments occur, I then knew who would stand up and fight for what's right, and who would take the opportunity to play petty bullshit games. Musicman, Iron Lady, and BigDaddy, these three do not have a single sincere bone in any of their bodies. They saw me out on a limb, and they tried to cut it out from under me. Instead of trying to prevent another candidate from getting shanked by incompetence and negligence, they saw an opportunity to salve their wounded egos and take me on when I was fighting a much bigger fight. They were more than willing to let what could have been MejicoJohn's only shot at the run-offs fall idly by, just so they could take a shot at Olivia.

We all know Kempite will be coronated, and that is why I quit. But back then, when I still believed there was a degree of fairness, I thought about how great it would be to see MejicoJohn win. Not only to see an Independent win, or to see a friend win, or even to see the Republocrats eat crow, but to see how something I did alter the course of U4Prez's history, that would have been something. To think in November, if MejicoJohn won, how sweet it would have been. We can debate whether or not my mouth actually helped the situation or not, but most assuredly, doing nothing might not have gained anyone's attention at all, and John's place in the run-offs, let alone as President, would have fluttered away. The Fifth of July might end up being the most important day in U4Prez history, depending on who wins.

And I think that would have been a hundred times bigger a FUCK YOU than I could say to those three who hacked at me that day.