We & GWB: Notes from the First Four Years - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1411625285 ISBN 13: 9781411625280

Publisher: Lulu.com, 2005

Synopsis

In 1998, "Clark Schpiell productions" was founded as an online humor magazine. For nearly two years, its writers published cartoons, humorous essays and the occasional movie review. After the 2000 elections, this exceedingly silly site began to transform as its writers became aware of the potential impact of George W. Bush's policies on the future of the United States of America, her people, and the world. With the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, more and more political essays were published and, as the critical 2004 elections approached, CSP's newfound activism rose to a climax. This book collects many of those political essays into one volume which, with commentary by CSP founder David Nett, chronicles the story of a handful of young people and their sudden political awakening in George W. Bush's America. Contributions by: David Nett, Jeremy Groce, Jeanette Scherrer, Craig Bridger, Joseph G. Carson, Chad Schnaible, Eli Chartkoff, Michelle Magoffin and Rick Robinson

About this title

About the Author

Clark Schpiell Productions is an eclectic online magazine founded in 1998, offering essays and art from a dozen or so writers on a wide variety of topics.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

On November 2, 2000, I was in rehearsal for the first play produced by what would later become Lucid by Proxy (the theater company run by Shannon, me, and a handful of my close friends, including Jeanette and Rick, both of whom have contributed to this book). While Shannon and I were driving to Rick s house (where the rehearsal was to take place), Florida was called for Gore. By the time we walked into Rick s living room, it was being called for Bush. Halfway through rehearsal, no one seemed to know who would win Florida s crucial votes. By the time rehearsal was over, Fox, and others, had started calling it for Bush again.

That night was the first time I heard someone (my good friend John) say that if Bush were elected, he d move to Canada. We all laughed, and agreed. But none of us really meant it. The election was disappointing, and none of us understood how this man, who most of us saw as simply an underqualified clown, could have defeated Vice President Gore. We worried about what this might mean for the environment, for the economy (Bush was already talking up his proposed tax cuts), and for stem cell research. Beyond that, though, we did not conceive of the serious damage this smirking, jovial, again, clownish man could do to our country.

The first few essays that appeared in Clark Schpiell Productions about President Bush and politics under his administration were humorous light political satire aimed at a President who was a poor public speaker, and who had a history of deferring to his handlers. We were, after all, primarily an online humor magazine, or at least we were trying to be. Most of our content consisted of satire, scatalogical humor, and the occaisional book or film review. After September 11, 2001, that began to slowly change. More and more, essays focused on politics. More and more, the handful of writers who contributed to the site started to grasp the seriousness of the damage George W. Bush could do to America and her ideals and place in the world. More and more, these regular, mostly historically non-political folk began to respond in the best way they knew how by writing about what, it their minds, was going terribly wrong. Clark Schpiell Productions, a tiny online humor magazine, began to transform.

This is the record of that transformation; how a handful of regular folks (most of us, for our day jobs, are cubicle jockeys ) began to understand the impact of the first George W. Bush administration on the future of America, and how we tried, in our small way, to change things.

David Nett Editor, Contributor & Webmaster Clark Schpiell Productions December 17, 2004

Edition details

• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1411625285
• ISBN 13: 9781411625280
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200