I think it just doesn't flow with the rest of the poem. We currently have a president with an attitude and its not great. Also "that nasty hospital food" tonally just don't feel like it fits IMO.
I want a dyke for president. I want a person with aids for president and I want a fag for vice president and I want someone with no health insurance and I want someone who grew up in a place where the earth is so saturated with toxic waste that they didn't have a choice about getting leukemia. I want a president that had an abortion at sixteen and I want a candidate who isn't the lesser of. two evils and I want a president who lost their last lover to aids, who still sees that in their eyes every time they lay down to rest, who held their lover in their arms and knew they were dying. I want a president with no air conditioning, a president who has stood on line at the clinic, at the dmv, at the welfare office and has been unemployed and layed off and sexually harassed and gaybashed and deported.
I want someone who has spent the night in the tombs and had a cross burned on their lawn and survived rape. I want someone who has been in love and been hurt, who respects sex, who has made mistakes and learned from them. I want a Black woman for president. I want someone with bad teeth and an attitude, someone who has eaten that nasty hospital food, someone who crossdresses and has done drugs and been in therapy. I want someone who has committed civil disobedience. And I want to know why this isn't possible. I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown: always a john and never a hooker. Always a boss and never a worker, always a liar, always a thief and never caught.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
In 2019, during the first Trump administration, Ken Cuccinelli, whom Trump appointed as acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, revised a line from the poem in support of the administration's "public charge rule", which would have rejected would-be immigrants who lacked adequate income and education to support themselves. Cuccinelli would have rewritten the caveat as, "Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge". He later suggested that the "huddled masses" should be European, and he downplayed the poem as "not actually part of the original Statue of Liberty."
We have a openly homosexual and a openly lesbian politician here in Germany. He is corrupt as hell and she is the worst possible person you could imagine.
Having a hard life doesn't automatically make you a good person.
It definitely doesn't, but at the same time experiencing hardships doesn't automatically make you have empathy. Look at our vice president. Look at the billionaire that got him elected.
Empathy is what this letter is all about. I want someone who knows how it feels. And, instead of rising to the top to enjoy the view or talk about bootstraps, they become the arm that reaches back and pulls others up with them.
If I understood lgbt voters enough that won’t be an issue, politicians could burn the world to the ground if that would mean that they get their policies
It would be helpful if it weren't so profitable for media organizations to spend so much time convincing people that other people aren't kind, so why bother.
From both sides, I just wrote here that lgbt would see the world burn just to have lgbt-friendly politicians , and they did try to convince people to vote for Biden despite him signing executive orders that caused a rail natural disasters and supporting Middle East genocides; and my reply was deleted.
That sounds a lot like my favorite poster.
Excerpt:
Data
will help us remember, but will it let us forget? It will help politicians get elected, but will it help them lead? It will help companies make products addictive, but will it help us get free once we're hooked? It will help advertisers see people as statistics, but will it help us remember those statistics are people? It will help banks prevent credit card fraud, but will it help us stay out of debt? It will help credit card companies predict the impending collapse of a marriage, but will it keep our marriages from falling apart? It will help parents make kids genetically perfect, but will it help us love them regardless? It will help high-frequency traders sell stocks in nanoseconds, but will it help protect markets from feedback loops in their programs? It will help meteorologists predict storms and tornadoes, but will it help us rebuild the homes of survivors? It will help biologists map the migration of fish, but will it keep us from overfishing the oceans?
(...)
It will help us keep count of everything in our lives, but will it help us understand that not everything that counts in our lives can be counted? It will help us see the world as it is, but will it help us see the world as it could be?
Well, let’s include this, with the following message to whoever originally wrote it: We hope you’ll get in touch with Barbara Burgower at Straight Arrow Books in order that we may properly credit this piece of writing and carry the customary copyright of permissions and acknowledgments in future editions of this book.
senator mcgovern had hinged his lxxxxcxx whole campaign on oppostion to the vietnam war, xxxxxxxxxxxx hoping to pursuade americans of its immorality and awakenong in them a sense of outrage and shame, he tried to demonstrate that the continuing american presnece in vietnam, the bombing and the xxxxxx suport of what he denounced as a corrupt dictatorship was an indication of xxx a xxxxx moral collapse in the x united states. He did not balme the people but the nixon administration / but the people did not xxxxx respond to his appeals, ironically yesterday morning he voted here in support of a local xxxxx proposition to outlwa the killing of a small bird known as the @mourning dove@ last night, as the nixon landslide gathered momentum that is precisely what heorge mcgovern became—a mourning dove.
i xxxxx asked him if the worst happened whether he would run again and he said: @emphantically: no i will not. i shall stay in the senate but xxx someone else will have to carry on what I began.@
frewuently in the last two weeks, senator mcgovern had spoken of a young p black man who xxxxxx predicted that the election was going to break his heart because he was going to g find out that the american people were not as high minded as he thought they were/typically, mr. mcgovern challenged this view, x saying that he believed in the goodness and decency of the people and that they would respond to their own consciences.
but the election did break his heart after all. he thought he saw xxx faces glowing with hope xx that the country would aim for higher standards, yearing for peace and an edn to the domestic anguish. but the voters turned their backs on him.
I was intentionally being a little bit cryptic, but it's from "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72," from the November chapter. It is one of the absolutely crucial books to read if you want to know about the American political process, at least the 20th century form of it.
I apologize, I thought there was some sort of weird formatting error. Rereading it with a clearer mind and eyes I realize that was intentional
That isn't something I'd have gone out of my way to find and read but I'll check it out after having a recommendation dropped in my lap. My local library only has it on audiobook. 17 hours! Great for a road trip 😄 it seems interesting, and by a very interesting author nonetheless
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the edition I read did not include all the strikeouts and misspellings, but for some reason the machine text I could find did, and I like this version of it better.
It was giving me very "House of Leaves" vibes, though I haven't read that one either. Given the context I can see how those errors (?) add to the environment of the topic. It is still very jarring but I think Mr. Thomson would appreciate the way it reads
I don't think that's right. I think it is "They want a black woman," but not Kamala Harris, who is the lesser of two evils. Therefore, ironically: why not trump?
I think this comment is expressing frustration that progressive voters could have voted in a black woman, despite her imperfections, but didnt. An estimated 81 million people did not vote. Now we are stuck with the worst possible outcome.
60 Comments
pennomi@lemmy.world · 95 pts · 350d
mitch@piefed.mitch.science · 45 pts · 350d
no, no. we MUST create this sacrifice-person to lead us. this is our shot.
Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 350d
It didn't turn out so well the first time.
MummysLittleBloodSlut@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 350d
I think you invented Jesus
Sergio@piefed.social · 93 pts · 350d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_want_a_president
perishthethought@piefed.social · 16 pts · 350d
Oh wow, good find
lena@gregtech.eu · 8 pts · 350d
Why is "and an attitude" and "and that nasty" crossed out?
apftwb@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 350d
I think it just doesn't flow with the rest of the poem. We currently have a president with an attitude and its not great. Also "that nasty hospital food" tonally just don't feel like it fits IMO.
Eh_I@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 350d
I think it suggests that all black women have attitudes and all hospital food is nasty.
And only one of those is true.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 350d
I thought maybe (given the date) that they thought about the "attitude" the current president displayed, and realized they didn't want that anymore.
Edit: Nevermind, it was written in 1992 apparently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_want_a_president
lena@gregtech.eu · 6 pts · 350d
Doesnt it more so suggest people with bad teeth have an attitude?
Eh_I@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 350d
We can figure this out. We just need a white-board and markers, maybe some lab coats and stethoscopes!
lena@gregtech.eu · 6 pts · 350d
Pins and red string are also essential
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 81 pts · 350d
Text:
Thematically and stylistically it’s very Ginsburg
Psythik@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 350d
You forgot to cross out
and an attitudeandthat nasty, but great transcript otherwise.hazl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 350d
I really appreciate those edits, too. I can hear that thought process.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 349d
Thanks for the proofread, edited
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · 0 pts · 349d
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a poet?
Wytch@lemmy.zip · 30 pts · 350d
Strong The New Colossus energy:
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 350d
I think mr orange rapist wants to get rid of that plaque
sukhmel@programming.dev · 7 pts · 350d
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 350d
That poem legit brings tears to my eyes every time I read it.
Even more so now than before.
madcaesar@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 350d
I'd settle for somone not from the fucking millionaire / billionaire class to start with.
Most of those requirements are just working class problems :/
tiramichu@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 349d
IMO that's exactly what this is asking for - just the long way around.
Reminding us of the kinds of experience that make someone working class in the first place.
stinky@redlemmy.com · 4 pts · 350d
completely agree
Xerxos@lemmy.ml · 22 pts · 349d
We have a openly homosexual and a openly lesbian politician here in Germany. He is corrupt as hell and she is the worst possible person you could imagine.
Having a hard life doesn't automatically make you a good person.
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 348d
..and Alice is a racist sack of shit, but her partner is from Bangladesh.
AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 348d
It definitely doesn't, but at the same time experiencing hardships doesn't automatically make you have empathy. Look at our vice president. Look at the billionaire that got him elected.
Empathy is what this letter is all about. I want someone who knows how it feels. And, instead of rising to the top to enjoy the view or talk about bootstraps, they become the arm that reaches back and pulls others up with them.
hexagon@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 348d
If I understood lgbt voters enough that won’t be an issue, politicians could burn the world to the ground if that would mean that they get their policies
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 348d
There is also a group of right-wingers that fight against gay men and trans women with the rhetoric "they will take away womens' rights."
If people were just slightly more kind so many problems would be fixed.
MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 348d
It would be helpful if it weren't so profitable for media organizations to spend so much time convincing people that other people aren't kind, so why bother.
hexagon@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 347d
From both sides, I just wrote here that lgbt would see the world burn just to have lgbt-friendly politicians , and they did try to convince people to vote for Biden despite him signing executive orders that caused a rail natural disasters and supporting Middle East genocides; and my reply was deleted.
manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 347d
All of your posts - everyday in any thread - are embarrassing, combative and misinformed
go outside
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 17 pts · 350d
That sounds a lot like my favorite poster.
Excerpt:
Blackmist@feddit.uk · 14 pts · 350d
Man, that's a long list of requirements.
PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social · 13 pts · 350d
Well, let’s include this, with the following message to whoever originally wrote it: We hope you’ll get in touch with Barbara Burgower at Straight Arrow Books in order that we may properly credit this piece of writing and carry the customary copyright of permissions and acknowledgments in future editions of this book.
tpyo@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 350d
I'd appreciate that quote more if you could link the original context. It's very hard to parse
This is how I see the comments:

PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social · 6 pts · 350d
I was intentionally being a little bit cryptic, but it's from "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72," from the November chapter. It is one of the absolutely crucial books to read if you want to know about the American political process, at least the 20th century form of it.
tpyo@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 349d
I apologize, I thought there was some sort of weird formatting error. Rereading it with a clearer mind and eyes I realize that was intentional
That isn't something I'd have gone out of my way to find and read but I'll check it out after having a recommendation dropped in my lap. My local library only has it on audiobook. 17 hours! Great for a road trip 😄 it seems interesting, and by a very interesting author nonetheless
PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social · 2 pts · 349d
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the edition I read did not include all the strikeouts and misspellings, but for some reason the machine text I could find did, and I like this version of it better.
tpyo@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 349d
It was giving me very "House of Leaves" vibes, though I haven't read that one either. Given the context I can see how those errors (?) add to the environment of the topic. It is still very jarring but I think Mr. Thomson would appreciate the way it reads
magnetosphere@fedia.io · 11 pts · 350d
This is magnificent.
tanisnikana@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 350d
This is beautiful and necessary.
altphoto@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 350d
That is one awesome poem.
stinky@redlemmy.com · 8 pts · 350d
I love that poetry is the medium here and it just works
kelpie_returns@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 350d
WanderWisley@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 350d
Got my vote!
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 348d
Cause non-millionaire president is socialism!!
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 348d
Fully agree.
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 350d
We need a cover of Je veux with this text !
nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 350d
SanctimoniousApe@piefed.social · -5 pts · 350d
DAMN! I just barely missed being a qualified candidate! And they told me I didn't have to be attractive to get anywhere in life...
idiomaddict@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 350d
Being sexually harassed isn’t about being attractive, it’s about being vulnerable.
MummysLittleBloodSlut@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 350d
Nice tits
Eh_I@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 350d
Lovely birds
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · -23 pts · 350d
gilokee@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 350d
what?
INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone · 7 pts · 350d
He is saying that trump is less evil than kamala.
I speak Magat.
Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 350d
I don't think that's right. I think it is "They want a black woman," but not Kamala Harris, who is the lesser of two evils. Therefore, ironically: why not trump?
I think this comment is expressing frustration that progressive voters could have voted in a black woman, despite her imperfections, but didnt. An estimated 81 million people did not vote. Now we are stuck with the worst possible outcome.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · 4 pts · 350d
Impressive translation my dudeski.
lime@feddit.nu · 7 pts · 350d
it's smcf, thef just rile people up as a hobby.
Eh_I@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 350d
omg that is to 2k-late
Nima@leminal.space · 4 pts · 350d
i have that account tagged with a label "Politically charged trolling" on Voyager. i suggest blocking them.
ganksy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 350d
Yeah wot?