We & GWB: Notes from the First Four Years,Used

From the Publisher "We and GWB: Notes from the First Four Years" Collected Essays from Clark Schpiell Productions Nikki Lee and David Nett, editors featuring essays from: David Nett, Jeremy Groce, Jeanette Scherrer, Craig Bridger, Joseph G. Product Description 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 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 Ricks house (where the rehearsal was to take place), Florida was called for Gore. By the time we walked into Ricks living room, it was being called for Bush. Halfway through rehearsal, no one seemed to know who would win Floridas 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, hed 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 nonpolitical 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.