Ripley: Ash, can you hear me? ASH?

Ash: Yes, I can hear you.

Ripley: What was your special order?

Ash: You read it. I thought it was clear.

Ripley: What was it?

Ash: Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded.

When Bill Clinton won the presidential election in 1992, my friends and I danced, drank champagne and giggled like kids. The Reagan era was finally over. No more fearmongering. No more needless buildup of nuclear weapons. No more ignoring AIDS and the homeless. No more hate from the Moral Majority. No more pandering to greedy corporations. The people were in charge again. We felt like Ripley when she jettisoned that nasty Alien out of her spaceship.

"I got you"

And then we went to sleep. While we were sleeping they plotted and planned. They sent colonists out to inhabit our government, our media and our churches. The sent them out with one directive: Bring back control. All other priorities rescinded.

The didn't care who or what they sacrificed to obtain their objective. They paid no heed to honor or the rule of law. If an election was in question, fix the election. If an opposition candidate was too honest, make up a scandal. If a war is neither logical nor legal, lie about it. If a reporter gets too close to the truth, discredit him. If a former ambassador calls them on their bullshit, go after his wife. If a language translator uncovers treason, shut her up. If a warning comes of an imminent attack, pretend the warning never came. If dead soldiers don't play well on the TV, hide the bodies. If anything gets in their way, destroy it.

Take the religious fundamentalists. Much like poor crewmember Kane, they were drawn in, curious to the possibilities just beneath the surface of the shiny egg of political participation. Their leaders smacked them with the face-hugging monsters of homosexuality and abortion. They kept their believer's fears alive with promises to return America to an innocent 1950's utopia. All the while they fed off their money and faith. When G.W. Bush was elected, it was as if the face-hugger had dropped off. All was well. No more monsters. Let's have some dinner.

Then reality burst through the fundamentalist's collective stomach in the form of a bald-headed gay pretender by the name of Jeff Gannon. He was a hint of what lay ahead but he soon sped off into the bowels of the Internet, easily forgotten. The GOP continued to exploit the threat of monsters with assurances that they were on the side of God, the Christian God. They continued to profess their moral superiority while soldier after soldier died. They faulted God for their complete failure to conduct a proper response to hurricane Katrina. They boldly denied their corrupt purposes while their legislators came under investigation, were charged with crimes and sent to jail. And then, out of the shadows appeared a predator named Mark Foley. They claimed to chase him off but he came back, bigger and more horrendous and in the form of the Reverend Ted Haggard.

The George Bush/GOP/neocon machine doesn't care about Jesus or God. They don't care about protecting Americans. They don't care about stopping terrorism. They only care about two things: Money and Power. They will use any person, any cause, any fear as a host in which to hibernate. When they have sucked all the use out of a donor, they will move on to the next poor fool. They are as the android Ash described them: ...unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality". They are perfect killing machines that drip acid for blood and they won't stop until they've completely destroyed everything this country stands for.

I won't pretend to be naive. Winning control of Congress for the Democrats won't slay the beast. I've seen the sequels. There will always be people that use whatever means possible to stay on top, be it terrorism or fascism or corporatism. Rogue countries possessing nuclear bombs don't frighten me nearly as much as the accepted practice of depleted uranium weapons. Terrorism is a real threat but global warming will end the human race. The real enemy is greed.

We are all Ellen Ripley. Forever destined to keep hunting monsters because "The Company" keeps letting them on the ship. We may never end them but as long as we are able, we must blow them out of the air lock because that's the only way, we the people, will survive.

Tuesday, November 7, is the big showdown. You may have no weapons and no training but you do have the power of numbers. Vote, damn you. VOTE