BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE WEDNESDAY OCT. 1, 2025) — While THE PLANET ponders how October came to be when yesterday we were in the early days of spring, we can share a profound insight prompted by one of our readers and correspondents.

DON’T VOTE.

Next month is November, and rumor has it that the city of Bitchfield will conduct an “election.” We know that, like most scuttlebutt, this rumor isn’t true. There will be no election. Instead, citizens and taxpayers will be inflicted with an “election.”

The city hasn’t held an authentic municipal election since Peter Arlos was shoeshine boy for P.J. Moore. Honesty forbids calling the political charades of recent and not-so-recent years in September and November “elections.” Three-card Monty, a thrown boxing match, a rigged poker game, a fixed horse race–that’s more like it.

“Electoral” politics in the city matter not in the least. This year, Bitchfield sunk to a maggot-infested, garbage-toter low by failing to draw enough candidates to require a preliminary election. Eleven council seats, six school committee slots, and city clerk make 18 office up for grabs but not one runoff.

———- ooo ———-

The Special Interests have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Having been stung by the 2000 special election whereby hordes of city voters rejected the bid to turn Bitchfield into a dictatorship (i.e., the proposed Civic Authority legislation),  a series of illegal meetings were conducted, mostly in the back room at Remo’s, DelGallo’s Restaurant and Bar on Newell Street, whose logo should have been a pair of cement galoshes.

They crafted a deliberate scheme to eliminate Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski from local politics by depriving them of a vote. They did so by making sure that the middle class and taxpayers would have no one for whom to vote.

THE PLANET doesn’t have the space to outline how in these past 25 years The Suits and their coopted office holders have done this. A couple of key moments: (1) In 2001, after Doyle runs the city into financial disgrace requiring state takeover of local finances, The Suits crush an attempt to go after Doyle and financier David Kiley by calling in their bonding. (2) The City Charter overhaul, which creates, among other bad ideas, a four-year term for the corner office.

It looked for a time in this years election cycle that there would indeed be prelims, but then a bunch of would-be candidates suddenly dropped out. Word on the street is that certain ones were threatened: Drop out or else. Threatened with what? Public humiliation? Revelation of dug-up dirt? Worse?

Of course, this cannot be true. Things like that just don’t happen in Pittsfield. Peter Marchetti defeated John Krol in an honest, totally above board race, as purse as the driven PCBs. Fact is, though, enough runners gave up the ghost to preclude a September exercise.

———- ooo ———-

As long as the Special Interests can guarantee themselves six council wins, four school committee seats, and the corner office, the city will remain where it is, in the hands of co-opted marionettes dangling on the strings pulled by the Invisible Others. With apathy now deeply entrenched among the vast majority of would-be voters, The Suits win. “Candidates” who “win” election next month will be certain to “play ball.” Or else.

So here’s THE PLANET‘s insight: DON’T VOTE.

Don’t be a part of an electoral crime. Otherwise, you’ll be an accessory after the fact.

As part of this campaign to drive away the vote, THE PLANET suggests the creation of “I Didn’t Vote” stickers, to be worn proudly on Nov. 4.

Don’t be a sucker. Don’t vote.

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“Voting in Bitchfield is like voting to hang yourself” — Sir Donald Turpentine, Knight of the Bath.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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