My Time Has Come

"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world", muttered Shelley, probably while peering through an absinthe fog and wearing Mary Wollstonecraft-Godwin's teenaged thighs for earmuffs. Such things may fill a man with hubris and make him think he can go sailing in a thunderstorm or walk on water.

Until today, I have avoided the call to the dusty arena of politics. My hat was never in the ring. If nominated, I would not serve, if elected, I would move and change my name to Osbert Fleadick. Anyone who wants power over other human beings probably shouldn't be trusted with power.

An unfeeling public would almost certainly reject my plan to bring back the buffalo west of the Mississippi and restore the forests east of the Mississipi to pre-1850 numbers. They say a squirrel could travel from the Atlantic to the Mississippi in the trees without ever touching the ground. Swimming the river, he could travel on the backs of the buffalo herds to the Rocky Mountains, again without touching the ground.

I admit there were provisions in my platform that some found troubling. The call to re-establish grizzly bears to their former range "because Americans need a large dangerous animal in their environment to knock the snot-nose out of them" could probably have been phrased differently. The red states aren't ready to vote for a candidate who's come out in FAVOR of pornography, and the blue states don't see the need to purge all advertising agencies with a guillotine set up on Madison Avenue.

But now my time has come!

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Michael Wynne wants to test "nonlethal" microwave devices on American citizens, to see if they really ARE non-lethal. "If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," says Wynne. "... if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

Never mind the world press, Wynne. The first concern will be my foot up your ass, as soon as the tremors wear off.

Candidate for governor Richard "Dick" DeVos ("Dick DeVos before he dicks you") wants Creationism-- excuse me, "intelligent design" taught in science class to "expose our students to more ideas, not less."

Ideas that once would have been derided as stark raving batshit are now in the mainstream. A once skeptical media, afraid of being "partisan" (that's what happens when you whore after advertisers or sell out to a conglomerate) now reports this stuff with a straight face.

America! I have heard your call!

America! I'm putting my loony shoulder to the wheel!

6 comments:

Stewart Sternberg (half of L.P. Styles) said...

The Devos bid for candidacy is fascinating. He poses the question: can a human potato buy the governorship?

People outside Michigan should be as concerned as we are. DeVos has been an important political figure in the Republican party as he has helped with major fundraising efforts. It is the reason that when Bush comes to Michigan, his first stop is usually to kiss the feet of Dickie DeVos.

As for his amazing insight into education (a series of absurd proposed unfunded mandates), remember that DeVos and his wife (who was the former Republican party leader in Michigan) were the driving force behind the Voucher movement a couple years back.

If DeVos is elected, watch for sweeping school reforms which will batter the public educational system in this state.

Finally, as DeVos is a Republican conservative darling, if he becomes govenor, is it not likely that someone will soon suggest that he enter the national arena?

Okay, I'll stop...
but dammit Mike..you pressed a button

Michael Fountain: Blood for Ink said...

I'm hoping that the crest of the neo-conservative wave has finally broken, and what we'll see in the last two years of the Bush presidency will be the detrius in the backwash as they're all sucked back into their holes... at least until the current crop of megachurch Nazi Christian Youth reaches its majority.
I attended college in Grand Rapids, and remember the confusion and disappointment in the voice of a Republican small businessman, when he found out that his entreprenuerial heroes at Amway had bribed another of his heroes, Newt Gingrich, with a 100,000 dollar speaker's fee and gotten a tax loophole just for them. The poor sap had always believed their sermons about free enterprise.

Anonymous said...

Did I send you the item about how the DeVos family, or members thereof, apparently signed on to the James Dobson/American Family Association's boycott of THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY for their placement of ads in gay-friendly publications? Just another way to support Michigan industry, Mr. "Michigan Industry."

For example, http://www.trianglepridepac.org/news/n60906.html

--Pat

Michael Fountain: Blood for Ink said...

Strange how many of these guys are "stealth candidates" with all kinds of mean, bigoted agendas behind the affable appearance.

Anonymous said...

Michael, thanks for linking to us. Very glad to see that you espouse the Loony cause in the United Hats of America.

I particularly like your comment that "if elected, I would move and change my name to Osbert Fleadick. Anyone who wants power over other human beings probably shouldn't be trusted with power."

This chimes well with the outlook of the OMRLP... and in fact I wonder whether you'd mind us implementing a rule that any Loony candidate who gets elected actually does have to change his or her name to "Osbert Fleadick"?

Michael Fountain: Blood for Ink said...

Tapped by greatness; can it be that the Accolade itself is not beyond my grasp?
I am assured by the several bail bondsmen that I have in place of friends that my life's effort has led to this moment: contributing a plank to the platform of a half-mad political party in a foreign country.
I am reminded of the Scotsman who, upon regaining consciousness and finding a blue ribbon tied to his progenitive member, said, "I don't know where you've been, and I don't know what you've been doing, but it's proud I am that you took first prize."