The Journal

 

Serving the Metropolitan Area

  

Since 1872

 

October 12th

 

SPRINGTIME for CATFISH!

 

By Jack Parnell - retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate

 

Syndicated by Acme Features

  

          Back in the day, when I sat down with Austin Tillerman, the boys and a nice lady cowpoke name of Jody, what we got around to... after the implosion of Reform and venom against Nader, the mess that followed, the Trump-0-rama mess as followed that... was how, basically, NAFTA only proved the point we warn't no better off than Mexicans, politically.  Our Don Jones Index of five-some years back compared American happiness with the UN’s surveyors by naming the happiest, bestest and worst countries in the world, (how these United States clocked in wasn’t pretty then, nor now.)  America's Institutional Party buzzard, having two wings, had given up any pretense of reform, let alone revolution, so the Democrats had to be helped along on their collective task of withering away, leaving that angry orange pimple called the Republican party to explode from the center out, spewing its pus and microbes all over everyone and everywhere.

          So we set about looking at how to accomplish this, and wrote up these Ten Commandments for takin' back America.  From all of them!

          Early on, before even the 2020 race and our decision, based upon reality, not to go for the gold without a little organizing, first, a mangy mob of monkeywrenchers, sneaky Greens, ex-Reforms, ex-Laroachies, men with bad teeth in camo, Capitol hangmen and the such came knockin', still covered with the ashes of Y2K, 9-11 and... soon to follow... the One Six. Didn't exactly mix well with our Michigan and Texas militias... let alone the Harlem and Chicago homeboys or the Colorado and Kentucky mountain folk. Letting cranks hang ‘round provokes nothing but trouble! A'fore you know it: dozens of 'em sleeping in your basement, in shifts, empty tinfoil cartons in the dumpster, Attorney General on the box, right-leaners callin’ your spread their 'compound', lefties their ‘sanctuary’!  Austin can have that demographic – welcome to rassle Djonald Unsane for it!  So we wrote up the First: Keep the nuts at arms’ length! (As opposed to keeping your arms at nuts’-length!)

          Speaking of Aygees, the first time A. G. Goethals let me work on the Senator's campaign, I was just out of college, full of myself, so Al gives me this timetable with, on the first Monday and Tuesday in November, the initials GOTV. Being young and full of nomenklatural sass and vigor, I said: "Mister Goethals, sir, I understand Monday night football and such, but don't you think our money would be better spent over the weekend than on Tuesday morning soaps?" Al took a long sigh, reminding himself as we were the boob-tube generation, before patting my head and remarking: "Boy, GOTV means gettin' out the vote, not goin' on the God-damn television!" Therefore, our Commandment Two: keep amateurs out of the smoke-filled rooms, as where decidings get done!

          Now abstractions are all well and good, but voters like matters explained in terms of personalities, so, in drafting a charter for the CNC, we've followed that tried and tested truism: choose unpopular enemies! Keep mobile: when the gay bridegroom panics run out of vigor, mosey on to tranny toilets. Mexican rapists, birds and germs and Unapissers. If the Democratic party… even lacking a brain, a heart and backbone… was able to hold onto Congress on that page-molestin' scuzzball from Florida, Lord knows... there's enough bipartisan termitery to raise up a dozen new parties! If'n it comes down to the party of oily Wall Street job exportin' embezzlers agin' that of America-hating trial lawyers as helped Kam-mala and these California prisoners sue for gumment-paid tinfoil to wrap around heads to keep the prison from broadcasting his thoughts over loudspeakers... well, like them bumperstickers over in Kampala used to say: "Dada Happens!"

          Now Donkey-boys an' Elephant-gals never tire of the either/or... if you're agin' greedy trial lawyers, you must be for corrupt insurance companies; don't want Costa Ricans streaming into Costa Mesa, have to be for the war. Where it comes to tackling either of two bad alternatives, why not the both?  So our Commandamente Cuatro: find (or make up) common grounds between two adversaries as are too proud to occupy themselves, pivot your butts into the middle, squat over ‘em and declare the war done with, problem solved por moí now that our American go-fundees have come to the relief of the Notre Dame fire means we can be friends with the French again (even their old people, as some describe as over 62) – which is a good thing seeing that Djonald Unchained and Boris Undead are still scrapping over that lady biker killer as running back home and claiming diplomatic immunity!

          On the other hand, the Fifth Commandment, one that our past and current incumbents has mastered, is practice creative inconsistency. Demand that backwoods death sentences handed down by hanging judges be verified by the DNA, if applicable, while standing agin' the liberal pro-criminal nonsense by putting termination to what I call the Stupid Juror Laws. Whack a partisan clown, now and again, so that voters won't lose all respect for you! Occupy the center and periphery… the doughnut and the hole - work outwards from the former, inwards from the latter, and always take the side of the common sense. Practice kickin’ cans as will roll downhill for months instead of weeks.  (Although if you do decide to Occupy Maa-a-loxo, you have got to be prepared to handle the consequences.)

          Number six: cannibalize rivals. Venerate martyrs ('cept for the Tim McVeigh, David Koresh and Ramsey Tate sorts). Do a little historistical scavengery work, scoop up Democratic and trumped-up Republican trash as may become CNC treasure. A whole squatload of Democrats went over the wall after three straight wipeouts, but the ACLU and the Libertarians took in Bob Barr and Dick Armey started hanging sheetrock for Habitat once the long shadow of jail darkened over him. (Hear Michael Cohen’s angling to become a Conk, but on that see Number One, above.)  As the platforms of the big parties grow increasingly rigid and chaotic, keep an eye open for potential defectors. Come our convention, we'll parade a whole armada of Conks as have come to the true religion, however late in life.  We’ll even take Mister Bannon, long as he’s not indicted yet.  Again…

          Once we've declared a party, keep goin' door to door, signing up memberships and fundraising (our side peddlin' Rayna’s Modes cosmetics, Austin sellin' his American-made guns). Building up neighborhood watch committees as do good locally, so's to avoid the topheavy situation as makes most new parties disappear, after awhile.  Works over in Lebanon with the Hamas… or, is that Hezbollah?… it’ll work here, too.  When stepping up to the mid-level... Congress, state legislators and offices below Governorships, some Mayors, maybe: pick off the easy targets. Politics is full of sleazeballs as whom inhaled, ejaculated and imbibed, the crooks and bullies, the stamp-stealers, military jet hitchhikers and wastewater price-fixers. We had a safe Democratic and another safe Republican district where the uncontested representatives got indicted after their names couldn't be taken off the ballot - which is why there's a Green and a Libertarian in Congress and… remember!... Alabama even elected a Democratic Senator after his opponent, the preacherman, was found to be keeping his pistols loaded to pot passing pieces of jailbait. Had to find a football coach to get rid of ‘im, and not a very good one as held up the military promotions over abortion, of all things: if Nick Saban were to join the CNC and run for President, I’d drop out in three seconds to go waste my time fishin’.  Those other parties' arrogance will be the making of the CNC; anywhere there's a contest of the "least unfit"... (as described by Clinton-hater turned Bush-hater James Bovard)... there ought to be catfish pointin' fins and sweepin' up on the bottom of the river.

          Which brings up Commandment Nine: smile, dammit, smile! Carter talked malaise, Reagan reminisced 'bout Jimmy Stewart and those Hepburn gals. Reagan won. Junior Bush promoted "a conservatism with a smile, not a conservatism with a frown," and, when terrorism struck, America sent gloomy Pickle John Kerry to the woodshed, thence to a sentence as climate czar, thence Sec State, butting heads with Iranian rug dealers.  After that, same bulldada with O-man and Palin providing the winks, McCain and Biden the nods!  And, once they let you into the debates, don’t interrupt the moderator!  Two thirds of Americans don’t like that and them as do – you don’t want em anyhow.  Ask Doug Burgum.

          Finally, be quick to declare victory... even if of a moral sort... move on, and shrug off disappointments as the rear-window outgrowth of people's prejudices against all organizations as stand up against the system. Our current Chief Executive does it, his predecessor did, why not us?  Those Philippine tire deflation cultists as swore "God's way of stopping bad deeds" was to let out God's air before Y2K? Well... the judge laughed at 'em, but they'd responded the world was still around because of those tires they'd icepicked!

          Every day, in February and March, the world tilts a bit closer to the sun... so little a body would hardly notice it. But, one day... in April, maybe, or May, some places... the clouds break, sun comes out and flowers are busting open everywhere! Who'da thunk any one of those little sunbeams in winter would've combined with others to bring about springtime?   Any new organization as jumps out the box gets a sort of honeymoon, a springtime when maximum free and mostly favorable publicity becomes available... when the Koch fueled and funded “Freedom” caucus splits off from The Donald and runs its own candidate (Mike Pence?) when Pat Robertson and Ron Paul huddle with Al Sharpton, Reverend Wright and Don King to birth two more new parties to peel voters off’n the Pubs an’ Rats like rotten wallpaper!  Who'da thunkit that... that a few CNC members, working with their neighbors to clean up the block, would go on to clean up their city, their state, their America.

          I'm fully enjoying this falltime springtime for the CNC in this Halloween for the donkeys and elephants... if only because (after the plague-and-Putin hectored winter we been through and the sweltering DeeCee summer a’followin’) because I know how darned unpleasant America’s capitol can get!  But a caveat... that’s a sort of caviar that even the poor can enjoy if they’re smart... third parties that lean closer to one faction than the other will ensure the victory of the party or candidate they like or respect even less.  Thus, Austin Tillerman and I are talking up a deal to maybe run third and fourth party challenges if the expected, and dreaded, Trump-Biden sequel rises from its grave.  Maybe fifth and sixth or even seventh, considering Bobby Junior and his war on Tylenol, that Green guy and we haven’t even heard from the Libertarians yet (and won’t until after Trump is nominated and one of those bitter losers takes his revenge).  If we didn’t, maybe the Bern could bolt the donkeys and Pence UnHanged could bolt the elephants.  Hell, even the entrance of Ye and Puffy into the 2024 crunkfest would make it more palatable.

   

CLICK the CATFISH to go to PAST and PRESENT EPISODES of "BLACK HELICOPTERS" and to OTHER JACK PARNELL COLUMNS

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