Tom Kovach
It's not called "treason" anymore
Political truth is stranger than fiction
By Tom Kovach
I don't write fiction very often. (Although I did write a sample TV script. You can read more about it in my new book, Slingshot, which is available from my Web site.) I grew up in south Texas, and thought that people in the oil industry might enjoy this little work of fiction, as a way of taking their minds off of the stresses of trying to find new oil supplies to keep our gasoline prices down.
Once upon a time...
In the fictional country of Beluga, a small group of wealthy people took care of their own interests in the government. Beluga had rich farmlands, and other natural resources. It had been colonized centuries before, and the conquerors had developed a strong system of social classes. The upper class used the country's class system to amass wealth for themselves and keep wages low. Nonetheless, many of the citizens thought that life was fine in Beluga, and the popular culture thrived. A middle class began to emerge after the introduction of electricity. As the middle class grew, a very small group of people on the political Left knew that they could lose their chance to come to power — unless they stirred things up right away.
One of the members of this Leftist clique was an aggressive lawyer named Blasto. He and his fellow Communists circulated falsehoods about what it meant to be a Communist. They convinced a growing segment of poor people that they would never amount to anything ... unless, of course, they joined up with the Communists. They did, and they overthrew the government. Naturally, the peasants looked to their benefactor, Miguel Blasto, to provide for their every need. The peasants were stunned to discover that, not only did Blasto not take good care of them, but also now most of their lives were much worse than under the wealthy capitalists.
Many of the middle class citizens — shop owners, skilled tradesmen, some government officials, and even some doctors and lawyers — saw the trouble brewing and escaped just before the revolution. They went to a few different countries, but most went to the prosperous United Combobulates. There, they settled and prospered. Some of them even tried to find ways to help their relatives and friends in their former country. Some of the displaced Belugans became soldiers or spies on behalf of the United Combobulates, and snuck back into Beluga to work on behalf of freedom. Some of those Belugan-Combobulan heroes were tortured and killed. Others put together radio stations in the UC, and broadcast messages of freedom back to their brethren in Beluga. They never stopped trying to help their friends in Beluga, yet they became loyal Combobulans. A small handful of these brave Belugan-Combobulans went to work for an enigmatic man named D. Dalton Bigby, who formed a private group of soldier-spies called the "Typhoons." Members of the Typhoons worked outside of government channels, and delivered books and supplies to those brave Belugans that still worked for freedom inside that country. Sometimes, they also smuggled Belugan citizens back to the United Combobulates.
One of the hopes of Belugans, both inside and outside of Beluga, was that someday Blasto's health would fail. As it turned out, Blasto's main political strength — his charismatic, self-centered form of leadership — was also his Achilles' heel. He could not allow anyone other than himself to hold the reins of power. So, someday, Blasto would "go the way of all flesh," and the Belugans would have a window of opportunity to throw off the Communist yoke and be free again. But, there was a problem.
Little did most Belugans realize that, deep within the government of the free and prosperous United Combobulates, a small group of people was working quietly to keep the Belugans oppressed. (That was part of their larger plan to quietly turn the United Combobulates into another Communist country.) Amazingly, this group of people was made up of elected representatives within the UC Blogress, the main governing body of the United Combobulates. This sneaky little group was called the Progressive Blah-Cuss. Members of the group were quietly Communist, and they would sneak Communist ideas into pieces of legislation as it wound its way through the Blogress. They used terms that sounded nice, even "compassionate." But, thanks to their willing shills within the news media, the double meaning of those terms was not exposed for decades. Thus, the ranks of the Progressive Blah-Cuss swelled, until it comprised more than ten percent of the UC Blogress. Only then did the Combobulan people even begin to get wind of the great political cancer that was growing inside the head of the Combobulan government.
At one point, when Blasto's power was at its peak, he tried to invade and take over the nearby island of Migraina. But, at that time, the UC had a strong leader named Donald Ray Guns. President Guns sent planeloads of commandos, and they kicked Blasto's troops off the island of Migraina in only a few days. Thus, Blasto's overt ambitions were contained to Beluga. But, his covert activities — often with the help of the Progressive Blah-Cuss — would not be fully understood for years. As it turned out, one of the military officers involved in planning the invasion of Migraina would later write a book, and reveal that a member of the UC Blogress (who was also a member of the Progressive Blah-Cuss) had leaked secret documents to Blasto, in an effort to undermine not only the liberation of Migraina, but also the power of the United Combobulates in its own part of the world. And, were it not for the way that their willing shills in the news media had softened up the public by then, that member (Blogressman Ring Bellums) might have been charged with treason.
That was over twenty years ago. In the meantime, the Belugan expatriates had grown comfortable living in the United Combobulates, and activities to free the oppressed citizens of Beluga dwindled. The fire never went out completely, and some Belugan-Combobulans got caught flying below the Belugan radar, and smuggling people out of Beluga. One has to wonder whether any member of the Blogressional Committee on Intelligence might have smuggled classified radar reports to the Belugans, but the answer might never be known, because by this time the Progressive Blah-Cuss has grown so powerful that they are almost a government unto themselves. They accomplished that by making the people of the United Combobulates "comfortable" — so comfortable that they wouldn't even get up off their couches to go to a rally, a meeting, or even sit on the couch at a friend's house and watch a conservative documentary about the dangerous activities of ... the Progressive Blah-Cuss.
During that time, an especially smarmy person joined the Progressive Blah-Cuss. He quickly rose to a leadership position, because he had already proven himself as a sneakily effective Communist while serving in the legislature of his home province of New Pork. His name was Blogressman Maurice Squinchey. After proving his credentials by championing other Leftist causes, Squinchey took on the goal of normalizing relations between the United Combobulates and Beluga. Years before making this goal public, Squinchey had convinced certain business leaders that he would help their interests. They gave him money to get elected, and re-elected. Then, in classic Communist style, Squinchey turned around and sponsored legislation that would unravel the United Combobulates patent system — the envy of the world, and a key to Combobulan prosperity — and make it vulnerable to legal industrial espionage. Thus, his allies in the business world were to busy fighting for their own survival to worry about getting political revenge against him.
Shortly after this move — which might have been called "treason," back in the day when the Combobulans were known as a people with tough-nosed resolve — Blogressman Squinchey became more public with his goals of normalizing relations with Beluga. How convenient. Now that the Belugan intelligence agency — either on its own, or by the hand of hired Combobulan proxies — had access to emerging Combobulan industrial technology, normalized relations would provide a ready market for goods developed in Beluga. What a sinister twist: the Belugans would recover from the Combobulan economic sanctions by ... selling goods to the Combobulans! And, the goods would be made with technology that they had legally stolen from the Combobulans. And, all with the aid of high-ranking people inside the Combobulan government! The sheer evil genius of this twisted strategy made Blasto very happy, even as his health began to fail. Of course, thanks to his own secret police, and the Communist shills within the Combobulan news media, the people of Combobula would not find out about the hijacking of their industrial inventions, or about Blasto's failing health, until several years later.
By the time the Combobulan news media revealed to the public that Blasto's health was failing, the plan to keep the Communists in power in Beluga was almost fully realized. All that was needed was a steady source of new money, so that Blasto's successor would be able to provide "bread and circuses" for the peasants, thus making himself popular. And, for those that saw through his smoke screen, Blasto's successor would need to fund a much larger military and internal-security organization. That larger organization would also be needed to keep the Belugan expatriates from returning to Beluga from the southern United Combobulates, and to squash any homegrown resistance movement that might appear after Blasto's death. But, how would economically depressed Beluga fund such a program?
That was the ultimate in twisted genius! Blasto, with the help of people like Maurice Squinchey, had developed a plan that would rob the United Combobulates of their own natural strength: oil! You see, while using the new technologies that were legally stolen from the UC Patent Office, the state-owned oil company of Beluga had made the same discovery that certain Combobulan oil companies had made in recent years. There is a huge untapped supply of oil beneath the waters of the Gulf of Peshtigo, which separates Beluga from the United Combobulates. If the Communist government of Beluga could exploit this oil supply, and simultaneously deprive the Combobulans of that oil, then not only would Beluga remain in Communist hands, but the United Combobulates might eventually be weakened to the point that they would officially become Communist. (Of course, Blasto was fully aware that, thanks to the Progressive Blah-Cuss, and the willing shills in the news media, the United Combobulates was already at least half Communist — in practice, if not in theory.)
How could Blasto keep the oil out of Combobulan hands? After all, it was the Combobulans that had invented the modern art of oil drilling. Selling oil, and having huge supplies of it to fuel their navy, had made the young United Combobulates a world power a hundred years earlier. Despite having a large percentage of their young men under conscription, the Belugan army was no match for the Combobulans. (That had been proven on the island of Migraina.) The only way to hinder the Combobulans would be from the inside.
Once again, the Progressive Blah-Cuss was the key to Communist success. Decades earlier, they had begun to hinder Combobulan industrial progress by creating environmental regulations that no one could meet. The court system of the United Combobulates was clogged with cases that sapped money away from Combobulan companies. Thus, that money could not be used to fight the new patent laws that allowed Communist agents to sit, openly, at the library tables of the UC Patent Office and steal Combobulan technology. So, while the Belugans were developing the Combobulan technology, the Progressive Blah-Cuss was running a blocking formation in the courts. That prevented Combobulan companies from drilling for oil in the Gulf of Peshtigo. (The same tactic had worked, delaying progress by 15 or 20 years, when companies tried to put a pipeline in the Manhaskan wilderness.)
So, the United Combobulates was at a standoff — industrially and militarily — with the government of little Beluga. Like the fictional giant Gulliver, who was immobilized by thousands of tiny Lilliputian threads, the oil companies of the United Combobulates were tied up in court by environmental lawyers that took their orders from members of the Progressive Blah-Cuss. At the same time, the government of Beluga had negotiated some futures trades with agents of the new Mesopotamian Oil Purse (an oil commodity market, whose stated goal was to undermine the economy of the United Combobulates). If the Belugans could soon field a navy that could guard the oil reserves in the Gulf of Peshtigo, then they could deny access to the Combobulans. Then, they could sell the oil — that the Combobulans had discovered — to the Mesopotamian Oil Purse. The profit would fund their navy, fueled by oil from the Gulf of Peshtigo, to protect "their" new oil fields in those very same waters.
Fortunately, not all the members of the UC government had swallowed the drugged Cool-Ade of the sneaky no-goodniks in the Progressive Blah-Cuss. In fact, some members of the Blogress had managed to fund a new aircraft carrier — named after the late President Donald Ray Guns, no less — despite the rantings of Progressive Blah-Cuss members. So, if the United Combobulates still had the resolve, they could guard the oil fields before the Belugans got there, develop the new reserves, boost their economy, lower fuel prices, and ... essentially ... make the world free again.
But, does the United Combobulates have the national will to defend the lifeblood of its own economy? Things don't look so good on that front. The current leader, President Horace W. Plant, doesn't even seem interested in defending the UC border with neighboring Peshtigo. There is talk that the next presidential election could produce a strong leader, one that would secure all of the UC's national borders. But, those elections are two years away. And, his own political party is undercutting the only candidate that is really serious about it, Blogressman Tom Tomato. Why? Because he belongs to the same Demublican Party that President Plant belongs to, and the party leadership is afraid to take a stand on principle for fear of making President Plant look bad. (Never mind that President Plant is making himself look bad by not securing his own borders.) And the leaders of the Demublicans have spent decades trying to convince the Combobulan people that there are only two political parties — themselves and the Reproblicrats — and that it would be a "sin" to vote for anyone in that other party. Therefore, poor Blogressman Tomato is stuck in a bad spot. He strongly opposes the Reproblicrats, but can't get any help from the Demublicans. And, the Combobulan people are stuck without any other strong choices.
what to do next...
Well, dear readers, I've hit upon something of a writer's block. That's what I get for delving into the world of fiction. I can't seem to make up my mind where this story should go next.
Will the dwindling number of conservatives left in the Blogress have the testicular fortitude to deploy the Donald Ray Guns carrier battle group to the Gulf of Peshtigo to protect the Combobulan oil discovery? Will the apathetic voters of the Combobulan population get up off their couches? Will the expatriates of Beluga return and take back their country after the death of Blasto? Will the population of the United Combobulates ever figure out that there is not much difference between the Demublican Party and the Reproblicrat Party? (And, if so, will they do anything about it?) Will the voters rise up on Election Day and throw out the members of the Progressive Blah-Cuss? Or, will they continue to suck on drug-laced, government-issued lollipops, which were the brainchild of the Progressive Blah-Cuss and the Reproblicrat Party? And, if so, will those voters continue to re-elect the very people that put them into a lollipop-induced stupor? (Probably. Why? Because, thanks to the softening effects of those lollipops, and the twisting of definitions by the shills in the news media, people just don't call what the Progressive Blah-Cuss does "treason" anymore. If they still called it "treason," then there would be 63 Blogressmen swinging from ropes in the near future.) And, if the voters do fall for the Reproblicrat "backlash" strategy, will the next President of the United Combobulates just open up the borders all the way? Or, will enough people contribute to the campaign of Blogressman Tom Tomato that he can afford to tell the Demublicans to go pound sand? Will he run for president on one of the smaller-party ballot lines? If so, which one? It can't be the oft-mentioned Equivocarian Party, because they support open borders (although, they don't like to admit it). If he's smart, instead of inventing a one-time party (that won't work), he should run with the Convocation Party — the party named after the great meeting that was the foundation of the Combobulan government. And, if he does that, whom would he select as his running mate? (Certainly not someone else from the Demublican Party, because the strong-minded Convocationalists would oppose that in a hurry.) And, given that the elections are still two years away, will there even be a United Combobulates by that time? Or, will the lax border policies (supported by the Demublicans), coupled with the activities of the Progressive Blah-Cuss (supported by the Reproblicrats), finally undermine the United Combobulates to the point that they cease to exist as we've known them?
Wow! No wonder fiction writers make so much money! There are so many possible choices. I don't have time for all this speculation. Perhaps I'd better just stick to non-fiction — such as my investigative columns, and my political opinions.
stranger than fiction...
Besides, I mainly tried my hand at fiction to blow off a little steam. I had been reading some articles that got my blood pressure up, so I needed a little diversion. That's a healthy thing to do once in awhile.
Now that my blood pressure is down to semi-normal, I'll get back to reading about how our American oil companies have been hindered from developing vast new oil reserves, which could benefit our nation for decades to come. Unfortunately, those companies have been hobbled by environmental regulations, which were pushed by the Progressive Caucus. Nonetheless, they did successfully prove — via the new "Jack 2" test well — that the oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico could potentially equal almost half of the existing oil reserves of the United States. And, if those reserves are fully developed, we could again see gasoline prices like the ones I saw while cruising around in my first car when I was a teenager.
Naw.... That's not likely. Why? Well ... truth is stranger than fiction, especially in politics. Hoping for that to happen would be like me expecting every conservative in America to send me just one dollar, so that I could get elected to Congress — despite the fact that the Tennessee Republican Party has not lifted a finger to help my campaign. (Some unidentified party leader recently told the Associated Press, "We don't know much about Mr. Kovach," despite the fact that the party approved my nominating petitions months ago. My reply? "I have an extensive Web site, and they know my phone number." As was written in the Epistle of James, "You have not, because you ask not.") If I do get elected, then I won't owe the Republican Party a thing when I get to Washington. So, I ought to thank them for leaving me as shark bait for the wealthy incumbent Jim Cooper. If I didn't know for a fact that all of this is true, I'd think that it was political fiction, too.
© Tom Kovach
I don't write fiction very often. (Although I did write a sample TV script. You can read more about it in my new book, Slingshot, which is available from my Web site.) I grew up in south Texas, and thought that people in the oil industry might enjoy this little work of fiction, as a way of taking their minds off of the stresses of trying to find new oil supplies to keep our gasoline prices down.
Once upon a time...
In the fictional country of Beluga, a small group of wealthy people took care of their own interests in the government. Beluga had rich farmlands, and other natural resources. It had been colonized centuries before, and the conquerors had developed a strong system of social classes. The upper class used the country's class system to amass wealth for themselves and keep wages low. Nonetheless, many of the citizens thought that life was fine in Beluga, and the popular culture thrived. A middle class began to emerge after the introduction of electricity. As the middle class grew, a very small group of people on the political Left knew that they could lose their chance to come to power — unless they stirred things up right away.
One of the members of this Leftist clique was an aggressive lawyer named Blasto. He and his fellow Communists circulated falsehoods about what it meant to be a Communist. They convinced a growing segment of poor people that they would never amount to anything ... unless, of course, they joined up with the Communists. They did, and they overthrew the government. Naturally, the peasants looked to their benefactor, Miguel Blasto, to provide for their every need. The peasants were stunned to discover that, not only did Blasto not take good care of them, but also now most of their lives were much worse than under the wealthy capitalists.
Many of the middle class citizens — shop owners, skilled tradesmen, some government officials, and even some doctors and lawyers — saw the trouble brewing and escaped just before the revolution. They went to a few different countries, but most went to the prosperous United Combobulates. There, they settled and prospered. Some of them even tried to find ways to help their relatives and friends in their former country. Some of the displaced Belugans became soldiers or spies on behalf of the United Combobulates, and snuck back into Beluga to work on behalf of freedom. Some of those Belugan-Combobulan heroes were tortured and killed. Others put together radio stations in the UC, and broadcast messages of freedom back to their brethren in Beluga. They never stopped trying to help their friends in Beluga, yet they became loyal Combobulans. A small handful of these brave Belugan-Combobulans went to work for an enigmatic man named D. Dalton Bigby, who formed a private group of soldier-spies called the "Typhoons." Members of the Typhoons worked outside of government channels, and delivered books and supplies to those brave Belugans that still worked for freedom inside that country. Sometimes, they also smuggled Belugan citizens back to the United Combobulates.
One of the hopes of Belugans, both inside and outside of Beluga, was that someday Blasto's health would fail. As it turned out, Blasto's main political strength — his charismatic, self-centered form of leadership — was also his Achilles' heel. He could not allow anyone other than himself to hold the reins of power. So, someday, Blasto would "go the way of all flesh," and the Belugans would have a window of opportunity to throw off the Communist yoke and be free again. But, there was a problem.
Little did most Belugans realize that, deep within the government of the free and prosperous United Combobulates, a small group of people was working quietly to keep the Belugans oppressed. (That was part of their larger plan to quietly turn the United Combobulates into another Communist country.) Amazingly, this group of people was made up of elected representatives within the UC Blogress, the main governing body of the United Combobulates. This sneaky little group was called the Progressive Blah-Cuss. Members of the group were quietly Communist, and they would sneak Communist ideas into pieces of legislation as it wound its way through the Blogress. They used terms that sounded nice, even "compassionate." But, thanks to their willing shills within the news media, the double meaning of those terms was not exposed for decades. Thus, the ranks of the Progressive Blah-Cuss swelled, until it comprised more than ten percent of the UC Blogress. Only then did the Combobulan people even begin to get wind of the great political cancer that was growing inside the head of the Combobulan government.
At one point, when Blasto's power was at its peak, he tried to invade and take over the nearby island of Migraina. But, at that time, the UC had a strong leader named Donald Ray Guns. President Guns sent planeloads of commandos, and they kicked Blasto's troops off the island of Migraina in only a few days. Thus, Blasto's overt ambitions were contained to Beluga. But, his covert activities — often with the help of the Progressive Blah-Cuss — would not be fully understood for years. As it turned out, one of the military officers involved in planning the invasion of Migraina would later write a book, and reveal that a member of the UC Blogress (who was also a member of the Progressive Blah-Cuss) had leaked secret documents to Blasto, in an effort to undermine not only the liberation of Migraina, but also the power of the United Combobulates in its own part of the world. And, were it not for the way that their willing shills in the news media had softened up the public by then, that member (Blogressman Ring Bellums) might have been charged with treason.
That was over twenty years ago. In the meantime, the Belugan expatriates had grown comfortable living in the United Combobulates, and activities to free the oppressed citizens of Beluga dwindled. The fire never went out completely, and some Belugan-Combobulans got caught flying below the Belugan radar, and smuggling people out of Beluga. One has to wonder whether any member of the Blogressional Committee on Intelligence might have smuggled classified radar reports to the Belugans, but the answer might never be known, because by this time the Progressive Blah-Cuss has grown so powerful that they are almost a government unto themselves. They accomplished that by making the people of the United Combobulates "comfortable" — so comfortable that they wouldn't even get up off their couches to go to a rally, a meeting, or even sit on the couch at a friend's house and watch a conservative documentary about the dangerous activities of ... the Progressive Blah-Cuss.
During that time, an especially smarmy person joined the Progressive Blah-Cuss. He quickly rose to a leadership position, because he had already proven himself as a sneakily effective Communist while serving in the legislature of his home province of New Pork. His name was Blogressman Maurice Squinchey. After proving his credentials by championing other Leftist causes, Squinchey took on the goal of normalizing relations between the United Combobulates and Beluga. Years before making this goal public, Squinchey had convinced certain business leaders that he would help their interests. They gave him money to get elected, and re-elected. Then, in classic Communist style, Squinchey turned around and sponsored legislation that would unravel the United Combobulates patent system — the envy of the world, and a key to Combobulan prosperity — and make it vulnerable to legal industrial espionage. Thus, his allies in the business world were to busy fighting for their own survival to worry about getting political revenge against him.
Shortly after this move — which might have been called "treason," back in the day when the Combobulans were known as a people with tough-nosed resolve — Blogressman Squinchey became more public with his goals of normalizing relations with Beluga. How convenient. Now that the Belugan intelligence agency — either on its own, or by the hand of hired Combobulan proxies — had access to emerging Combobulan industrial technology, normalized relations would provide a ready market for goods developed in Beluga. What a sinister twist: the Belugans would recover from the Combobulan economic sanctions by ... selling goods to the Combobulans! And, the goods would be made with technology that they had legally stolen from the Combobulans. And, all with the aid of high-ranking people inside the Combobulan government! The sheer evil genius of this twisted strategy made Blasto very happy, even as his health began to fail. Of course, thanks to his own secret police, and the Communist shills within the Combobulan news media, the people of Combobula would not find out about the hijacking of their industrial inventions, or about Blasto's failing health, until several years later.
By the time the Combobulan news media revealed to the public that Blasto's health was failing, the plan to keep the Communists in power in Beluga was almost fully realized. All that was needed was a steady source of new money, so that Blasto's successor would be able to provide "bread and circuses" for the peasants, thus making himself popular. And, for those that saw through his smoke screen, Blasto's successor would need to fund a much larger military and internal-security organization. That larger organization would also be needed to keep the Belugan expatriates from returning to Beluga from the southern United Combobulates, and to squash any homegrown resistance movement that might appear after Blasto's death. But, how would economically depressed Beluga fund such a program?
That was the ultimate in twisted genius! Blasto, with the help of people like Maurice Squinchey, had developed a plan that would rob the United Combobulates of their own natural strength: oil! You see, while using the new technologies that were legally stolen from the UC Patent Office, the state-owned oil company of Beluga had made the same discovery that certain Combobulan oil companies had made in recent years. There is a huge untapped supply of oil beneath the waters of the Gulf of Peshtigo, which separates Beluga from the United Combobulates. If the Communist government of Beluga could exploit this oil supply, and simultaneously deprive the Combobulans of that oil, then not only would Beluga remain in Communist hands, but the United Combobulates might eventually be weakened to the point that they would officially become Communist. (Of course, Blasto was fully aware that, thanks to the Progressive Blah-Cuss, and the willing shills in the news media, the United Combobulates was already at least half Communist — in practice, if not in theory.)
How could Blasto keep the oil out of Combobulan hands? After all, it was the Combobulans that had invented the modern art of oil drilling. Selling oil, and having huge supplies of it to fuel their navy, had made the young United Combobulates a world power a hundred years earlier. Despite having a large percentage of their young men under conscription, the Belugan army was no match for the Combobulans. (That had been proven on the island of Migraina.) The only way to hinder the Combobulans would be from the inside.
Once again, the Progressive Blah-Cuss was the key to Communist success. Decades earlier, they had begun to hinder Combobulan industrial progress by creating environmental regulations that no one could meet. The court system of the United Combobulates was clogged with cases that sapped money away from Combobulan companies. Thus, that money could not be used to fight the new patent laws that allowed Communist agents to sit, openly, at the library tables of the UC Patent Office and steal Combobulan technology. So, while the Belugans were developing the Combobulan technology, the Progressive Blah-Cuss was running a blocking formation in the courts. That prevented Combobulan companies from drilling for oil in the Gulf of Peshtigo. (The same tactic had worked, delaying progress by 15 or 20 years, when companies tried to put a pipeline in the Manhaskan wilderness.)
So, the United Combobulates was at a standoff — industrially and militarily — with the government of little Beluga. Like the fictional giant Gulliver, who was immobilized by thousands of tiny Lilliputian threads, the oil companies of the United Combobulates were tied up in court by environmental lawyers that took their orders from members of the Progressive Blah-Cuss. At the same time, the government of Beluga had negotiated some futures trades with agents of the new Mesopotamian Oil Purse (an oil commodity market, whose stated goal was to undermine the economy of the United Combobulates). If the Belugans could soon field a navy that could guard the oil reserves in the Gulf of Peshtigo, then they could deny access to the Combobulans. Then, they could sell the oil — that the Combobulans had discovered — to the Mesopotamian Oil Purse. The profit would fund their navy, fueled by oil from the Gulf of Peshtigo, to protect "their" new oil fields in those very same waters.
Fortunately, not all the members of the UC government had swallowed the drugged Cool-Ade of the sneaky no-goodniks in the Progressive Blah-Cuss. In fact, some members of the Blogress had managed to fund a new aircraft carrier — named after the late President Donald Ray Guns, no less — despite the rantings of Progressive Blah-Cuss members. So, if the United Combobulates still had the resolve, they could guard the oil fields before the Belugans got there, develop the new reserves, boost their economy, lower fuel prices, and ... essentially ... make the world free again.
But, does the United Combobulates have the national will to defend the lifeblood of its own economy? Things don't look so good on that front. The current leader, President Horace W. Plant, doesn't even seem interested in defending the UC border with neighboring Peshtigo. There is talk that the next presidential election could produce a strong leader, one that would secure all of the UC's national borders. But, those elections are two years away. And, his own political party is undercutting the only candidate that is really serious about it, Blogressman Tom Tomato. Why? Because he belongs to the same Demublican Party that President Plant belongs to, and the party leadership is afraid to take a stand on principle for fear of making President Plant look bad. (Never mind that President Plant is making himself look bad by not securing his own borders.) And the leaders of the Demublicans have spent decades trying to convince the Combobulan people that there are only two political parties — themselves and the Reproblicrats — and that it would be a "sin" to vote for anyone in that other party. Therefore, poor Blogressman Tomato is stuck in a bad spot. He strongly opposes the Reproblicrats, but can't get any help from the Demublicans. And, the Combobulan people are stuck without any other strong choices.
what to do next...
Well, dear readers, I've hit upon something of a writer's block. That's what I get for delving into the world of fiction. I can't seem to make up my mind where this story should go next.
Will the dwindling number of conservatives left in the Blogress have the testicular fortitude to deploy the Donald Ray Guns carrier battle group to the Gulf of Peshtigo to protect the Combobulan oil discovery? Will the apathetic voters of the Combobulan population get up off their couches? Will the expatriates of Beluga return and take back their country after the death of Blasto? Will the population of the United Combobulates ever figure out that there is not much difference between the Demublican Party and the Reproblicrat Party? (And, if so, will they do anything about it?) Will the voters rise up on Election Day and throw out the members of the Progressive Blah-Cuss? Or, will they continue to suck on drug-laced, government-issued lollipops, which were the brainchild of the Progressive Blah-Cuss and the Reproblicrat Party? And, if so, will those voters continue to re-elect the very people that put them into a lollipop-induced stupor? (Probably. Why? Because, thanks to the softening effects of those lollipops, and the twisting of definitions by the shills in the news media, people just don't call what the Progressive Blah-Cuss does "treason" anymore. If they still called it "treason," then there would be 63 Blogressmen swinging from ropes in the near future.) And, if the voters do fall for the Reproblicrat "backlash" strategy, will the next President of the United Combobulates just open up the borders all the way? Or, will enough people contribute to the campaign of Blogressman Tom Tomato that he can afford to tell the Demublicans to go pound sand? Will he run for president on one of the smaller-party ballot lines? If so, which one? It can't be the oft-mentioned Equivocarian Party, because they support open borders (although, they don't like to admit it). If he's smart, instead of inventing a one-time party (that won't work), he should run with the Convocation Party — the party named after the great meeting that was the foundation of the Combobulan government. And, if he does that, whom would he select as his running mate? (Certainly not someone else from the Demublican Party, because the strong-minded Convocationalists would oppose that in a hurry.) And, given that the elections are still two years away, will there even be a United Combobulates by that time? Or, will the lax border policies (supported by the Demublicans), coupled with the activities of the Progressive Blah-Cuss (supported by the Reproblicrats), finally undermine the United Combobulates to the point that they cease to exist as we've known them?
Wow! No wonder fiction writers make so much money! There are so many possible choices. I don't have time for all this speculation. Perhaps I'd better just stick to non-fiction — such as my investigative columns, and my political opinions.
stranger than fiction...
Besides, I mainly tried my hand at fiction to blow off a little steam. I had been reading some articles that got my blood pressure up, so I needed a little diversion. That's a healthy thing to do once in awhile.
Now that my blood pressure is down to semi-normal, I'll get back to reading about how our American oil companies have been hindered from developing vast new oil reserves, which could benefit our nation for decades to come. Unfortunately, those companies have been hobbled by environmental regulations, which were pushed by the Progressive Caucus. Nonetheless, they did successfully prove — via the new "Jack 2" test well — that the oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico could potentially equal almost half of the existing oil reserves of the United States. And, if those reserves are fully developed, we could again see gasoline prices like the ones I saw while cruising around in my first car when I was a teenager.
Naw.... That's not likely. Why? Well ... truth is stranger than fiction, especially in politics. Hoping for that to happen would be like me expecting every conservative in America to send me just one dollar, so that I could get elected to Congress — despite the fact that the Tennessee Republican Party has not lifted a finger to help my campaign. (Some unidentified party leader recently told the Associated Press, "We don't know much about Mr. Kovach," despite the fact that the party approved my nominating petitions months ago. My reply? "I have an extensive Web site, and they know my phone number." As was written in the Epistle of James, "You have not, because you ask not.") If I do get elected, then I won't owe the Republican Party a thing when I get to Washington. So, I ought to thank them for leaving me as shark bait for the wealthy incumbent Jim Cooper. If I didn't know for a fact that all of this is true, I'd think that it was political fiction, too.
© Tom Kovach
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