John and Friend
John is an Emeritus Professor in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Studies from California State University, Northridge, and a retired Lecturer from Cal Poly. For thirty-four years he has taught classes in Commercial Recreation, Tourism Planning, Management and Leadership, and Wilderness Survival. He earned his Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in Organizational Development and Curriculum Design in Higher Education. John also served as Lead Evaluator for the SLO Sherriff's Search & Rescue division. He is a current member of the Atascadero Writer's Club and can be contacted by calling 805-440-9529 or by email.
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Stop—No Right Turn
by John Bullaro
Thank goodness the recent agonizing, torturous, and hateful political season is over. It was a long season, filled with lies, name calling, distortions, and angst that filled the days and nights with lots of muckraking but few workable ideas. I was proud of our California voters who rejected two wealthy CEOs from being able to purchase their respective political offices. I found that most voters in the coastal areas of Central California can disagree and yet remain friends with their adversary.
I wondered why most candidates resorted to name calling, lies, and distortions to win votes. Could it be they believed a significant number of voters were waiting for them to ride in on their white horses and save them from the policies of the evil opposition?
The following is a work of fiction. It starts with a dream I had about the great state of Kansas. It represents the writer's imagined changes to a safe and sane place like Kansas that could result from extremist messages. Who are these extremists? The reader will determine that. In the dream, voters are thoroughly indoctrinated with lies, distortions, and threats by the extremist political "Kooks." In the dream the voter's response was to vote into office extremist Kook politicians to protect them. Can't happen? Think Germany in the 1930's.
It is not my intention to malign Kansas, any group, or any political party—with the exception, perhaps, of the extremists on the far right and left.
To the Kooks of America: Bon Appétit.
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I had a dream. In the dream, Kansas replaced California as the bellweather state. It set the national agenda for social change. In the dream, extremist media Kooks—Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Grizzly-Adams Palin— flooded the Kansas airwaves with messages to create fear and paranoia in the minds of voters. These messages gained traction rather quickly. For example, the Kook's claimed that "Progressives are poisoning the minds of school children with socialist messages in text books, messages that undermine our democratic system." Next these Kooks flooded the airwaves with a message that same sex marriages are destroying the institution of marriage. How and why this is so was never made clear. They quickly turned to economics, proclaiming "Liberals will raise taxes, produce a nanny state, and welcome illegal immigrants who will take your jobs and suck up all social program resources."
The result— adult voters/workers panicked. They got confused, angry, and frightened that their way of life was about to disappear. They looked to the media Kooks and pleaded for help.
The Kooks promised that their candidates would:
- Restore the sanctity of marriage. How? They would outlaw same sex marriage. God created humans in six days and sanctioned marriage between a man and a woman only.
- God will once again be in schools. How? Prayer will be required each morning to start the school day. They would burn the socialist textbooks that teach evolution.
- Save jobs. How? Close the borders using the National Guard.
- Create more income to spend. Everyone will have lower taxes. The privatized social service will insure that no illegal immigrants will benefit from tax supported services.
In the end, voters got what they were told they wanted.
Voters elected avowed Kook extremists who graduated from, and were approved by, the Ann Coulter School of Government (ACSG), an institution that had been founded in 2008 by Ann, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly. Only ACSG graduates could appear on the ballot. The school taught aspiring candidates that the Machiavellian doctrine of governance by fear, distortions and lies—particularly threats to ones safety—were the only ways to govern. It wasn't important to be truthful ("Who can judge what truth is?" they asked.) or to be liked, it was only important to be feared. A new political group appeared—The Tailgaters—who wanted small government and no taxes. (The Tailgaters were the backup Kooks.)
Once in office, the Kooks leaders immediately called for a constitutional convention to re-write the state's constitution. "Article 1, Eligibility Clause: only graduates of the ACSG can appear of the ballot." All entitlement programs were re-written as welfare loans to be repaid by recipients when they went back to work. Such things as unemployment insurance, Medicaid to the poor, aid to families with dependent children, welfare for poor families, homeless shelters, and medical care for the indigent, had to go. Each social service was priced out and recipients, if they wished to stay on the program, had to pay a premium each month.
A new state motto was created— "We believe in Guns, Guts, and Us." It was placed on top of the state capitol dome and on license plates.
Of course, not everyone was happy with the new constitution. College students returning home from schools in California and New York fermented discontent among the small, isolated liberal populace. They railed against the revised divorce laws which proclaimed, "Death is the Only Way Out of Marriage." Once the law took effect, the Kansas Herald headline read: "Marriage Saved."
Any one wishing to relocate to Kansas from California or New York was initially classified as an undesirable. To change states, they had to complete a two month re-education course taught by Reverend Pins, Pastor of the New Light Voodoo Church. Undesirables were not eligible for state prison guard jobs, the highest paid state jobs except for the electorate.
The U.S. Supreme Court had taken a hands-off approach to Kansas laws, saying that the "issues before the court are clearly state's rights issues, not to be tampered with." Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy affirmed this position. Other states were following Kansas' lead. Kansas was firmly established as the new social bellweather state, leading the nation through the twenty-first century.
My alarmwent off and I awakened from this bizarre nightmare. I came to my senses and realized this scenario could never come to pass in America. We are too smart, well educated, and independent as a people to believe the media Kooks.
We are, aren't we?
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