The Vast Wright Wing Conspiracy






The Vast Wright Wing Conspiracy



by

Justice Putnam


Malcolm X had just sent another reply to another Instant Message from Thomas Jefferson. Adams, even though a neighbor of Jefferson's from across town, had replied more and more infrequently these last generations to even regular snail mail; so Malcolm took up the slack. Though Adams was enthralled with the modern Navy, he hated texting and the internet tubes. Nixon, Reagan, Hoover and Jackson never replied to Jefferson's missives; and he had sent them many. It was probably because mail delivery is rather spotty in Hades. Plus, there is no broadband there and interference from the heat disrupts the wireless signal. Kennedy and both Roosevelts carried on an infrequent correspondence; and Lincoln as well, but they were engaged with other pursuits in heaven, so Jefferson and Malcolm X began to Instant Message each other daily. After all, they lived only light years away from each other in Limbo; wireless is free, the signal strong and never disrupted.

It seemed Jefferson was worried about Obama's chances for the Presidency with this Reverend Wright oratory causing such concern.

T-Jeff: "I'm afraid my southern brethren will take the good reverend's rhetoric all too personal."

Mal 10: "As well they should; I'm still picking shards of Plymouth Rock out of my skull."

T-Jeff: "But that's the point, my good friend. Plymouth Rock may have landed on you; but they landed on Plymouth Rock and need to feel grateful. Reverend Wright is not respecting their gratefulness."

Mal 10: "It's hard to respect folks who will put you in chains, crush your dreams and keep you separate, inferior and feared; and then harp that you are not grateful enough for your good fortune."

T-Jeff: "I was just speaking with Sally about that this morning when she was washing my clothes. I could tell she was getting a little snippy when I corrected her grammar and spelling on a letter she was writing to Martin Luther King. After all I've done for her, she seemed a bit, well... ungrateful. Then it struck me; if not for the economic necessities in the forging of this Nation, she might have become the Queen of The Congo that was her birthright."

Mal 10: "That's what I like about you man, even though you're a manipulative, white landowner who is formed by the Enlightenment; your profession of guilt keeps me in this amorphous corporeal state so I can continue to point out the inequities still!"

T-Jeff: "Well, my dear friend, I'm not taking the bait. But I'm still concerned about this Wright fracas. It's important for the survival of The Great Experiment that Obama convince The People to vote him to the Presidency. Bringing up that the Black Community was infected with HIV and flooded with drugs by the government is a little over the top, no?"

Mal 10: "On this we agree, I find it impossible that a society and government that would infect the Tuskagee Airmen with syphilis; who would test insecticides on black communities; who would impose poll taxes, literacy tests and voter ID laws; who would buy drugs from the Contras to sell guns to the Iranians; who would incarcerate black men at rates that are astronomical is capable of such heinous acts. Reverend Wright is surely stretching it a bit."

T-Jeff: "So what can be done about this Wright Wing of the Black Community?"

Mal 10: "It's surely a conspiracy, another tactic to disenfranchise the Black Man. I'm not disagreeing with Wright's premise, mind you. I was a target in my day; hell they went after Martin the way they're going after Jeremiah. They'll use any means necessary to achieve their ends; even if it means using our words against us, even if our words are the truth."

T-Jeff: "Yes, you are correct. It is a vast conspiracy. I feel so helpless, though. Not quite in hell, but definitely not in heaven."

Mal 10: "I know what you mean, man. I know what you mean."

© 2008 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen


cross posted at Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/30/32853/1788/276/506192

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The Princess and the Frog

by

Justice Putnam

______________________________________

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

-- Socrates

_____________________________________

She said she chose me because I was the best behaved in the whole pond. I guess those etiquette lessons my frog aunts taught me when I was a tadpole really helped. All those Saturday night Brown Derby dinners dressed in my little tadpole-sized frog tuxedo, my frog aunts in their pearls and gloves, all seated in our special Brown Derby frog booth, somehow all that prepared me for the chance of a frog lifetime; to be kissed by the most beautiful Princess in the world.

I must tell you, everything we frogs heard was true. The sun back-lit her dark red curls, her full ruby lips touched mine. I remember she tasted of lavender and orange. The transformation was magical; I was no longer the ugly frog. I became her handsome Prince standing tall and strong and happy!

Oh, sure. She had to change my wardrobe and make it more diverse, as a Prince’s wardrobe must be. I was mostly into turtlenecks because I thought it would hide my frog throat more. But she liked the open collar look, she said, because she liked how manly a strong neck was. I always thought my best feature were my legs! Such is the mystery of the most beautiful Princess in the world.

She insisted I grow my hair longer. I took to sporting a goatee and wearing little round sunglasses. I grew accustomed to jet lag on royal visits to her ancestral homes in Europe.

I became her Prince, but she seemed unhappy.

We had just returned from a weekend at the home of my best bullfrog friend. His property included some of the best mud baths in all of Sonoma County.

“Your frog friends are ill mannered and uncouth,” she sobbed, “they smack their lips when they eat and use terrible grammar. You must choose them or me and if you choose them, you will not be my Prince!”

I didn’t know that the spell could be reversed. I thought, once kissed and transformed, a Prince forever you would be.

“Are you serious?” my Bullfrog friend spit at me later when I told him of the ultimatum. “You think you’re a Prince? She’s too good for you, man. She’s way out of your league. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You might be a Prince, but in your eyes, not hers! What made you think you could keep a woman like that happy? I hate to hurt your feelings, but at least you have feelings to hurt!”

All of my frog friends practice “tough truth,” but knowledge of that has never lessened the sting of their observations.

A note sat on the table when I came through the door that hot afternoon. She had gone and would not be back. I went to the bathroom and looked at the mirror there.

I knew which fork to use for the salad and how to swirl a vintage red to check its legs. But there was no mistaking it.

I had always been a frog.

But now I was one with a goatee and little round sunglasses.

© 2007 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen

Kurds And Weigh

by

Justice Putnam

________________________

(Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds & whey.

-- child’s Nursery Rhyme)

____________________________________


The Barsanis are a clan in the Middle East. Every nation in the region has persecuted them. I don’t know enough about all the particulars, but in a culture of Gypsies, the Barsanis are the gypsies of the Gypsies in the Middle East.

I don’t really care to know more than that. It would just interfere with my job. It is a challenge to administrate to such a stubborn population, for sure. But I was put in touch with another graduate of RU Right who now works in the Department of Education, but used to visit Africa as part of her church’s wildlife fund, anyway! We had a fellowship by e-mail and I found out she’s a Goodling too, just like me! Anyway! She pointed out that Wildebeest roamed the Savannah since biblical times and so did the Kurds around the Holy Lands!

Put that way, I understood completely. But I still had to figure out how much drayage of human pounds moved over the square miles I had to factor for.

I must confess, I feel a little like Noah's personal assistant at times. After all, the Company is a little like the Ark. There is going to be a flood, and the Company is building the infra-structure for the survival of the Exalted Few. It is rapturous to know that by working for the Company and graduating from Regent University, or as we alumni affectionately call the school, RU Right, and even more importantly, being a Penitent Goodling, that I am part of the Exalted Few, that I have a seat on the Ark.

Praise be to the Lord!

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. I had to figure out how much human tonnage roamed over the square miles that I was to factor.

I saw a nature show once when I was a little girl that showed the animals of the bible and I remembered how Wildebeest would stop for water along their grazing routes. That was important to me, because I once worked for a major hamburger chain and I would provision supplies for outlets that had major sales along well-traveled commuter routes!

Now this is getting easy! Because all I have to factor for is a soft drink syrup for the region. We already have the local bottlers in place.

Who knew that the right prayer circle would get me a job with more pay and less work?

Praise be to the lord!

Anyway! For some reason, the Company has decided to factor supplies by “human tonnage” than by Point of Sale Units. I’m sure it has something to do with accounting for the upcoming Government Contract signing. I have another friend from RU Right, and another Penitent Goodling, too! Who works for Homeland Security and she says her department always uses the heavier approach.

When dealing with Government Contracts, she said, the heavier the sound of the documents hitting the table when dropped from one foot above the surface, the more important the document and likely that passage would occur. No one can read that much business jargon, so very few do.

My report will generate more paper than just a Point of Sale analysis, so this is a really important Government Contract, I can see! It is so wonderful to do God’s Work by adding my small part. Of course, that is what makes me a Goodling.

Praise be to the Lord!


© 2007 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen

For The General Good

by

Justice Putnam

________________________________

(Under every stone lurks a politician.

-- Aristophanes)

_____________________________________

I thought the State had no need for my services any longer. But a Certain Member of the Assembly visited a few days ago with a message from the Forum Of One Leader.

“The FOOL requires your expertise,” the Certain Member of the Assembly pleaded, using the jargon peculiar to all bureaucrats through all of history, “without your special talent, the People will remain unconvinced and the Assembly will not act. Only you can report the Good News of all that has been done for the General Good!”

An Appropriations Bill was stalled because the People were only hearing negative reporting from the Just Deserts region. It was on all the news. The Forum Of One Leader had decided to silence his critics once and for all, so he recalled my commission and brought me Back On Board.

A good decision, I might add, because that not only makes me one of the BOB’s, I am also a Brownie. You see, I was once the head of the Federal Emergency Manipulation Agency, otherwise known as FEMA. Our task was to communicate how to make lemonade. Life and Government throw many things our way. So it is important that the People can find the pony; that they know at least it’s a dry heat; and if bridges are to be mended, what better time than during a flood?

"It’s not necessary to fly to the Just Deserts region," I said to the Certain Member of the Assembly, "I only need to address all 135,000 of the Brownies."

"How does the Superdome sound?" the Certain Member of the Assembly asked.

"Super!" I responded.

The next day I’m at the 50-yard line of the Superdome surrounded by a sea of brown; not a brown like the muddy Mississippi. No, this was a crisp, ironed and buttoned-down sea of brown. Everyone wore brown shoes, everyone wore brown slacks, (brown skirts for the girls and women, of course!) and most important, everyone wore a brown shirt.

Anyone could wear brown shoes, or brown slacks; but only a Brownie is allowed to wear a brown shirt. A Brownie takes a kind of blood oath. In the beginning, the FOOL’s loyalists were called brown-noses for what critics said was the obvious ass-kissing that allowed the FOOL to govern as he did. But the Federal Emergency Manipulation Agency went into action and issued brown shirts to the loyalists in response. A Press Briefing was organized and the first ritual ass kissing was broadcast. About 70 loyalists, on bended knee, kissed the ass of the FOOL and then donned their brown shirt.

Now a Brownie gets his or her brown shirt when they kiss the ass of a life-sized statue of the FOOL. It’s a lot easier on the Forum Of One Leader, as you can imagine!

"When I was called by the Forum Of One Leader to bring back the Good News of all that has been done for the General Good," I began my speech, "I thought of the hurricane that almost brought down this reverent stadium. Harsh winds tore at her roof. The floodwaters rose and threatened to inundate her. The Little People who used to live in the Old City flocked to her arms for succor in their time of need; and succor them she did!"

135,000 right hands rose in unison as if at a great evangelical church service and shouted in one giant voice,

"Amen!"

"And I thought of our brave troops" I continued, "who have sacrificed so much and for so long because of our freedoms! Those brave men and women who are your brothers and sisters, your husbands and wives, your aunts and uncles, your mothers and fathers; and yes! Your grandparents, too!"

The Brownies couldn’t restrain themselves. Pandemonium broke out as they bounced straight up and down like on pogo sticks, their right arms thrust upwards with shouts of "Amen!" echoing throughout the Stadium. I let them have their riot of ecstasy. After several moments I put my finger to my lips to hush them.

"So when our critics accuse us of self-serving political treachery," I said, barely above a whisper, "when our critics accuse us of self-centered political gain," I raised my voice, "when our critics accuse us of inaction, ineptitude and incompetence," I was now full throated, "I want each and every one of you to find those critics," I was yelling, "you find them in their libraries, you find them in their secular schools, you find them in their chat rooms and you ram your finger in their bony chests and tell them, all that we do is for the General Good!"

"Amen! Amen!" echoed throughout the giant structure.

"And it’s all true," I was patting my brow like a great evangelist, "it’s all true! Because all that we do, all that we are, is for the General Good! Because at midnight tonight, the Forum Of One Leader will don his ceremonial fighter jet jacket and forever be known by his new title, THE GENERAL GOOD!" I shouted.

135,000 Brownies took to the streets on that clear as crystal night shouting, "For The General Good! For The General Good!"

I know a few windows were broken and a few fires were set. I know I got them hot under the collar. But at least it’s a dry heat!

© 2007 by Justice Putnam

and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen