POLITICAL STRATEGY MEETING – Part II

© Wm. D. Coffey, Nov. 2014; with special thanks to Galileo Galilei

…continued…

PART II

Chuckie          All right Karlos, ball’s in your court. How’s this voting thing going to serve me?

Karlos             Innocensio, you have a kid – a child – on the way. Are you a good Catholic?

Innocensio        Well, I was, sir, but…

Karlos             How many other children do you have?

Innocensio             Six others sir. But only three are boys.

Karlos             Does your wife ever use birth control? I mean like contraceptives?

Innocensio            Oh no sir, the priest, he would…

 Karlos             Would your wife have an abortion to avoid having a child?

Innocensio             Indeed not! sir, the priest he’d shit a brick sir, and…

Karlos             Would you vote for a politician who opposed abortion?

Innoccensio           I don’t know, sir.  Before I vote I would like to ask him if he would pass a law to raise the minimum wage, sir.

Chuckie          Karlos, I think I see where you’re going. Innocensio, if I told you that CIC – which pays your salary – CIC likes a political candidate who is against abortion, and who might be persuaded to raise the minimum wage, would you vote for that candidate?

Innocensio           Why probably yes sir. Ain’t no hope now, is there sir? I’ll vote for a wino dog catcher if he promises to raise the minimum wage.  Sir.

Karlos             And if he promises to abolish the law that allows abortion, will you ask your wife to vote for him too?

Innocensio              Yes, sir. She’ll vote as I tell her, sir, that she will.  Sir.

Karlos             Now Innocensio, as it happens, there is such a candidate. His name is Rodriguez. You can certainly remember that name. The election is only a few weeks away. Rodriguez is a member of the Corporation Party. He’s a friend of mine. He’s a friend of CIC. And he intends to abolish the law that allows abortions. If I tell Rodriguez how you feel about the minimum wage, will you and your wife vote for him?

Innocensio            Why yes sir, I’d be a fool not to vote for my own best interests, wouldn’t I sir.

Chuckie          Good man, Innocensio! I know just how you feel. Rodriguez has promised to pass some laws that will please me too! He’d better, after all the support I gave him.

Karlos             Cool it.  Innocensio, how many relatives do you have who are old enough to vote in the next election?

Innocensio           Uh… in this country?… about 134 sir.  I think.

Chuckie          Goodgod man! Do any of these relatives work for CIC?

Innocensio            Twelve of them did, sir, till the layoff. It’s just me now.

Karlos             Tell me, Innocensio, do the men in your family like to keep guns?

Innocensio          Yes sir. I have my grandfather’s old Springfield. Used it in the Spanish Civil War, he did. My brother has a nice 410 shotgun — good for squirrels you know. And then my cousin Luigi… well, I’d better not say about Luigi…

Karlos             Real men keep guns. Innocensio, did you know that the candidate of the other party, the one who’s running against Rodriguez – he says if he gets elected he’s going to pass a law to take away people’s guns – did you know that?

Innocensio           No sir, I did not sir.  Just take them away?

Karlos             Well, pass a law regulating when and where you can shoot a gun – can’t even drive by a school with a gun showing – you know, same thing as taking them away.

Innocensio             I wouldn’t want them to take away my grandfather’s Springfield, sir.

Chuckie          Better vote for the Corporation Party, then. It’s the only party left that still stands up to defend your God-given rights.

Innocensio            Yes sir, I will sir. I’ll tell my wife too, and my brother. Maybe even Luigi.

Chuckie          Innocensio are there any people in your family – adults, I mean, voting adults – who dislike people burning the American flag? Or not taking a loyalty oath?

Innocensio               Sir, my family is all over the map — not to mention all my wife’s relatives.  We have someone who is for or against anything you might care to name.  Sir.

Karlos             How about religion? You said you’re religious.

Innocensio            Oh not me, sir, my wife — she still believes, but I’m a free thinker!

Karlos             How would your wife take it then if our good guy – Rodriguez – passes a law making it legal to pray in school every morning? To start all public meetings with a prayer to Almighty God? Put up the Ten Commandments in every courthouse yard?

Innocensio            Uh…  She’d probably be for those things sir.  But me, I’d just as soon…

Chuckie          Tell your wife about Rodriguez. Don’t forget, he’s the man who can probably be persuaded to consider an increase in the minimum wage.

Karlos             That’s true. I can personally promise you, Rodriguez will consider increasing the minimum wage.  IF he’s elected.  Won’t happen if he’s not elected.

Innocensio                That’s good, sir, I’ll tell my wife about the prayer and Commandments sir.

Chuckie          Tell all your relatives. How do they feel about gay rights? I mean lesbians, and boys who like boys, all getting married, and agitating for civil rights, and all that?

Innocensio             Well, my wife’s  cousin Emilio, he is a little bit gay, but he is a very nice guy and all the children love him and…   I have to admit, though, he and Squarcio will not go to the same family gathering if either one knows the other will be there. So sad…

Chuckie          Tell them both to vote for your interests. Tell your whole family to vote for Rodriguez – the candidate who’s willing to consider a minimum wage increase.

Innocensio           Oh I will Mister Chuckie sir.  I’d really better hurry…  My wife, you see…

Karlos             Oh yeah, that. Well good luck, Innocensio.

Chuckie          Hope everything comes out all right, ho ho. Don’t forget to vote!

Karlos             And there he goes to vote for his best interests!  See how it’s done?

Chuckie          I’m catching on. I’ll bet you stuffed in several dozen votes right there.

Karlos             Rodriguez promised me Hell will freeze over before he votes to increase the damn minimum wage. He’d like to reduce the damn thing. Eliminate it maybe.

Chuckie          So would I!  I multiplied it out. If you let a minimum wage employee work forty hours a week – which I don’t – do you know how much that would cost in wages paid out over a whole year?

Karlos             Naw, what?

Chuckie          More than fifteen thousand dollars! And that’s not counting the Social Security and all that fringe benefit crap!

Karlos             For just one employee?!!  Mygod.  You really need to talk to Rodriguez.

Chuckie          Maybe.  How in hell’d he get a name like that? Reminds me of Cas-tro.

Karlos             Never mind that, he knows how to con-serve things.

Chuckie          All right. I’ll see that some coins quietly find their way to his campaign.

Karlos             Listen, if you want to make sure Rodriguez beats out that pinko populist running against him, you’d better make sure those coins add up to a million.

Chuckie          Really? That much huh?

Karlos             Think of it as investment. Look at the down side. How much would a two-dollar minimum wage increase cost you across every corporation you own?

Chuckie          Just here? In the United States alone?  Jee-zuss.    …Say Karlos, I didn’t know you cared one way or the other about all those issues. What was it – guns? Abortion? Gay rights for chrissake?

Karlos             I don’t give a damn one way or the other on any of them.

Chuckie          You don’t?!…  But you just spent ten minutes talking a guy into getting his whole tribe to vote for your man, based on those very issues!

Karlos             Consider the odds. You can be absolutely certain that various voting members of his overpopulated family care passionately about some of those issues. And they will vote for Rodriguez because those are the hot-button issues he’s pressing on.

Chuckie          But why is he fooling around talking to voters about all these silly little side issues when what we really want is for our corporations to…  [beat]  oh…   I see…

Karlos             Took you long enough. At the heart of things, Rodriguez is a corporation man who likes profits and hates regulations. He says whatever is needed to get the votes.

Chuckie          Glad to hear he fits in so well on our side. But now you’ve got me curious, Karlos. What do you yourself care about?

Karlos             Getting my Corporation Party candidates elected. That’s all I care about.

Chuckie          Hoho, I DO SEE. You divert them. You make voters focus on secondary issues. Side issues.  Distractions.  And when they go vote for these hot buttons – these distractions they get so stirred up about – you’re really getting them to vote for…

Karlos             …my candidates. And my candidates serve my interest, and my only real interest is corporate control of the US economy. So the more votes we control, the better.

Chuckie          How can you be sure it’ll work?

Karlos             Works every time, if you put enough distractions out there. In only two decades we have pulled over half of all blue-collar white voters into our camp. Especially the ones who are mad over being poorer than their parents. That’s a huge shift. They get really hot over little side issue shit like religion. Anything religious really stirs’em up, anything at all – it’s just amazing.  Plus, they’re afraid immigrants will take over their jobs – like Innocensio there, foreigners willing to work for peanuts. Throw in a little appeal to homophobia – or anything else that divides them – and their vote is yours.

Chuckie          That’s all there is to it? Really?

Karlos             Easier, actually. We just appeal to whatever makes’em mad and they vote for whoever we want them to. They’re really not too bright when it comes to noticing that the only real issue is money. What do these dummies know about economics? They’ll shoot their own foot every time, trust me. It works anywhere. Look at Egypt. Voters there, in their first free election in forty years, voted in a guy who openly opposed any more free elections. The Egyptian dummies were distracted.  It proves my point.

Chuckie          Works anywhere huh? Even California?

Karlos             Pretty much. Count up the state elections my party has won. Look how many state legislatures the Corporation Party controls, right now, today. We’ve got the winning combination. In slow motion we’re taking over, and we’re bygod running things our way. The biggest for-profit enterprise in the history of the world:  America Inc.

Chuckie          Karlos…  you don’t head up any corporations like I do. You’re just a political wonk. It can’t be money, so what is your reward when the votes are all counted?

Karlos             Power.

Chuckie          Power?

Karlos             You can’t have your way unless you have power. To have it, you’ve got to get enough of your people elected to take control of Congress. Control both houses of Congress and the Presidency – ha – then the sky’s the limit. There is no limit.

Chuckie          That’s all you want? Power?

Karlos             It’s enough. I’m not like those insatiable greedy bastards they talk about.

Chuckie          It’s not enough for me. I want more money. I want it faster.

Karlos             Money is power, you know. And you’ve got a whole lot of money.

Chuckie          Well it hasn’t kept my quarterly increases from slowing down. It seems like there’s more big dogs in the game these days, nipping at my heels.

Karlos             No doubt there are, and no doubt they’re nipping at your heels. That’s capitalism. That’s the game. But give it time. Put a little one-mil investment on every Corporation Party candidate I tell you to – maybe occasionally two mil on a real important race – and I guarantee the things you want will come to you.

Chuckie          You guarantee it?

Karlos             I will guarantee you this:   The regulations will not get enforced. The laws that set up regulations will get abolished or ignored. Your corporations will be able to romp in the free market. Hell, you can monopolize the free market! Your quarterly increases will soar like never before.

Chuckie          Yeah?

Karlos             Yeah.

Chuckie          Here’s to all the money.

Karlos             Here’s to total power.

Chuckie          Karlos, you’re a real pal.

Karlos             Say that after you get my consulting bill.

*          ©          *

 POLITICAL STRATEGY MEETING

© Wm. D. Coffey, Nov. 2014; with special thanks to Galileo Galilei

(Royalty free with three easy conditions: 1) give the author credit, 2) tell him you are producing his play (contact by COMMENT on the blog), 3) and refer your audience to his blog at fixypopulist.com )

 

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