The Wake

I recently witnessed things that no American should ever see.

President Bush was eating Keith Olberman’s face off. Then he and Bill O’Reilly sodomized Olberman’s lifeless corpse as O’Reilly yelled, “Oh yeah bitch! I’m gonna cut your mike so hard!” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had gag balls in their mouths while they were being whipped by Vice President Cheney in front of Congress. I even saw Stephen Colbert giving his inauguration speech in front of a group of college stoners, while the rest of Washington D.C. was in flames and lawlessness and apathy reigned supreme. ?
Suddenly, I woke up in front of my TV with it blaring partisan punditry at around 3 a.m. I realized I had been tripping on acid and watching C-Span, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC for the last five days.

After I shook off the bad trip, I decided that I could not let my visions of political absurdity become reality. So I infiltrated the Democratic and Republican student groups to see how hard they rode party lines, and what the future holds for American politics. I hoped that the ensuing trip would be better than the first.

DFL at the U of M

My first stop was the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) group. My expectations were that at this meeting we’d be marrying at least 13 gay couples and possibly having a drum circle and smoking joints while devouring stem cells and fetuses. Of course, we would cut-and-run at the end before we got anything constructive done.

I was also expecting a reasonable turnout for the meeting since we are on a more liberal college campus. I assumed that maybe we would bash Bush together or talk about why Republicans suck.

I arrived about 10 minutes early and no one was there. I sat nervously, hoping that I didn’t forget the correct meeting time. 5:00 p.m. rolled around and finally some people showed up and we entered the room in Coffman Hall. There was a whopping 11 people in attendance for the meeting, which really surprised me. Even worse, it was a sausage fest with only three females, one being the president.

The pre-meeting small discussions were also surprising. Two of the members were discussing how much certain Ivy League schools cost to attend, Yale and Stanford to be exact. One of the members said he was accepted to Stanford. I began to think I was at the wrong meeting. I thought only government-teat sucking poor people were Democrats?

The president forgot the agenda for the meeting. Like most liberal peace-loving hippy Democrats, she was probably high. She eventually crashed and remembered what we were doing here. Now I knew I was at the right meeting.

Prior to discussing business, we were forced to take 50 flyers promoting Bill Clinton’s appearance at the State Theater that was happening that week. After I only took five, I was bullied to take more.

The president then announced the meeting would be short tonight so we could all go out and staple those Clinton flyers that I was forced at gunpoint to take. The topics were very deep like walking in the homecoming parade (most likely drunk), peddling propaganda at a table, a debate with the Republicans and something they call “Rock the Cauc.”

“Rock the Cauc” is an event where politicians speak and live music is played. Leave it to the Democrats to think social change can come through music. One member said he could get a reggae-like band to play for free. Oh man, I smell weed and drum circles!!

Sadly after this, the meeting ended. Like the do-nothing Democratic Congress, we really did nothing. The meeting lasted 10 minutes and the members would rather fundraise and spread propaganda than do anything constructive.

College Republicans at the University of Minnesota

As a so-called American journalist, I am supposed to be objective and unbiased. However, I am not a reporting robot. I am a human being with feelings too you know (insert silent sobbing)! Therefore, going to the College Republicans meeting was a daunting task, because I disagree with most conservative views.

I had high hopes going into this meeting because I was told that some of the group goes to Sally’s after the meeting. Unfortunately, I had a midterm the next day, so I didn’t get a chance see the College Republicans out of their element.

It was a bit nippy the day of the meeting, so I figured that we’d be keeping warm by the heat of burning copies of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that were flaming more than Sen. Larry Craig in a bathroom stall (allegedly). I was also prepared to tell anyone who disagreed with me that they were a terrorist.

Actually, I guessed there would be talk of freedom and patriotism and something about supporting the war. I assumed there would be Democrat bashing, a little praise for the current administration and more focus on the 2008 elections.

Right away I felt out of place. There are two good reasons why I am not a Republican. 1) I am poor and 2) I am a minority. Those two things alone made me stand out like someone in the South reading a book. Thankfully, their president was black, but the rest of the 25-30 people looked like they were the offspring from a Mitt Romney polygamist marriage.

There were a few guys who looked like frat boys discussing such intellectual topics like getting wasted this weekend bro! There were some girls that were way too attractive to know anything about politics. I’m assuming their parents are wealthy and enforced their conservative ways. There was also one fanatic who was a little too into it, wearing two Norm Coleman buttons.

The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance to a flag that was taped up to the wall. Next, they went about signing up for various things including the Homecoming float, going to see a movie called “Indoctrinate U,” about how college profs are too liberally biased. There were also lots of jokes about getting drunk after viewing the film, before the homecoming parade and also on some Republican excursion to Kentucky. Conclusion: Republicans really do want a president they can have a beer (or binge drink) with.

Then came something I dreaded greatly – Republican Jeopardy. Oh fuck, I thought to myself, my cover is blown. But instead of running away, I stuck it out and tried to make it rain Republican knowledge on these bitches. The outcome didn’t turn out the way I had hoped.

First off, our team name ended up being Team Awesome. Wow, Bush is not the only Republican with terrible ideas. Second, the other team was named Team Penguin, which prompted someone in the back of the room to yell, “That is gay.” This was not surprising to hear.

I’ve always been intrigued with political science, but not enough to major in it. So I thought I’d do well, but then I saw the categories. Regan, Name that Republican, ‘08 Presidential Candidates, GOP History, What Crazy Dem. Said That, and Random Facts.

I was first to chose a category. I knew absolutely nothing about GOP history, so that ruled out two categories. The only things I know about Ronald Regan are that he told some Russian guy to tear down a wall and he created a sex move called the “trickle down effect,” so that was out. I decided to go with ’08 Candidates for 200.

My team got none of the actual Republican related questions right, but we did sweep the random facts. I was no help. I got the three questions I guessed at wrong. At least we did something a little political that also helped us break the ice. Unfortunately the fun came to a halt as another officer came to the front of the room.

He announced that Al Franken was out fundraising Norm Coleman by millions because of his Hollywood friends. The only way this monster could be stopped was if we volunteered our time and raised money for Coleman. Just like the Democrats, it all came down to money.

Lessons Learned

So what did I learn about American politics? Basically, America is fucked. Money is the only driving force. Giving us only two people who bought their way into the election is not working.

I know that I only attended one meeting of each group, but at both meetings we were told to help fundraise for candidates, and didn’t talk about any of the core issues of each party, or anything political for that matter. It’s sad to see political parties brainwashing not only college students, but everyone in this country.

I might be naïve, but what happened to voting for the person who has the best ideas, or the most experience, not the best attack/scare ads and most cash? In America, there is no true democracy left. All political parties want is to force their way into office so they can impose their views on other people. Sound familiar? (European Colonists, Communists, Nazis, etc.). So as long as American society cares more about Lindsay Lohan’s latest rehab stint than who is getting elected to run our country, I’d rather trip on acid.