The last day of Campaign 2010. The long, sometimes hard-fought, drawn-out 49th Congress campaign is about to come to and end. By law, all rallies, campaign speeches, broadcast advertising, and other electioneering must end at 11:59 PM tonight.
On the last full day on the campaign trail, the Diet Coke Partyers are hitting it hard, pushing the usual rightist and populist buttons. "Fight liberals & leftists!" "No socialized medicine in Patria!" (actually, Patria - like Canada, Europe, Japan, and most of the civilized world - has had a federally subsidized health care system for decades), "Cut taxes now!", "Ride the Diet Coke Party bus or get thrown under it!
The SRM is front and center at the Diet Coke rallies, with their "take back the economy" promises of non-violent resistance against globalism. The Three S's - Satyagraha, Swadeshi, Swaraj - are an integral part of the populist verbiage freely spewed out at Diet Coke Parties. They give the anti-government populists what they want to hear: hard-core economic nationalism and "freedom from China" rants. But there is a fair degree of dissension among the SRM caucus. The more moderate SRMers seem to be trending toward the Positive Possibilities.
And then there's the National Union, showing up at Diet Coke Parties with nooses in hand, promising to use them on murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and pretty much anyone convicted of a more serious offense than jaywalking or littering. What else did you expect from the NU besides an amped-up take-no-prisoners war on crime. Actually the NU will take plenty of prisoners, and even push "lock 'em up and throw away the key" law and order as a job creation scheme. Building prisons and hiring prison guards is one way to fight the recession!
The "sex is dirty" Chastity and Family Values Parties are also throwing in their lot with the Diet Coke Parties. What would you expect from fringe parties plugging old-school Christian conservative values straight out of Leave it to Beaver and Red-state America.
The Amrita Party, Chakra Party, and the rest of the Positive Possibilities bunch are also campaigning hard on the last day before the election, taking their message into Hindu temples, yoga studios, ashrams, and even nightclubs (Yoga in the Nightclub, literally taking the CD by Parvati out into the streets of Patria).
And finally, on the day before the election, the Jungle Party gained a potential new member of Congress. By winning the Hack-Off, Vinny Mac in Des Moines earned a bid for the Smack-Off and a chance for a Jungle seat in Congress.
Welcome to the Inner Realm of Patria's official blog. Patria is a micronation established in 1818 that exists only within the hearts and minds of those who dare to be in the Bhav!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Kamala Cup playoffs
For fans of the Patrienish Hockey League, the puck is about to drop on the Kamala Cup playoffs, Patria's version of the Stanley Cup. In one best-of-seven semi-final, the defending Kamala Cup champion Arboria Beavers meet the Nova Columbia Condors. The other semi-final has the Caesarea Violets going up against the Centralia Crusaders. The winners meet in the finals, and the season is over by the first week in May. Just like in the Original Six-era NHL, mainly because the PHL has never expanded beyond its Original Six franchises!
As for the sad-sack hapless Castoropolis Centurions, they finished dead freaking last, out of the playoffs for the fifth straight season. It wouldn't be fair to call the Centruions the Toronto Maple Leafs of the PHL. At least the Cents do have a couple of Kamala Cups, as recently as 1999 and 2002. Far better than the Leafs, who have been stiffing Leaf Nation since 1967.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Jungle Party's Hack-Off and Smack-Off
Jungle Party leader Jim Rome announced that the Hack-Off would take place this Friday, April 16, the day before the election, and the Smack-Off a week later on April 23. The Hack-Off is a contest for the "worst of the worst" callers who have a take and DO suck. The winner of the Hack-Off will receive an at-large Smack-Off tournament bid, and thus have a chance to advance to a seat in the 49th Congress.
Among the Hack-Off contestants: Jolene ("dressed as your mom") in Farmington, Vinny Mac ("I'm the bottle on the top shelf") in Des Moines, Eddie ("on the banks of the 'What do we do now' river") in Boise, Parody Patrick, Nezrin not Mezrin ("Phil JACK-son!"), Corey in Buffalo, Aaron in Canton, Jason ("star Canadian linebacker") in Ottawa, Tobin in Chapel Hill, Flamian in LA, Ryan in Wichita, Jerome ("BOHICA, Bend Over Here It Comes Again") in Nashville, and Dean in Edmonton.
While the Hack-Off is new for 2010, the Smack-Off is an annual competition on The Jim Rome Show, in which select listeners are invited to provide their best "smack talk", with Rome and his show personnel determining the winner. The contest is a way to recognize the best callers to the show, as well as a means of determining the best caller of the year. Show host Jim Rome has referred to the Smack-Off as the most important show of the entire year. For Patria, the Smack-Off determines who will sit in Congress as part of the Jungle Party caucus, along with Rome and "Mr. Automatic" J-Stew (Jason Stewart).
The defending 2009 Smack-Off champion Brad in Corona gets an automatic bid for a seat in Congress, along with previous Smack-Off winners, with the exception of Sean the Cablinasian, who was declared ineligible in 2008:
Previous Smack-Off invitees who may receive at-large bids in 2010:
* Incumbent members of the 48th Congress.
The Jungle Party received only 12 seats in 2006, so it's likely that not all Smack-Off participants will be awarded seats in the 49th Congress, unless the Jungle Party makes the jump from fringe to coalition bracket-buster in 2010.
Monday, April 12, 2010
NU plays the men's rights card
As if "top dog for the alpha male" slogans, promising to bring back public executions, advocating corporal punishment for kids, and smoking Marlboros aren't macho enough, the National Union is pushing "masculinism" (as opposed to feminism) and men's rights. Worried about "the declining state of today's male," and "the war on men and boys", the NU is even fighting hard for courses in mens' studies at Patria's universities.
The NU notes that in the latest recession, 82% of pink slips handed out in the United States went to men, and a good chunk of those jobs won't be coming back. Boys and young men commit suicide at a rate of more than four times that of girls and young women. Boys are far more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and put on Ritalin. In the United States, women outlive men by an average of seven years. In Eastern Europe the gap is 15 years. At universities in the United States and Canada, as well as in Patria, women make up about 60% of the student population, men only 40%, a dramatic reversal from the early days of feminism. Not to mention that 90% of the homeless, mentally ill, and substance abusers are males and that men consistently get the short end of the stick in divorce and custody battles.
The NU notes that in the latest recession, 82% of pink slips handed out in the United States went to men, and a good chunk of those jobs won't be coming back. Boys and young men commit suicide at a rate of more than four times that of girls and young women. Boys are far more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and put on Ritalin. In the United States, women outlive men by an average of seven years. In Eastern Europe the gap is 15 years. At universities in the United States and Canada, as well as in Patria, women make up about 60% of the student population, men only 40%, a dramatic reversal from the early days of feminism. Not to mention that 90% of the homeless, mentally ill, and substance abusers are males and that men consistently get the short end of the stick in divorce and custody battles.
The NU is committed to "taking back the testosterone" and restoring male pride as early as grade school. As Phyllis Schlafly notes in her Eagle Forum, elementary schools are not only ruled by females; they are dominated by feminists who make school unpleasant for boys from the get-go. Fewer than ten percent of elementary school teachers are men, giving boys the distinct impression that school is not for them.
Elementary school teachers used to understand that boys will be boys, but teachers now look upon boys as just unruly girls. Feminists manifest hostility to males and to masculine traits such as competitiveness and aggressiveness, and instead reward typical female behaviors such as non-assertiveness and group cooperation.
Schools cannot make gender go away by pretending that boys do not have an innate masculinity, or by trying to suppress it with ridiculous zero-tolerance punishments, banning sports such as dodge ball and tag, and allowing only playground games without winners.
Five- and six-year-old boys are not as able or willing as little girls to sit quietly at a desk and do neat work with pencil and paper. Even worse is the appalling fact that first-grade kids are not taught how to read phonetically, and the assigned stories are mostly about topics of interest to girls not boys.
It's no wonder that boys are more likely to have academic or behavior problems, repeat a grade, get suspended, be enrolled in special education programs, or become involved in drugs, alcohol or crime. Little boys make the calculation that school (and college) is not an environment where they want to remain.
For decades, the National Union has been thumbing its nose at feminists. Is it any wonder one of the NU's slogans (along with "testosterone in your balls, National Union on your ballot") is "committed to putting the Patriarchy back into Patria".
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The 3 F's meet the 3 S's
A simplified explanation of Patria's Diet Coke Party phenomenon: the Three F's of the U.S. Republicans and Christian supremacists - Faith, Family, Freedom - meet the Three S's of the SRM and the Hindu nationalists - Satyagraha, Swadeshi, Swaraj. For those who haven't been following the Patriavotes2010 twitter feed (shame on you!), Satyagraha is non-violent Gandhi-style resistance or civil disobedience, Swadeshi refers to made-in-Patria domestic production of virtually everything, rather than dependence on imports (mainly from China), and Swaraj means literally self-rule, i.e. freedom from China, or freedom from globalization-mongers who are exporting high-paying manufacturing jobs to China and replacing them with (if you're lucky) minimum-wage service industry jobs. And like India in the dying days of the Raj, leading up to Aug. 15, 1947, Patria today sees itself locked in a struggle for freedom - not from the British, but from China. And while China might not be ruling Patria (and the U.S. for that matter) as a colonial power, the forces of globalization, free trade and made-in-China imports make it seem that way.
With a big chunk of seats likely to be won in the new Congress, the SRM will be crucial in forming the next coalition. Some of the more moderate SRMers can be persuaded to join the Positive Possibilities, while the "take back the economy" Hindu hard-liners are firmly in the Diet Coke Party camp (though they may be drinking ThumsUp, which is almost as popular as Coke in Patria).
With a big chunk of seats likely to be won in the new Congress, the SRM will be crucial in forming the next coalition. Some of the more moderate SRMers can be persuaded to join the Positive Possibilities, while the "take back the economy" Hindu hard-liners are firmly in the Diet Coke Party camp (though they may be drinking ThumsUp, which is almost as popular as Coke in Patria).
Friday, April 9, 2010
Dead horses that won't die, no matter how much they're flogged
A number of hoary old issues keep coming up in every election campaign. Campaign 2010 is no exception.
Abortion: Women in Patria have had access to safe and legal abortion since 1973, thanks to a ruling by the 39th Congress and the Supreme Court of Patria that was handed down shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. Nonetheless, the Christian right wing (yes, there are Christian right wingers in Patria), secular social conservatives, and other rightist busybodies still want to ban abortion outright or severely restrict its availability. Yawn. Tired old fight from the last century. To quote the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre E. Trudeau, "the state has no business in the bedrooms of our nation".
Death Penalty: Another tired old fight from the last century. The death penalty in Patria is outlawed per Article VII of the Constitution of Patria, although theoretically a military court-martial can still impose a death sentence for desertion or treason in time of war. Nonetheless, bringing back the death penalty plays well with the law-and-order right wing, even if they concede that the death penalty has little deterrent value. Of course, the National Union leads the campaign to bring back capital punishment, and every four years the tough-on-crime NU promises public executions by hanging in the town square, or even by beheading. Yes, beheading, though the NU does not specify whether heads would be made to roll by sword, axe or guillotine. (Although France abolished the death penalty in 1981, there is apparently a manufacturer of custom-designed guillotines!)
Drive for 25: Raising the legal drinking age to 25, in order to get drinking out of college campuses and cut down on impaired driving. Another cause that gets dragged out every four years, mainly by teetotaling social conservative busybodies. Patria can only laugh at the U.S. insisting on 21 as the drinking age, given that any 18 year old can legally vote, marry, serve on juries, join the military, and do a whole lot of other adult things.
Gun control: In Patria you hear the same slogans as in Red-State America, e.g. "they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead hands", "don't let the liberals take away your guns", "my truck - yes, my wife - maybe, my gun - never", and of course "guns don't kill, people kill". Although there is no equivalent to the U.S. Constitution's "Right to Keep and Bear Arms" Second Amendment in Patria's Constitution, Patria is like Switzerland when it comes to gun ownership and civilian militias. Every adult male citizen in Patria is considered to be a member of the civilian militia and as such, is required to own a rifle (fixed bayonet optional) or 12-gauge shotgun and keep it locked and loaded in a safe place at home! But unlike the U.S., handguns in Patria are severely restricted and are almost impossible to purchase legally. Stealing firearms or using a gun to commit a crime almost always means serious hard time in prison. Furthermore, the rate of homicide and other violent crime is much lower in Patria than National Unionists would have you believe.
War on drugs: The law-and-order types and social conservatives want Patria to step up the so-called war on drugs. But Patria recognizes that the American-led "war on drugs" is as much of a failure as America's "war on booze"of the 1920s, if not a greater failure than Prohibition ever was. In the 2006 Inaugural address, Patria advocated legalization, government regulation and taxation of all recreational drugs from marijuana to crystal meth. And although you can't buy a a rock of coke or a hit of LSD at the local convenience store in Patria, some progress has been made toward legalization and taxation (in Patria, a joint of pot is taxed as heavily as a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of liquor). Unlike in the U.S., drug abuse is considered to be a social not a criminal justice issue.
Abortion: Women in Patria have had access to safe and legal abortion since 1973, thanks to a ruling by the 39th Congress and the Supreme Court of Patria that was handed down shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. Nonetheless, the Christian right wing (yes, there are Christian right wingers in Patria), secular social conservatives, and other rightist busybodies still want to ban abortion outright or severely restrict its availability. Yawn. Tired old fight from the last century. To quote the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre E. Trudeau, "the state has no business in the bedrooms of our nation".
Death Penalty: Another tired old fight from the last century. The death penalty in Patria is outlawed per Article VII of the Constitution of Patria, although theoretically a military court-martial can still impose a death sentence for desertion or treason in time of war. Nonetheless, bringing back the death penalty plays well with the law-and-order right wing, even if they concede that the death penalty has little deterrent value. Of course, the National Union leads the campaign to bring back capital punishment, and every four years the tough-on-crime NU promises public executions by hanging in the town square, or even by beheading. Yes, beheading, though the NU does not specify whether heads would be made to roll by sword, axe or guillotine. (Although France abolished the death penalty in 1981, there is apparently a manufacturer of custom-designed guillotines!)
Drive for 25: Raising the legal drinking age to 25, in order to get drinking out of college campuses and cut down on impaired driving. Another cause that gets dragged out every four years, mainly by teetotaling social conservative busybodies. Patria can only laugh at the U.S. insisting on 21 as the drinking age, given that any 18 year old can legally vote, marry, serve on juries, join the military, and do a whole lot of other adult things.
Gun control: In Patria you hear the same slogans as in Red-State America, e.g. "they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead hands", "don't let the liberals take away your guns", "my truck - yes, my wife - maybe, my gun - never", and of course "guns don't kill, people kill". Although there is no equivalent to the U.S. Constitution's "Right to Keep and Bear Arms" Second Amendment in Patria's Constitution, Patria is like Switzerland when it comes to gun ownership and civilian militias. Every adult male citizen in Patria is considered to be a member of the civilian militia and as such, is required to own a rifle (fixed bayonet optional) or 12-gauge shotgun and keep it locked and loaded in a safe place at home! But unlike the U.S., handguns in Patria are severely restricted and are almost impossible to purchase legally. Stealing firearms or using a gun to commit a crime almost always means serious hard time in prison. Furthermore, the rate of homicide and other violent crime is much lower in Patria than National Unionists would have you believe.
War on drugs: The law-and-order types and social conservatives want Patria to step up the so-called war on drugs. But Patria recognizes that the American-led "war on drugs" is as much of a failure as America's "war on booze"of the 1920s, if not a greater failure than Prohibition ever was. In the 2006 Inaugural address, Patria advocated legalization, government regulation and taxation of all recreational drugs from marijuana to crystal meth. And although you can't buy a a rock of coke or a hit of LSD at the local convenience store in Patria, some progress has been made toward legalization and taxation (in Patria, a joint of pot is taxed as heavily as a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of liquor). Unlike in the U.S., drug abuse is considered to be a social not a criminal justice issue.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
PosPos or Diet Coke: which side are you on?
During the course of Campaign 2010, the Positive Possibilities movement (known colloquially as "PosPos") has emerged as the leading potential multi-party governing coalition in the 49th Congress. With the staggering array of parties represented in Patria's proportional representation Congress, it is virtually impossible for one party to win a strong plurality (forget about a >50% majority!) of seats. Multi-party coalitions, usually consisting of two major parties plus a number of minor ones, are the rule in Patria, particularly when most bills require a two-thirds majority (yes, the dreaded "super-majority") for passage.
So which parties are backing "PosPos"?
Amrita Party: with PosPos being led by devotees of Amma and being linked to the I AM meditation technique, they're the obvious front-runners.
Chakra Party: as the leading New Age and "no gurus, just right" party, they're in. The Amrita and Chakra Parties would likely be co-leaders of a PosPos coalition.
Green Party: probably, though it's often hard to tell if the Greenies are really into progressive grass-roots movements for change, or are little more than a bunch of old-school economic conservatives and Ayn Rand capitalists disguised as bike-riding Birkenstock-wearing tree-huggers.
Lilith Party: have you ever seen a right-wing or socially conservative lesbian?
Social Democrats: also in as the remnants of Patria's "progressive" old-school liberals and leftists. Where would Patria be without tax & spend, soft-on-crime, bleeding-heart liberals?
SRM: maybe a few of the more moderate SRMers, but generally the SRM's economic nationalism is more attractive to the Diet Coke Party movement. The SRM could be split in two, with some of the party's more liberal caucus joining PosPos, while the Hindu nationalists and economic conservatives - much like the Blue Dog Democrats in the U.S. - sticking with the Diet Coke partyers.
Along with much of the SRM caucus that is behind the 3-S (SATYAGRAHA! SWADESHI! SWARAJ!) take-back-the-economy populism that is taking root in recession-ravaged Patria, the law-and-order National Union and less-government-more-freedom Libertarians are also leading the Diet Coke Party movement.
The Diet Coke party gang also has support from the socially conservative and sex-is-dirty fringe, i.e. the Chastity Party and Family Values Party. The Incel Party caters more to socially inept nerds and may trend toward PosPos.
The Jungle Party is unlikely to go either way. The only positive possibility in the Jungle is to have a take, not suck, and not get run with the manual buzzer. And the Clones in the Jungle tend to prefer Mountain Dew (or Bombay Sapphire) over Diet Coke.
The remaining nutbar, one-trick pony single-issue, and socially inept nerd-catering parties are also unlikely to support either movement. In any case, with only one or two seats in Congress each (if they're lucky enough to get past the proportional representation vote percentage threshold), no one much cares about the Rationalist Party, Reconstruction Party, Freedom Party, Christian Heritage Party, Peoples' Party and the other oddballs that might happen to find their way onto your Precinct's ballot come April 17.
So which parties are backing "PosPos"?
Amrita Party: with PosPos being led by devotees of Amma and being linked to the I AM meditation technique, they're the obvious front-runners.
Chakra Party: as the leading New Age and "no gurus, just right" party, they're in. The Amrita and Chakra Parties would likely be co-leaders of a PosPos coalition.
Green Party: probably, though it's often hard to tell if the Greenies are really into progressive grass-roots movements for change, or are little more than a bunch of old-school economic conservatives and Ayn Rand capitalists disguised as bike-riding Birkenstock-wearing tree-huggers.
Lilith Party: have you ever seen a right-wing or socially conservative lesbian?
Social Democrats: also in as the remnants of Patria's "progressive" old-school liberals and leftists. Where would Patria be without tax & spend, soft-on-crime, bleeding-heart liberals?
SRM: maybe a few of the more moderate SRMers, but generally the SRM's economic nationalism is more attractive to the Diet Coke Party movement. The SRM could be split in two, with some of the party's more liberal caucus joining PosPos, while the Hindu nationalists and economic conservatives - much like the Blue Dog Democrats in the U.S. - sticking with the Diet Coke partyers.
Along with much of the SRM caucus that is behind the 3-S (SATYAGRAHA! SWADESHI! SWARAJ!) take-back-the-economy populism that is taking root in recession-ravaged Patria, the law-and-order National Union and less-government-more-freedom Libertarians are also leading the Diet Coke Party movement.
The Diet Coke party gang also has support from the socially conservative and sex-is-dirty fringe, i.e. the Chastity Party and Family Values Party. The Incel Party caters more to socially inept nerds and may trend toward PosPos.
The Jungle Party is unlikely to go either way. The only positive possibility in the Jungle is to have a take, not suck, and not get run with the manual buzzer. And the Clones in the Jungle tend to prefer Mountain Dew (or Bombay Sapphire) over Diet Coke.
The remaining nutbar, one-trick pony single-issue, and socially inept nerd-catering parties are also unlikely to support either movement. In any case, with only one or two seats in Congress each (if they're lucky enough to get past the proportional representation vote percentage threshold), no one much cares about the Rationalist Party, Reconstruction Party, Freedom Party, Christian Heritage Party, Peoples' Party and the other oddballs that might happen to find their way onto your Precinct's ballot come April 17.
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