Comrades!

It's a little past midnight on a yacht halfway between Key West and Havana. Present are William Ayers, his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, Raoul Castro, and Hugo Chavez, hereinafter referenced as W, B, R, and H.

~W: Good of you to ask us to this little midnight soiree, comrade Raoul, and the cigars and champagne are outta this world. Reminds me of the heady days in Greenwich Village…back in the glorious 60s and 70s when…

~R: Greenwich Village…oh…ha…ha…Greenwich Village where your cohorts blew themselves up trying to make a little bomb to blow up a dance for the GIs…all those nails flying!

~B: Not funny, Raoul, even if you are the head man in Cuba now. They died for the cause…just like Che Guevara. We had the same philosophy as you and Fidel – terrorism and bombs.

~W: They were brave victims of the decadent U.S., which even then – as John Kerry so delicately put it – was telling its GIs in Vietnam to cut off ears as trophies and shoot teenagers in the back as they ran…

~H: As the Rev. Dr. and whatever else Jeremiah Wright said so eloquently in his church, not that I believe in church, God DAMN America…and good riddance.

~R: And that brings us to the purpose of this meeting, comrades, to figure ways to see that Barack Hussein Obama – that name has SUCH a ring to it – or anyone else besides a republican is elected in November, even if it means also putting that bumbling Biden in Air Force II. He said president Roosevelt made a speech on TV in 1929…oh…ha…ha…

~B: At least Barack didn't put that witch Hillary on the ticket…imagine her and ol' Slick officially back in Air Force II and riding all over the world to spread their…

~H: Ha…ha…Bernardine…a little meowing, huh? Hillary would've figured a way to get Air Force I back and put Barack in a Piper Cub. We couldn't have manipulated her in a million years. She would have done socialism in her own way and shut us out of practically the whole hemisphere.

~W: Great fun, Hugo, and Bernardine (glowering) does get carried away at times. I call it the "Manson Syndrome." Charles Manson was her hero...

~B: Yeah…the way they butchered those Hollywood types and scattered blood all over half a county…whew…wish I coulda seen it! I never got to stick a fork in anybody's stomach…too busy hiding out all those years.

~R: Back to the subject please. With the U.S. government taking over the banks and giving away houses we have the perfect opportunity to socialize the cowboy's doll-house since the bankers are already following the money and bribing the suckers…just like any good capitalist politician does. Greed trumps the general welfare every time.

~H: Si, si, Raoul! That's so much easier than shooting up the countryside and scaring everyone into submission like we do in our part of the world, huh, Raoul…may Che rest in peace. Having to off – as they say in the American gangster movies – a few hundred citizens is always messy.

~R: Si, yourself, comrade Hugo, though Fidel likes to put them in the prison, too, and pull out a few of the fingernails or do a little water-boarding and sometimes break a few of the bones…but back to the subject…if we can bring socialism to the U.S. we can also get some new missiles from Putin…maybe even some extra oil since socialist countries always stick together in the war on the fat capitalists, and this time we can maybe get the Muslim terrorists to stick with us…until we off them, of course.

~H: You must get up early to off the Muslims, Raoul, and even then you will find them sticking the sword in your back or drawing it sharply across your throat…with all of it on al Jazeera's evening newscast. I have a good friendship with Ahmadinejad but would never turn my back to him or eat anything he hasn't tasted first.

~W: But with a name like Hussein, Barack has a head start, never mind if he even knows or not what we have in mind. My way is the best, though…

~H: You mean when you said in your speech in my Venezuela a couple years ago, "Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large."?

~B: Yeah…that's it, Hugo. What do you think Bill and Barack were doing with those millions of dollars given by those naïve, goody-goody billionaires that were headed for improvements in the public schools in Chicago…teaching history or English or algebra? Hah!

~R: You mean they were teaching the revolucion, eh, Senora? Has the revolucion happened in Chicago yet?

~W: Nah…but we're working on it. I teach education at the University of Chicago and Bernardine teaches law at Northwestern, so we've already started our cadres. The people who run those institutions think we're the best social engineers ever imagined, but they never hear of Marx or Lenin from us, the fools. They use taxpayer money to pay us to socialize the taxpayers…what a racket, if I do say so myself! Anyway, bloodshed – the ideal way – is out, and Barack would not go for that anyway.

~H: So…you are saying that Obama is a socialist?

~B: Of course he is! Have you read or heard of the tax-increases he proposes when elected, though he always has the perfect argument for explaining that they're actually tax CUTS…oh…ha…ha? TAX CUTS…how rich! We will have socialized everything…health, transportation, automobiles…

~R: But senora, does that mean people will have to wait months for even a simple tonsillectomy, like right next-door in Canada, or order cars five years in advance?

~B: Of course it does, but those of us in the hierarchy will not wait for anything, and sooner or later we will have the military under control and that, as you know, both of you, is the way to keep the masses of idiots under control…right?

~W: Besides, who among the suckers need to have cars? By the time the masses are reduced to the lowest common denominator, only those of us at the top will have any money for buying anything.

~R: But that is the way it is in my Cuba and has been for many years, especially since the Russians left us high and dry in 1989. The taxis are at least 40-years-old. And Fidel and I want for nothing. You're right.

~H: And that is the way it is in my Venezuela, but my oil wells make enough for the little people to have food, while I have cash stashed all over the world and call the U.S. president the devil…right in the United Nations.

~W: Let's raise a glass then and have a go at that great chorus, "Happy Days Are Here Again!"

~H: What is the catch, amigo Bill? This is too easy.

~W: Money is the catch, comrade Hugo. Barack has plenty, but needs more to fight McCain, who keeps reminding people of me, thus the need for more expensive propaganda to make them forget about me. That's why I'm here. You're expected to put a cool twenty million in MoveOn.org for George Soros to spend explaining why Barack is the last best hope. The gullible Americans will believe anything if it's said over and over.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark