Four score and 152 years ago

For my college class on Political Communication, our final project is to form groups and run a press conference for a fictional presidential candidate. My group decided to make our candidate a communist named 'Feliciy.' Our motto is 'security. unity. felicity.' My role in the group is speechwriter and logo designer. The following is the rough draft of the speech I came up with for the press conference. It was fun. The whole thing about people with mullets was that we decided we needed to 'scapegoat' someone as in fascism, etc. And mullets seemed the least offensive thing we could find.


A spectre is haunting America. This spectre is not some unseen phantom but is real and tangible. This spectre does not conceal itself but marches in the open. From this spectre, no one is safe.

Four score and 152 years ago, our forefathers established this great country to enshrine liberty and protect freedom for everyone who wished to enter its borders. We have had the misfortune to live in times that have seen that spirit of liberty become shrouded in fear and darkness. From this battle, we must not shrink.

Though our troubles are serious, we are brave. Where those who would ensnare us would have us submit, we will defy. When storm clouds gather, we will buy an umbrella, and maybe some of those rubber shoes. Not the skateboarding ones, but the bigger ones. And when our enemies assail us, we will remain standing. Because against the mulleted-Americans, there can be no surrender.

Look around you. Most everyone in the country knows or mingles with a mulleted-American. These who possess mullets do so proudly, and without shame. And yet we know that they are the destroyers of all the things we hold dear.

The people cry for better healthcare, and the mulleted ones tie up our emergency rooms with their mullet-related machinery injuries. The people cry for the ability to protect themselves and their families, and the mulleted ones waste all the good bullets shooting at road signs. The people cry for a cleaner environment and the mulleted ones pollute the atmosphere with their Aquanet and extra-large Wal Mart mullet gels. The people cry. And I cry too.

All around you the people cry for police protection, and the mulleted ones tie up all the officers by appearing on COPS, being arrested for assaulting their neighbor’s TV when the bowling championship was preempted for news on the Somali Pirates. The people cry for a financial responsibility and the mulleted ones have just taken out the 3rd mortgage on their double wide so they can buy pro wrestling tickets. The people cry for more attractive neighborhoods, and the mulleted ones have just taken apart their El Camino and strewn the parts all over their front yard. The people cry. And I cry too. Though it might be business up front, the party in the back is destroying this great country.

While it’s true that our problems can be blamed on those with mullets, the solutions can only come from one person alone, and that person is me: Felicity. For you see, I know the enemy. I have looked into their eyes and I have emerged victorious.

A long time ago I was in a relationship with someone who sported a mullet. This was a dark time in my life. I went with him to NASCAR races, I watched as he tipped cows, and I waited in the car when he followed Lynyrd Skynyrd around on their 1997 “Freebird Forever” tour. The relationship did not end well.

Since birth I have always made sure that the hair on the front of my head was the same length as the hair on the back. This makes me uniquely qualified to lead us out of the darkness. To do this, comrades, there is only one plan.

First, we must be secure. Secure in the knowledge that the mulleted ones will be captured and shaved. We will be secure against all things, and we must protect ourselves from any outside influence that could ignite again into the inferno that is mullets in society.

To do this, we will close all the borders. No more trade with anyone. No one gets in, and no one gets out. It is the only way. You ask if you can still visit your friends across the Atlantic. Of course you can. As long as they don’t have mullets, we will bring them here to America to visit you, where they will not be allowed to leave. As for visiting Hawaii, that is something that only the Felicity senior administration officials will be allowed to do, to personally ensure that the mulleted ones do not break free and attempt to gain control of our nation’s body surfing and pineapple industries.

We will all be secure because we will all work. There will be no shortage of labor and no surplus of labor. The recent financial crisis in America has shown Capitalism to be a scary and unfair sham that punishes people who make poor financial decisions. Never again will the people, or as I refer to them, the ‘proletariat,’ have to fear financial insecurity. We have no need of feeling alienated from those who control the means of production. Under my America, the government will control the means of production, and there will be joy. We will be as secure as something that is really, really secure. Really secure.

In my America, we will be secure against historical revisionism. The fools who control the media will be sent to live with the mulleted ones. Maybe not in the general population, but on the premises, perhaps up in a tree fort. I will control all the information in the schools and in the news media. We cannot trust those who lie to us and who would use their biases to obscure and suppress the news they do not find palatable. In my America, there will be no secrets, and we will all be secure in the knowledge that we no longer need to protect our identities one from another, because all information everywhere will be published. As brothers and sisters we will march into a new dawn, arm in arm. Except for me-I will be carried. But the rest of you, arm in arm.

The second pillar of my plan is unity. We will be as one in Felicity’s America. There will be shared responsibility and shared rewards. We will take things away from you for the common good, and we will distribute to those who have less. In Felicity’s America, no one will be any better than anyone else. People talk extensively about the importance of diversity. I declare to the proletariat of America that I am diversity made flesh. We are all individuals who, with our various talents, will collectively run the perfect machine that is the country we will create.

In Felicity’s America, we will require you to work. We will demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. I will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Though difference in class between you, the people, the proletariat, and me, the bourgeoisie, are severe, I will deign to lead you. And that is because I am the third pillar of my plan.
Only through Felicity are all things possible. Only Felicity can heal your hearts and mend your shattered dreams. Only Felicity can go to China. Only Felicity can cause this to be the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this will be the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.
Yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will fear no evil, for Felicity is with you. Together, we will defeat the mulleted ones and we will endure the barbs of capitalism and of super gelled hair and “I think your tractor is sexy” t-shirts. I am the way. Vote for me, or I will smite you.

Thank you and have a good night. Drive safely, everyone.