“We’re from Ioway…Ioway!
State of all the land…
Joy on every hand…
We’re from Ioway…Ioway!
That’s where the tall corn grows!”
Yep, I was an Iowa boy. I sang that stupid song with pride, though we never once called our home State “Ioway” outside of that song. I have driven a tractor, made money for pulling buttonweeds out of soybean fields with my own two hands, watched the wind ripple the leaves in the cornfields like waves on bright green ocean water, and hid in the basement when we believed a tornado might come and destroy our house. Life in Iowa is made up of these things and many more, don’t ya know.
And of course, I learned to tell corny jokes along the way. That’s a must for a quick-wit-hick from the sticks. Pepsi and Coke and Mountain Dew are “pop”, and when you have to “run down to the store” you get in your car. You don’t have to do it by foot. And other Iowans know this. You don’t even get the raised eyebrows and funny stares that those things evoke when said aloud in Carrollton, Texas. You have to explain to Texans that “you guys” is how Iowegian speakers say “y’all”. Language is plain and simple when you speak Iowegian. You have to follow the rule of “Only speak when you’re spoken to”. Iowans are suspicious when somebody talks first, especially if you haven’t known that somebody for their entire life. That’s what an Iowan calls a “stranger” . “Frank is from Iowa Falls, and he’s only lived here for twelve years, so he’s still a stranger around here.” So large portions of Iowegian conversations are made up of grunts and nods. Two Iowegians can talk for hours saying only like ten words the entire time. “Yep. You bet.”
But that only applies when you are outside the confines of the local cafe or restaurant or beanery or eatery or other nesting places for the Iowegian gossiping hens and strutting roosters. Inside these wordy-walled exchanges for farm lore and lies there is no end to to the talking. And because the mouths are already in motion anyway, there is also no end to the eating. You are not too likely to see skinny farmers. But farms and farmers definitely affect the quality of conversations. In Iowa you have to learn how to stuff good grub in your pie hole in spite of the fact that farmers have decided to compare in detail the aromas associated with putting cow poop in the manure spreader (back in the day, of course) and mucking out a layer of toxic chicken whitewash from the chicken coop. Perfect topic to accompany that piece of lemon meringue pie (which is the perfect color to illustrate the chicken side of the argument). And, of course, if you have a family of health-care and service professionals like mine (mother was a registered nurse for forty years), you get to add to that discussions of perforated gall bladders, kidney resections, and mean old biddies that have to be helped on and off the bedpans. You must develop a strong tolerance and an even stronger stomach, or you are doomed to be skinny and underfed.
And since Iowegian is a language that is very simple, direct, and mostly about poop, they practically all voted for Trump. Like him they never use transitions more than starting sentences with “And” or “But”, so they understand him mostly, even though there is no chance in H-E-double-hockey-sticks that he understands them. It’s what allowed them to elect a mouth-breathing troglodyte like Steve King to the House of Representatives, and I can say that because they have no idea what “troglodyte” means, and will probably think it is a complement because it has so many syllables. Insults have four letters. Politics in Iowa is simple and direct too. Basically, if you are not a Republican you are wrong. Of course, somehow the State managed to go for Obama over Romney, but that was probably because, to an Iowan, neither one was right, and Mormons are wrong-er than anybody.
So there’s my brief and beautiful bouquet of Iowegian words and their explanatory weegification. I know there is a lot more to say about how Iowegians talk. But I can’t say it here because my short Iowegian attention span is already wandering. So let me wrap it up with one final weegification (yes, that is a made-up word, not a one-time typo mistake).
Here’s a view of the front of that same TV bus as it sits between Miss Wortle’s place and Eggbert Egghead’s Egg House. Dabney Egghead is the boy in the sailor suit showing off his brand new velocipede.
Catch a Falling Star 
Explaining the Words
I used to have political arguments all the time with my father that would end only in frustration… for me. He was happy to see his offspring boiling over ideas with smoke coming out of both ears. Because no matter what I said, he would always take the opposite position just to oppose me. I know this because I tested it. I would counter an argument he had just made by rephrasing it so that it was in different words, but meant exactly the same thing he had just said to me. Naturally he came up with opposing views immediately. One time I even flat out stated, “I agree with you!” Which naturally led to an immediate and complete reversal of the position on his part. I think now that he was training me to think more deeply about things than just parroting talking points heard on television. Either that, or he really really loved to argue.
The most important thing I learned in the endless arguments about Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, Two Bushes, and Bill Clinton was that you have to establish the meanings of the terms you are using. Hence the reason for this post.
The words that made the most difference in my discussions with my father were “liberal”, “fascist”, “conservative”, and “communist”. When my dad used those terms, “conservative” always meant “good guys” and the other three words meant “bad guys”. But when I listened to the policies and concerns he wanted to talk about, whenever he said the word “conservative” he was really saying “moderate”. And because he was pretty much in the center of the political spectrum, he thought of fascists and communists as being the same thing. If my father ever was truly wrong about anything political, it was when he followed Ronald Reagan’s affable, smiling “Morning in America” politics towards the far right and abandoned the moderate principles he held dear. He had been deceived by Nixon, and regretted it… in fact, we all were deceived and we all regretted it. But that did not prevent him from being deceived by later Republicans. We both have had a long-standing admiration for President Eisenhower, Senator Bob Dole, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Senator John McCain. They represent the moderate wing of the Republican Party. But the GOP has marched relentlessly towards fascism and oligarchy of the rich, and we both feel that has tainted both Grassley and McCain. My dad ended up voting for Barack Obama twice. Obama, to him, is Eisenhower reincarnated. The problem, we both agree, has come anytime American politics have moved away from the center.
So let me begin defining terms by ridiculing the Loony Left.
Being liberal means promoting change. Hence, the Marxist devotion to revolution and the desire to have an on-going revolution of constant change. Unfortunately constant change is another way to define chaos. That is the main reason that communist-socialist experiments have generally ended in violence, economic collapse, and fascist-type strong-man oppression. The poor raggedy communist in my cartoon, standing on the left end of the spectrum is always doomed to poverty and violent death. If you don’t believe that, just ask Leon Trotsky if it isn’t so. Oh, wait, you can’t. Stalin had him murdered. Stalin ended the Russian experiment by cracking down on everything, making himself the antithesis of actual socialist ideas. I included the ultra-liberal philosopher and hedonist Alistair Crowley on this end of the spectrum because he fought against all social norms and rules. That sort of religion leads to sexual depravity, vice, and corruption to a degree that got Crowley labeled “the Most Evil Man Who Ever Lived” in a BBC documentary.
Sometimes being liberal is needed desperately. Then you get the kind of liberal change agents that JFK was (and thankfully, LBJ carried out his liberal changes to an American society crippled by racism and xenophobia). Martin Luther King Jr. was also that kind of agent of change. Bernie Sanders is a parallel agent of change to JFK in that Barack Obama’s policies are almost a mirror image of Eisenhower’s in the 1950’s. What the media today labels as a liberal is equivalent to moderate Republicans before Nixon. Very similar changes are needed in social and economic areas today. We have yet to see if Sanders can get elected in 2020 and then assassinated shortly thereafter.
You can probably tell that this article is not yet complete. I have a lot more loony liberal pontificating to do (and please note, I said “pontificating” not “defecating”. I am not a Trump voter.) But I am well past the 500 word goal for today, and so, I must leave the rest of the crap to be said in a part two article. Maybe also a part three. Please stop me before I reach part twenty-six.
I do so enjoy making fun of Trump and his tiny, tiny hands. So here I am sharing another lampoon at the expense of the Great Orange Face of America.
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Filed under angry rant, autobiography, commentary, conspiracy theory, humor, insight, Paffooney, politics, word games, wordplay
Tagged as communists, conservatives dang!, fascists, humor, liberal politics, politics