Why I Am Tossing My Turban Into the Ring

by Swami Beyondananda

Fellow male citizens ... girl citizens ... and everyone in between.

I come to you tonight to declare that I am not a serious candidate for President, and that is precisely why I am asking for your support.  We have had too much seriousness, and now we’re in serious trouble.  Seriously. 

Seriousness is the prime cause of terrorism ... not to mention anti-terrorism.  Terrorism or anti-terrorism, I don’t know which is more terrifying.  But I will say this.  The so-called Patriot Act has certainly made our lives simpler.  They’ve taken the Bill of Rights and boiled it down to just one:  You have the right to remain silent.

Now I know what you’re thinking.  A comedian for President.  Ha!  Don’t make me laugh.  But many Americans would agree, there’s definitely something funny going on, and who better than a comedian to deal with it?  Because sometimes it takes a clown to catch a clown.  So send in the clowns, and we’ll laugh those rascals out of office.

It was never my ambition to be President.  I would have settled for Supreme Court Jester.  But everywhere I go, I see people not laughing.  They’re saying, “Wait a minute.  I coulda sworn we voted for West Wing ... how’d we end up with the Sopranos?” 

I’ve taken the political pulse in this country, and I have good news.  We still have one.  Barely.  Because our body politic has suffered some serious power seizures, and our Constitution has been weakened.  Thanks to the steady diet of junk food the media has been feeding us, the body politic has become a bloated couch potato behind a remote.  Meanwhile, the government is on steroids.

If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, do you know what he’d say?  First thing he’d say is, “Boy do I feel old.  Jeez, I must be 260.”

But then he’d say, the government serves at the pleasure of the people, and a lot of us aren’t being served.  He’d say our leaders are servants who are supposed to do our bidding, not the bidding of the highest bidder.

Yes, we’ve ended up with some self-serving servants.  They’re serving themselves first, their cronies second, and the people last.  Jefferson would say “Fire those servants!”

And he would be outraged at the things our government is hiding from us in the name of security.  He’d be asking, how come they get to play “I’ve Got a Secret,” and we’re required “To Tell the Truth?”

No really .. $3 trillion disappeared from the Defense Department a few years ago.  I didn’t see this on “Unsolved Mysteries,” did you?  The “Three Trillion Dollar Question” .. now there’s a reality TV show I would watch.

Jefferson, radical that he was, would be saying, “Forget the airline passengers.  Let’s strip search the government!” 

Do you know how easy it is to go online nowadays and find pornography?  In fact, you don’t even have to find it.  It finds you.  Call me a pervert, but I would get great pleasure from seeing the government naked.

In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy declared he would have a man on the moon by the end of that decade.  Well, look how far we’ve come.  Thanks to the so-called Patriot Act, George Bush can have someone on Uranus by the end of the week.

And President Clinton -- remember him -- he took an outturn with an intern and HIS thing got blown all out of proportion, right?  Meanwhile President Bush was snuggled up in bed with that Lay over at Enron who screwed millions.  Whatever happened to that?

You don’t hear about it, and I’ll tell you why.  Our Constitutional rights to a free press are being superceded by unconstitutional wrongs.  A few powerful people who own the mass media are using their power to oppress, suppress and repress the press.  Nowadays, Will Rogers would be saying, “All I know is what I don’t read in the papers.”  So I say, if we want a free society we must free the press!

The bad news is, the problem is serious.  The good news is, the solution is humorous.  And that is why I am running under the banner of the Right To Laugh Party .... one big party, and EVERYONE is invited ... all for fun, and fun for all. 

We support the right to laugh, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, unless of course happiness is a warm gun, in which case some restrictions may apply.

The Right to Laugh Party seeks to bring all points of view together in laughter, because only when we lovingly laugh at our foolishness can we seriously change things for the better.  We need more forums and fewer againstums!

Yes, in a world filled with snarling dogmas, the body politic is looking for a happy medium -- and THAT’S ME!  I am one of the happiest mediums you’ll ever find.

Now I am strictly middle-of-the-road, but middle of a different road, a road less traveled, a road where we extract the wisdom from all points of view.  We need to be conservative about our precious resources, liberal in love and service, and radical in imagination.

Left wing, right wing, we need them both.  You only have one strong wing, you’re gonna fly around in circles.  Right now, we have one very strong right wing, and I can tell you, we are flying wrong.  The eagle needs both wings to fly!

N ow you ask me what my platform is, so I will explain it quite simply.  You know this war on drugs they’ve wasted billions of dollars on ...  Well my solution is cheaper and far more effective.  IMPROVE REALITY! 

So that is the basic gist of my platform  ... improve reality.

Now the current administration .. and I must be blunt here .. they are fossils fueled by fossil fuels.  And I say our choice is clear ... we can go down their road to Armageddon ... or, we can take a road less traveled and have ... DISARMAGEDDON instead. 

People of America, people of earth, it’s time to grow up ... and tell our leaders to stop fighting like a bunch of bratty kids, and learn to play nice.  Think about it.  If kids acted the way most governments do, they’d be sent to the principal’s office!  And if adults did, they’d be in jail!

Our leaders are selling war as a necessary evil, so WE must show that peace is a necessary good.  Yes, we are always buying futures.  The question is, which future do we buy?  Do we buy the future currently being sold ... perpetual warfare, environmental destruction, loss of liberties, and growing gap between rich and poor?  Or do we create an alternative future ... an alter native future ... where we natives are altered for the better.  Remember ... Improve reality!

And so the second key piece to my platform is ... TELL A VISION.  If you don’t like the current programming, turn off your TV and tell a vision instead.  Then we can step into a totally different future .. which beats what we’ve been stepping into recently. 

Let me tell MY vision ... renewable, non-polluting energy so abundant we won’t need an army to defend it.  We have the resources to do it!

Remember the Manhattan Project where we created the first weapon of mass destruction?  This will be the MANHELPIN Project, a weapon of mass construction that will end the need for war.  A healthy income, a healthy outcome .. what could be better?  Boy, talk about feeding two birds with one scone. 

So we must feed our vision by making it come alive in our imagination ... and in our actions.  If we want a healthy new world order, WE have to fill out the order form. As my guru Harry Cohen Baba used to say, “Life is like a good deli.  Even if something isn’t on the menu, if enough people order it, they HAVE TO make it!”

And if our elected officials don’t do it, we have to ELECT ourselves!  Hey, what’s-his-name elected himself.  Why not us?

Now you ask about my running mate, and I say anyone who runs with the Right To Laugh platform, they are running mates.  Imagine, millions of mates running together to tell a vision and improve reality.  Who knows?  We might end up running the government instead of the government running all over us.

So I say, EVERYBODY for President!  As I toss my turban into the ring, I ask everyone to throw in with the Right To Laugh movement, to create a world where we use the light of loving laughter to illuminate darkness everywhere, especially in those poorly-lit corridors of power ... a world where every born feed-us enjoys the right to life, and where we hear freedom ring in the sound of every child’s laughter.

I have a dream .... that through the healing power of laughter, we can bring the world’s leaders together under the same roof in celebration ... imagine .. all the world’s leaders at the UN doing the Hokey Pokey .. Picture this with me .. Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon .. they put their whole selves in, that is commitment.  They pull their whole selves out, that is detachment ... and they turn themselves around.  That is transformation, and THAT’S what it’s all about!

May God bless America ... and God bless our beautiful planet.

©  Copyright 2003 by Steve Bhaerman.  All rights reserved.  This piece may be reprinted and recirculated only if you add this copyright message and contact information.  Swami can be found on the internet at www.wakeuplaughing.com and on the outernet by calling his toll free number, (800) SWAMI-BE.