If I am, I’d better get the opportunity to hang with Julia before they put me on the Cell 101 Guantanamo Diet…

If not, we’re going to have to ask you to leave.

But we’ll need your personal information first.

I am Joe’s Republican.

Other organs in Joe’s body may weaken or fail with age; while I am not an organ as such, I will never weaken or fail. Think of the ‘travellers’ in Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, or Invasion Of The Body-Snatchers and you’ll get the idea.

There is nothing unusual about me or my kind; you ride public transportation with us, have lunch with us, occasionally engage in sexual congress with us; you buy cars and building supplies from us; you send us PayPal payments for items on eBay. We are in the highest level of government, and serve as the most humble school custodians. We are your Republicans.

We don’t know where we come from. We have always existed; we will always exist.

When Joe was in his teens, he attended a 4-H Fair, which included an old-fashioned ‘Hay Ride’. While in the hay-filled back of a tractor-drawn trailer, Joe’s exploding sexual curiosity got the better of him, and an attempt to put his hands on inappropriate parts of MarySue Corley caused her to scream and the ride to stop.

MarySue’s two brothers jumped up on the trailer, and immediately counseled Joe in such a fashion as to loosen three teeth and bruise one kidney, that he shouldn’t approach their sister in future. Joe was grounded for six weeks.

MarySue’s father owned the area’s largest feed lot, and spoke loudly and unkindly of Joe to many in town, which tipped enough votes to allow him to win the Chairmanship of the local Kiwanis from Joe’s father. The Pastor of Joe’s Baptist church was called in to talk with the 17-year-old about sin and cleanliness, and the responsibilities of christian manhood.

During that time, as he groped among the twisted remains of his adolescent angst, and when he was most vulnerable, I attached myself to Joe’s consciousness. It was painless and happened while he slept.

MarySue’s father was the most prominent Democrat in town. It was a simple thing to channel Joe’s pain and anger towards what would be shown as a discredited, bankrupt and traitorous political belief-system. It wasn’t much of a struggle; Joe was fertile ground and my work was clear.

Naturally, given Joe’s circumstances, he possessed a normal amount of rascisim and class sensitivities. Over time, I was able to change those notions — now, Joe began to believe that other racial groups are a permanent Underclass (though Joe would never use such a term), with values antiethical to his own — “their culture is different from mine”, is a phrase I’m particularly proud of rooting deeply in Joe’s long-term memory.

Naturally, there were connections between these expanded attitudes towards racial Others, and the vast govenmental system of support and entitlements for other racial groups, and lazy people from other countries living in America illegally. And that connected with the image of MarySue’s father like a high-powered laser.

I had allies along the way: the guy who allowed Joe to shoot pool and drink whiskey from a bag; a local area televeision news commentator; and the local Party organizer, who was able to recognize (with a subconscious nod from me to his Republican) Joe as a boy who needed guidance.

And Joe did well. He graduated from high school with a 2.7 average and went into the army, intending to learn a trade as a heavy-equipment mechanic, but was classified 11-B and sent to Vietnam just after Tet. Lightly wounded, Joe was recycled twice more over two tours, and won a Bronze Star. He went to Southeast Asia with a certain mindset — and I made certain that his experiences were ordered correctly.

Years later, married to MarySue (I loved the irony; she had her own Republican by then), back in the area and the district sales manager for John Deere, Joe lost his own son in Iraq.

It was the greatest crisis of his life. He wept and prayed, and suffered. He looked at what he had been told was the meaning of his son’s, and his own, sacrifice. And then, during the 2004 election, Joe was told by that same Republican Party rep that he and MarySue were chosen, as parents who had lost a son in combat, to meet the President.

The day came; some sixty-eight people from around the county, representing 34 of America’s glorious dead, stood in the local Grange Hall. Joe’s head was a mass of contradictions; I could feel all Joe’s doubts. There was even a part of him that was considering something dark and sinister — if the country had been lied to as to reasons for the war, his son’s death had been pointless, worse than a waste. So he waited with the others.

Would my years of paitent training, of linking together the correct catchphrases, of forging a link between Joe’s useful religious beliefs and the Nation, all have been for nothing? For the first time since I achieved consciousness, I knew fear.

In a blur of black SUV’s and flashing red-and-blue lights, The President appeared. Joe walked towards him. There was nothing I could do; it was decades of indoctrination versus Joe’s massive rage.

The President came closer…and closer…Joe brought up both hands … and shook The President’s hand in both of his. Tears were streaming down Joe’s face, but he was also smiling.

It was my moment of greatest triumph. All my work had not been in vain. And I — I am Joe’s Republican.

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…The long hoped-for bullet had entered his brain. He loved Big Brother.

– George Orwell

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