Q. Sometimes people call those who disagree with them communists. But then you’ll hear them calling the same people fascists. Can people be both communist and fascist?
A. Not if they hope to attend their respective balls.

Q. Don’t the views of one make it impossible to share the views of the other?
A. A normal person might think that. Anyone who has ever read a book might think that. Anyone who has ever vacationed on Neptune might not.

Q. So a fascist is a fascist and a communist is a communist and never the twains do meet?
A. Not quite. Google Stalingrad.

Q. I’m still confused. How do communists differ from fascists?
A. Okay. Write this down.

• The star of communism is the shlub. Since communists believe everyone is equal, everyone is a shlub.
• In a Communist society nobody owns anything. On the other hand everyone owns nothing.
• Freed from the oppression of capitalism, shlubs are assigned cushy lifetime jobs at places like the Iron Cushion Factory or The Noose Works and the popular Polonium 210 Craft Beer Brewery (“The one beer to have when you’re having only one.”)
• Under Communism, the government controls all production. Theoretically this guarantees material abundance unless some government shlub forgets to push the production button (which is why they have the Gulag).
• Shlubs are paid in the finest grains of gravel which may be exchanged at the party’s commissariat, run by the proletariat (aka The Pro, who also does tricks with a lariat.)
• The commissariat is closed Mondays through whatever other days are left that week. It provides everything shlubs need as long as it isn’t edible or nice, lest everything fall down and go boom.
• In theory, the communist state controls nothing except for the number of breaths you may take, which can be as high as 167 on a good day.
• Okay, I’m switching now to my fascist pants. The star of fascism is the state, sometimes known as the Glorious State, sometimes known as Strontium 90, sometimes as Whooping Cough.
• The fascist state feeds on glory and pork rinds, usually through pork rind trade wars (very easy to win), bumper sticker sales and the annual conquest of Poland.
• The fascist army consists of men of great impotence (sic) dressed in stylish black uniforms (sick) designed by a team of 12-year old hellboys.
• While communism has no classes (or class), fascists live in a strict class structure:
  1. lower class working stiffs on the bottom;
  2. the educated petit bourgeoise class, co-opted by their bottomless need for not being on the bottom. (Cute note: the working stiffs call the petit bourgeoise teenie weenies.)
  3. Your wealthy business bottoms in first class
• All are led by the self-installed, craziest bottom of all who inevitably falls head over heels in love with himself, slips on a reichsbanana peel and goes boom.
• Fascists devote their lives to endlessly pimping the state’s massive glory jones. But since individuals have no value in fascist society, nobody ever gets any personal glory points. As fascists like to say “Whoever dies with the most glory is dead.”

Q. Can we go back to your comment about communists and fascists respecting their balls?
A. No.

Q. What exactly is the alt-right?
A. The alt in alt-right comes from the phrase “ ‘alt or I veel shooot.’”

Q. Is there an alt-left?
A. Yes, they’re known as “The left behind.” The alt in alt-left comes from an old Rooskie saying: Ваш локоть близко, но вы не можете укусить его. It can mean any or all of the following:*

• There is no truth in feet.
• Elder-berry is in the kitchen-garden, and the uncle is in Kiev.
• Nobody goes to Tula with one’s own samovar.
• I’d like to drink honey with your lips.
• That’s where the dog is buried.
• A goose is not a pig’s friend.
• It will heal before your wedding.
• Health leaves you in pounds, but comes in zolotniks.
• When the crawfish whistles on the mountain.
• Beware the goat from its front side, the horse from its back side, and the evil man from any side.
• It makes chicken laugh.
• A tomtit in your hand is better than a crane in the sky.
• Best is the enemy of good.
• A thief’s hat is burning.
• Не that has nо head needs no hat.

Q. I don’t get it.
A. Think of it this way: Your elbow is close, yet you can’t bite it.

Q. Wow. Now everything makes sense.

*Those silly Rooskies: http://masterrussian.com/proverbs/russian_proverbs.htm

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2018, all rights reserved.