Kathryn was back in her Omaha studio with her weekly panel on “How The World Turns” and we sat ready in our UCB studio in Mars City waiting for the connection. On my side were Elmer, Shamus, and Huda of UCB. Tamil and Pasha were on vacation. Our discussion was going to be taped for UCB’s popular show “Mother Earth’s Weekly Squirms.” The red light buzzed and the VC showed Kathryn with Fred, Tony, Charles and Bob as her regular panel members, and Pete and Sue as the representatives of Earth’s Unspoiled Youth having innocently but passionately voted for President Obama.

“Do you see and hear us right, Kathryn?”

“Beautiful and clear,” she responded.

“Same here,” I said. “Our panel on Mars is very keen on how Earth’s history is evolving and before we got connected voiced much concern about the growing divide in the USA. Do you think there is such a thing?”

“Very much a topic on the table here,” Kathryn said. “There are clear signs we’re going to have another civil war.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked, getting worried about my offspring on earth.

“One side says it wants to take their country back, and the other side is hanging on to it, busily changing, and both sides say they’re talking on behalf of the American People.”

“There must be something wrong with the math,” Shamus said, always making the mistake of thinking in terms of numbers.

“It’s much worse than that,” Fred said. “The current administration is stealing billions of dollars from the other side, so that they won’t have a dime left to work with if they ever come back.”

“No harm at all,” Bob said. “By that time the Government has all the money and nobody will be poor anymore, whatever side you’re on. That’s the beauty of socialism.”

“But who will make money to pay taxes for the Government?” Shamus asked, visibly intrigued by Bob’s visionary statement.

“Everybody will work for the Government and gets a salary minus their tax and national health premium,” Bob explained. “Enough left to buy your bread and butter and own an electric car. Everybody’s equal.”

“Will the other side of America be happy with that?” Elmer asked, looking at Shamus, his face showing bewilderment.

“The other side won’t have a vote anymore because the administration will change the Constitution locking them out, and it’s about time we put some order into this country,” Bob said, emphatically. “After all, we’re a democracy for all the American people, not just for one side. Elections do count.”

“Did you really vote for that?” Huda asked.

“No, we didn’t,” Tony thundered. “Except a few independent thinking journalists holding out large warning signs, nobody read the works of the sixties communist radicals or took Jeremy Wright at his word, and these are the people behind Obama’s change. Now these spooks are all over the government or disguised as Czars in the White House. That’s not the change America wanted.”

“Which America? It’s the Bush recession, stupid,” Bob countered.

“No, it’s the Obama bankruptcy, stupid,” Tony shot back.

“The Tea Party’s groundswell is a clear sign that the other side is alive and kicking,” Charles intervened. “It’s  a new phenomenon that didn’t exist in previous elections. It hates all politicians, especially those who say they know better than they. Mainstream America wants freedom and self-expression to invent and expand, not shared misery for all. You’ll see how big that side of America is in November 2010 and 2012.”

“On Mars we believe in the economic laws,” Shamus lectured. “Freedom and invention make a better world for all. Socialism means power grab of a few over all. You saw it on Earth in the Soviet Union. It’s unnatural because it kills all incentives except the one for absolute rule. I don’t understand why Earth would want to go back to a failed policy like that.

“I agree,” Fred said. “Come down and explain that to Obama and his socialist clique. They love aliens anyway.”

“You’ve to be a darned good talker to make anybody believe that,” Bob snickered. “As I said before, there’s nobody on your bloc that can.”

“That’s a point I feel most uncomfortable about,” Pete said. “We need someone who can mesmerize us the same way as the Pied Piper did.”

“I feel trapped too,” Sue admitted. “You guys talk a lot about what side knows better, but there isn’t anybody who’s convincing me. I’m scared to death about where Obama’s crowd is taking us. Your side may win a few seats in November as always happens midway a presidency, but if the Pied Piper tinges a notch to the center by 2012, he’ll walk away with us again like Clinton did in 96 and we’ll sink even deeper into the mud during the next four years.”

“For Reagan, it was his optimism of “Morning America” that brought the USA back to its feet after Carter,” Kathryn said, summarizing the decades. “Then came the short era of “Read my Lips” Bush 41, who only won the Gulf War; next Clinton, only remembered for lying that he didn’t have sex with that woman, followed by Bush 43 saying he’d serve the nation, not just one party, making everybody feel delusional. And what did we end up with: Obama who wants to change all that for grey matter, forever. That should make every American wake up in cold sweat. Give me Morning America. We need somebody like that.”

“Hear, hear,” Bob smirked. “You’re wearing nostalgia’s old hat. We need progress.”

“That’s exactly your problem,” Tony remarked. “Your progress isn’t progress, it’s stalemate that will kill us, either by a bomb that we can’t stop or bankruptcy that we can’t recover from, most likely both.”

“All right Tony,” Sue said, “but how are you going to prevent that for us poor kids?”

“Yes, good question,” Shamus said, coming out loud over the intercom, “we’d like to know that too.”

“Light the fire at the grassroots level that America’s burning like Rome in history or the Reichstag under Hitler,” Tony said. “Even school dropouts remember that. The more scared they get, the brighter their flames will show. People will rise against this socialist administration. It’s already happening.”

“That’s what I meant by civil war,” Kathryn moderated. “The two sides will meet on the Mall in DC and fight it out with megaphones, drowning each side with their soccer vuvuzelas and the loudest megaphone will win.”

“So far, the loudest megaphone is with Obama from the Rose Garden across the Mall and he knows it,” Bob said, still smirking. “You can’t convince by fear mongering alone. The American people are dead scared from the eight Bush years.”

“Of the eight Bush years, apart from the good tax cuts, Democrats resisted each economic move, including improving social security, had a majority in Congress for the last two years and that’s when the current mess started,” Fred deadpanned.

“Oh, well,” Bob said calmly, “nobody remembers that but they now feel the Bush recession.”

“I disagree,” Pete said, “what will hurt us kids much more is the oncoming tsunami of the Obama Bankruptcy. What you call the Bush recession could’ve been simply managed by reactivitating the business cycle. Any economics textbook will show you how. Reigniting optimism in the private sector by promising to keep taxes low, cut spending, and let bad apples sink.”

“That’s what we do, simple but powerful economics, no ideology,” Shamus interjected from Mars. “The private sector’s the engine of growth. Your administration did the opposite trying to prove their point and no wonder the economy’s failing.”

“The radical socialist authors of this administration use a crisis to the fullest to impose their philosophy,” Charles said, “it’s in their textbooks and thanks to their lucky majority they’re succeeding. Once everything grinds to a halt after they leave, if they ever do, there won’t be a business cycle anymore. It’s like a grasshopper’s hurricane. Americans will feel terribly deceived, especially when they realize that the grasshoppers have ruined everything for good and they have to start all over again.”

“To summarize, dear audience on Earth and on Mars,” Kathryn said, “what seems needed here is some honest and  strong economic talk, no ideology and wrapping bad bills in fancy names to mislead the populace. And because that’s not happening, I predict the populace will rise to save the USA. And with that we’ve come to the end of today’s show. See you next time. Wish you the best on Mars.”

“Thanks Kathryn, great discussion, ” I said. “Next time we’ll let you know Mars’s views on all this.”