Mormon Communism...

Normally, a post like this contrary to the views of the creators of this site.  That is exactly why I'm posting this for Fidel - a Guest poster.  His opinions will spark a fresh debate about what it means to be libertarian.  Fidel was invited to be a part of this blog because his beliefs are usually so contrary to mine.  I love that we can all offer differing viewpoints without censorship.  This post is Fidel's creation and I'd love to see some responses to it.  - Lisey

MORMON COMMUNISM
But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money they shall perish.

—2 Nephi, 26:31
The Book of Mormon

What a god-awful hour, Dear Reader, to be gotten up to go to work on a Collective Farm!

Sure, okay, since Brother Bob had first left on his Mission to save the heathens of Denver and Dovecreek, Colorado, I had "helped" on numerous occasions with Mother's private garden plot; and, I confess, during the dreaded Fishing Season, I often roused myself up quite early in the morning when alerted by the bated breath and chatter outside my basement window of the Bird Kids, armed with flashlights and tin cans before dawn, poaching our nightcrawlers as the poor little defenseless things lay flaccid and relaxing unawares on the wet grass, basking in the moonbeams...  I would then leap out of bed and run up the stairs and courageously yell through the backdoor screen: "Leave our worms alone!" and those Early Bird Kids would then be all terrified and surprised, their flashlights running away, bobbing like giant fireflies...

So, I can do a Good Turn, even when it's very early and still dark out (such as rescuing the little worms that would then safely dive back into their darker holes) but please! don't anyone ever ask of me any pre-dawn deeds of Derring-do for the likes of some bristling Sugar Beets!  But Come To Think Of It I hadn't been asked, as I climbed into the backseat of Gene's Plymouth, clutching my Thermos Bottle and the rather Desperate Hope for some Engine Trouble that might in some way spare me from the early morning rigors of working on the Mormon Stake Collective Farm...

The Mormon Work Ethic.  Mormons are fed with it from birth.  They have it droning industriously in their ears like those swarms of frenzy you can hear from the dome-shaped helioports of their mascot Bees, their "Deserets" as they call them.  Howard Hurges and IBM both agree, there is no more loyal and profitable a chattel than a Mormon on the Block of Wage-Slavery—they'll feel positively guilty about whatever pittance they're given, these peculiar adherents to an even more peculiar religion; and they will work all day and all night for their Masters and Miss'ums.

Quickly Gene cast me such a feverish look over his shoulder over the Naugahyde-covered front seat of his Plymouth that I really can't recall anything quite so Obsessed since years before I had watched Father kill the bandy rooster that was also awake at Four A.M. in the Morning.  Father burned the midnight taper at both ends, drank coffee and letched Overtime; but then Gene's present fiendish demeanor could hardly be explained by a mere overdose of caffeine...

Contrasting with Gene's evident fever of excitement to get going and do some hoeing, the Ward Bishop, a staid insurance broker on weekdays and a pastor of the same gullible flock he had fiducialily shorn in the evenings and on weekends, sat quietly in the passenger seat, dressed in faded but impeccably clean overalls, his head nodding down on his barrel chest showing a naked expanse of bulldog neck.  I could tell he was sleeping and didn't feel sorry for him one bit.  In fact, I only wished I was big enough to cuff him.  After all, it was his Big Idea to drag me along in the first place.
Gene leered excessively, turned the key in the ignition and pumped the gas pedal and—choke! alas!—started the engine.  The stiff gears soon had us lurching away from the fire hydrant and simultaneously brought the Bishop's elbows up in a startled hoedown position.  But soon Sleepy was fast at it again, and nodding his head rhythmically against the window while his arms continued involuntarily twitching, as if he was merely rowing a boat up the River Lethe, i.e., the Bishop—of all people—should have sneaked a cup of Caffeine!

"Hey you!  Wake-up!" I refrained from saying, and instead settled back for some despondent observation of the advent of another grim dawn in Mormonland: the moon glow evaporating as quickly as the myriad stars were disappearing, and over the ragged hunchbacks of the easterly mountains, the Sun like a Gladiator was casting rosy, then increasingly fiery darts.
There was hardly any other traffic out until we began to converge on the Collective Farm, which was situated out Riverton way, where my Mother had her "roots", where Sugar beets flourished, and where senile Doc Sorenson had been recently buried by his Buxom Nurse...

Turning off the main highway, the Plymouth bumped a while down a rutted dirt road, catching up with the rearend of a Rancho station wagon, which I immediately recognized by the dents as belonging to Brother and Sister MacDonald.  Soon there appeared on our left a big painted sign before this stark little frame house and a parking lot full of other automobiles. 

The sign read:

Granite Stake Farm: A Project of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Groups of earlier arrivals had already disembarked their vehicles and had the farmhouse surrounded like in a movie where the mob wants to burn it.  Most had short-handled hoes in their hands, while others wielded spades and pitchforks.  The Mob raised a throaty cry at our arrival, cheering on the Bishop, who was finally awake now and ready to head his Foraging Congregation.  I climbed out cautiously after Gene and the Bishop.  Smiling, the Bishop then quelled the cheering with a grandiloquent wave of his hand and the admonition: "Let us pray."  And immediately the mob became uniformly quiet and bowed their heads and Gene offered the Benediction, invoking Safety from Snakebites in the ditches, Divine Guidance in our manual labors, Preservation from the Stinging nettle, etc.  Then, in a an outburst of emotional ethusiasm that seemed equally shared by all the petitioners (All Save One) the Bishop added: "God Bless God's Sugar Beets!!!"  With that, the multitude ejaculated: "Amen!", cheered again, then disbanded, rushing for the fields. 

I stood there, A Statue With A Thermos Bottle amongst the tumultuous Scattering, but Sister LeSeur recognized me instantly and stopped to chat, dressed rather too fashionably, I thought, in pink pastel pedal-pushers and pearl button earrings—too fashionable to seriously intend to do much weeding, though she carried a hoe.

"Where's your Mother?" she asked eagerly.

"Oh, she had to take Carol to School," I answered, even somewhat wistfully.  (As a matter-of-fact, Mother that day did indeed need to freight Carol to School, for Carol was giving her first John Phillip Sousa Tuba Recital.  Like my own miseries, you see, her Musical Talents were simply escalating!)

"Too bad," commended Sister LeSeur ruefully, "You Mother was real fast in those Sugar Beets.  Well, why don't you come and help me and Kathy?"

"Kathy's here?" I asked doubtfully, having thought that Kathy, the Brigitte Bardot of the neighborhood, would be safely away at Beautician School.

"She's here somewhere," said Sister LeSeur, clutching her throat, where she had forgotten to wear her necklace, and looking about for her daughter with that nervous insecure glance that a woman often has when she thinks she's misplaced her cultured pearls.  "Oh, there she is!  Come with us!"

And there Kathy was, on the edge of the field, eyeshadow glaring violets in that early sun, a peasant girl's scarf tied over her bleached-blonde tresses, a colorful peasant girl's skirt about her slim hips and summer thongs on her bare feet with the toenails brightly painted a jungle-red.

"Mother," said Kathy, tossing down her hoe, "It's muddy out there!"

"Well, Fidel's here to help us!"

I gave them both an aggrieved look.

Then, we stood there a few minutes like The Three Graces, while all about us, from the field, you could hear happy gospel singing—along with the sucking sound of shoes being pulled out of the irrigation mud and the thud-thud-thudding of the hoes.  The rows of sugar beets needing weeding and thinning were so long from where we stood that it seemed like you could almost see the curvature of the Earth...

In Communist Cuba, I know we are making the bratty sons and daughters of the Bourgeois Classes harvest the Sugar Cane.  And it is the same if you are a Mormon in Utah!