CHOCOLATE CITY—After months of ceaseless debate, including last week's record 76-hour filibuster slap-bass solo from Senate Rubber Band Minority Leader Bootsy Collins (D-OH), the National Funk Congress is no closer to resolving its deadlock over the controversial "get up/get down" issue, insiders reported Monday.
"Get up-uh, get on up! Get up-uh, get on up!" shouted Getuplican Party supporters on the steps of the Capitol as the debate, as well as a massive 14-piece instrumental jam, raged within. The pro-up-getting demonstrators' chants were nearly drowned out by those of a nearby group of jungle-boogie Downocrats, who called upon all citizens to "Get down, get down!"
The bitter "get up/get down" battle, which has polarized the nation's funk community, is part of a long-running battle between the two factions, rooted in more than 35 years of conflict over the direction in which the American people should shake it.
"The time has come to face facts: To move forward, we've got to get on up, and stay on the scene, like a sex machine," said Brick House Majority Leader James Brown (G-GA), one of getting on up's most vocal supporters. "Say it loud: Only when we have gotten up offa that thing will we, as a nation, finally get back on the good foot."
Upon learning of Brown's remarks, Downocratic leaders openly questioned his commitment to getting up. Said Robert "Kool" Bell, a top-ranking Brick House Downocrat: "It is a well-known fact that Brown has, on many past occasions, urged his supporters to get down with they bad selves. In response to his inconsistent voting record and history of waffling on this crucial issue, we will not rest until every American, as is their birthright, has gotten down."
"You got to get down," Bell added. "Hyuh!"
The disagreement, which has paralyzed all efforts of the National Funk Congress to get it together and get funky for one and all, has reached crisis proportions, experts say.
"Until our country's funky leaders can resolve this deadlock, U.S. funk leadership, and the booties of all Americans, will remain immobilized," said Gregory Tate, domestic motorbooty-affairs reporter for The Washington Funkenquarterly. "Unless a compromise can be reached soon, the entire nation's thang could be in serious jeopardy."
"Our leaders' refusal to budge, let alone move it from front to back, has crippled the move-your-body politic," said current U.S. Mothership Ambassador George Clinton, one of the most outspoken critics of the deadlock. "These legislators must keep it real and understand that no matter what party policy may dictate, they cannot fake the funk. What the partisan people in the House need to realize is this: If they ain't gon' get along, the time has come for them to take they dead ass home."
But despite such pleas for bipartisan compromise, the two parties remain at odds. This week, a Getuplican high-treble scratch-guitar initiative called for all Downocrats to "give it up and turn it loose," sparking an angry war of words on the Senate dance floor. In response, the Downocratic members of the Grooves & Booties Subcommittee drafted a bass-heavy resolution demanding that the initiative be voted "down, down, all the way down."
The Getuplican-Downocratic rift has been further complicated by confusing rhetoric from both sides. A call from Parliamentary leaders to "get up for the down stroke" was interpreted by members of both parties as a statement of support. Equally unclear was a statement made earlier this week by Funky Chinatown Big Boss-Elect Carl Douglas, who baffled observers with the assertion that Funky Chinamen were "chopping men up and chopping men down."
For all the confusion and divisiveness, there are signs of hope. A bipartisan coalition of funky drummers is gaining strength, urging Downocrats and Getuplicans to find common ground by "getting together, on the one." Also on the rise is a small grass-roots campaign calling upon party people not to get up or down, but simply to get it on.
Whether any of these fledgling reform movements will have a genuine impact on the entrenched groove machine is uncertain. One thing, however, is not: A growing number of citizens are fed up with the nation's current leadership for putting party politics before the need of the people to turn this mother out.
"Big government has lost sight of the fact that we should not be divided along Getuplican and Downocratic lines, but should be one nation under a groove, getting down—or up—just for the funk of it," said Clinton at a recent Mothership rally calling for an end to the deadlock. "The point is not that we must get up or down, but rather that, working together, we've got to get over."