Once upon a time there was a truly great nation, a nation that tried to bring peace around the world, that tried to improve everyone’s life, that worked very hard as a nation, and the people become fabulously rich.

But there were those inside the country who didn’t like things this way, they wanted more money, and especially more power. The nation spent too much time trying to make sure that power was spread out. This didn’t sit well with these few people, and they worked hard to undermine the country. And eventually, after several generations, their efforts bore fruit. Suddenly, odd things started to happen, truth seemed to stand on its head, what was obvious was denounced as a lie and even a crime. And what was false was enshrined.

Along with all this came greater and great concentration of power in the hands of a relatively small number of people, both inside the government and in a few key business. Things progressed so far that they were able to start to rig elections. They were so successful at both rigging elections and in control of certain pieces of the government that to challenge an election was said to commit treason.

But the people fought back. True, there were men and women who were elected to office who vowed to fight the concentration of power but when they ended up in the Capital, they found two things: the first, much of the real power had been taken from the elected officials and put in the hands of large bureaucracies that were overwhelmingly staffed by people who liked things that way: power in their hands, not the hands of elected officials who might change things. And the second thing they found was that being in the middle of things, being a key elected official in the Capital came with a lot of benefits: lots of connections, lots of praise, lots of honors, and lots and lots of money. All you needed to do was play along… And, for those who didn’t play along, there was a lot of the other stuff: disrespect, slander, lies, frivolous lawsuits that left you impoverished, and you could never get anything done.

One day this one fellow, who wasn’t a politician but a business man, ran for office. He was a loud, brash man, who had made a lot of money in real estate and real estate development. Like many folks in that trade, he was loud and very rough around the edges. He ran for President against the ultimate insider, one who knew she was entitled to the job. One who in a previous administration had, just to show how powerful she was, started a war that left a smaller country devastated. She was very proud of that fact. She also oversaw the sale of the control of a great deal of uranium deposits to one of the nation’s enemies. She was hailed as “very smart” for this.

Anyway, they both ran for office. Everyone knew she was going to win. After all, they ran the system. But somehow, she lost. The Brash Man became President.

And there was wailing and cursing and gnashing of teeth.

The media, the once labeled “free press,” long since compromised by those in power, informed one and all that this Brash Man would destroy the country, that he would start wars, that he was beholden to other countries. And so, he cut taxes, cut government regulations, and kept the nation out of war. He was labeled as a traitor for this.

After 4 years it was time for another election. This time there would be no chances taken; after a great deal of chicanery, and the manipulation of a lab experiment to cripple much of the planet’s economies, steps were taken to ensure that there would never again be any question as to the outcome of any important election.

And there wasn’t. The Brash Man lost his re-election bid. He lost it to a man who had never been terribly smart, and never been terribly well liked nationally, and was known as someone, according to a previous boss, with an ability to take any situation and “foul it up.” The Brash Man had held campaign rallies with 50,000 people, the old man held rallies with less than 100; the old man won. If you questioned the results you were pilloried.

So now the old man was President.

And things started to go sideways. The economy immediately having problems. He tried to strangle the energy industry. He messed up overseas and the great nation looked incompetent trying to get its own people out of a far distant place. Just 13 months into his presidency one of the great nations that was an enemy, started a war by invading another country because it was no longer deterred. Then came another war. And rumors of a third war.

Meanwhile, because they hated the Brash Man, they pursued him in court, and brought all sorts of charges against him. To the rest of the world the once great nation looked like it was being run by a tin-pot dictator. But the people in charge didn’t care. They pursued the Brash Man.

But the Brash Man, he fought back. And he ran for office again. So, they came up with charges that would economically cripple him. And rigged the court proceedings so that he would be fiscally strapped by the court orders. Many in power were delighted, almost giddy with joy.

But, meanwhile, the sitting President was having problems – lots of them. He was old, and he was acting older than he was. True, he had never really been in charge, there were always people behind him pulling the strings. But even that was getting too hard. What to do, what to do?

And, at the same time there was someone else running for office, a woman who had been a very good governor of a conservative state. Now, interestingly, she had changed. She had turned into what was known as a real NeoCon. The NeoCons of the previous half decade had gone through metamorphoses and had fallen in love with the idea that the great country should be intervening overseas sort of “everywhere, all the time,” even as these same NeoCons mainly stopped worrying about what was happening at home in the Great Country; that domestic stuff was too hard and no fun. Let’s start a war!

And yet… The thing was, behind the old man who was President, behind all the media outlets and Hollywood producers, behind those certain big business and the politicians and the bureaucrats, behind all the people who liked the huge, ever growing, ever more hungry for power government, there were older academicians, politicians and businessmen who, in a manner akin to a large beehive, tried to run things. They were the ones who found young politicians to groom, academicians to promote and give tenure, lawyers to insert into state and city attorney offices. They were the ones who worked with certain unions and various civil action groups to protest this or that and cause trouble.

And they were the ones who really ran the elections, who made sure the vote count came out the way it was supposed to.

And they saw a problem with the old man – he really was incompetent, and his Vice President was worse. The thought of the VP being President even made them ill. What to do?

And then they saw a plan:

First, they knew they could not get the President to resign. He must lose. So, they began to place stories in their various media about how forgetful the President was, all his failings, all his problems. And they continued to attack the Brash Man.

And then they added the twist: they would provide stories that promoted the woman who had been governor, the NeoCon from the other party. It was true that they controlled the vote, anyone they wanted was going to win the election. But even in North Korea they made an effort to make the vote look right. It’s a balm for the masses, they have to think their vote means something. So, let the other party win – as long as they could get the Brash Man off the ticket and a new candidate who would not really challenge the inner power structure. Force the Brash man off the ticket, slide the former Governor in, then let her win. It would be “proof” the election system was still fair!

And they knew she would be unable – and would not be disposed anyway – to fight to unseat their tremendous hold on the reins of power inside the bureaucracy. She would be a foreign policy president and they would giver her the money to build a huge Navy and Army and a major slice of the country would be happy.

Meanwhile, they would bury the Brash Man under more law suits, and they would extend their real control into the various offices of the government, deeper and deeper.

And they would trumpet how the loss of the Old Man to the NeoCon governor was proof everything was still fair and okay.

And their power would grow…

Of course, this is just a fairy tale…

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com