That damn lottery ticket (part 4)

Bill had done much reading in his life. If things were different he may have worked for a doctorate, maybe in history, maybe in political science. Bill was also a fair writer and his tweets and now his website showed a bit of his skill. People were fascinated with what he had to say. He was melding large parts of the struggle of mankind into a blended manifesto of the middle and working class. He was not a Marxist by all means yet some socialism did creep into his writings. And he wanted a chance. He felt his life had been taken away by the very people everyone had just revolted against so he wrote towards a more promising future.

One thing he remembered from his readings had stuck in his head from many years ago and it played a big part in keeping Bill a bit convoluted on what future he did want. He remembered somebody had once discussed:

                [ the “ruling aristocracy of money,” he suggested, exercised “more and more control every day over the rudder of the state”: “Soon those people will constitute not only the supervisory board of the ___________________ company, but also the supervisory board of our entire society.” } *

Bill couldn’t remember if this was from a socialist writer or a different source, but it had been affecting what he had been writing before the revolution and played a major role in his thoughts going forward. He could not though completely give over to a socialist revolution. He still felt strongly for opportunity and reward for effort. He just was caught up like everyone else of his time that this had been lost by the very people who made it their political campaigns to say they were there to reinstitute the opportunity all longed for except that the other side had taken away from them. This major political dichotomy played back and forth between the two parties had been exposed. Bill was trying to rectify the “what next”.

Well as you can imagine once the US went headlong over the cliff, the world’s economy collapsed. The first two years after the eventful night teetered on the verge of complete anarchy.  The European countries held on, but socialism did prevail at first just so the countries could manage day to day economies and governance. The Middle East went into full scale war. There were multiple competing major factions. There were the peasants uprising against the oil royalty and the established countries; there was the historic religious clash between to the factions of Islam; and there was the explosion of terrorist groups who probably would have done terrible damage to the world, yet there were no resources. They basically created hundreds of small fiefdoms or self-proclaimed caliphates all vying to control the same territories with no one group able to consolidate any power. It was an absolute disaster with Israel fighting multiple wars, yet none of them significant since the different Arab groups were too busy fighting amongst themselves.

Some regions and countries survived better than others. Some parts of South America became self-sufficient and managed to thrive. Other countries went to historical dictatorships, yet they survived by working with the newer democracies. Africa had some successful countries, but also fell into a similar pattern as the Middle East in some areas, and unfortunately some pretty hefty dictators ran other countries.

Japan, South Korea, Australia, parts of Southeast Asia came out relatively unscathed and became strong trading partners. Russia grew, but ran into trouble with corruption and their long standing competition with China. China did come close to flourishing at first then their economy hit headwinds they could not overcome and certain parts of the country were breaking off with Beijing’s government.

And what happened to the U. S.? Bill was actually taking care of this; his popularity had grown exponentially from the first day of the revolution. His tweets and website were read religiously. And along with just the fact the average middle American really just wanted to have a normal life that many of them settled back down rather quickly. Small businesses that could get basics back on the market thrived. Many of the bureaucrats of the government took up the same tasks they had before. Local governments picked the pieces up quickly and local tax revenue was re-written so basic services could continue. Bill was very instrumental in finding people to take on the tasks of elected officials and some basic law and order was restored. People who had worked for the large multi-nationals were finding some work in picking up and reconstructing infrastructure. Utilities were left unscathed so people had jobs there and the general populace were able to survive the heat and cold of the different seasons.

Bill immediately began talking about new elections to bring back the country as a whole. Certain sections fell to some territorial fighting and parts were being run by gangs and other parts by somewhat fascist militias. Yet since most people still had a pretty good idea of democracy, these were tenuous at best. Some abuse of power did reign for some time since Bill could not get the elections up and running. As said before, many people were working in the government for basic functions it just took some departments longer to get started than others yet eventually some of the people who worked in the local election departments started getting paid and began the work of preparing for a national election.

And yes folks, our good friend Bill became the first President under the New Republic of the United States which encompassed almost all of what was previously the 50 states of the United States of America. The remnants of the military took up the call and came back to serve and within a few years Bill had put back together a working country.

And after all this madness almost ten years to the day, Jack was given an exception to the time limit and cashed his lottery ticket on his way to his new job.  This was the first opening of the national lottery that was reinstituted to help raise funds for the government. And this may not have been Bill’s best idea, but hey, Jack was happy.

*I can give you the footnote info for the quote above, however, I ask you to sit back and try and figure out when this was written, by who might be a task, but try to think about this for a moment. I left the one part blank because it might be a dead giveaway as to the time which is part of your little scavenger hunt for now.

First on a side note, does Sheldon Adelson still support Donald Trump? And if so, why?

And this is a stand-alone question and nothing to do with anything else.

The real paranoid post.

Running out of time here, but think about this and this came screaming back into my head after the Wasserman Schulz resignation etc..

Suppose you are a group of economic and political oligarchs and the pressure of maintaining the sham of a democracy was getting to you. How do you circumvent the system so you can preserve your economic power while instituting the government you want? You know how it is, sooner or later buying Congress can be a burdensome expense

You already know you have dumbed down the general populace pretty well. Social strife has been building, but you want to control it to your advantage, not get out of hand and wreck up your holdings/wealth.  As with any country some forms of nationalism can get ugly and be manipulated. You have had a party in power that lives off spewing fear for votes for decades now. Hmmmm maybe something can be worked out.

And lo and behold you realize one candidate has such a horrible history when it comes to trust maybe something can be done. And then you hear, maybe this candidate has made some pretty horrible mistakes, some that can be exploited. Yet you know you would have to exploit them at the right moment.

And on the other hand,  you have that candidate that is driving up the ugly nationalists, sure they are only a minority, but they are a very vocal minority. You can add in their hate, a large portion of the populace that is more concerned with other matters than government, general ignorance, douse it with the usual fear mongering stepped up and well does an opportunity exist.

So now Donald Trump wants to be President, he has ramped up some of the fear and anger in our country, the fringe elements are feeling embolden by him, most people are angry at the establishment, and lo and behold he got some serious traction with his birther hyperbole, so you think can we strong arm him through the primaries, pretty much split the opposition into multiple little pieces and win enough of the far right to carry forward. Boom, that is done.

And our little politician who has made so many mistakes and is seen as infallible by way too many has now manipulated the system to that person’s favor and oops is she vulnerable to some back office wrangling? If not, then, why not let the people believe she isn’t going to be indicted for some treasonous action. Yes, you have many of the beaurcratic powers to be in law enforcement, NSA, the military on your payroll in unique ways so let her run till either she capitulates to what you want or at the last minute, oops maybe it is discovered that we should charge a certain candidate with serious crimes, right about a week or two before the election. Oops she gets kicked off the ballot, no one is sure about does the VP nominee automatically become the candidate and by default one so called populist candidate becomes President and well he never cared about anything but himself so whether he is in cahoots with the planners it doesn’t matter. He is going to go along to get along since he is President and then one day he just seems to die of natural causes and the next Presidential election is not really an election anymore.

And now you have one scandalous manipulative candidate (the email scandal at the DNC and the State Department just beg too many questions) being screwed over to cooperate with the oligarchs or she loses everything? Either way, we are screwed.

So fiction galore tonight on this wonderfully hot and humid summer eve here in North Texas.

And if for some reason the tone of this blog ever changes or if it goes away, well after reading the above you know why. Yet this is why I call it the paranoid posts,,,, too much for reality you know….? Great works of fiction all around this evening. 

A person could add more to the details, but got to run