The Possibility of a Saviour (#5 of the Pride Series)

Part Five of Pride, More Pride and Quite a Lot of Extreme Prejudice (see the previous part):

In politics, there is a list of personal characteristics that one might possess but must never confess or profess for fear that the intolerant will not forgive such dysfunctions, or that the tolerant will see their mention as a boast about triumph over adversity.
Frussterer’s current spherical shortage is a case in point. It may make him less of a man in the eyes of some, but it does not make him less of a President. Still he cannot speak its name. And no one else may even whisper. Presidents, like emperors, live in new clothes, all cut from the same old disappearing cloth.
Frussterer holds station behind his desk, worrying about the fabric of his presidency. All of a sudden, he is scared of parades and press conferences. Someone might ask him about oil or point out how most sports are played with one ball at a time, a joke now viral on Twitter.
Across the room, the TV screen shows highlights of his greatest speeches – the triumphant convention, the even more triumphant election night, the inauguration. The on screen Frussterer is the fully virile, twin-ball, both barrelled President. Doubt is not yet upon him.
“God, I was good that day,” he says, examining himself and then examining those advisors who faces are designed to reflect the necessary reassurance.
“Yes,” says Ayeland.
“Yes,” says Javitz.
“Yes,” says Sicanto.
Unfortunately, today’s stumbling performance before the press core was not so successful or manly. They will not be replaying that one.
In the past twenty-four hours, a string of industry experts have been summoned to the White House. Each has failed to deliver any viable plan to avert the impending drought of oil. The latest candidate, a rock faced oil man who made his fortune predicting price hikes when others foresaw price falls, and gambling on the collapse of a price bubble while others were still trying to buy, sits in a chair with his ten-thousand dollar suit screaming success at the less than successful Frussterer administration.
“I think you may be looking at this wrong,” he says.
“I think you might be right,” says Nayshore who has taken up station beside the oilman. He does not say who he thinks is right, so his comment is lost in the confusion.
The other three yeses stare at the oilman, this betrayer, this blot on the cheerleading tradition. He clearly has no conception of the term ‘career decision’. By contrast, these other seasoned advisors are careerists who decide each issue by making career-decisions, entirely of the self-defensive variety. They would pity him if his mild rebuke weren’t so unAmericanly negative.
Advisors and President fix the oilman with a stare.
“Well, sir,” says this one brave soul, “everyone hates you. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing – good God, no, in the past it’s been our entire foreign policy to engender fear and loathing – only now it might make things easier if they didn’t. This present crisis, for example…”
He stops as the others drown him out with loud ‘hrumpfs’ of disapproval.
“Hate me?” says Frussterer. “I think you are mistaken. Did you not see that they voted me in?”
“Yes, sir. Perhaps I should be more specific. When I say everyone, sir, I meant everyone who didn’t vote for you.”
“But the majority of the electorate voted for me.”
“They clearly hated you less than they hated the other guy on election day. But that leaves roughly 6.4 billion people in the world that hate you unreservedly. Your actions have far deeper consequences for most of them than they do for the citizens of the United States. No American ever starves as a result of American foreign policy.”
“So you’re saying we need to be nicer?” Frussterer says as if assessing something so preposterous pains him deeply. “How will that get us oil?” It doesn’t like a policy likely to restore his virility either.
“I’m sure the president’s latest statement made a suitable impression on the citizens of the world,” says Ayeland.
“I’m sure it scared the bejeebers out of them,” says the oilman, “but that ain’t gonna help you.”
“We thought it struck a balance,” says Sicanto.
“In the sense of containing unnecessary hints of both truth and immorality, maybe, but people are sensitive to the thought that our standards are declining,” the oil man. Though of course, he doesn’t add that it’s the impression that counts rather than the reality. And anyone who thinks morality is declining must believe we climbed some kind of hill in the first place, which many see no evidence for.
“Although, you are surely correct, sir,” says Javitz, trying to pour oil on the waters, even though it is the lack of that very liquid that causes all the trouble in the first place.
“We need to be strong,” says Frussterer firmly, “otherwise we might have to pay a market rate for the oil and we don’t want to be seen doing that. It’ll start a trend. I think I have a better idea.”
“Sir?” says Javitz in confusion. He was hoping that his appeasing intervention might have settled the matter.
“I’ve been doing some research. The Middle East isn’t a country,” says Frussterer.
To at least 50% of the room, this is not a shock development. Nevertheless the advisors brace themselves.
“It’s almost an entire continent,” he announces triumphantly, “over on the right side of the map.”
He’s been talking to the pretty Intern on the quiet. She’s been providing him with the facts from Wikipedia that she looked up on her iPhone.
“This is to our advantage. There are a number of potential sellers, so we could bargain,” he continues. “We might consider buying some oil… just to tide us over until American know how and ingenuity can dig us out of this mess, remove our dependence. And, as long as it’s cheap.”
“But the trouble is our credit rating, Sir. We’re broke. We can’t pay and if they know we want it, the price goes up anyway. When you want something, the price always goes up. It’s only cheap when you don’t want it,” the oil man points out.
“So it’s a Catch 18 kind of thing?” says Frussterer.
“Catch 22,” Ayeland corrects.
“The number doesn’t matter, it’s the principle,” the oil man continues. “The thing is, when there was lots of oil about, we were always able to find someone who’d sell what they had, someone who owned a country and wanted to make a quick killing on all the oil they could dig out of the ground and then transfer the money to a numbered Swiss bank account before the next rebellion took them down.”
“Those were the days,” says Sicanto nostalgically. “Democracy has caused a big problem in this regard. Despite everything, it’s been showing signs of spreading in Africa and that’s where the oil seems to be.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? I thought we were pro-democracy,” says Nayshore.
“Yes, of course, in non-oil producing countries,” Sicanto tells him. “But if you only have to pay off a tyrannical dictator and a couple of hundred henchmen, you can buy oil for manageable money. They pocket the cash, buy back a few tanks and guns at a 10% discount to keep their citizenry in order, then when the time comes and the oil runs out, they fly somewhere warm and well protected courtesy of all the money they’ve squirreled away, and we look for a new country and a new friend to send aid against insurgency.”
“We call it the war on terror,” Ayeland adds.
“Works well,” says Sicanto, “until you run out of oil and tyrannical dictators who can hold natural justice at bay with a couple of helicopters and a reign of shear fucking terror.”
“So, we’re screwed?” says Nayshore.
The Yeses who take such delight in saying yes to everything realise that saying yes to this might be a mistake. Instead they look at each other uncomfortably and wait for the President.
Frussterer is slowly learning the limitations of his advisors. Objections, awkward questions and the ability to come up with a creative thought in a crisis are interlinked characteristics. In removing the former two, he has unwittingly chosen a team that cannot provide the latter.
He yawns at the thought of spending another second in their company. His daily quotient of super-manic indulgence for these power-challenged underbeings has poured inexorably through the neck of its hourglass. All he wants is to go to bed, preferably with the very pretty intern who knows so much about oil. He stands up. Then he remembers that oil isn’t his only crisis and his 50% cut in testosterone production might not be something that he wants to expose to a 22 year old who might not have security clearance for that sort of national secret. Look what happened to Clinton. The viability of his red blooded manhood was stained all over that dress, and they still wanted to impeach him. Being President is hard, he decides.
Nevertheless – the sex drive off half a manhood overcoming his desire to fix the world – he buzzes his secretary and asks for Tiffany and a cup of coffee. Tiffany arrives half a minute later with a coffee he doesn’t really want, but a body that he really does.
“OK,” he says, as if marking time while he thinks. “I can see that it might be politically unpopular to just barge in and take oil without some kind of excuse, and it might not be so easy to buy without any real money.”
This is tricky, but there must be a solution. He’s a positive thinker. Nothing is impossible for the can-do-guy.
“Who has the oil that’s left?” he asks.
“I believe there’s some left in Africa and a few parts of the Middle East,” says the Intern, who has lingered in the shadows by the door.
“Who owns that?”
“I don’t know, sir, I could check with the UN,” says Nayshore.
The Intern, encouraged by the response to her previous remark, ventures the following: “It doesn’t matter who owns it. You still have an army.”
They all turn to look at her. For a moment, she’s thrown. When men stare at her, there’s usually something sexual implied.
“Erm,” she says, searching for words. Eventually she finds someone else’s: “‘When rich nations get poorer, they renew wealth at the expense of the weak. Conquest is usually disguised, but its effect is always the same.’ Professor Daville was my tutor at Harvard.”
Frussterer looks at her as if the most marvellous thing has just been invented.
“What did she say?” the Yeses mutter to each other.
“Sounds clever. Sounds like Communism. Communism always sounds clever,” suggests Javitz.
Ayeland counters, “It’s colonialism, isn’t it? Racism. Apartheid.”
“No, no, it’s free trade,” says Sicanto. “And assuming it is, we should embrace it.”
“Who is this Professor Daville,” says Frussterer.

< ….. to be continued: Part 6 on 23/12/2015 at 1300 GMT>