Think Simple, Stupid, It’s About Oil (#7 of the Pride Series)

Part Seven of ‘Pride, More Pride and Quite a Lot of Extreme Prejudice’ sees us resume where we were before Christmas.  If you’re addled by booze and brandy sauce, here’s what you’ve forgotten (or maybe, you missed the excitement of my story in the run up to the festivities):

Firstly, in #1 Pride, More Pride and Quite a Lot of Extreme Prejudice, we met President Zack Frussterer  (as in the famous line ‘Thus spake Zack Frussterer’; there’s a Nietzsche gag in there if you’re paying attention).  He’s having a bit of an oil crisis, in that the US used too much and he has no money to buy any more and none of the normal techniques of government misinformation can disguise cold homes and vehicles stranded on the freeway, as we found out in #2 Lessons in Economics and Theft, in which we learn about his advisors – the chorus of Yeses and the designated nay-sayer, plus the pretty intern who will ultimately undo him (that’s ‘undo’ his flies rather than his political career).  His wounded pride leads to a problem in the John Thomas department in #3 A Question of Lost Anatomy and in #4 A Dickens of a Problem, news of the problem spreads to the White House press core.  In #5 The Possibility of a Saviour, the President hears of Professor Daville, a famously ‘to-the-point’ political philosopher who might offer the wisdom needed to bring a sweeping change in his fortunes and oild to the motherland.  But in #6 A New Hope, Daville proved not to be much like Luke Skywalker, or even the ‘establishment-approved’ white heterosexual male the President expected when she trundled into the White House in her wheelchair, having the audacity to be a black lesbian and smarter than everybody else.  He thought he coped well with the shock….

And now we carry on with Part Seven: 

For years before her national infamy, Beverley Daville did a weekly ten-minute political slot on local radio. It was the station’s most listened to and talked about current-affairs programme, quite out of proportion to the audience such programmes normally attract.
But the one occasion she made it onto a TV talk show, the show’s ratings dived ten points and didn’t recover. Her radio slot never did so well after that. Who’d have thought that so soon afterwards she’d have found herself a national mouthpiece in the form of Frussterer’s good set of teeth.
Daville is lecturing now. She writes on the whiteboard at the White House. She writes left-handed, her right being reduced in finger-count so that it is impossible to grip a marker. The President and his regular faithful advisors – the Yes triplets and their strategically uncertain colleague – try to follow her logic.
To be honest, the more positive advisors are in a state of inner perturbation. It’s not just the fact this professor seems to be muscling in on their territory, stalking the White House corridors in that wheeled-contraption like some real-life Davros. No, it’s worse. They are being asked to plan strategy, and without the benefit of polling or a direct instruction from the Frussterer camp’s corporate funders. Even at the best of times, anything beyond tomorrow worries them.
Modern living – those electronic angels in the silicon and the television boxes that bring things ‘live’ to the home – has put a premium on spontaneity. The boss (everyone’s boss) is a real-time president, a man of action who rushes out bravely to meet people on rope lines, makes policy on the hoof when faced by cameras, and improvises positive announcements to liven up slow news days. This the Yeses understand; this they like because it allows them to stand aside, decide nothing and critique the outcome. But planning?? Surely planning went out with the Ark.
Mr Nayshore is also perturbed, but not by the request for a plan. He’s troubled by the fact that the options have the look of an exam paper in which he is asked to make a decision between only a few potential answers. The thing about this so-called ‘multiple-choice’ is that it leaves no room for a man whose speciality is dismissing possible solutions. In multiple-choice, you have to pick one and keeps dismissing them all and finding himself with nothing.
But to return to the issue at hand: is there really a way out of the oil crisis?
“You want to know what history teaches about power?” Daville says. “You either use it or lose it. Right now, we need to use it. We need to keep our society… our voters… on top. They won’t thank you for taking all their tax dollars, building a power base, then sitting on your moral ass.”
“I think we know that, Beverley,” says President Frussterer, who has by now become more confident in using her name without checking his pulse or the political ramifications of polite conversation.
“Yeah, sure,” she says, “but the point is, you’ve got to get your mind set so you don’t end up in rehab when you have to screw the little people.”
Daville moves habitually while talking. Other academic professors have the same neurotic need, but she is wheelchair confined. Movement, even random wandering, requires a degree of preparation, route planning and obstacle avoidance.
“Inequality leads to discontent. Lack of reward leads to discontent. Allowing reward implies the existence of wealth. Nice three-point turn missing the oil painting, Beverley. Can’t have the nigger lady taking down Lincoln. Leave that to white racists with a gun. OK, but the existence of wealth implies the existence of relative poverty, and the simultaneous existence of wealth and poverty implies inequality, leading to discontent. Ergo, no society is ever content. Ergo, let’s not beat ourselves up because we’re rich and they’re not. Our problem is oil. What’s the solution?”
She hesitates. ‘The options are on the board,’ she reminds them, pointing.
‘Tell us, Beverley,’ urges Frussterer, who has by now become more confident in using her name without checking his pulse or the political ramifications of polite conversation.
He’s keen to get to what he would call the bottom line. The bottom line is an important concept for modern politicians, something they must always appear to approach, but never touch or cross.
For his benefit – and for those of the dim-witted advisors – Beverley Daville has drawn targets on the hot spots of oil production. Not so much options as potential victims.
Of course, Presidents and Washington advisors are familiar with targets. They see them every time the NRA invites them for a shin-dig at the shooting range. A target means, ‘Please discharge your weapon in this direction. Do not take it to your school, office or place of work’. This latter phrase being added to show how concerned the NRA is about weapon safety, and how blameless the next time a card-carrying member spends $50 on Ebay and shoots an entire classroom of kids. (It’s interesting to ask if the right to liberty isn’t encumbered by the need to dodge bullets, but that’s for another story…)
Beverley Daville is tapping the board with her pen.
“See where the big circles are, Guys?” she says. “Come on, it’s been this way for years. This is 101. We just need to be comfortable with what we need to do.”
“The Middle East?” one of the schooled underlings pipes up.
The room holds its collective breath. The Yeses try to look positive. Mr Nayshore tries not to look uncertain.
“Now what we need is a f*cking good excuse,” adds Daville, and smiles. “Do you think we could rustle up a decent rebellion or insurgency we might have to interfere with on humanitarian grounds?”

….. To be continued: on the 28th Dec