The Cold Hard Truth (#10 of the Pride Series)

Part Ten of ‘Pride, More Pride and Quite a Lot of Extreme Prejudice’ (see previous part):

Where truth may not be admitted, there is a naked desert. Similarly, when it comes to the big political issues, there are things that exist but cannot be publicly admitted. To admit such issues is to accept the blame, and all the leaders of the world are looking at each other, waiting for the naked guy who blinks.
Let me be bold. Let me name some.
First there is Global Warming, a process by which waste products are magically used to heat the planet. A boon for cold countries, but no one wants the credit.
Third World debt and poverty? That’s even trickier. By now, the poorer countries have borrowed and squandered money they cannot possibly pay back and, for reasons that would run against the normal sensibility of a former age, there is underground debate as to whether this default is the responsibility of the borrower or the lender. More recently, the over-lending that bankers practiced on the unsuspecting and underdeveloped has been perfected for the industrial and industrious West. Sometimes an idea has to go abroad before it blossoms and finds acceptance back home. Perhaps if someone had said something earlier, but that would have been against the code of the unmentionables.
Thirdly, there is the AIDS crisis. To begin with, they called it the Gay Plague, though its symptoms have nothing to do with happiness. The modern citizen – unwilling to refrain from fornication to prevent its spread – is confused by the failure of science to solve the problem, since all other diseases except the common cold are seemingly fading. The reason is starkly simple. No one who can solve the Aids crisis wants to. There’s no money in saving the poor, and rich pickings in keeping the wealthy in that middle place between infected and dead. Though we must not say these things aloud.
Finally and very quietly, we can add to this list of unmentionables the lack of oil and the failure of alternatives other than power from atoms, which is in itself unacceptable due to its tendency to attract (seemingly by some super-gravity) embarrassing protesters to production sites and turn the surrounding schools into freak shows.
There is a joke; it goes like this. A group of former Presidents – a herd or a pack or whatever you call them when they’ve coagulated – are standing around a barrel of beer with a scientist. The first President dips a gallon jug into the beer and drinks it. The scientist looks in the barrel and says, ‘It’s not going to last forever at that rate, you know?” The President ignores him.
The second President, thinking himself more important than the first, takes out a gallon and a half and drinks it. The scientist says, ‘Slow down, guys, we’re drinking it way faster than I can brew it.’
The third President does a whole two gallons. The scientist – really worried by now – looks in and says, ‘My God, we’re almost at the bottom.’
This third President looks in too. ‘Is the wood showing yet?’ he asks.
‘Not quite yet,’ says the scientist.
‘Great,’ says the President, ‘it’s a problem for my successor.’
Here’s the bad news:
The Middle East war limps on and the fighting goes badly for the President. Not that it’s possible to lose militarily when your firepower is so great that you kill more of your own in friendly fire than the enemy manages to injure.
It’s just that this enemy refuses to quit, which is illogical, and you just have to keep killing them. And the pictures keep coming on the TV screen. It’s a tad over six months to re-election, and you curse democracy and CNN because the satellite technology makes this so uncomfortable.
A stooping Frussterer plods rather than bestrides his oval kingdom.
“What’s happening?” he demands of his advisors.
“Happening?” the Yeses say, because repeating the President’s words is usually the best opening gambit, and repetition gives them time to think. This one requires a lot of thinking time.
“The UN’s protesting. Nothing new there, but morale is falling among the troops and Melvyn Snook’s on the phone complaining we just dropped his food aid on a village we napalmed yesterday,” says the President. “The TV’s showing Yankee Burger crates falling like coffins next to charred bodies. Melvyn’s seriously pissed about his sponsorship. He used the F-word… to me. I mean, I’m the f*cking president, am I not? This is all going horribly wrong.”
The President actually sits and puts his head in his hands. The advisors are horrified. Failure is never an American option and, even when it happens accidentally, there’s always been someone else to blame. Unfortunately, the usual suspects (Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Germans, and/or French) are nowhere to be seen on this one.
“The situation isn’t that bad, Mr President,” Sicanto insists.
“No,” agrees Ayeland, though the word sticks in his throat. He’s not used to being positive by being negative.
“No,” says the third of the Yeses firmly. Being in communications, Javitz knows a bit about saying ‘no’ positively. “We’ve just been slightly unlucky. In fact, this is pretty much how we planned it. Being prudent, we expect problems.”
“Like burning oil fields and pollution?” says Frussterer.
“A hazard of war.”
The Yes chorus nods.
“I think you’ll find that’s the enemy’s responsibility, anyway, Mr President.”
“Yes, that’s right. It’s on their side of the battle lines.”
“We could get a legal opinion to back that up.”
“Yes, and perhaps even a UN resolution, if it became an election issue.”
“Election,” says Frussterer, trembling as if the word is more like ‘electrocution’. Democracy’s one truth has struck: if you can’t disguise the lies, you’re not worthy of the popular vote, and you won’t get it either. A fearful ozone is left in the room. “How are my approvals?”
“They may have… er… declined another five points,” says Nayshore.
The President is really trembling now. His god-given faith is sliding. Is this perhaps a final test, or has He already deserted him?
Meanwhile, Frussterer’s loyal sycophants rally to say the things he wants to hear:
“Maybe only three and a half.”
“Maybe only three.”
“Maybe not at all with the error on these things. They didn’t exactly poll everyone, just a random sample of ten thousand or so.”
“We could get the underestimation office to confirm that lack of decline.”
“Or the overestimation office to investigate how firmly your support is holding up.”
“But the problems…” says Frussterer, almost wailing.
His understandably confused. It’s not supposed to be like this for a President.
“There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God,” so said St Paul, according to the Bible.
Popes are chosen by Cardinals inspired by God. They send up white smoke when they all vote the same way. Can we doubt that Presidents are elected by a population whose God-inspired hands tremble at the moment of voting? OK, it’s never quite unanimous, but it would be a bit of a stretch even for an omniscient God on top form to arrange for all 290 million Americans to vote the same way. Anything more than a simple majority might look like showing off, or worse still, undermine the value of faith. When tempted, Jesus refused to jump from the top of a temple and fly.
It seems those chosen to lead have always been given an early sign. Some had oil poured on their heads; David won the equivalent of the lottery when selecting pebbles out of a stream. On the other hand King William (the Orange one, the one that came from Orange, rather than the one in a mobile phone advert featuring free movies in the middle of the week when no one goes to the movies) was a short man and a little deaf in one ear, which might be why he missed the message. God raised him to the throne nevertheless.
In the Bible, God’s message to Saul was this: “When you meet a band of prophets, you shall prophesy with them and be turned into another man. When these signs meet you, do whatever your hands find to do, for God is with you.” In his case, Saul became a pretty good king until he forgot part two of the message and lost his job for failing to complete a particularly bloody genocide that God had ordered against the Amalekites.
To Zack Frussterer, the message, jazzed up for modern necessity, was this: “When you meet a board of directors, you shall make policy with them and be turned into another man.” In his case, the different man he became was a well-funded contender. And when he was elected he expected something like the Divine Right of Kings to kick in and guide him.
“Maybe we could blame Daville. After all, she started it,” one of the Yeses suggests.
“Yes, she started it. I never liked her.”
“Too aggressively right wing.”
“A commie.”
“A neo-con of the worst kind.”
“Un-American,” they all agree in chorus.
“But surely we can’t blame a crippled lesbian black woman,” Nayshore reminds them.
“Why not?”
“Why not?”
“Yes, why not?”
“Because we’re trying to get elected soon,” says Nayshore.
They all think for a moment.
“Do we have to blame anyone? After all, didn’t we just decide we’re winning the war?”
Faces brighten suddenly.
“That could be the answer, the slogan: we’re winning.”
“Yes, we’re winning. Just slightly slowly.”
“Yes. Slowly is good. Slowly feels like we planned it.”
“Yes. It’s going to plan.”
“Yes, we’re winning,” says Frussterer.

….. To be continued: on the 3rd Jan