The Ends of Greed

Part III


“Nothing had changed very much; and everything had changed in the years since Bush self-immolated.

“The War was still going on in Iraq...only now it had spread to Syria and Iran...

“Bush kept insisting that we had won just before re-installing the draft which led to the riots on the street with young people demanding his impeachment.

“The outbreak occurred after the twenty-seventh election in which the Sunnies for the 27th time shouted that the elections were fixed. While the Shiites and Sunnis continued to maul each other, the Kurds continued to consolidate their positions in the north and unofficially declared their own state so in a way, the elections were after the fact.

“with the government in literal bankruptcy and most of the really rich having pulled up stakes to live in Canada where they could hide their cash in natural resources that America would buy from them, money to do anything was hard to come by.
In a way, China's role as the lender of last resort was magnified and increasingly we were feeling under its spreading thumb that reached from the Pacific to the bowels of New York. It was all too much for most people to bear and of course there was a growing percentage of red-state people who thought it was the democrats fault--even though Democrats hadn't seen power for nearly a decade.

“Of course, in more ways than one, China was in the drivers seat. After all, for how many years could you export "scrap" and import manufactured goods without really becoming a colony. In reality, the biggest super-power was also a contradiction qualifying as a colony in terms of the world's definition of a country that exports agrarian products and imports manufactured goods. A country whose debt was increasingly controlled by four countries: Japan, Saudi Arabia, China, England.

“Most who had the temerity to look back recognized that the beginning of the end began with the publishing of the Greening of America; the book that suggested that we didn't need manufacturing in our rapid ascent to the information age; and that it was only a matter of understanding where the future lay.

“But what they didn't say was that a future that embraced the rejection of manufacturing was a future without hope since America did not have the kind of resources and talents to compete in the information age; nor was there any other kind of enterprise that could pick up the slack. That part of the truth was glossed over in the simplistic notions of the authors who some thought were hired to provide the excuses for green-lighting the subsequent exodus of jobs…

“As a consequence of the naïve mythology that grew up around this manifesto, manufacturers received not only the green light but encouragement to move industry off-shore in a process euphemistically referred to as "OFF=SHORING" .

“At the same time, another euphemism, perhaps much more devastating in its ramifications began working its way into the American psyche. It was called "down=-sizing,” a term seeming so innocuous that it obscured the fact that it presaged the destruction of most of American industry.

“In the end, it was no great surprise that it was the people who were left to suffer. But that was always the way. But they were already beyond redemption only they didn’t realize what had happened to them. After the fact ruminations would not bring back the past or recreate their future. It was already too late. The die had been cast. Nor was their some dieux ex machina waiting in the wings to provide a solution that embraced all their needs…

“On balance, however, it was charitable for us to acknowledge that India and China were now countries of great wealth; and there were more people speaking English outside the US than inside. Sure the masses were sucking hind tit as they always did but, hey, the top 1% were really living high off the hog--whether it was in Bangladesh or Peijing.

“Of course, the troubles at the border persisted but now it was a different kind of trouble. It seemed that Americans tired of being unable to get by flipping burgers were slipping south across the border to get jobs making televisions in Mexico.
“The government of Vincente Foxe, now in his third decade of leadership, with all of his hubris complained to the American border police that such incursions were violating the rights of all Mexicans and wanted the incursions to stop!”

Glotus stood up and yawned. It had been a long morning. Time to go to the gym and work out the bugs, he thought. He could return to this before dinner and do another few pages before settling in for the evening. And that would be good. He walked towards the door of the cabin but before so doing, he locked his notes up in the titanium steel compartment.

At precisely two thirty in the afternoon, he was back to continue with the transformation of the research. It began again slowly…

“Up north, Canada fearing contamination from the insane Americans who were fleeing north to escape the loss of reason that had seemed to be spreading south of the border, ordered the construction of a three thousand mile wall that Chinese labor was building under contract in exchange for buying all of the oil in the northern provinces.

“Actually, the rioting had not been as severe as first expected; some suggest it had something to do with the 30 million who died during the Pandemic that spread across the US and spared only high ranking Republicans who had been innoculated with the remaining reserves of vaccine. When asked why others were being treated equally, the president responded that during his reign, the vaccines were subject to divine rule and he could do with them as he liked.

“In the last few years of his reign, Bush was not as much of a problem as he had been before; it seemed that after the Patriot Act, he spend a lot of time listening to the conversations of his enemies and pretending to be a long distance operator. The ruise worked and Bush had compiled complete dossiers on everyone. J. Edgar Hoover would have been proud. The man thought of as Dorian Gray was now ageing rapidly and looking more and more like Richard Milhous Nixon….One day, he was even heard to say, “I’m not a crook” to no one in particular as his former friends dodged into hallways to escape his muttering and Evil stares…