Berry Berry Scary
I decided recently to take a refresher course on the story “Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll; specific details had slipped my memory, and so I did. After doing the catch-up research, I’m a little freaked out by the weird little cast of characters.
The urge that inspired another peek at the story is the term “going down the rabbit hole.” It gets tossed around fairly frequently by multiple online and on-air sources. And even though I had firm grasp regarding the whacky bunny, I desired a wee bit more. Watching half hour tutorials on YouTube for quick abbreviated lessons is time well spent.
And then I wanted to learn more about a book titled “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand; another manuscript and author I was vaguely familiar with, but not a whole helluva lot. It also gets mentioned by academics who sit around and bloviate its message, particularly in relationship to current events in... let’s say Venezuela and New York.
A brief synopsis for “Atlas” is the disparity between capitalism versus socialism. Several large companies and their industrialist owners get tired of footing the bill for the “less ambitious” folks out there living off the government, so they – the CEO’s – decide to quit and shut down operations. The world gets thrown into a big puddle of goofy and revolt among the recipients of assistance spreads like wild fire. "Ah, so now you get off the couch,” I think to myself.
The next far out piece of literature is “The Handmaids Tale.” It – like the previous mentioned pieces of work — has been crafted into a movie or for television and has met various levels of success along with some scrutiny. We started watching the series several years ago, but declined delving deeper after discovering its plotline.
In it, our democratic style of governing has been removed and replaced by elitist religious leaders. The fertility rate among the population is near zero and about ready to implode. To solve the problem, they institute a policy – call it slavery, and assign the few women still able to bear children to certain men called Commanders in order to repopulate our species. I found the whole concept quite distasteful. There are those folks out there however who I know and respect and have mentioned their enjoyment with the series. Perhaps I didn’t give it enough time, but still won’t revisit it.
An idea I had many decades ago for a novel yet never took the time to write may have sold a few copies, but it’s too late now; it wouldn’t have the “shock” factor in our current political climate. The following is from the original outline. I used Sam Walton and Wal-Mart as the basis, but it could be any fictitious large scale international discount chain. And it goes: Sam opens his first store and has great success. He opens another with equal success, and then repeats the patterns thousands of times.
His stores eventually account for 30% of China’s GDP (gross domestic product). The United States, being the largest consumer of China’s cheap goods – and subsequently their main adversary — sees an opportunity.
Sam is approached and forced to turn into an operative for our government, continually growing his business and increasing China’s GDP. He is dependent on them (but not really) to keep supplying his stores and they are dependent on him to keep funding their financial machine.
Eventually our government tells Sam to cut all ties with China; stop buying their merchandise. They – our government — have been secretly building our own manufacturing plants to keep Sam open for business and the American people supplied with the various items we’re accustomed to purchase as soon at China goes bust.
The result of such an insidious action would then send China’s economy into a freefall causing it to crash, throwing millions of people out of work and collapsing their society. Riots, starvation and civil war would cause mayhem; and their closest neighbor and ally – Russia, would be forced to assist – and they are ill prepared to do so because…it’s Russia. The U.S. would be the undisputed and unchallenged leader of the world. The End.
“Ding!” Oops, gotta go. The microwave beckons. Mmmm, Sesame Chicken.
