fear mongering

1/31/18

The water had been shut off for only minutes when the first violence broke out.

The army has been stationed at all distribution points, as well as at potable rivers and streams.

After fires and mudslides, this drought seemed like hardly a disaster which could not be met with modern technology-providing solutions. The leadership decided however to fan the flames of hatred. They blamed immigrants for using up our precious water. They let the gun sellers set up shop at picket lines. Of course there was mass killing. Did they want there to be less people so the remaining ones would get more of the spoils—and water? What was their calculation about the minimum size of the population needed? Weren’t there less cruel ways to have fewer people on our small, suffering planet?

Manipulation was the order of the day in the great leader’s state of the union address. Heartstrings of the bass were played upon like a cloying chromatically overly saccharine romanticized, puffed-up pop classic sickening all but the loyal base. They did not understand that many of them, undereducated, living on the fringes were losing their health care, pensions, Social security and soon their water not due to evil machinations of the loyal opposition who were daily - hourly painted in extreme: defamation by the minions.

Yes there was the crazy liberal fringe who sought help from extraterrestrials. They made it easy for the leader to portray all thinking men and women as overeducated freaks who understood nothing of the harsh realities. One lie after another was couched within out-of-context exaggerations. What was the point if the game was rigged, stacked in favor of the rich and powerful? Could men and women of good conscience do nothing? Suicide and mass suicide were not options. Nor was armed insurrection a viable alternative. Reasoning with the many who kept the leader afloat was all but impossible. Religion couched in hypocrisy, racism, fear mongering…

It has been said the work is too great for anyone to do and complete. It is however incumbent on all of us to at least begin.