Aerolineas
Experienced
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2020
- Posts
- 38
[Background: The author is not an American and is not talking about the US, UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. It's a small country so I'd rather not say which one. I am not generally seen as being Caucasian -- although that is part of my heritage -- I am not religious -- but I attended parochial schools -- my husband and I are educated and own a small business.]
Life in a failed state. One. An overview. 26/12/2002 (939 words)
Because the land was sparsely settled and the treaties between kings were vague -- their having been written by people who have never visited the area let alone lived there -- the issue of where the border actually was wasn't settled for over two decades after half became an independent state. The king across the ocean and the semi-democratically chosen plutocratic leader on the continent were squabbling as much between their nominally subordinate governors as they were with one another.
If you want to get a picture of it there are plenty of stories online about the northern area of Maine USA and the southern area of New Brunswick Canada around the town of Saint John. Before the border was finally settled in 1842 some communities had a US Post Office sharing a log cabin with a mercantile and a Royal Mounted Police detachment. The locals tended to get along fine. It was the big shots in Washington, New York, and London who were causing the problems.
In the end, the area was subdivided not so much according to who had settled where but upon the economic interests of the large companies from both sides who had tied up large tracts of land for the felling of tall trees to use as ship’s masts in the days of sail. Of course, soon after they came to an agreement Robert Fulton made all of their many machinations somewhat irrelevant, but as a result of the division part of my family lives in one nation-state and the rest lives in the other.
I suppose that this has worked out pretty well for my family over the years. Whenever one of the two infants running things in one of the states goes a bit crazy and orders us to wear our underwear on the outside of our pants we have an extended visit across the border. This became more difficult after the events of 9-11-01 (as American’s write dates). Apparently the thinking is that junior terrorists with little ambition, or perhaps a malfunctioning search engine, may decide to attack one or the other of our completely internationally insignificant communities. I could tell you the names of these two communities and you wouldn't recognize either one of them.
(But I'm not going to for the sake of anonymity.)
Lately it's been even crazier with this pandemic. Both communities that had been pretty much blissfully ignored by the leaders of each nation state -- who are alike in that they see everything in the light of how they can gain an advantage over other people within their own political party, their country, and neighboring countries -- have seen huge opportunities in the current ongoing tragedy.
For Meshuggeneh -- it's not the real name of country that I live in, but most of the residents here would agree its a synonym -- the two most influential political parties are -- fictionally named by me from their publicly stated party platforms -- the Vandals and the Pillagers. They have a sort of ‘Gentlemen's Agreement’ with one another to act together at times when it serves them to exclude the third largest political party in the nation, the Arsonists, ensuring that 'those dangerous people' never get into a position of power.
The two leaders of the two main parties see themselves as Kings in the days of yore, with the bureaucracy as the nobles, and the political party as the 'King's Court.' The Vandals believe that you should own things, but that you should use the things that you own in the King’s interest while paying him a tribute for the privilege of doing so. The Pillagers believe that you should not own anything. You should give everything to them, in its entirety, in tribute to their enlightened plans for the future.
Plans that never materialize because they don’t know about anything outside of politics, including how to operate what they appropriate. The two main parties tend to swap back and forth. The Vandals piss everyone off indulging their friends and the Pillagers organize better, but then the Pillagers win and the country goes to shit and the Vandals come in at the next election. The Oligarchs have enough money to buy off both parties, the Monastics prove a safety net that works, and the Military operates as a sort of babysitter and trade school for adolescent boys.
The Vandals don’t want anybody to own anything and want for all of us to return to an Aesthetic way of life, eating a Macrobiotic-Paleo-Starvation diet. They see humankind as an infection harming the planet. The influence they have from stems from being semi-organized -- a large number of non-political appointee bureaucrats are Arsonists -- but they are probably less numerous than Small Business Owners, Oligarchs, Monastics, and the Military.
Yes, the military here is highly disorganized. The Officer Corps is sort of like those guys in a garage band who don't know you must tune a guitar. They don't understand why their 'axe' doesn't work right. They just decide their last toy is ‘crap’ and buy a new one that they don’t understand anymore than the one they already have with mom’s credit card, and the cycle repeats itself.
Life in a failed state. One. An overview. 26/12/2002 (939 words)
Because the land was sparsely settled and the treaties between kings were vague -- their having been written by people who have never visited the area let alone lived there -- the issue of where the border actually was wasn't settled for over two decades after half became an independent state. The king across the ocean and the semi-democratically chosen plutocratic leader on the continent were squabbling as much between their nominally subordinate governors as they were with one another.
If you want to get a picture of it there are plenty of stories online about the northern area of Maine USA and the southern area of New Brunswick Canada around the town of Saint John. Before the border was finally settled in 1842 some communities had a US Post Office sharing a log cabin with a mercantile and a Royal Mounted Police detachment. The locals tended to get along fine. It was the big shots in Washington, New York, and London who were causing the problems.
In the end, the area was subdivided not so much according to who had settled where but upon the economic interests of the large companies from both sides who had tied up large tracts of land for the felling of tall trees to use as ship’s masts in the days of sail. Of course, soon after they came to an agreement Robert Fulton made all of their many machinations somewhat irrelevant, but as a result of the division part of my family lives in one nation-state and the rest lives in the other.
I suppose that this has worked out pretty well for my family over the years. Whenever one of the two infants running things in one of the states goes a bit crazy and orders us to wear our underwear on the outside of our pants we have an extended visit across the border. This became more difficult after the events of 9-11-01 (as American’s write dates). Apparently the thinking is that junior terrorists with little ambition, or perhaps a malfunctioning search engine, may decide to attack one or the other of our completely internationally insignificant communities. I could tell you the names of these two communities and you wouldn't recognize either one of them.
(But I'm not going to for the sake of anonymity.)
Lately it's been even crazier with this pandemic. Both communities that had been pretty much blissfully ignored by the leaders of each nation state -- who are alike in that they see everything in the light of how they can gain an advantage over other people within their own political party, their country, and neighboring countries -- have seen huge opportunities in the current ongoing tragedy.
For Meshuggeneh -- it's not the real name of country that I live in, but most of the residents here would agree its a synonym -- the two most influential political parties are -- fictionally named by me from their publicly stated party platforms -- the Vandals and the Pillagers. They have a sort of ‘Gentlemen's Agreement’ with one another to act together at times when it serves them to exclude the third largest political party in the nation, the Arsonists, ensuring that 'those dangerous people' never get into a position of power.
The two leaders of the two main parties see themselves as Kings in the days of yore, with the bureaucracy as the nobles, and the political party as the 'King's Court.' The Vandals believe that you should own things, but that you should use the things that you own in the King’s interest while paying him a tribute for the privilege of doing so. The Pillagers believe that you should not own anything. You should give everything to them, in its entirety, in tribute to their enlightened plans for the future.
Plans that never materialize because they don’t know about anything outside of politics, including how to operate what they appropriate. The two main parties tend to swap back and forth. The Vandals piss everyone off indulging their friends and the Pillagers organize better, but then the Pillagers win and the country goes to shit and the Vandals come in at the next election. The Oligarchs have enough money to buy off both parties, the Monastics prove a safety net that works, and the Military operates as a sort of babysitter and trade school for adolescent boys.
The Vandals don’t want anybody to own anything and want for all of us to return to an Aesthetic way of life, eating a Macrobiotic-Paleo-Starvation diet. They see humankind as an infection harming the planet. The influence they have from stems from being semi-organized -- a large number of non-political appointee bureaucrats are Arsonists -- but they are probably less numerous than Small Business Owners, Oligarchs, Monastics, and the Military.
Yes, the military here is highly disorganized. The Officer Corps is sort of like those guys in a garage band who don't know you must tune a guitar. They don't understand why their 'axe' doesn't work right. They just decide their last toy is ‘crap’ and buy a new one that they don’t understand anymore than the one they already have with mom’s credit card, and the cycle repeats itself.
Last edited:
