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A Chilling Tale of the Future
A classified memo from the year 2020 mysteriously time-warps into the hands of Pajamas Media.
[Missing section of unknown length.]
Building nuclear plants in Iran and Venezuela (along with indications we’d also do so for the Burmese and the Pan-Shia Arab State) has kept the Yankee imperialists misdirected and off-guard. Or rather, on guard to the wrong threats. Meanwhile, our virtual cyberwar army, first fully tested against Georgia, also continued to grow in numbers and strength.
[Missing section, about two pages long.]
Americans’ economy proved to be their Achilles’ Heel. One of the true things revealed in my initial Izvestia interview was that the American economy “is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world’s financial regulator.” So true. The Oil Slump of 2009 was quickly reversed once the Chinese economy picked up in 2010, and the Americans — gorged again on SUVs — found that 250 of their worthless dollars were no longer enough to buy a single barrel of oil. Their last President, Barack Obama, tried to spend his way out of the predictable Depression. But the resulting inflation weakened the dollar further. Inflating commodity prices — good for Mother Russia! — and a deflating US economy went …
[Missing section, at least one paragraph.]
…completely broke and broken in spirit, the American evacuations from Iraq and Afghanistan couldn’t have come at a better time — and only months after I predicted they would!
Our Iranian friends quickly settled matters in southern Iraq and deposed the hated Saudis. As they ought to have, seeing as how we paid for the whole thing. That much of the money came from the Americans themselves is a tribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of our cyberwar militia.
[Missing section, length unknown.]
…following the military embarrassments and total economic collapse, the Second American Civil War was almost a forgone conclusion. Forgone? I had predicted the very thing in a Most Secret memo to Dean Putin as early as February, 2010! Their restless minorities — the blacks, the Evangelicals, the Hispanics — each looking for scapegoats, and none knowing that we had been behind so many of the tragedies that had befallen them. Once the American spirit (“dream,” do they say?) was broken, there was no putting their fractured Union together again.
But I must worry — are we next? What are these monsters we’ve helped to create? Already the Venezuelans and Cubans are ignoring our advisors and pursuing their own goals against Argentina and Brazil. And as soon as the Chinese have resolved their issues with the Indo-Paki Confederation, will they turn their eyes north to Siberia?
[End Document]
***
What’s your decision, Madam President-General? Do we move on this new information? Or is it already too late?
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Stephen Green writes, broadcasts, and enjoys the occasional lovely adult beverage at the home he shares with his wife and son in Monument, Colorado.
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20 Comments
1. Jonesy55:What’s the point of this hypothetical fantasising?
I’m never going to get back the five minutes of my life I wasted reading this
Dec 2, 2008 - 3:16 am 2. section9:This was almost as bad as a Melanie Phillips column in its screaming alarmism. Harry Turtledove could have written a better scenario, however.
Dec 2, 2008 - 4:27 am 3. Ten:Zoom. Right over Jonesy55’s head.
Dec 2, 2008 - 4:50 am 4. Peter the Sub Guy:The point, Jonesy, is to see what might be coming and perhaps do something about it. Or would you rather live in a world like the one described?
Dec 2, 2008 - 5:18 am 5. Rockmelon:How infantile.
It’s like saying that I robbed a bank and I want to email my partner as to where he hid the gun. So I write and say:
Dear Archie Franks, When we robbed the Southwestern Bank on 1st and Hillen Streets we employed the use of a gun. Since we didn’t want the gun to implicate us we decided to hide it. Where did you hid it? Was it thrown from the bridge at Hatchie Creek or did you bury it under your trash cans in the back yard at your home on 123 Elm Street? I am anxious for your reply. Your friend, Leon Winter
I agree with Jonesy55. I too regret having read and responded to this drivil.
Dec 2, 2008 - 5:18 am 6. Laura:If you all want to read something really disturbing about the future, check this out:
http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm
Dec 2, 2008 - 6:16 am 7. Ursa Major:Thanks, Jonesy55, you are bang on. This is nonsense. And not very well written.
Dec 2, 2008 - 6:33 am 8. Mike T:I’m surprised that you didn’t throw in a reborn Byzantine Empire and a return of “Aztec culture” in Mexico while you were at it…
Russia is no threat to us at this point. Their population is dwindling, their economy is far deeper in the crapper than ours and their military actually had to struggle a little bit to defeat a tiny country.
Dec 2, 2008 - 7:04 am 9. Stephen Green:Some days are just plain fun.
A quick lesson in silliness:
1. Sarcasm is saying something in such a way as to let everyone know you don’t mean it.
2. Decent satire is saying something in such a way as to make people wonder if you might mean it.
3. Great satire makes you wonder if *you* might agree with what is being said.
I was aiming for #2. Whether I hit the mark is in the eye of the beholder.
I would have thought that the gags about Putin’s various offices (running an empire as “Dean of Admissions”? Really?) would have been a big enough clue as to my intended silliness. But maybe not.
In any case, my main goal was to poke fun at the deluded rantings of the nutty Russian professor, Igor Panarin. That I wrote it in the most paranoid style, I thought, just made it all the more… Russian.
Look. This country survived 9/11, the Cold War, WWII, the Great Depression, and the Civil War. Putin’s decrepit and depopulating shadow-of-a-former-empire is hardly going to be the end of us.
Dec 2, 2008 - 8:38 am 10. Stephen Green:Mike –
Had I thought of the Aztec thing, I for sure would have used it! I’ll file that away for next time…
Dec 2, 2008 - 8:40 am 11. Bob:Hey, maybe it’s even darker. You credit President Obama with a “tried to spend his way ou of the predictable Depression”. But if the destruction of America is the goal and he’s in cahoots with our ememies, we should all buy Spam.
Dec 2, 2008 - 9:17 am 12. always right:When I hear fairminded people wishing the new president success I think–doing what exactly?
First I admit I will be the last person to ‘defend’ chicomms. But the devious side of me kept thinking IF I were Putin,….
On the surface, I will have the puppet president make nice with Ahmed (Iran) and Chavez (Venezuela), serving the purpose of red herrings.
The real objectives will be two prongs – (1) Covert actions will make certain Americans and Chinese are mad at each other. Any incident (on either side) will be blamed instantly on the other side per American-Spanish war model, i.e., making America/china the logical scapegoat; (2) Increase the russian strangle hold on europe to expand the empire.
Chicomms’ eagerness to be the next super power and their eventual need to find a foreign scapegoat play into my (Putin) hand perfectly.
Dec 2, 2008 - 9:20 am 13. Mike T:Stephen,
What can I say? That’s one of the many value-add services I bring wherever I go.
It’s just hard to appreciate satire that makes Russia look like a real villain when in 12 years they’ll be like an old man dying of cancer at the rate things are looking.
Dec 2, 2008 - 9:48 am 14. The Historian:BIG MEDIA: DISGRACED, DISCREDITED & DEAD
The heyday of electronic and print big biased media is over. The baton has been passed to the likes of PAJAMAS, making the future much more promising:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/web-authentic-news-opinion.html
Dec 2, 2008 - 10:01 am 15. Vodkapundit » The End of America?:[...] by Stephen Green on 02 Dec 2008 at 01:00 pm Sometimes my satire comes across as a little too [...]
Dec 2, 2008 - 12:00 pm 16. Rubicon:The posibilities of the future, good or bad, are endless. Lets hope we can survive & prosper. As for the various factions acting against each other due to cyber warfare, its already happening. Not to the extent we see in this satire, but its happening all the same. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to have grown old enough & died before this mess comes to being!
Dec 2, 2008 - 1:42 pm 17. narciso:Russia is more likely to be carved out between an Islamic caliphate, rising out of theCaucasus,
Dec 2, 2008 - 5:36 pm 18. Pat J:and China annexing the western region. Russia and China, have intricate banking systems, that make our present predicament look transparent by comparison.It might more properly be addressed to the Okhonitsa, as they know her in back in Russia, dealing with such a collapse of two major regimes. You basically ripped off David Aikman’s dystopian tale and moved it into the future.
I’m offended by the term “Indo-paki.” Paki is a racist slur.
Dec 3, 2008 - 1:28 pm 19. urbanleftbehind:Stephen:
Is DIXIE the land of Johnny Reb or Farrakhan’s 5% solution in this yarn?
Dec 3, 2008 - 2:36 pm 20. Dalnod:Most amusing, but probably not nearly “screaming” enough in the Alarmism Department. The year 2020 will see a remade world I imagine.
Jonesy55, if you spent more time reading, you might learn to spell gooder.
Dec 4, 2008 - 8:58 am