NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
I am sitting with Lou and Albrecht Intaglio under the awning outside the Pie Shop. It has stopped raining for the moment. We got nearly two inches of rain in twenty minutes the other day. Now there is a pleasantly cool breeze blowing, with an occasional gust. Just now several napkins blew from the table next to us across the parking lot. They spread out into the wind like crippled white ghosts. Flopping and unfolding, until they’re pneuma left them and they collapsed on the crumbling impasto of faded parking lines marking the puddled asphalt.
“So Boyd filled you in Fred, huh?”
“No, Albrecht, it was Daisy who mentioned your political work to me and I have been telling Lou what I can.”
“So our ‘boy’ got through!”
“What?”
“Boyd must have told Daisy about Clean Up America’s new program. I mean, I thought they were over Lou.”
“I don’t think Daisy buys it.”
“In fact Lou, I am working with CUPA on this at the national level now, and I have learned a hell of a lot from some very smart people.”
“Congratulations Albrecht!” Albrecht unexpectedly drove up in his Fauxmont Militia Hummer and joined us soon after I sat down with Lou. Lou is interested in asking him about his, or maybe CUPA’s plan, to privatize Congress.
Thanks dude … look the idea is … I mean as it is, Congress is basically a TV show with corporate producers right? I am just saying let’s go all the way with this thing and privatize.”
“Albrecht, Congress is not a TV show. It is an elected governing body.” Mrs. Rutherford stands over us waiting for our orders with out saying anything, but staring at the huge black vehicle parked two yards away with a stainless steel grin spread between the headlights facing us. Albrecht buys us all coffees.
“I’ll be right out with your order gentlemen.” She walks out into the parking lot and picks up the soggy napkins lying on the ground where they had blown, and then she disappears around the corner of the building.
“Sure it is an elected governing body, but where would it be in the twenty first century without TV? That’s how they get elected and that is where the public finds out what they want us to know.”
“Also what they don’t want us to know, but any way … Albrecht, how does privatization work? I mean how can it?”
“It will operate under the umbrella group ‘Congress Corporation of America’. You need to buy, say 20 million shares to run for the Senate and maybe two million to run for the House. Something like that, to sort the wheat from the chaff.” Albrecht pulls his long barreled pistol out if its holster at his hip. Spins the drum and unloads it into the palm of his hand. He puts the gun on the table in front of him and starts arranging six bullets from his hand, standing in a row with their blunt lead points up.
“Like dues at an exclusive club.”
“These are the only dues I pay.” He places the last of his six bullets in front of the row of five, like a commander in front of his troops.
“Wait a minute, no! What about state governments?”
“Fred, they can run along the same lines.”
“What about ordinary citizens?”
“What about them Lou? They vote for the candidate they want to run the corporation just like share holders voting for board members.”
“… and what does this corporation do?”
“It governs by market forces, buying and selling influence and confidence in various interests. We turn the old Capitol building into a museum full of paper. That’s where the past is, all on reams of paper. Now its time to build something more like a corporate head quarters with all the digital technology to make it work efficiently.”
“Sounds like we are electing traders not legislators. Do these people pass any laws?”
“Does CUPA have plans for the other two branches of government?”
“One at a time now, one at a time gentlemen.” He starts cleaning his pistol with a small cloth from his brown suede waistcoat pocket. “Laws are part of the market place too. Every word will be paid for. You can be sure of that!”
“Albrecht, that eliminates our civil government and the constitution!”
“It’s a nightmare!”
“You think the laws we have now were written for free, Fred? Come on folks, we all know how generous lobbyists are these days.”
“Yeah, they write the text in many cases … and they are way too generous.”
“Who’s to say Lou? You make my point for me. If we had a proper market place up on Capitol Hill then we would know exactly how much a law was worth.”
“Here you are gentlemen, three coffees, one black for you sir and these two with milk.” Mrs. Rutherford sent her summer hire out with our order. “Will that be all?”
Lou turns and looks up from his black coffee. “That’s it.” He
down at the ground, and doesn’t look at Albrecht.
“You’re right Albrecht, markets do set prices, but I think you are just selling us out!
“Like I said dude, the sale has been on for years.”
“Does the Supreme Court and President have a role in all this?”
“Well I think we could leave the Supreme Court where it is but the presidency is another question. I think CUPA might overhaul the process. We could replace the Electoral College by something like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who do the Oscars.”
“We aren’t going to be governed by Hollywood, Albrecht. The citizens elect the president. You can’t change it. That is a basic principle of the Constitution.”
“Fred where have you been, dude? It is already changed. The most telegenic candidate wins with a little help from the data miners, but that stuff is too technical for me. I’ll leave that to the market research folks.”
“Albrecht you can’t reduce our governing institutions to show biz!”
“I am not reducing anything. It has been happening gradually for years. Folks just don’t notice. Harriet Beecher Stowe, for instance, did more for civil rights than the abolitionists. Her novel, made people feel what it was like to be persecuted, and that got them going. Right now, the media are gods filling us with feelings about our lives, our world and all.”
“What do you mean gods. The media are just a business?”
“I mean let’s look at the forces at work in the 21st century. Commercial entertainment is our religion. The Christian Broadcasting Network have it all figured out. But that’s old religion. The new religion isn’t even called a religion. Look how happy people are in commercials. It’s heaven! The American dream realized.”
“Albrecht I thought the American dream was about home ownership, and a steady job and so on.”
“So it is Fred and the omnipresent media keep it alive. They’re invisible until you press the button, but all-knowing and constantly playing on your emotions with sensational shows. It is such a part of life people aren’t aware of it any more than they know they are breathing.”
“Albrecht most of TV is just junk it seems to me. I hardly ever watch it. I use the TV to watch stuff on disk.”
“That’s because you Fred, are an elitist. What’s your favorite sport to watch on TV?”
“I don’t watch sports.”
“What about soaps or CSI or game shows?”
“No, afraid I don’t watch them either.”
“Well Fred, I hate to say so, but you are out of the main stream. You’re kind of out of the dream, dude.”
“Albrecht, TV programming is a waste land. Those shows are nothing to do with religion.”
“Come on Lou, you have to understand; being on TV is like becoming a god. You become the center of attention in every viewer’s mind. That’s millions of people. That is god-like power, gentlemen.”
“Yeah but Albrecht, you can’t appear on TV with out your personality becoming a product because some one is paying for your appearance. Not so much godlike as cold commerce.”
“So you are talking about mammon’s sacred work!”
“Right Fred! a product and personality. Personality is the name of the game and it takes money to play. You’ve got to look right. Isn’t that it Lou?”
“None of this sounds right to me. So forget TV, what else you people got in mind?”
“I expect we will consolidate all intelligence under one organization and cut the budget in half at least.”
“Albrecht, now you are singing my song! But you are going to put a lot of people out of work.”
“Why thanks Lou. We’re talking about abolishing departments such as Labor, Education, HEW, HUD and a number of others. Merge homeland security and FEMA the FBI, with some more cuts there too. All the people put out of work will soon find jobs as the economy expands free of government regulation.”
“You would cut the FBI budget? No!”
“Sure, all these government organizations are too fat and need right-sizing and outsourcing. We need a few good law and accounting firms to enforce and manage government contracts effectively, and make them compete for business too. There should be plenty because we are going to outsource a lot of stuff.”
“Albrecht I just can’t agree with you on most of this. With no regulatory agencies business will go crazy and self-destruct. Look what the banks just did with their freedom!”
“Regulation doesn’t work Lou. You just get bogged down in the legal weeds, and the lobbyists get around it over time anyway. With participation in free markets, competing interests work themselves out. The banks and all went crazy because they were still over regulated even after Glass Steagall went out.” Albrecht puts his gun cloth back in his pocket and slowly reloads his pistol.
“Over regulated? Look Glass Steagall was a sensible separation of regular checkbook banking from speculation in international finance.”
“I understand Lou, and we haven’t got our programs all figured out yet, but I can assure you Clean Up America will have a slimmed down and more efficient operation here in Washington DC under the Congress Corporation of America.” He puts the last bullet in its chamber and gets up from the table. “Gentlemen it’s been a pleasure enlightening you. If you will excuse me, I have business to attend to with our militia commander, Mr. Banning Cocq.” He strolled back to his Hummer. His black jeans ride up on the brown leather of his cowboy boots. He pulls a wet napkin off the windshield and climbs in with his phone chiming an electronic approximation of “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta”, from Puccini’s, La Rondine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xosvn2LFsWI
