Grandpa’s Stories
A Grimm Fairy Tale
A Grimm Fairy Tale
In their crowded house in Suburbia City, Texas, that early spring morning in 2026, Grandpa Bob Fellows removed his small coffee brewing metal cup off the top of his campers sterno burner and sat down at the kitchen table to drink it in the pre-dawn light. It was still dark in the house but some light filtered through the windows from the lightening sky. Seventy-five years old, he was old enough to remember the old days, but young enough to cope with the country the way it was.
His nine year old great granddaughter, Bessie, came quietly into the kitchen and sat down on the chair facing him. She placed her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands and whispered, “Good Morning, Grandpa!”
“Shusss,” Bob admonished her, “you’ll wake your cousins and the whole house up. You know the electricity does not come on for another hour, so there is no need to wake up everybody.” The electricity would be turned on by the government run electric company from 0700 to 0900 to allow folks to cook and wash before it went off until 1600 hours. For as long as she could remember, there was no electricity during the night or during the middle daylight hours; only in the evenings from Four PM until Ten O’Clock, and between seven and nine in the morning. The Leader regularly pointed out how much energy this practice saved and how much it reduced the carbon footprint of the country.
“Tell me again, what it was like when you were my age,” the precocious young Bessie pleaded.
“Now, you’ve heard those stories a hundred times young lady. We lived where we wanted, in different houses and apartments, not all 14 of your aunts, uncles, cousins and Grandma and I in the same house. That was when we all had different jobs, drove our own cars to work and could shop wherever we chose instead of using these Government Cards at the Government chain stores. They say it saves resources.”
“Okay then, Grandpa, tell me how it changed, or maybe why or when? I’m hungry but can’t nuke my oatmeal until the power gets turned on.”
“Sweetheart, it’s a long story, but I’ll make it as brief as possible.
It all started in 1981 when a smart likable feller named Ronald Reagan became president of what was then called the United States of America. He was full of charm, optimism, and truly believed that all Americans were blessed. He came into office at a time of recession and was determined to make life better for all of us. A firm believer in that adage ‘A rising tide raises all boats’, he developed what folks mocked as the ‘trickle down theory’, figuring that if the builders, and manufacturers did well and grew and prospered, so to – would all of the folks that worked for them.
Oh, those were great years Bessie. The country prospered, we were strong and respected around the world, the only shooting wars were little piss-pot dictators that were rapidly shut down. Even our greatest moral enemy for the previous forty years, Russia, changed its ways and all of its world domination dreams were wiped away without a shot being fired.
Unfortunately, there existed a small dedicated cabal of sinister people in a place called Chicagoland, USA who were totally unhappy for many reasons. The rich were getting richer, the middle class was living better, even the blue collar workers were prospering. But these folks in Chicagoland saw gold in the thousands and thousands of those who didn’t work or contribute to the economy. They were poor, uneducated, and best of all, unhappy with their lot in life.
These Chicago folks also suffered from that sixth deadly sin – Envy. You heard of the Seven Deadly sins at your Sunday morning non-religious meetings over in Peterson’s garage, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes Grandpa, wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony. Our non-religious teacher even shakes her finger when she discusses them, so I guess they’re pretty bad.”
“Anyway, these Chicagoland fellers really hated it that all of the power and money in this country was concentrated on the East coast in New York City and Washington DC and on the West coast in San Francisco and Simi Valley. So they decided, among other long term changes, to create Chicagoland as the center of power in the country, after all – it is in the center of the country.
These fellers, organizers, convicted domestic terrorists, billionaires, and professors, designed their long term plans way back after Reagan left office. They started adding little bits and pieces to much larger legislative bills in the congress that gave more and more power to the office then known as President, not Leader, like today. Anyway, the President’s powers grew with each year and then in 1994, they got the then president, a country boy from Arkansas, to sign an Executive Order, ‘National Defense Industrial Resources Preparedness Bill’. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
Anyway this order gave the president the power to take control of all energy supplies in the entire nation in case of national emergency. Problem was – nobody defined was a ‘national emergency’ was.
I’m going on too long here and the sun is almost coming up, so let me fast forward a few years.
This Chicagoland group found themselves a well spoken half white-half black man who could read a teleprompter like a concert violinist can play a fiddle. They greased him into state office, and then with some legal chicanery got him a seat in the US Senate…”
“What’s a senate, Grandpa?”
“Quiet girl, one topic at a time, I’ll tell you about the Senate and the House of Representatives we used to have another day. Anyway, after a couple of brilliantly read speeches, the citizens of this country voted him straight into the White House, without even knowing him. But he did read those speeches they wrote for him well!”
Well now, after a couple years in office, it began to look like their man might not get re-elected, so they quietly prepared Executive Order 12919, which added to and increased the powers of the President including in ‘peace time’. Again, he just had to declare a national emergency.
Cutting to the chase, in 2012, the perfect storm hit. He won the popular vote by just a few votes – but lost the electoral vote by just a few votes. Making a whole lot of folks unhappy in both national parties. At the same time the House and the Senate couldn’t agree on a budget, sequestration set in, and then bang – the whole government shut down for lack of money.
The SEIU, and other trade unions all went on strike and formed picket lines and such like. The elderly, the unemployed, the folks on welfare, all missed their monthly checks and took to the streets setting cars on fire, buildings and stores were robbed and burned, shootings occurred. Anarchy was the name of the game.
Police, firefighters, hospital technicians were all out on strike for lack of pay, as well as all other public sector union members in offices and important positions across the land.
So the feller who was still president, the Chicagoland frontman, was told to exercise Executive Order 12919 and he did. Took all control of all communications, broadcast networks, power companies, took over Google, Yahoo, Firefox and all internet servers; he called out the national guards across the country to establish order.”
“Didn’t anyone object, Grandpa?”
“Oh yes, darling, first the Supreme court – I’ll tell you what they were on another morning – had an emergency session and declared his actions as unconstitutional. He had all electricity, power, heat, light and communications cut off to their building. Their security police were withdrawn and reassigned. The same thing happened to the Congress when they started speechifying and raising heck. He cut off their power, water, utilities, communications, drafted all the capitol police into a local national guard unit and left the congress impotent.
Power grids were shut down across the nation, no phones, no communications of any kind. After a couple of weeks that we now refer to as the New Years Terror of 2013, the power came on across the land on January 15th, our TV’s came on and the President, the feller we now simply call ‘The Leader’ addressed the nation.
‘Because of all that had occurred, he had declared the nation in a state of emergency and he would remain in office until such time as he removed the declaration. There would be no inauguration on January 20th, and he would guide us through these troubles. The Constitution and Bill of Rights will be suspended until he safely saw us through that troubled time.’
That was 13 years ago, this month Bessie. And that’s why we are directed to live in extended family groups like we do, why there are no privately owned cars or vehicles. Why all of the power, communication, and major manufacturing companies belong to the government. It was for our protection from each other that all household weapons, both handguns and long guns, were removed.
You notice that in this entire event, The Leader didn’t order a single police or military man to shoot a single citizen. The group he worked for knew that we would cause each other enough harm that we would welcome governmental protection of any kind when it came.
And, Bessie, it’s why I can only tell you this story in the dark at our kitchen table, because to speak these words in public would be declared ‘Hate’ speech and I could go to jail.”
About then, the back door to the kitchen burst in and four soldiers in black uniforms, with automatic rifles and face masks charged in. “You are under arrest Mr. Fellows, for ‘Hate’ speech and spreading false rumors about ‘The Leader’. You did good, young lady, now give me that radio microphone you are clasping in your hands under your chin.
Corporal Smith, escort this young lady out to the van. After listening to this story she will need to spend a month in one of our children's 'Think' camps before she is returned to her family.
Sergeant Jones, radio the SWAT team out front to go over and arrest the Peterson’s for conducting religious activities in their garage.”
Cut to black……
No comments:
Post a Comment