Time Machine: The access of evil
By S.J. Masty
October 15, 2008 – The diplomat cringed as the two, beefy Secret Service agents ushered him into the meeting. He looked fearfully into the eyes of the President, who was taller than he imagined. He expected hostility but the handshake conveyed warmth.
“Well, how are things in the Axis of Evil?” asked the President with a broad smile. The ambassador gulped.
“My people tell me that your country wants to change. We want to help,” the President added gently.
The ambassador nearly clutched the President’s hand in relief: “Yes! Yes, sir! We want to rejoin the community of nations. We want to change direction. We’ve already begun to mend our ways. We need your help, President Chavez. America needs your help.”
A faint smile crossed the leader’s lips: “I am most impressed. Comrade Arbusto (Spanish: bush) has nationalized the American banks. His vast government spending, and the enormity of his debts and deficits, would have impressed Marx or Engles. He is a true communista!”
“As I told your media, Presidente Bush is now to the left of me!” the caudillo laughed, lighting a hand-rolled Cuban Alcazara given by his friend, Presidente Raoul.
“Your huge debt can now only be repaid by inflation and by slashing the value of your Almighty Dollar,” he continued. “This will eat your people’s savings like a cancer. It will destroy your middle classes by eliminating their net worth and making them wards of the state.”
“This is what Presidente Allende wanted before he was murdered. He wanted massive inflation to bankrupt and destroy the Chilean middle classes, and ensure communism. But your friend, the evil General Pinochet, seized power,” he added.
“But we don’t want communism,” exclaimed the diplomat. “That’s…that’s…not part of the deal, is it?”
The South American strongman exhaled, watching a thick, blue ring of smoke waft upwards to the ceiling. “Don’t worry. You can call it capitalism!,” he laughed.
“You already have a huge public sector, grown exponentially under Señor
Bush, and you call it capitalismo! Everyone over age 65 lives on state retirement and medical benefits and you Yanquis call it capitalismo!”
“No American can open or run a small business without dealing without countless pages of regulations and legions of Soviet-style apparatchiks whom you call bureaucrats. Your banks are now owned by a state producing tons of fiat-money funny-money. Somehow, all this is capitalismo!”
He smiled ironically. “Your government’s financial policies, plus individual debt, will only finish the job of making every citizen a slave of the state.”
“Slowly stripped of jobs plus any family savings, more and more people will demand work, food and shelter from government. Every step will make problems grow. Government will keep raising taxes, and keep inflating and devaluing the dollar, eating and shrinking the private sector.”
“It is incremental communismo, but call it capitalismo.” Call it anything you want, mi amigo,” exclaimed Hugo Chavez. “Meanwhile, for new comrades our support comes at a very low price.”
The ambassador looked up, brightly. “We want an end to your international intimidation and interventionism. But that is no problem. You will soon to be too broke to cause much trouble,” laughed President Chavez.
“But how can Venezuela help, besides oil and removing you from our list of evil countries?” he asked.
The US ambassador looked down at his cordovan loafers and twiddled with a Tiffany cufflink. “Well, we expect the Democratic Party to control Congress and the White House,” he explained. “We need someone to put in a good word with Bolivia or there may not be enough, um, cocaine.”
S J Masty, a former Washington speechwriter, is an international communication consultant based in London.
