Retropolitics

Dear Barack,

Things don’t bode well for social stability. More and more people are being thrown out of work; if the big three automakers go bust we could see 3 million added to the unemployment rolls, and the family home is slipping into foreclosure as housing values continue to plunge.

The proles are starting to get restless, and there’s the danger that they could become politicized and endanger the status quo post ante. And let’s face it, the 20,000 troops slated for Northcom would be enough to control three-hundred million pissed off peons.

Sure, you are hyping a major program of public works to put people back to work, but the sad truth is that Uncle Sam’s plastic is maxed out, so there’s no way to fund your dream.

This is where your rhetorical skills must come into play. The major message of your administration must be that the well-adjusted life is the good life. This is a motif ripped right out of the fifties when a bland and toothless conformity was the benchmark of a productive life and anything resembling creativity was dismissed as neurotic.

“Responsible behavior” was prized, and every family projected happiness and adjustment, no matter how dysfunctional their home life was. Momma popped Valiums and dad slugged down martinis just to keep the doubts and the unbearable tensions at bay.

Your message must be that the unemployed father, whose children go to bed hungry and whose fevers go untreated because there is no medical insurance, is acting irresponsibly when he puts a brick through the plate glass window of the bank that is foreclosing on his home.

The poor who join organizations that advocate radical social change are maladjusted, and the poets and artists who portray the misery that is America are neurotic malcontents.

Stoic endurance in the face of increased hardship displays character, while righteous anger and rage are socially unacceptable.

Villainize progressives who advocate for systemic change that would even out the distribution of scarce resources, like money.

Politeness must rule, because out of politeness comes the unity that makes the public both malleable and manageable.

So, let your golden voice ring forth like the discordant gong of a cracked Liberty Bell. Lead and inspire until the public has risen to the level of cattle being led to the slaughter house by your words of comfort and reassurance. Convince them that the butcher’s knife is the instrument of their salvation.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones