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Most people think the virus started in the city of Wuhan, China, sometime around December of 2019. Scientists from around the world have scrambled to find the origin of the virus. Most have settled on the stalls of live wild animals being sold in the open market within the city. However, they still haven’t explained how two different viruses mated within these animals to come up with a wholly never-before-seen virus.
In reality, the virus’ birth took place many thousands of miles from Wuhan, China. It was fashioned in the United States, in a billionaire’s mansion in the northern part of the State of Virginia. Three CEOs and the board presidents of the top three pharmaceutical companies in the world sat at the dinner table together. I’ll refer to these companies as X, Y, & Z.
They had gathered to discuss the upcoming 2020 election. This wasn’t their first meeting, and they all had already agreed that the present occupant of the White House would more than likely lose re-election. One fear that ran throughout the group was what a Democrat in the White House would mean for their bottom line. The campaign against the high cost of drugs was paying off for their enemies. If the Democrats took control, companies X, Y, & Z foresaw a bloodletting.
During dinner there was much small talk about the world after Trump. The President had been a good partner over the last few years. But their shareholders could see the gravy train coming to an end and were pressuring the companies to do something to hold the line, with or without Trump.
After everybody had been served and the waiters had left the room, the owner of the mansion stood and tapped his glass with a spoon. “May I have your attention, please?”
After the room grew silent, he spoke, “I, along with some very smart people, have been looking at our problem. It is very simple really: when we come up with a cure for a deadly disease, we are heroes, but when we want to make money from all of our hard work, we are the scum of the earth. At this time in history, we are at a low point. The American people are crying out for our heads on a platter, and the Democrats are ready to serve them. The only answer is for us to become heroes again.”
The CEO for company Z asked, “How do you propose to do that? The last big win we had was over the Ebola virus, and it didn’t make a dent in public opinion.”
There was mumbling around the table as to how this was true.
Their host tapped the glass once more. “That’s because Obama stopped it at our shores and the American people never felt Ebola’s threat or the hopeless fear of dying. Had Ebola moved across the country before we came up with a cure, we would have become heroes. Unfortunately, the only ones who benefited were a few poor black people in Africa, who the American people didn’t give a shit about in the first place.”
The board president of company X asked, “Are you suggesting we let loose a virus across the US to keep our stock up?”
The mumbling became loud as opinions were expressed among the group. The president of company X stood. “I’ll not be a part of this!” He tapped his CEO on the shoulder and started toward the door.
The host motioned the president to go back to his chair and sit down, but the president stormed out the door by himself. Unfortunately for him, a month later ten-million dollars would come up missing from accounts he controlled, and a warrant would be issued for his arrest.
Companies X, Y, & Z voted to go along with their host’s plan, and the meeting was turned over to Professor Winegarden, who explained how the virus would be introduced into the marketplace in Wuhan, China.
| Copyright © 2020 by Ed Rogers |
The only trouble with this is that the big three drug companies aren’t saving us.
ReplyDeleteHa! But they have made billions from the governments just to try. The idea is not to save anyone, but to make money. This is fiction and I don't expect anybody to take it serous but when you look at the greed of these companies it is easy to believe they would go that far.
ReplyDeleteAn inexcusable example of false news, only needing someone to rebroadcast with or without the word “Fiction” to become a “Fact.” And for believers never to ask why the “evidence” behind this has not led to investigations and hearings. Not quite as bad as the claim that police are racists who kill black males far more than whites because of that.
DeleteWhat say you, Ed, to George's allegation?
DeleteAnyone that believes this is not fiction is probably stupid enough not to believe there are racists cops. My family has been in Mississippi since 1832, there are but a few cops that I have known that were not racist. You can however ask anyone down here if they are and get a No answer but actions speak loader than words.
ReplyDeleteVery creative Ed, but so far fetched. Even in a fictional world do you really expect readers to believe companies would conspire to create an illness so they could emerge as heroes by saving everyone from it? That would be like believing pharmaceutical firms would run hundreds of millions of dollars in ads trying to convince patients they were in so much pain they just absolutely had to take some miracle drug to make it go away, and that those companies would then host conventions where doctors could learn about these miracle drugs while hanging out in bars and hot tubs with Las Vegas showgirl quality "sales reps" who could VERY thoroughly explain how great some sci-fi sounding product called opiods would be for them and their patients. Hard to imagine such a thing could ever happen, but I admire your creativity.
ReplyDeleteThat is why it is hard to be a fiction writer these days,Paul. The shit that is going on is far beyond a normal person's imagination. Every day on the news I hear something that makes me think. "WTF is going on with these people." For those who may have missed it, I love the tongue in cheek rebuttal.(smile)
ReplyDeleteEd, your sense that "The shit going on is far beyond a normal person's imagination" seems to be shared by the editors of the NY Times. The cover of their July 12 Magazine, for its "Decameron Project" of fiction stories, carries the statement: "When Reality Is Surreal, Only Fiction Can Make Sense of It." You should be able to see an image of the cover here.
DeleteI just came across a statement in Julian Barnes’ latest book, The Man in the Red Coat, that sort of bears on this: “Part of the novelist’s job is to turn a slight, even false rumour into a glitteringly certain reality; and it’s often the case that the less you have, the easier it is to make something from it” [p. 41]. More about The Man in the Red Coat. One of the wittiest, most entertaining books I have ever read.
DeleteWTF indeed. If someone wrote a novel based on Roger Stone's real life, capped by his finally being convicted on seven counts last year, it would probably be dismissed as sensationalist and unbelievable. Having his sentence commuted by the president, a logical sequel, would be beyond the realm of reason. Most people don't even remember that Stone launched his career as a self-described "political dirty trickster" (or avid saboteur of our democracy, as critics put it) back in 1972 as a member of the Nixon's committee to re-elect the president: sardonically known as CREEP. That is a five-decade real-life track record unrivaled in the fictional world.
ReplyDeleteHe has a full size tattoo of Nixon on his back. That's how crazy he is. He should have been put in jail with the others back in 72. The guy that headed it up was a college friend who said they had started doing it with school elections. He did get disbarred and jail time, can't remember his name now.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I wonder whether we promote civil discourse and real progress by demonizing, in fiction or otherwise, our fellow citizens, pharmaceutical executives, police, Trump, Senate Republicans, science deniers, southern governors, Confederate Generals, obvious racists, distancing and mask refusers? Do we not just deepen and reinforce the division? Neil
ReplyDeleteNeil, yes, we probably do deepen and reinforce the division, and I think that is a good thing. In my opinion, the era of 'politically correct' tolerance is a step toward a bigger problem, not a step toward a solution. We tolerated Reagan's "trickle down" farce of financial theory; 20 years later we tolerated the Republicans creating the "derivatives" that spawned the Great Recession; 20 more years and we tolerated Trump giving a trillion-dollar tax break to corporations and rich people: how is this country benefitting from any of that tolerance?
ReplyDeleteThe North tried a high level of toleration and appeasement after defeating the South in the Civil War; all the country got out of it was the South returning to business as usual in their race relations, the Jim Crow era, and an ongoing battle over racism that continues 160 years later. If the southern leadership had been treated as the terrorists they were, instead of being allowed to return to normal life and spread their racist influence several more decades, the country would be much better for it.
Likewise with the 'politically correct' tolerance of people who choose to believe rhetoric, Facebook instead of facts, and the dogma of their choice: I would guess that @ 75% of the people in this country are reasonable-minded contributors to the common good; our trouble comes from tolerating the 25% who are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc, and who are pretty much against any positive change at any time.
If the positive 75% wants to reclaim this country from the absurd amount of power and influence the 25% are allowed to wield, then we need to deepen and reinforce the division and make them pay a steep price for being on the wrong side of that divide.
Why should people who need emergency medical care be denied treatment because intensive-care units are filled with idiots who chose not to wear masks or who were stupid enough to go to a "Covid" party? And why should the knowledgeable people in this country be tolerant of the political leaders who spout rhetoric that encourages such behavior? Likewise, why should the pharmaceutical executives who spawned the opiod epidemic be rewarded for their behavior instead of punished? If someone shoots 50 people at a concert, they likely end up killed by the police or on death row; if someone creates a drug scam that kills hundreds of thousands of people they get a multi-million dollar buyout and a second home in the Hamptons: why should any society be tolerant of such?
I believe there is a difference between discourse about some simple disagreement and the killing of human beings. You can debate different points of view but when the outcome rests on a person living or dying, to me there is no debate. At that point it is not about ideas but morals. Each group or person you have listed above has contributed to loss of live and continue to do so today. I don't think there is room for discourse, it's right or it's wrong.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree about the right and wrong of these issues but how we talk to each other does impact whether we are communicating or just making a loud angry noise.
DeleteNobody listens to a loud angry noise except folks with the same POV. At least I don't. For example, I listen to Margaret Hoover on Firing Line, Bill Buckley's old show. Definitely conservative but no shouting. I rarely agree but always learn something. Which I can't say for much on television.
Neil
Some of the “facts” cited are in fact not facts, but selections of data that enable ones incorrect prejudices look like “facts” (e.g., the origins of the great recession).
DeleteWhat is troublesome is that people seem to want to focus on their own particular list of problems; their own list of the sources of those problems; their preferred list of the victimizers; their sweeping solutions that will “solve” their particular list of problems.
They elevate all this to the level of a moral principle, which means they can sweep aside the causes and steps to solution they don’t want to identify or understand.
Walk the streets, wave the banners, yell about the police, and change the name of the Washington Redskins. But next month, next year, next decade, life in Washington DC will be no better off. Cheer about the return of much of Oklahoma to the Native Americans, but ten years from now life in the reservations in all its grubby character will be no different. Rant about the need for fewer policemen, and watch the murder rate climb.
George, so if I follow the line of your thinking, the Civil War had no impact on the lives of black slaves, and black people in America would have the same rights and freedoms and quality of life they do today even if the war had never been fought?
DeleteAnd America as we know it would be the same today, even if we were still a British colony and the Revolutionary War was never fought?
As for the roots of the 2008 recession: do a search for "derivatives and the 2008 financial crisis" and you will find countless references to unregulated derivatives as THE source of the 2008 meltdown. Do a search for "Phil Gramm and derivatives" and you will again find countless references detailing Gramm's role in destroying our financial system. These are not opinions; they are facts.
Sometimes it IS necessary to make a stand on moral principle. And if one knows the facts they actually are able to identify the root of the problem and understand what remedies are available; the problem is inspiring others to give up their preconceived notions and have the fortitude to also make a principled stand based in facts.
Paul, the fact that numerous articles have blamed the Great Recession solely on Phil Gramm means that the only “fact” is the existence of the articles. The rendering of judgements by the authors means the only “fact” is that they have rendered judgment (not that the judgment is accurate). It does not mean they are “factually” accurate in their conclusion that Graham is solely responsible. What you do see in this and elsewhere is the “fact” that statistically people believe what fits with their personal view of the world, and statistically will assign truth to what is repeatedly said.
DeleteA better “fact” might be that derivatives were a “factor” that led to the Great Recession. The inventiveness of derivatives has to be assigned partially to Wall Street firms, and thus they are “factually” one of the causes of the Great Recession. One also has to add the “fact” that a number of articles have attributer the Great Recession to the unrealistic housing approaches on both political parties, who repeatedly proclaimed that home ownership was foundation of family wealth, that the low income people (mostly minorities) were denied their “right” to homeownership, and then pushed the banks at the federal and local levels to make or guarantee loans that were unrealistic when considering the income capability of the lower brackets to make payments.
To add some dimensions to the simple assertion of Gramm’s sole guilt, derivatives originated in the Wall Street invention of a means to mix high risk loans with low risk loans into a package that could be then sold as a security (a “stock”). The idea was that there would never be the situation in which high risk loans would be so widespread in their failure that they they would offset the low risk loans and thus collapse the value of the security. Wall Street then invented speculative secondary markets in these securities where one could buy the option to buy the security at some point. The securitization of these loans meant that local banks could now make money on making loans, not on the payment back on loans. They made loans, then moved them to Wall Street where the loans were packaged as securities. Since the Federal government guaranteed the loans (as the initiatives to get low income people to buy homes), the local banks had no risks. They thus made their money on the commissions from making and moving loans, not from the loans; loan officers did not have to care about the persons ability to pay. This series of events was also fed by the flipping of homes.
When loans started to collapse and the securities and derivatives based on them, major Wall Street firms and banks faced huge liabilities because they owned come of them, and had even borrowed money using them as collateral. So when these “stocks” collapsed the collateral lost its value, the firms were in violation of their loan agreements. The line up of guilty people, therefore, includes Phil Gramm, George Bush, Bill Clinton, home flippers, most Wall Street named firms, Members of both parties in Congress, economists, etc.
As to the Civil War, blacks are a great deal better off by the North winning. As to whether they would be better or worse if the War had not been fought, the point is irrelevant. it was fought. My view is that it was better to have the North win.
DeleteMy view in the past messages is that I agree or am indifferent to initiatives like the Washington Redskins, changing the names of bases, removing some statutes, or even changing the name of Calhoun College (my objection to the last item is about the running away from history, and Yale no longer believing in freedom of speech and assembly). I do believe there is a point at which one needs to draw the line: should we change the name of D.C. to delete Washington; should we do the same to the University of Virginia or Washington and Lee; do we remove M.L. King’s or H. Rap Brown’s name from many things because it makes others feel uncomfortable?
My major point is much of this is about symbolism, to some extent overdone.
But symbols mean little in affecting how people live day to day, and whether they progress. Do you expect Black Lives Matter to reduce the number of murders of blacks by blacks? Do you expect not funding the police will reduce crime? Do you expect deleting Redskins will change life in low income neighborhoods of D.C.? Will any of this alter the lousy schools in areas?
I certainly agree that standing on moral principles is very important.
Living by moral principles is more important.
Everyone
ReplyDeleteWell, I always said the North won the war but lost the peace. However, we are winning it now. Reconstruction was a challenge that required a great political juggling act. Had Lincoln lived he might have succeeded in doing it. Andrew Johnson was an utter disgrace who sold out to the upper classes in the South once they accepted him. However, we have to recognize that neither the North nor the South was really willing to accept racial equality at that time, and only in our generation (rapidly passing) are people getting ready to accept it, and with its acceptance repudiate the Lost Cause legend promoted for decades by Southerners. I think that the price of reunion after the war was unhappily black suppression. Hanging a few people would not have prevented this result. Now, I am no more opposed to hanging than I am to abortion. I have a list of those who should have met one fate or the other – strictly a question of timing. Who knows whether one of your names is on the list?
Jim
Jim, you say "hanging a few people" would not have prevented black suppression after the Civil War; you are a student of history, so I am curious how you arrive at that conclusion. The U.S. government certainly used hanging to make a point in other cases, why would it have not made a point if Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis had been hanged for their offenses during the American Civil War?
ReplyDeleteA couple of examples:
*Nat Turner led a slave revolt in Virginia in 1831 in which 55 to 65 people were killed. He was convicted, hanged, and his corpse was drawn and quartered--to send a strong message to anyone else thinking of leading such a revolt, we can assume.
*in 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry that killed seven people. The raiders were overwhelmed by U.S. Marines under the command of Robert E. Lee. Brown and six others were convicted and hanged for their part in the raid.
Fast forward to the end of the American Civil War: somewhere between 600,000 to 700,000 people died thanks to the war efforts of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. As a result, Lee was allowed to become president of what is now Washington & Lee University and continue preaching his racist message, while Davis received a presidential pardon.
Under what remotely reasonable and sane system is it fair to hang people who led revolts that killed approximately 70 people, and not hang people who led a revolt that killed nearly 700,000 people? If hanging was accepted as a probable deterrent to people who might harbor beliefs similar to Nat Turner and John Brown, why should we believe it would not be a deterrent to people who harbored beliefs similar to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis?
Paul, I am afraid that the example of John Brown’s raid proved my point more than yours. We had a few hangings, after the raid. What was the results. Were the abolitionists cowed. John Brown became a hero to many. (Now, of course the North was anti-abolitionist until the start of the war – something that the idiots in the South did not realize). However, the hanging after John Brown’s raid increased support for the abolitionists. The blood of martyrs has always been the seed of the Church. The purpose of the Civil War was to unite the country not divide it. Neither Lincoln nor Lee wanted the South to become another Ireland with a rebellion every other generation. There were far and enough hangings in Ireland (ignoring massacres and other outrages) to satisfy anyone in the British government. Repression did not work. The hangings after the Easter Rebellion (which was not popular among the people) solidified report for the iRA. Lincoln wanted no martyrs and told his top generals that it would not be bad if Jefferson Davis found his way to a port and went off to Europe. Lee, who did not approve of battlefield memorials, took over the presidency of Washington College because he thought that the South needed to focus on education. Did he change his racist views? No. (See my article on the Great Silence of Robert E. Lee in the Journal of Military History.) Lee’s great mistake was in refusing to take command of the United States Army. His greatest day was April 9 when he rejected General Gordon’s and other’s suggestions that he dissolve the army to take to the hills. The one place where we should have a statute to Robert E. Lee is at Appomattox. Similarly, the one institution where he name should remain is Washington and Lee University where his name was added in recognition to his services to the college- not his services to the Confederacy. The fact that the South has been resisting racial equality to this day illustrates how strong that feeling has been. Remember that Eisenhower had to nationalize the Arkansas National Guard to enforce the law in the 1950’s.
DeleteJim
Paul,
DeleteIf Lincoln had lived would he have made martyrs of Lee and Davis by hanging them? I doubt it.
We seem to have seen different versions of the facts.
Apparently, from what I've read, the Northern faction that wanted retribution could not even establish legally that the constitution precluded secession of states. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said so. The North might have lost a trial of Davis as a traitor on those grounds. They decided not to risk it.
Davis was a rabid believer in slavery, Lee was not. From what I've read. He feared that freed slaves would suffer greatly.
To me the issue is that civil war statutes, symbols, naming, etc, understandably have a negative psychological impact on black citizens and that's enough reason for me to take them down. Including Calhoun.
Neil
Please don't forget the Klan, Paul. Right after the war Union soldiers controlled every facet of government in the South. It was the first time the former slaves had ever known freedom. It was short lived, as the Union troops were pulled out and control was returned to the States. The Klan put a stop to Black freedom, not only in the South but across the entire Nation. The KKK is alive and well still, they go by different names these days, but preach the same hate they have always preached. I was going to answer the two post above, but you did a better job than I could have ever done. I've been told and have come to believe to be true that it is a waste of time to debate people that want to use their own facts, and call the real facts fake. The most amazing thing to me in these times we live in, is how educated people support the ideals of fools. I guess it has always been that way, but with Trump in the White House it has gone into overdrive. One last thing, for those of you don't like what is happening on the streets now, you're going to hate what is coming down the pike.
ReplyDeleteJim, you say Lee wasn't a slaver, however, both his wife and mother came from a long line of slave owners. His gg father, Robert"King"Carter owned over 3000 slaves. Hanging Lee or Davis would maybe have been an error, however, not capturing and hanging the members of the Klan when it first began was a mistake. These were Confederate officers and soldiers in open rebellion once more. Do you not think that their hanging would have changed history--- just a little.
ReplyDeleteSomeone (does it matter who?) asks why I haven’t “weighed in” on this. Well, the mass of my opinions on this subject would hardly move the wand of a scale.
ReplyDelete