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Is the new TV show, REVOLUTION, fantasy? 9/26/2012 8:50:42 AM
The new TV show produced by the creator of "Lost"
is similar to our present political circumstances.
I’ve been watching the first couple of episodes of the new series “Revolution” developed by the creator of “Lost”. The electricity has gone off all over the world. Not even batteries seem to work. The result is a revolution in which the militias take over the United States. The Monroe militia seems to be the main one. Anybody still loyal to the United States is a revolutionary. Oh, yeah, it looks like somebody did this on purpose.
Now I’m asking myself how realistic this idea is, and I’m coming up with an affirmative answer. One of our major political parties is more loyal to the gun lobbies and oil companies than its citizens. They also defy science. 97% of climatologists claim global warming was caused by human activity (Green house gasses and carbon based fuels) Because they’re financed by big spending Texas oil billionaires, the GOP would rather see the country turn into a desert than pass sensible legislation like Cap and Trade which might help solve the problem before it’s too late. It’s not like we haven’t done this before with the Ozone Layer and acid rain, and it worked. The GOP also targets fundamental Christian voters who have built a Creationism museum in Kentucky in defiance of evolutionary science. The federal courts have ruled (Scopes III the most recent case) that Creationism and its twin brother Intelligent Design are religions and are in defiance of the First Amendment. Recently the same people who built the Creationism museum asked the state of Kentucky for a loan to build a Noah’s Ark museum. Despite what you might have seen on some cable channel, there’s no evidence that Noah’s ark ever existed and the dinosaurs, even baby ones, were certainly not on it if it did exist. Christian archeologists have given up looking for evidence that Moses ever existed, and there’s this book, BEFORE THE DAWN, that traces human DNA to the San tribe in Africa. So . . . if there was a Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were black. That would freak out Southern Baptists more than the absence of utopia itself. The Kentucky governor was in favor of giving the money to the Creationists to build their museum. We also have somewhere near 300 million guns on the street, so a militia taking advantage of such a catastrophe is no fairy tale in my mind. The recent Aurora, Colorado, Batman opening slaughter is illustrative. Instead of being outraged, most people seemed to shrug it off as being something we just have to live with. No, we don’t. American citizens should not own an assault rifle. The kid who murdered over thirty fellow students at Virginia Tech was mentally ill, but he had no problem buying his weaponry in a parking lot at a gun show.
The most recent GOP charade concerning guns is the “Fast and Furious” investigation being conducted by Darrell Issa’s Congressional Oversight Committee. The Mexican Cartel didn’t need the ATM to sell them any 2,000 automatic weapons to continue their nefarious deeds. They hire “Straw Men” to buy their weapons for them at gun shows in the American west where the GOP has fought such roadblocks as background checks to make it easier for patriotic Americans to get their Constitutionally guaranteed machine guns. The American voter seems to have bought this load of guano. The Second Amendment should have been amended years ago. It’s in the Bill of Rights because the British invaded American homes and took away their guns so they wouldn’t be able to use them against them. That’s where the words “The Right to Form a Militia” come from. In other words it’s over two hundred years out of date.
Do you really want your neighbor to own an assault weapon? I certainly don’t. What if he doesn’t like me cutting the grass on Sunday morning when he’s trying to sleep, and he decides to turn his 9mm on me? We just saw what happens when you pass reckless legislation like the “Stand Your Ground” stupidity in Florida. Mail Carriers must be quaking in their boots. That illustrious lobbyist (he just took a job representing big banks) Tim Pawlenty’s first objective as governor of Minnesota was to pass a conceal and carry law. We see them lampooned on Doonesbury every so often. They’ve probably put out a Fatwa on Gary Trudeau.
So, no, what’s being portrayed on “Revolution” is not a stretch of the imagination. If someone had the power to shut off electricity throughout the world to meet their own ends, would they do it? Well, I know the Koch brothers would. Gas is $3.95 a gallon in Minnesota for no apparent reason. 600,000 public service workers (firemen, policemen, and teachers) have been laid off since the 2010 Tea Party debacle. Governments set the tone for recovery during recessions. The Chamber of Commerce gives money to right wing candidates. American Corporations are sitting on four trillion in profits. They claim that the workers they laid off are no longer qualified to do their jobs or that their present workers are so efficient they don’t need them. Sure they’re efficient. They’re afraid they’ll lose their jobs, too. Big business’s most recent excuse is that they don’t have confidence in the government to set the economy on the right course. When president Obama said business was doing well, he meant the fat cats, not the foolish small businessmen who identify with General Electric instead of the working class. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner said their highest priority was to make sure Obama was a one-term president and that their party should “Just say No.” In other words they were willing to shut off the electricity for four years.
Dave Schwinghammer's unconventional mystery, SOLDIER'S GAP,
is available on Amazon.com, used and new.