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Science Fiction, Anyone? by Brad Spangler Suppose a group came along that made both us and our most powerful rival nation, China right now, look like the Israelis and Arabs by comparison (in terms of dwarfing us both with their military might). Let's use aliens as an example - not the green-card type, I mean the little green man type. Galactic Battlecruisers, planet-buster bombs, personal laser cannons, warp drive - that sort of thing. These aliens have an interstellar empire, but they're a little shy about flexing their muscle. The whole reason their culture got so advanced in the first place was that they started out as a relatively free society and that naturally brought astounding economic and technological progress. They're not exactly a free society anymore, though - but there are enough remnants and traditions left over from that phase that they like to pretend that they don't conquer anybody. That way, they can at least attempt to have their cake and eat it to. They can use a pretended moral superiority rooted in only empty sloganeering about freedom, while engaging in the actual business of empire (basically, large scale banditry). Being in denial about their status as an empire, thus enabling them to ignore the loss of their own freedom, they exercise domination through support of client states who will carry out the will of the empire's leaders. The leaders get away with this easily enough because, you know, "foreign relations is such a complex topic" and the average alien on the street does what he's been conditioned to do all of his life - leave it to the "experts". So, when they come to Earth, they size the situation up and pick China as their client state. Of course, they want nothing but peace with America, even if they do find that "Christian fundamentalism" thing a bit troubling. After all, they want to be everyone's "friend." Of course, they have to provide humanitarian aid to China since China has the biggest population of any country on earth and those poor Earthlings are just so backward. The fact that China has (despite a recent capitalist reform trend) a basically socialist economy, and that this "humanitarian aid" only frees up more funds in the Chinese budget for military expenditures is irrelevant, of course. American complaints and fears about this are, of course, casually dismissed by the alien media. "It's just evidence of how crazy those American Earthlings are. They're still our friends, though; and we really, really love them all. To bad they're not like their more civilized cousins, the friends of our Empire's freedom, the Chinese..." I'm sure you can see where this is leading. As the years go by, Americans just get characterized as the bad guys. As we feel the economic pressure and our economy (and society!) declines in favor of the Chinese one (because of alien intervention), some of the alien propaganda becomes truer and truer. Just as the Nazis rose to power in bad times in Germany, maybe the KKK or the Christian Identity movement would come to dominate American politics - and be falsely regarded as "heroes" by average Americans for "standing up to the aliens." Since the leaders of the alien Empire pretty much control the flow of information on their home planet about what they do in far flung and exotic corners of deep space, like Earth, the alien public just gets a distorted view of what this is all about. Only the message of American hostility against the alien Empire seeps through to the average alien on the street. Maybe some of them actually hear about how their own government's support of the Chinese has enabled the Chinese to occupy California, where Americans subsequently suffered greatly; but you know, those Earthlings have been killing each other for millenia and "you just can't fight City Hall." Three or four decades later, alien trade embargoes have crippled the American economy to the point where we're all (except our own corrupt leaders - "Christian extremists", of course) living in poverty and drinking our own filth in untreated drinking water while China occupies everything to the West of the Rockies and alien supported dictatorships promoting the alien culture control Texas, Florida and Nebraska. Attempts to liberate California are ruthlessly put down by alien "peacekeepers" who are there "just to end the violence." In the midst of this, a "Christian extremist" leader (who is not actually particularly Christian) sponsors a commando team to take the undeclared war to the alien homeworld. They slip in as tourists and proceed to engage in acts of mass destruction through ingenuity, audacity and not feeling like they have much to lose. Besides, the preacher says they'll go to heaven. Millions of "aliens on the street" are killed. In the aftermath, elements in the alien media begin commenting that the cause of this is, obviously, "unregulated tourism." I would submit that the interests of the average alien on the street are not being served by such pronouncements. October 21, 2001 |
