The Fall of Capitalistopia

It’s story time again folks…

We’ll call tonight’s story:

The Fall of Capitalistopia

Capitalistopia was a global superpower. It had been since nearly the point of its inception, which came when a distant kingdom invaded and conquered the land the nation ultimately settled upon. After years of living under remote rule, a rift between the motherland and the newly formed franchise arose, which ultimately resulted in war, and the franchise being granted independent licensing rights (while remaining for the most part, beholden to the nation from which it emerged)…

Capitalistopia was basically a bully to the rest of the world. Up to 97% of its time as a country was spent warring with other countries, or fighting civil and ideological wars within its own borders.

People flocked to Capitalistopia in droves however, because through sanctions, trade agreements and aggressive corporate expansion campaigns, resources and subsequently opportunities to live comfortably got funneled into this country, as a result of being situationally stripped away from other parts of the world…

As is the case with all bullies, people admired Capitalistopia when or if they could feel ideologically linked to the power and authority the country represented on the international stage. Then too, as is the case with all bullies, people hated Capitalistopia and wanted to see it broken and burned to the ground, for all the crimes it committed against its poorer citizens, and against other nations from around the world.

Capitalistopia was like Debo from the movie Friday… People were scared of him and pretended to be cool with him when he was around, but actually hated him, and just wished someone would step up and take him out…

Like the country itself, many of Capitalistopia’s citizens were obnoxious, self-absorbed and self-righteous, entitled, unwarrantedly aggressive jackasses. They were groomed and seasoned narcissists and social bullies, scattered throughout a bevy of cultures and subcultures. Even down to the way they learned, everything about the citizens of Capitalistopia screamed: “I’m better than you are! That gives me the right to bully, disregard, take from, interrupt, judge, chastise and punish you! I am inherently superior to all others, which necessarily means I deserve to live and benefit at other people’s expense!”

So on one hand, the world seemed to like Capitalistopia’s bravado — its confidence and assuredness, which made people want to live there. On the other hand, most of the world hated Capitalistopia’s impact on the globe, and the fact that it was a bully inhabited by socially groomed narcissists…

There were a few countries that sorted out how to benefit from Capitalistopia’s aggression and general jackassery. Capitalistopia was a powerful ally on their side, but could be a serious threat should it turn its aggressions on them…

Some of the smarter countries took the position: “Let’s just amass power from within their borders and institutions, and then slowly turn the country on its head. We’ll bleed them dry of resources, make them unwittingly worship and revere us, and then just put cowards in positions of authority, so that we can weaponize them against the populace and targeted groups at our discretion.”

But other countries were like: “Fuck that shit! We’re going to openly defy those jackasses!”, which usually went really badly for the defiant countries…

Not only was Capitalistopia a powerful bully, but it had that sort of “Mean Girls” thing going on, wherein other popular, but slightly weaker countries kinda just went with whatever came off of Capitalistopia’s government and military presses. So multiple countries would turn their back on you for attempting to stand against Capitalistopia; which furthered global antipathy towards this soon-to-be fledgling powerhouse…

One country (Coldairia), who actually hated and had a longstanding rivalry with Capitalistopia, decided it would break the country once and for all.

Coldairia’s plan was simple and elegant… To use the bully’s aggression against it; to weaponize the country against itself, by choosing and backing inept, cowardly and narcissistic leadership, and then allowing the ripple effect of low-level cowards seeing cowards in positions of authority to sweep over the nation…

You see, cowards aggress whenever they think they can get away with it. And when you’ve got cowards in charge, it’s basically a free-for-all for any weakling who’s looking to injure others, so as to quell feelings of insecurity and uncertainty they experience within themselves…

So Coldairia picked a Manchurian candidate, and then set out to make this person the leader of its sworn enemy. This was smart for two reasons…

In the best case scenario, Coldairia could get its puppet to do whatever it wanted — to dismantle, sell off and destroy the country from within its own borders. Worst case scenario, the Manchurian candidate would be such an inept leader that in the event that the countries went to war, Capitalistopia would basically be a sitting duck to attack when or if Coldairia decided to. Why? Because if you have to pick the man you’re going to ultimately fight against, you never pick the strongest man…

Coldairia did have one problem with its (their) plan though…

It’s leader genuinely HATED Capitalistopia. It hated Capitalistopia to its very core, in fact…

Coldairia wanted Capitalistopia to be witness to its own demise and undoing, however, the citizens of Capitalistopia were so dumb and brazenly narcissistic that defeating them wasn’t even a challenge.

One day and emissary to the leader of Coldairia saw him looking glum and asked: “Great leader… You’ve all but won against your sworn enemy! Why do you look so defeated?”

Leader: “Meh… I had this great, epic battle in mind… But in the end, it was like punching a four year old.”

Emissary: “But the country has done such harm across the world, and taken from, and brutalized and terrorized so many… You’ve done a great thing, sir!”

Leader: “Can I ask you… If you shot and killed a mentally ill man, would you feel proud of that?”

Emissary: “What do you mean mentally ill? Surely you can’t be talking about Capitalistopia? They have some of the finest intelligence agencies in all the world!”

Leader: “Would you feel pride for killing a mentally ill man?”

Emissary: “I’m sorry, great leader. No. No I would not. Would you, sir?”

Leader: “I think I’d find it rather dissatisfying, in the same way I’m finding this victory now to be empty…”

Emissary: “Why is that, great leader?”

Leader: “Let’s say the mentally ill man committed some great atrocity — maybe he killed someone I loved, or something…”

Emissary: “Okay…”

Leader: “How could a mentally ill person understand the gravity and significance of my vengeance upon them? How could I ever get justice without him realizing the stupid thing he did, or why he was being punished for it? How can I ever feel whole knowing my victory was completely one-sided, and that who I wanted to witness my victory most was so self-absorbed and divorced from reality that me beating them was as anticlimactic as knocking down a crumbling wall?”

Emissary: “Don’t worry great leader! I’m sure there’s plenty of time for them to organize in order to give you a victory worth remembering!”

Leader: “You think so? Do you realize how stupid Capitalistopia’s citizens are? I all but said I interfered with the choosing of their leader, and they stuck by him anyway! In fact, I even asked one of their reporters on a popular TV show ‘why shouldn’t we interfere with leadership selection, when you guys have been doing it for years?’ I literally said that shit to their face…”

Emissary: “What was their response, sir?”

Leader: “The stupid bastards already forgot about it! They’re actually that fucking narcissistic and beholden to their ideological leanings! I’m big mad over here, because I’m actually concerned about their mental wellbeing! You hear that? I’m worried about the wellbeing of my sworn enemy!”

Emissary: “But fearless leader… that’s just one show. One show doesn’t indicate that their minds are completely compromised! You still may get a meaningful victory out of this! The light might come on for them any day now!”

Leader: “That’s just the thing though! It wasn’t just the TV show… I had my puppet choose me over his own intelligence agencies in front of the entire world! Let’s see… What else did I do…? It was proven that our people used media content and platforms to produce ideological divides in their country. I even said we’d deal with the new administration before the old administration was even out of office. I mean, Jesus Christ! What more do they need? It’s sooooo fucking obvious!”

Emissary: “Well sir… That could be a good sign… His people love and stand by him! Maybe they’ll give you the great war you deserve after all…”

Leader: “Not likely… You want me to tell you how stupid they are? Want me to tell you how easily defeated they are mentally? If you want to beat Capitalistopia, all you have to do is use contests to distract them. They’re suckers for contests and competition. Literally the dumbest populace I’ve ever seen in my entire life…”

Emissary: “What do you mean sir?”

Leader: “Well, there were questions surrounding my influence over the sleeper agent. Do you know what they did to silence the questions and criticisms related to my involvement? My sleeper agent’s staff basically came up with a stupid contest played out between my agent and a person of his own regime’s choosing.”

Emissary: “Go on…”

Leader: “Basically, if you want to mentally disarm and dishearten the Capitalistopian populace, just get them to put their faith in a person, and then have that person lose an ideological contest against the person you’re actually backing. Then they’re all like: “Well, he lost the contest, so I guess that’s that… There’s no reason to continue dwelling on this matter or investigate any further… Case closed!”

Emissary: “Surely you’re joking right now, aren’t you?”

Leader: “No! That’s literally how it went! All you have to do to shut them up is create and control a contest! Their critical thinking begins and ends at winning and losing! Their ability to keep track of critical information, and use spatial and connective reasoning begins and ends at what authorities tell them! It’s like defeating a man with the mind of a four year old!”

Emissary: “But sir, it’s all documented information. It was all made public, wasn’t it?”

Leader: “That’s what I said! I actually wanted these people to SEE ME destroy them. I’m not even dropping breadcrumbs at this point. I’m dropping full loaves of bread! These dumb bastards don’t even see me serving their asses to them medium rare! It’s fucking infuriating, is what it is… Their culture is so steeped in competition, ideological leanings and self-righteousness that they can’t even see when or how they’re being played for fools!”

Emissary: “Well shit…”

Leader: “North of 70% of their programming is competition-based. Per capita, they have more paid sports-professionals than any other country! They don’t just have shows that feature sports matches, but they have talk shows that speculate on and criticize performances and performers before and after the fact. They have opinion and talk shows about sports, and then face-offs between competitors, etc, etc, etc… Even the most popular music genre in their country is purely competition-based. They’re literally addicted to competition! They’re just a bunch of competition-riddled junkies! They think and behave like drug addicts.”

Emissary: “Damn…”

Leader: “You know what’s even crazier than that though? I kid you not, Jesus is actually in their country right now!”

Emissary: “Jesus?”

Leader: “JESUS!”

Emissary: “Bible-Jesus?”

Leader: “YES! That Jesus!”

Emissary: “No way! I didn’t even know Jesus was real! You mean he’s here on earth? He’s back??”

Leader: “Yeah! He’s living over in Capitalistopia right now! Like, in plain view…”

Emissary: “Why is he there? Why is he here at all? What does he even do in fact? Damn… Now I’ve got like, a million questions!”

Leader: “Meh… That’s a story for a different day. But get this… Of all the people who actually get to interact with Jesus, north of 90% of them actually try to compete against him for attention, and compete against the things he says! You’ve got people out here trying to fight against him, and then others trying to remix and appropriate him. It’s a fucking shit show over there…”

Emissary: “You’re kidding me… Maybe they just don’t know that its him or something.”

Leader: “Nah… He hides it even less than I hide my involvement in picking the current leader of Capitalistopia! They’re just so narcissistic and self-indulgent that they actually see themselves as being, not just equal to, but greater than Jesus himself! It is a spectacle to watch, I tell you…

They’re so blindly compelled to win at all cost and against everyone and everything that they can’t even tell when or if that desire — that need, that hunger, is just a weapon being used against them.”

Emissary: “Jeez… people that delusional would probably benefit from being wiped off the face of the earth…”

Leader: “Which brings me back to my dilemma… Taking them out would be like a mercy kill. It’d do nothing to satiate my hatred for them, and everything they represent. Maybe the rest of the world would think I did some great thing, but in my heart of hearts, it’ll always feel like I killed a mentally unstable person.”

Emissary: “Wow… The drive to win can be so powerful it can make a fool out of anybody. I guess that indicates that cultures steeped in competition are breeding grounds for ignorance and cowardice. A cautionary tale indeed. I’m sure glad we didn’t end up like them…”

Leader: “You can say that again…”

Emissary: “Great leader… Can I ask why you’ve set out to destroy Capitalistopia?”

Leader: “Well, I have to… We have to destroy them, because we have to win, you see….”