Mars Man: “Good morning dear audience. After long universe travels and a variety of busy assignments, we’re back on the air with our Mother Earth’s Weekly Squirms show. First, let’s listen-in to my latest interview with Dr. Kisshanger in his bright New York apartment with views on the beautiful concrete jungle, slightly waving in the wind. As you remember, he opened the door to China under then President Nixon. He’s still going strong.

“What’s winning on Planet Earth, capitalism or socialism?” I asked.

“I would frame the question differently,“ the Doctor said, gravely, his voice cracking. “Who’s losing? Everyone’s losing. With today’s shaky leaders, peoples’ incomes dwindling with inflation, their lives being fundamentally changed, to use a favorite catch phrase of the current American President, democracy is only as good as its managers. Today it looks more like cheap demagoguery and mob rule. That’s not what the Founding Fathers of the USA envisioned. America’s leaders in power have definitely chosen the path of decline.”

“That’s a somber outlook. We on Mars still had some hope that Planet Earth would restore itself.”

“Not as long as the current crop of dismal leaders stays in power. The modern Marx/Lenin philosophy epitomized by China is totalitarian rule with a capitalist flavor. All over the world, they are falling in the same trap. Only ruthless totalitarian regimes can do what China does and that is not likely to change any time soon. The modern Marx/Lenin couple is also back in Russia. The old USSR fell with the Berlin Wall, but after a brief flirt with what we call democracy, the new leaders in diminished Russia quickly saw that was not for them. It’s a totalitarian state again, selling its oil and gas as the Middle-East cartel does, drawing Western Europe into its realm like a wale swallows little fish, and shooting dissident journalists in the open. Marxists/Leninists in the USA like Saul Alinsky swarm like woodworms through the White House and dictate the wisdom of the current administration, and there is no inspiring equivalent on the other side to tell them off.”

“So, what’s the poor citizen on Earth going to do?”

“Everyone’s looking for themselves. In the USA, the emerging protest and reform movement has only 30 percent popular support. It’s steady but not enough to topple the current leadership. This administration wants to stay in power by promising short term fixes attractive to the average populace that pays no income taxes anyway, and by demagoguing any needed long term reform that would diminish their power. The people who don’t pay income taxes in the USA, and that is 47%, don’t worry about reforms as long as they don’t have to pay for them. They don’t care for taxing what this administration calls “the rich”. Only continued high unemployment, inflation and financial distress could create an opportunity for conservatives to achieve regime change, but it’s unlikely. The citizenry will vote for the charming fiddler and go from bad to worse, the typical socialist dream, before they reach the boiling point and when that happens they will blame the haves, and not their leaders, who will feel encouraged to further expand their big government thrash. In Europe, most nations have already resigned to the nanny state syndrome. The protected people hate to pay for relieving someone else’s misery as long as they are getting all the money, till everyone’s down the drain and loses its shirt, but then it’s too late. Look at Greece.”

“Any views on the American contenders for the presidency of 2012?”

“Too early to call. It’s Snow White, meaning Obama, and the seven dwarfs, with Senator Schumer playing the witch. Nobody conservative measures up. Hope for a dark horse. Trump dropped out, the rest is a sham, maybe that Godfather Pizza could run away with the price. The Democrats have the majority leftist media on their side, their voters are the majority non-taxpaying profiteers, a formidable force to overcome. As I said, only if they lose their shirt could the landscape change.”

“What about the young people in the Middle East?”

“They call it the Arab Spring, a nice metaphor, but as you know, springs have cold and stormy weather. The best-organized groups will get their hand on society and impose their new philosophy, which may not have any resemblance with what the youngsters rebelled for. It took sixty years, several wars, and many deaths after the dust from the French Revolution finally settled, some 100 hundred years and a bloody civil war before the USA became the USA, and 80 years of tyranny before the Marxist revolution began to collapse. What may seem the Arab Spring will be the Arab Storm for some time to come. Since the Arab states will be unable to settle their internal disagreements, with the exception perhaps of Tunisia, their leaders will seek to blame their disarray on the existence of Israel. The pronouncements of the current USA administration are regrettably at best ambivalent about this, seemingly forgetting all earlier attempts to forge a just and lasting peace.”

“What about China, will it replace the USA as the world’s superpower?”

“It has already done that, but they don’t expose themselves the way the USA does. The Chinese are everywhere, Africa, Latin America, Europe, continuously expanding their footprints, without bragging about it, just blocking whatever critical measure the USA submits to the Security Council to maintain the western world order. President Obama makes pointless speeches and fights expensive wars, like President Bush did, and sells bonds to China to get money for it, but they are indebting the USA to the extent that its power will soon be completely hollowed out like termites clean out the interior of your house before you know it, and China keeps laughing.”

“Would China not need America as much as America needs China?”

“Some people say that, but the answer is no. China stays smartly out of the fray spending its money on its military expansion, will rule America on its own terms and strike when the Western house of carts comes down, leaving the West to scramble for its favors.”

“Would China be interested in Mars?”

“Not more than I am interested in Chinese food. You’ll be OK.”

“We hear talks on Planet Earth about launching a transorbital railroad that would send expeditions to settle Mars. Why do they focus on us?”

“Mars has been a focus of Planet Earth as long as you have been visible in the firmament. Call it a romanticism of long distance enchantment.”

“But why settlements? Humans from Planet Earth can’t live on Mars unless they master the physical change of cosmos, like I do, and even I have continuous problems with the TSA screeners. I have been thinking about putting a mousetrap in my underpants but it could be an inconvenience if it went off too early.”

“Since you don’t function the way we do, try a baby alligator and they’ll stop harassing you.”

“Thanks, Doctor Kisshanger, with this invaluable advice we shall have to part. Till next time.”

On my way out I decided to take a cab to Times Square and have a beer in my favorite bar. Was I surprised to see Lu Kung Si entering the bar a few minutes later. He was dressed as impeccably as last time when we met and he told me he was acquiring the Empire State Building. We shook hands and took a beer.

“You finished the deal?” I asked Lu.

“Yes we did. We’re refurbishing. Ultra modern. We’ll close all Washington Government offices when we are ready, send the bureaucrats to hard labor camps in Virginia plantations to teach them what working really means, and move our people in here. New York is a better place than dull Washington D.C.”

“My Washingtonian friends will like that, finally no traffic jams anymore and a seat on the tube.”

“Tube?”

“Well, subway then.”

“Doesn’t that stand for that oversized sandwich here?”

“OK, let’s call it the metro then. How about your money changer, how do I change dollars now?”  

“Simple, just use the same coins or banknotes. We’re only changing the name to yuankee dollar, sounds close enough. Americans will like it because it’s still called a dollar, so they won’t feel they’ve lost anything, but in reality it is a yuan. And you know about the Yuankees, those basket ball players. The only thing that changes is we put a “u” after the “Y”.

“So not much change then? Americans will be happy, got rid of Obama, Obamacare and Pelosi and Reid.”

“Obama will be sent to a labor camp with the bureaucrats and no teleprompter. That will shut him up. Reid will be sent to Macao and be forced to gamble away the fortune he stole from his Nevada electorate. Pelosi will be required to dress in a bikini without further facelifts and serve Martinis to Republicans at the Navy Club for the rest of her life. Chinese sailors will enjoy that. They like wrinkled women.”

“I am told you are not interested in Mars.”

“I know why you’re asking that question because I checked you out after our last conversation. You didn’t come up in the database. When you got back to Earth recently we wondered what that blip on the radar screen was. I was pretty amazed when it was your face that came out of that space capsule in Arizona. No, we aren’t interested yet in Mars and maybe never. Don’t mistake me, we can get there if we want to. Perhaps for labor camps, but not for settling.”

“What will happen with the White House?”

“Our Chairman will use it as a summerhouse, but he will otherwise stay in China. Don’t forget, the USA will only be a province, nothing particular.”

“What with Russia, Middle East?”

“Russia and the Middle East will supply oil and gas to China and get yuan. If they don’t want to at our price, we won’t buy it. We’ll have oil enough from north-America where we will drill, baby, drill. Kartel gone and down the tube. As to Islamist radicals, we have our labor camps without virgins. They will quickly burn out and do suicide bombs on themselves. Good riddance. Religions may practice indoors but religious politics will not be tolerated and religious strife even less. No Imam regimes and twelfth Mahdi schemes. All out the door. Strictly secular. Anyone trying to put on a tantrum will go straight to Guantanamo, the best thing President Bush ever invented.”

“Bet some people will like that. What about crime?”

“There will always be crime. Again, our labor camps have proved effective. No TV, luxurious food and air-conditioned cells. We won’t spend tax money on that. Criminals and other idiots will find out and give up fast.”

“Are you going to occupy the whole world then?”

“It’s not an occupation, simply an overwhelming presence. China has billions of people to spread over the world. Wherever we undertake a project, we use Chinese labor, whether it’s Africa, the Middle-East, Asia or Latin- America. Haven’t you noticed?”

“But if people protest and don’t want you in?”

“We have learned from Tiananmen Square. We won’t suppress uprisings in our vassal countries. If they want to destroy their own furniture and put fire to themselves, let them go ahead. We won’t repair it. The only place where it will not be tolerated is China. Elsewhere, any press or TV station that will subvert our hegemony will be closed or forced to publish an apology to our Chairman, but we won’t punish people. They’ll give up when they see it’s useless.”

“But you will end freedom that way and kill the human incentive to grow and do better.”

“The Chinese example has proved that an oxymoron. Freedom and democracy are inflated ideas. Look where we are now, look where we were just 50 years ago. A structured society like ours is not prone to upheavals, it’s the solution to Earth’s problems. People on Earth will be thankful for that. You on Mars will be too, as we have no intention to bother you. Enough to do here.”

“Well, Lu, an interesting conversation. I’ll look you up in the Empire State Building next time. Aren’t you going to rename it?”

“The Mao Motel.”

 I said farewell to Lu. Next time when I visit, I’ll find out who he really is.