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.

 Mars Man was absent from TV because of universe assignments and family events but had a few interesting interviews with some brilliant people on Planet Earth.

The first one was a well-known environmentalist. Mars Man met him at the gasoline pump filling up his three dimensional SUV. He was smiling broadly.

“Hi,” I said, “Aren’t you Mr. Reid? “

“Yes, how do you know!” he said, relishing in his fame.

“Your face is all over the papers, inescapable. Why are you looking so happy?”

“I’m paying five dollars per gallon for my gas. We made it! Shows our policies work. Obama is great!”

“You know that everything else that uses oil, chemicals, fertilizer, tractors cutting grain, plastics, you name it will be more expensive too? What about the little guys Obama is so fond of? How are they going to work and buy their groceries?”

“Public transport, don’t you know? High speed rail, all that’s in his budget.”

“What about industries that must pay higher fuel prices; they won’t have money to hire more people, crushing your economic recovery.”

“Obama has roads to build, bridges to repair, kids to educate, he’ll hire them, all in the budget.”

“Who’s going to pay for all that?”

“You, of course, your patriotic duty.”

“You got the money for all that gas?”

The price tag showed seventy five dollars. The Shell voice was saying “thank  you, please come again”.

“My stellar salary is paid by Obama, my stellar pension is paid by Obama, my stellar healthcare is paid by Obama, Obama is great.”

“Does he pay that himself?”

“No of course not, bum, it’s you. You pay for the government. Your patriotic duty. I work for the government, my patriotic duty. Yes we can! Excuse me, my tank’s full, good day.”

* * *

Turning the corner on a New York street, I bumped into a man with a bushy black beard, a multi-colored woolen cap on his head and dressed in a long wobbly white robe. From what I observed, this was clearly a man wanting to publicly express his Islamic culture.

“Sorry,” I said, “didn’t see you coming.”

“Salam aleikum, Allahu Akbar,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked in plain American.

“Allah is great!”

“I thought Obama was great.”

“Obama is our brother, he bows to Islam.”

“Does he? I thought he said he was Christian.”

“That’s for politics only, my friend, to fool the infidels. Have you ever seen him going to your church? Soon our Islamic flag will fly on top of the White House. We’ve already offered him the pole . We’re working on the flag.”

“Why do you think Americans would like that?”

“Americans would love our fashion, especially women. We have beautiful burkas and stylish black robes. They’ll love to be hulled in mystery. Besides, they are great against the cold. Wouldn’t you be excited at night to take all that stuff off and discover her beauty that only you can see? Just wait!”

“What else enticing do you have to offer?”

“Our sharia law. It’s wonderful, just how the prophet Mohammed lived. May peace be upon him.”

“But Americans have their bible, just how their prophet Jesus lived.”

“Mohammed is the last prophet, all before’s superseded.”

“But your law dictates stoning for adultery, cutting off hands for thievery, beheading of infidels, don’t you think that’s overdoing it a bit?”

“Wouldn’t you think that would be a good clean-up of all the mess your liberal society has created? Just look at your dismal TV.”

“Oh well, I remember your friends from a Middle Eastern country I won’t name rented the top floor of the hotel where I stayed and had ladies of pleasure bussed in for the night.”

“That’s allowed because they were abroad.”

“So the Koran only applies to the national soil? Our bible’s ten commandments apply world-wide.”

“We want to broaden that national soil to the whole world, so that won’t happen anywhere. The international caliphate. That’s the purpose of our Middle East revolution, don’t be fooled. Back to the future.”

“It sounds more like back to the past.”

“You don’t understand. Cordoba is the way to go. It was the jewel of the world in the tenth century before the infidels destroyed it. It had a library with a million books, three thousand mosques, and three hundred public baths. It will be restored. America was not even on the map then. Even the Chinese will find out.”

“They’ll want to sell you their plumbing ware and try to buy you out. You’ll have your work cut out for you.”

“Allah is with us, sir. Yes we can! Salam.” And he dissapeared into the crowd.

* * *

I sat in a barbershop in Washington D.C., the most democratic city in the USA. They don’t even need voting rights in Congress. But they display the largest number of crack potholes and are proud of it.

“What do you think of Wisconsin?” my barber asked.

“You mean those riots in their State building?”

“Yes, of course, do you think that could happen here?”

“Just wait till they shut down the Government, and those pimps will be all over the floor,” I opined.

“I employ six people here, pay their health care, pay into their 401 K, and more, have to pay rent and utilities, and those public sector nitwits want us to pay even more for their f…. benefits. Crazy.”

“That’s our rights, we fought for them,” said a black bearded client sitting on my right, overhearing our conversation.

“You mean you paid for those guys you elected, and then those guys voted for all your benefits in return,” my barber said, a bit too loud, swaying his scissors in front of me giving me the jitters. “And the poor taxpayer pays.”

“The majority counts,” the client retorted.

“Hah! And when the other majority counts, you walk out. Bull…,” my barber said, bristling, resuming his job on my skull.

“You’re nothing but a bunch of rotten socialists,” the client on my left butted in. “You don’t give a damn if a State’s broke and goes belly up. You think Obama will pay anyway, with my money.”

“Yes, that’s what he said during his campaign. He’ll walk with us, not with you.”

“So what about America? Don’t you care if they go broke?” my barber asked, shaking his scissors wildly towards the Capitol.

“We’re international,” the client now identified as the socialist said. “We have brothers all over the world, Russia, Middle-East, France, you name it. We don’t need America. We don’t need countries. Workers unite the world over. We’ll create a new world order soon.”

“Of workers?” scoffed my barber. “What you work for? You teaching? My kids don’t learn anything at my public school except selling drugs. My wife does their homework and they don’t even say thanks.”

“Silly class war fare,” the fellow on my left said. “You guys don’t know you get suckered by your own bosses? You pay them your union dues and they live in palaces with hookers sliding in on the conveyor band.”

“I work for the Energy Department,” the socialist said haughtily, answering my barber. “You better respect that.”

“You must be kidding,” the barber exploded, “with 5 dollars a gallon of Middle East gas, while we have billions of barrels under the ground in the USA that your type don’t want to give permits for? Respect? Go fishing…”

“Soon we’ll have wind farms all over, even off-shore. We won’t need that stinky oil anymore.”

“Off-shore?” the fellow on my left said, laughing. “So what’s the difference between off-shore oil rigs that you are opposing, and those bulky wind farms that aren’t producing a quarter as much? Looks any better?”

“At least they don’t leak, killing the fish and spoiling my beach.”

“Wind farms kill your precious birds.”

“Thanks,” I said to the barber, “better get out of here before they start fighting with me in the middle…”

* * *

I was having a beer in a bar off Time Square when a Chinese looking man in a dark business suit climbed on a stool on my right. He ordered a beer too.

“You from China?” I asked, looking for company.

His eyes narrowed and stared at me coolly.

“You profiling me?”

“Well, you don’t quite look like a Norwegian blonde.”

“You racist, eh?” and he took a sip of his beer. “Let me tell you something. I’m here on a business trip to buy the Empire State Building.”

He spoke surprisingly good English.

“No kidding! What are you going to do with it? A lot of cleaning to do…”

“We’ll move part of our Government here. America will soon be a Chinese province. We’ve already a few Chinese towns here, as you well know. China Towns.”

“What will happen to Washington then?”

“We’ll just close the White House because they haven’t been paying their rent. People in Congress will get a choice to work for us or stay broke.”

“You mean war? Bring in an Armada all the way from China?”

“No, no fighting necessary. Our President will come here on State visit and present Obama the bill. Obama will say “I don’t have the money to pay you back unless I can borrow it from you.” Then we’ll foreclose on the White House and send Obama packing. Most Americans don’t think much of him anyway.”

“You think the American army will let that happen?”

“They’ll be glad to be under our command. Free Chinese food. They love that. And we’ve had so many comforting exchanges with them in Beijing. We’ve discussed this already. Not to worry.”

“But how can you carry that out?”

“Americans will do it for us. Close your banks, throw out your dollar and change it to the Yuan, take the gold of Fort Knox to compensate for our losses on your Treasuries. Our American collaborators will want to preserve whatever cash they can keep.”

“But Americans will be poor and can’t buy Chinese goods.”

“We don’t need the American market anymore to make money. Our own market of 2 billion people is large enough and has good per capita income now. Americans will work for us.”

“My goodness, that’s quite a change. What about their free speech?”

“We’ll curtail that. Besides, you must admit, it was getting a bit out of control anyway, don’t you think?”

“No more marches on the Mall in D.C. or on the Capitol?”

“Only in honor of our President. We’ll turn the Capitol into a Wax Museum. Actually, the current Congress could just as well stay there and be waxed for life. Wouldn’t make any difference.”

“What with the Tea Party?”

“Chinese tea will take care of them.”

“What about the American language?”

“Pigeon English would be just fine as a local dialect. Most Americans don’t speak or write any better. For those seeking careers, Mandarin Chinese is compulsory. That starts at kindergarten.”

The man from China took a second beer, so did I.

“What about their Founding Fathers?” I asked.

“Your democratic leaders tell me they never existed; it’s a fable pushed by your extreme right. Confucius will be good enough. He was there a lot earlier, even before Methusalem, and that’s old. There’s enough confusion already.”

“But Americans are a religious people; they want to keep their churches.”

“Marx said religion is opium for the people. Opium is bad. So religion is bad. Many Americans such as the ACLU agree. We don’t encourage it in China, so we won’t encourage it here. Churches will be used to preach the greatness of modern times China. ”

“The Muslims will be happy to see the infidels dismantled. But what are you going to do with them?”

“We’ll ship them back to Saudi Arabia with willing virgins, for free, using your luxury cruise ships. We bought up all their oil with gold and have good relationships. No use trying to modernize them, they’re locked up in the past. Just as well.”

“When’s all this going to start?”

“It’s already started. China owns Walmart, if you don’t know. Your main financiers own Chinese stocks and are speculating against the dollar. They know more than you do. Your National Security Advisor thinks we are your biggest nuclear threat. No worry. Tomorrow we’ll walk into the White House with a box containing a reset button. Your Hillary tried that with Russia, but ours works. If Obama doubts, we’ll tell him we’ll just hit the red button and he’ll cave. If anything, he’s good at caving. I must go know, must pack the box. You want to have the rest of my beer?”

“No, thanks…..”

I got up too. Better phone Kathryn, Pete and Sue and get the hell out of here back to Mars.