Paradise lost, then regained…a personal retrospective
Preface: While looking ahead, into Alice’s Looking Glass, we are but hoping. While I don’t do drugs, am a staunch conservative republican, and, as do you , look forward to the best of all opportunities in our area, my mind wandered. Not to be negative, nor a “doomsayer”, but what if this is what our future were to hold for us?
Dateline: Destin, Fl January 31, 2010
It is Friday, and I am looking forward, as I’m sure you are as well, to this coming weekend. For the first time in almost one hundred years there will be something to really celebrate. For February 1, 2010 will forever be known as “Tax Freedom Day”.
Ever since we got involved in the Middle East in 2003 everything around here had gone to hell, the country lost faith in the Republican party, and things changed. But this weekend President Clinton is going to announce the end of all Federal Income Tax, in a nationwide address on television to the people, at 1pm on Saturday afternoon.
She had committed to do it in her first term, and by God before her second term has ended she had pulled it off! The Middle East conflict is just about over, and the UN is now firmly entrenched as the sovereign government of that entire region.
After the Iraq fiasco bogged down in the summer of ’03, the crazy Israeli’s dropped a small tactical nuclear device on Baghdad, on July 4th, and all hell broke loose. Hussein had a bunch of the old “dirty bombs” and set them off in Jerusalem, and Cairo. The Saudi’s then made a grab for Israel, the Jordanians went after Syria, and the Russians just plowed through Afghanistan and Pakistan, as “long overdue reparations”. It was utter chaos!
No one knew who was running world anymore, and the United Nations seemed to be the only voice of moderation and reason. It took the U.N. two years, but they negotiated a cease-fire amongst everyone, including us.
By then our whole economy was shot anyway. Unemployment had risen to 19.5%; companies were pulling back and laying off tens of thousands of workers everywhere. Home mortgages defaults were so numerous that the banks and mortgage companies stopped foreclosing on them to preserve what capital they had left, and it was getting down right ‘dicey’ just trying to stay alive and put food on the table every day.
The big medical insurance bailout of 2004 was a total disaster. It was a last ditch effort by the conservatives to solidify their hold on the government, Congress and the Senate. Everyone but the insurance companies had opted out of it. Private “cash only” hospitals, doctors, and dentists were popping up everywhere, pricing became reasonable, so they could feed their own families and stay open. The welfare system also totally collapsed in ’04, and it was almost like a scene from that old 20th century movie “Mad Max”.
No one came to the Emerald Coast to vacation anymore. All those “vacation” home mortgages, condo mortgages and time-share contracts defaulted. The rental companies all went bankrupt, and thousands of service sector jobs disappeared. Gradually the malls became nothing but empty storefronts. Everyone with cash was buying up all the real property, cheap, and renting it to anyone who paid some cash. Of course they weren’t maintaining it anymore, and all the cheap quick buck construction from the late nineties began showing up big time.
National ID cards were issued in 2004, a requirement of the Homeland Defense Act of 2002 that no one remembered actually being in it. No one was allowed in South Walton County unless their National ID card was endorsed “Resident”.
The “prescription drug cost riots” of ’04 had also really taken their toll. No company in their right mind would even think of opening a pharmacy here any more. If you were fortunate enough to be able to pay a doctor and get a prescription you had to go all the way to the Fort Eglin Federal Compound Pharmacy to get it filled.
Walton County had also really suffered from the unpaid property tax revenue, and the withdrawal of federal and state highway funds. By late ‘05 they were down to about five working Sheriff’s patrol cars, so they never even come over the bridges to the Destin or Santa Rosa Beach area anymore.
Several local entrepreneurs opened casinos, and gambling parlors, even though it was against the law, no one ever dared try and stop them. At first it was great, money flowing everywhere, but like everything does, it soon became corrupted. First it was the arrival, or should I say the ‘emergence’ of the ‘party girls’. The world’s oldest profession was about one of the only one’s that was still thriving, particularly here. Then came the fugitives. The word had gotten out and this area turned into the fugitive, renegade, and outlaw capital of the United States. Morality, religion, and ethics vanished overnight.
The decent folks either moved out, and up north, or got eaten alive by the new lawlessness.
By ‘05 the Governor had the National Guard fence off the old Seaside area as a State AIDS containment compound. Any person from the area diagnosed with AIDS was taken to the Seaside compound, their national ID confiscated, and once past the twelve foot patrolled electrified chain link fence,…well they never came out again. But the party crowd still kept partying, it was the height of the old “eat, drink, and be merry” lifestyle …..that is, until the fall of ’06.
Conditions had gotten so bad here by the summer of ’06 the President ordered all water supplies to the island be turned off, as well as electricity, and gas. She then blockaded all shipments of everything to the island, including food, medicine, and the staples of life. The Brooks Bridge, the Mid-bay, the 331, and the Carrillon Bridge were all closed, and blocked by the Florida National Guard.
By the end of September in ’06, people began dying in large numbers. Those that were still alive were indiscriminately shooting anyone that vaguely annoyed them, or had food. Rapes became as commonplace as palmetto bugs, and it was evident that not even anarchy could survive this containment. On October 16th it ended. The National guard, supported by the army, under the direction of FEMA, moved in and began the mop up operations.
It then took the government a whole year to clean up the place, removing the bodies to mass graves in Freeport, burning the rat and bug infested buildings, and literally killing off any remaining resisters When it was all done over 27,000 men, women, and children had died..
The Federal government then spent billions refurbishing the Emerald Coast and turned it into the very first Federal Vacation Sanctuary.
Nowadays, if you work hard, keep your nose clean, and aren’t convicted of a felony, every five years you can get a free Federal Vacation Allowance for one week at one of the new HUD condo’s on the island. Of course your children, if you have any, must be at least “B” students, all your bills must be paid up to date, and a recommendation by your employer must be provided as well, to qualify.
When Hillary Clinton was first elected President in 2004, and proposed the Federal Vacation Sanctuary Bill to Congress in ’04-’05, it met with mixed emotions, and barely passed. But since establishing the Emerald Coast Sanctuary it has really caught on. As I write this in fact, they are in the process of the final gassing of the Manhattan area in Old New York for the new Northeast National Cultural Sanctuary. President Clinton has promised the museums, Broadway theaters, and the entire cultural heritage of the United States will be embodied in this wonderful new sanctuary, without the filth, crime, or “undesirables” which used to prowl it’s streets.
More Sanctuaries are already planned, for the San Francisco Bay area, and what used to be the Los Angeles area, before the “Big One”, the devastating earthquake of November 2004 reduced it to rubble and the loss of 1.4 million lives.
I never in my wildest imagination, thought that the “United American Business Act” for the nationalization of all of American businesses in ‘05, that provided central government accounting, ownership, and control of business, would work. I guess I was wrong. In the three years, since the nationalization, workers wages have sky rocketed, the old corporate “golden parachutes deals” of the executives were all outlawed and reversed by the Supreme Court, unemployment has dropped to less than one quarter of a percent, and we are getting back on track as a nation.
Since the nationalization program totally took effect in ’06, all the corporate profits have been used to payoff the Federal Deficit, increase all workers wages to $75,000 per year per fulltime worker, and finally, last year, the Citizens Health Care and Retirement Act was fully funded and passed. Now all medical, dental and retirement income is 100% federally funded!
And then the news this past week that the President “leaked” about the complete elimination of the Federal Income Tax Program,…well everyone is totally ecstatic.
She has delivered on all her campaign promises, and the next election promises to be the most pivotal one in the history of our nation. We have decided to revoke the “two-term restriction” portion of the old succession amendment and change it to a “President for Life” status. She has literally led us out of darkness and into the light, and deserves it. And then there are several other amendments we are going to vote on as well.
Aside from the “Free College for Every Child Act” we passed two years ago, the President has proposed a new “Free Master’s Degree Scholarship Program” for all college graduates with a GPA of 3.4 or better!
The “Execution Bill” which mandates the death penalty with no appeals, for any second offence for any criminal felony, will pass overwhelmingly, we want the criminals punished forever, and not living off our governments dollars for twenty-five years of appeals. And the “Hemlock Bill” which allows heirs to “expedite” their loved ones with democratically assissted suicide after a majority vote of the surviving family will pass, and finally, at last, that stupid pregnant pig amendment from 2000 will be reversed!
Incidentally “The Isolationist Act of 2005”, her very first piece of legislation after being elected, is working fantastically! We allow no one but American Citizens, with a valid American National ID Card, in our country. They can’t visit, they can’t go to school, and since we did away with welfare those that we had here all had to go back to where they came from. If they refused, they were ajudicated a “mandate” of life imprisonment in Fort Idaho or Fort Rhode Island, the two new Federal Permanent Internment and Resettlement Facilities, from which no parole, pardon, or release is allowed.
Part of the” International World Wide Peace Agreement” with the United Nations provided that we agree to withdraw from everyplace in the world we then had “military, or other non-diplomatic personnel” back to our own country, and in exchange we were granted the right to use surgically targeted, tactical nuclear weapons in lieu of conventional military methods, forces and equipment, to maintain our complete sovereignty and way of life against any non UN country. The UN agreed to discipline their own nations, and since we are still on the all powerful Security Council which administers the punishment, it was a win-win for us.
Without the need for a large, expensive military, it’s huge costs and it’s overhead, money became the least of our worries. The late Senator Ted Kennedy subsequently proposed the first “Uniform Annual Compensation Act”, which leveled the playing field for every American worker. It eliminated the “poor”, it eliminated the “rich”, and it guaranteed every worker $50,000 a year salary, regardless of job, title, or education. Originally, in ’04, it failed to pass, but after President Clinton’s Business Nationalization Act was passed the next year, it was resurrected and breezed through. Now, a scant three years later, it’s reached $75,000 guaranteed annual income per worker!
And, if the GNP next year reaches President Clinton’s national goal, every worker will get a $5,000 cash bonus check from the government! This is an even more compelling reason why we must all work together for that goal, and insure every other worker does as well.
Well, things are finally looking up and positive here on the Emerald Coast after nearly a decade of chaos. We still have the old “Walton County Sign Ordinance” from the mid-nineties, and a few other old laws, but by and large things have gotten a lot better.
The renewal of our old national ethics of hard work, the belief in the equality of all mankind, and the ultimate perfection of our democratic way of life have led us to this great achievement.
And even some of the old “unwritten rights” have been modified and brought back, life is really good. .
For example, every certified worker has a “permit-chip” in their ID card which entitles them to two cold beers, or one cocktail, each day after work, at any pub, bar or restaurant …for free. Even though legally you are not allowed more than two drinks a day, regardless of who you are, per Surgeon General. Jack Kevorkian II, people don’t mind.
All tobacco, and tobacco products, were outlawed three years ago, completely! And the Federal Department of Stress Reduction hotline has been instrumental in reducing stress everywhere across our great land. As a matter of fact, the other night I was getting uptight about my bosses comments, threatening to not print this column in this weeks paper, so I called them. By ten o’clock the next day he had been transferred to the Lisbon, Maine Gazette, as it’s new editor,…the system really does work!!
We have come so far in the last ten years, it’s incredible!
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