t White Kings
A Short Story By
Marc D’Agosta
Copyright 2011 Marc D’Agosta
Although this is a free book, it remains the property of the Author.
All rights reserved.
Once there was a kingdom ruled by three Great White Kings. The first Great White King ruled the region of the West and Midwest. The second Great White King ruled the region of the North and Northeast. The third Great White King ruled the region of the South and Southeast. However, while these Great White Kings were the designated rulers, they served the Merchants. And while in truth, the people may have been subjects to the Great White Kings, and the Merchants they served, they considered themselves to be Free Citizens and were addressed as such. And although the Great White Kings were generally well-liked by the Free Citizens, they were plagued with a political opposition of bleeding hearts. The bleeding opposition were these radical liberals known as the Mongrels, described as social dissidents, deemed the very threat to the freedom, health and well-being of the Free Citizens. Even though, the root of the word liberal is liberty, which stands for freedom.
The main dispute formed from the common belief the less the kingdom did for the Free Citizens, the more free, they would be. It even rhymed, so it carried more weight. The Free Citizens were generally pleased with this Conservatism. Nevertheless, this translated into government doing nothing at all.
The Great White Kings would say, “Let the Free Citizens fend for themselves. Doing less was actually doing more.” They would also say, “Feed the Merchants and they will feed you.”
The Mongrels would counter, “What you really mean is feed the rich and they will feed you.”
The Great White Kings would answer back, “Indeed, the wealth trickling down to quench a thirsty economy.”
The Mongrels would reply with, “What the rich really do is feed and fatten themselves, then spend their windfall on a lavish retreat and spa, while the rest of us are left to sweat the bill.”
The government was in debt. Due largely from loans, the bulk of it, however absurd it might sound, coming from a Party with an ideology considered Hostile to the Great White Kingdom--the Manchurian Corporation--the largest and most powerful corporation in the world, a private group, with billions of people at their disposal for both labor and military service and with no accountability to anyone except for Party Stockholders and Board Members. Though the ideology of this Party was considered Hostile, the Manchurian Corporation was quite generous, lending to the Great White Kings, who were their most cooperative candidates. Cooperative, so that the rich, who would come to be known as the Upper One Percent, could keep more of their money--a Tax Break if you will, drafted to initiate job growth. Conversely, what it really initiated was a snowball of debt. One year’s expense rolled over into two, and that rolled over into three, and that rolled over into four, and so on, and so on, and so on. Thus enlarging the very government, this Conservatism was designed to reduce. The wealth may have trickled down to an offshore account or two, but rarely to the Free Citizens. Mostly, it was just outsourced. In truth, the job campaign of this Conservatism was a smokescreen for greed, choking the greater economy, home and abroad. Yet, this smoke was a carcinogen the Free Citizens were quite willing to inhale, sucking it down like oxygen, ignoring the lethal consequences. Thus this contribution of the rich would be best described as a recessing and depressing drought, promising a refreshment of higher taxes. Be that as it may, this Conservatism reacted quite humble and shied away from this credit. It would be the only credit this Conservatism would shy away from.
The debate would go back and forth as the Mongrels questioned the motives of the Great White Kings--how affording them the luxury of doing nothing at all for the Free Citizens, in fact only made the Free Citizens, subjects, and not free at all. And that this afforded luxury only made the Great White Kings and the Merchants richer and the care for the health and well-being of the people almost non-existent, or at least too expensive to really undertake. Even to the Free Citizens, this was blatantly true.
Among the Free Citizens, the joke that went around was, “Better to undertake the undertaker than Healthcare. It was cheaper to break bread in Heaven than on Earth.”
The Great White Kings used this humor to their advantage and campaigned heavily with support from the Health Merchants. They marked up bread. And threatened to lay off workers. Very funny. Very funny. Very funny.
The Mongrels also had a sense of humor. They introduced to the Free Citizens an Option for the public. An Option that would set the bar, providing a higher quality of Healthcare at a lower and affordable cost with the added incentive of promoting competition (the life blood of capitalism) among the Health Merchants. Everyone laughed hysterically. And the most hysterical thing about the Healthcare Option was that if the Free Citizens didn’t want it, they could always go somewhere else and pay more for less. Ha, ha, ha...!
The comedy was too much for the Great White Kings. They rethought their approach, opting for a more sentimental pilgrimage, booking wonderful musicians, a String Quartet, featuring a Fabulous Violinist, who performed the most mournful melody for the Health Merchants, who wept for themselves, feeling sorrow, perplexed as to why the Free Citizens would question the goodness in their hearts.
Tears would not be enough to defeat the Mongrels. That would come from betrayal within. The Hound Dogs, a faction of the Mongrels, a group with a remarkable high opinion of themselves, but no real character, began to feel sentimental towards the Health Merchants. The mournful melody struck a note with the hometown Patrons. They were lead to water, yet this was just the sweet orchestration and provoking patronage they were looking for to prejudice their opinion and find the excuse not to drink from the well of wellness and prosperity. This would be the foundation of the Teetotal Movement.
The Hound Dogs felt overwhelmed with sentiment from the Patrons. They retreated under fire, though made it look like a cost-cutting maneuver. They thought this maneuver would be strategic to hold their positions. But it was really just a blue-blood act and showed what remarkable cowards they were. They wept for the Health Merchants. And later, for all the effort put into their blue-blood act, they would weep for themselves and be done in by the Teetotal Movement.
Betrayal weakened the Mongrels. Even the Free Citizens began to weep more for the Health Merchants’ profits than their own Option and Healthcare. The betrayal of the Hound Dogs was just the mallet the Great White Kings needed to smash the Option to defeat the Mongrels and what was called the burden of their social impropriety and a grave threat to the national freedom. With the Option now compromised and defeated, the Free Citizens were now forced to pay more for less--completely opposite of what the reform was meant to accomplish. However, the Great White Kings were forced to concede to the Mongrels that the Health Merchants could not deny Coverage to any Free Citizen for a pre-existing condition. And while this was an important and great victory for the health and well-being of the Free Citizens, it also came at a great cost. With the Option compromised, the Health Merchants showed what goodness they truly possessed in their hearts with a stingy tune and a whopping spike in rates.
The Great White Kings argued, “This was good for jobs!”
The Mongrels argued back, “This was a holdup!”
But the arguments and power of the Mongrels were compromised with the Option, along with the health and well-being of the Free Citizens.
The new joke among the Free Citizens was, “Coverage can not be denied, however the cost of an arm and a leg is now required.”
The campaign for the Great White Kings went better than planned. In fact, their campaign was so successful the dirtiest
word uttered from anyone’s mouth was Healthcare.
Such was the practice, turning something good into something profane.
It didn’t help matters that while Physicians were a godsend or benefit, their first priority was always the same as any other member of the work force--payment for services rendered. Despite the severity of injury or ailment, their first response was always, “What Coverage do you have?”
Required or not, Coverage was the password to a treasure of treatment. And a treasure is what treatment would cost. You see, the Health Merchants were not the only ones responsible for the high cost of living. They were just the ones everyone asked to pay for it.
Regardless, as time went on, the Free Citizens began to notice that the comfortable capitalistic standard of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, really in fact, was not that comfortable. What’s more is they even began questioning their own intelligence and sanity for shouldering a loan for the Upper One Percent, while necessities to their own daily living under the description of Entitlements were now under profane attack.
Like Healthcare, Entitlements would translate to