Kamala Harris Redecorates The White House - The First Executive Order Of The New President

 'Well, now that's over with', the new American President sighed, mock-wiping her brow and smiling broadly to her assembled staff. 'We did it, we made it, and we will make history'.  A large round of applause, handshakes, embraces followed, and a general feeling of good will filled the Oval Office. It was now Madame President, the first and only one in the two hundred some odd years of the Republic. 'Now, these curtains have to go'. 

During the campaign and in the four years of the Biden presidency, Kamala had had many meetings in the Presidential chambers and each time, she winced.  'What God awful taste', she thought.  A hodgepodge of curios, old furniture, and uncomfortable chairs.  'It all has to go', and each time she sat patiently while the President rambled on about something or other - the border, Putin, or Zelensky - her eyes wandered around the room.  

That ridiculous cowboy - a bronze Remington - would have to go and some flouncy Dresden figurines the lacey, embroidered kinds would replace it.  And that God-awful painting of Gainsborough - why Joe wanted a picture of a cute little boy all dressed up in a frilly blue suit is beyond me, except perhaps....well, no, I won't go there...but still the painting has to go back to whatever airless museum he got it from. 

Now that she thought about it, just about everything would have to go.  This was to be her office, not the man cave forty-odd presidents decorated, or rather threw together as men do, never a thought to matching or complementary colors.  Ugly, ugly, ugly! Those ghastly yellow curtains! And that ridiculous florid valence! And those flags! This is the President's office not some army barracks with sweaty men saluting at reveille.

Here the President shook her out of her reverie with some nonsense about the bloody border. What in God's name was she supposed to do?  Rush right down to Nogales or Piedras Negras and put up her hands and yell, 'Stop!'?  Hardly, and of course he won't go down there by himself, can barely make it off the bus let alone down to the river, and here he was asking her of all people to tell these brown and black people to go back where they came from?  Hell, no, they are my bread and butter, my people, my votes. 

Joe of course wandered off message and began talking about his childhood summers in Rehoboth, and Kamala took a good look at the miserable carpet under her feet - this ghastly thick blue thing with the Seal of Office right in the middle.  Ok, it's emblematic, I get that, but why something so big that you felt you would trip over it.  No, a nice silk Bukhara would do nicely, a bit of the exotic East, a nod to my oriental origins and exquisite. 

She had seen the carpet she wanted at the Met in New York, displayed as a wall hanging, alone underlit, and magnificent - an ancient installation piece which the moment she saw it, she wanted it and knew exactly where it would go. 

As Kamala left the President with warm goodbyes - especially warm because the old fool had no idea what was coming, soon to be left on the curb by none other than yours truly, and about time.  I've waited four years for him to topple over into his soup, and he's still standing so getting rid of him is the only way.  

'Four more years', she said disingenuously, a big smile on her face. 'Four more years of greatness'.  Old Joe smiled back, gave her a wave, and out she walked into the Presidential corridor past photographs of Democratic luminaries- all men except Rosa Parks, that bloody woman who did nothing but refuse to give up her seat when I, as Senator and Vice President have done more for my people than she ever did, and had just the portrait of herself in mind to hang after relegating Rosa to somewhere less conspicuous. 

The time for old icons has come and gone, she reflected - Rosa Parks, King, Abernathy and the rest of them.  This is the dawn of a new age, one in which the black man will ascend to the top of the human pyramid where he - or she - belongs, heroic, primal, an example of the best and brightest of humanity, and I will be the one to put him there. 

A Tiffany lamp here, a Chiparus there, a Mucha above the door, she thought as she proceeded westward and to her own chambers - chambers which she would have to occupy for only a few more impatient months, but such was life on the Potomac, and she could wait, for Destiny awaited her.  

All that was history of course, and now that her victory had been won and she sat in the President's chair the real business of governing would begin; but as she shuffled the briefing papers on her desk, she couldn't help noticing the sofas, nasty-looking things as uncomfortable as a Shaker chair and without a note of style.  If people have to sit, let them sit in something elegant.  Here she thought of Macron's Elysees offices - the French had the right idea, show off the magnificence of la fille  ainee de l'Eglise.

A bit busy perhaps - I would tone it down a bit - but I would retain its....Here as she searched for the right word, she looked around the Oval Office and shuddered.  A misshapen bust here, a scratchy 17th Century drawing there, and those posed, archaic, dull photographs...splendor.  Yes, splendor, that's what I'm looking for. 

'Madam President', began Kamala's chief aide, 'I'm sorry to disturb you, but it's time for your Cabinet meeting'. 

Ah, yes, in her reverie she had forgotten the Cabinet, her Cabinet, a Cabinet that looks like America, too many gay boys if you ask me, but that I had to do and I must attend to business; but all she could think about where those bloody curtains again and those military-looking flags, and those stuffy, formal presidential portraits.  If we have to be together in this room, she thought, it should have a woman's touch, something pretty - not frilly and cute, but queenly, that was it.  Here she thought not of Queen Victoria, that stodgy old biddy who lasted far beyond her pull-by date, but of Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, her hero, her Doppelganger, her idol.  Something regal, something imposing, something jeweled and...

Again her reverie was interrupted by her Vice President who was opening the session.  He droned on for what seemed an hour, thanking each and every member of the Cabinet in advance for their contribution to the new Presidency and the health of the nation, touching on every item of interest to Education, Social Welfare, Interior, yada yada until finally he sat down and waited for her to speak, which she did, summarily for a change, for these meetings were as boring as ice melting and she had other more important things on her mind. 

It felt good to be President, far better than it ever felt as Vice President, a cipher office, a nothing, an add-on in case the President cashed in his chips.  No, this felt good, really good, and when her planned redecoration was finished, she would be sitting on her throne on her barge

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.

 

When A One-Man Woman Takes A Lover - The Inevitability Of Infidelity

She met him at Dooly's bar after one particularly hectic day at the office.  Nothing on time, desultory promise from a young hire, nastiness from the front office, and a prickly exchange with her supervisor led her to her favorite watering hole, this time without the martinis and oyster crew who crowded into the bar on Fridays for happy hour.  

A single woman alone always was a dubious proposition, but Dooly's was in the toniest neighborhood of Washington, a well-heeled and temperate place, progressive, and gender-aware, so she never hesitated to stop in, especially in the summer when Dooly kept his A/C on high and she would shiver in the first few minutes while her eyes grew accustomed to the light. 

It was an old-fashioned Irish bar, unusual for Washington, better suited to the Lower East Side than to Woodley Park - Miller Light neon behind the bar, PBR on draft and a few regulars nursing a shot-and-a-beer.

Dooly's had been in Woodley Park long enough for Dooly to remember the day when the regulars had their pack of Camels and dollars and change on the counter and would chat him up about the 'Skins, always leaving a generous tip to take care of the cheap beer and long hours at the bar.  Times change and he with them, and his retro look, very Fifties, down to the Formica table tops in the back and Bobby Darin on the music loop kept customers coming. 

Although he was partial to the old crowd, the plasterers and pipe fitters from Maryland, the lawyers Luke - Lucretia - Fanning were just fine. 

 

He wasn't used to seeing Luke on a Tuesday, earlyish, four-thirty or so, looking like she needed a drink, but she was a good customer, and the Friday martinis-and-oyster tab was well over five-hundred a night so he treated her as bar royalty. 

Roland Pierce was a newcomer.  Clearly one of Luke's set but an infrequent customer. Lawyer probably, maybe aide to someone on the Hill, nice enough, good tipper, polite. 

'Roland', she thought when he introduced himself.  Not many men named Roland these days nor Ronald or Donald, names as retro as the ambience at Dooly's, but he was courteous and respectful - the profile of the sensitive new age men working in her part of town. 

Luke was married and had been for many years. She and her husband from a well-known Boston Brahmin family -  the Chippendale, Revere, Townsend, Beacon Hill, and Nantucket Fannings - had met at a reception at Piping Rock, and after a short affair were wed in Southampton.  'Lancaster-Fanning Nuptials' announced the New York Times, and the wedding and the years of social whirl which followed. 

 

Yet all was not well with the Fannings.  Two children had taken a lot out of Luke and her husband who was spending more and more time at the office currying favor with prospective clients, and was largely out of the picture when it came to social or family engagement. She pursued her career with the same enthusiasm, but in her case it was Freudian displacement.  What she wanted was at least a modicum of sexual satisfaction if not romance.  

Her relationship with her husband had been all it was supposed to be - cruises of archeological discovery in the eastern Mediterranean, moonlit drives over the Bosporus etc. - but it lacked 'oomph' for lack of a better word.  A prosaicism at best. 

She, despite being distracted - lured - by some dime-store fantasies had never taken a lover.  Infidelity would have been a rude disruption to a very settled and comfortable life; but as she approached forty, and sat at Dooly's bar with a yet unknown, very appealing stranger, she wondered why. 

Affairs were as common as peach cobbler, especially in Washington where the currency of the town was sexual favor, power was an aphrodisiac, and entitlement included sexual dalliance. Yet...and still...

She and Roland drank another beer and then moved on to Dooly's famous blood orange Margaritas. Rollie talked about India and the Sri Ramakrishna ashram in Hardwar effortlessly, simply, naturally, until she felt completely comfortable with this man who was at ease sharing, not impressing, and most of all was interested in her. 

 

She got home well before her husband even though she had stayed longer in Petworth than she had intended.  In fact she had intended nothing of the sort.  This sort of thing comes up without notice, without anticipation, and without fanfare, but there they were and there she was in bed with him as delighted as a schoolgirl and as satisfied as a mated sow. 

Why was it that she felt no shame, no guilt, or no remorse as she opened the door home?  Hadn't she broken a social, Biblical, and moral rule?  Hadn't she crossed an uncrossable line?

She greeted her husband warmly and with only slightly less enthusiasm than usual.  Affairs, she was learning quickly, were easy to have, and harder to hide; but she was a quick learner and negotiated the tricky currents of an extramarital encounter with ability.  

The affair went on for months, but the trickery - there really was no better word for it - was getting tiring and offensive; and the afternoons in Petworth were becoming routine.   A trip to Miami while her husband was in Chicago did less to stimulate dissipating passions than to exaggerate the fanciful sexual idolatry of the affair. 

 

Now that it was over, she wondered, what was next?  Would she return to the settled, predictably happy life of marriage-with-children? Or would she take another lover? If so, to what ends? For what purpose? Never one to ponder existential questions, she still had to ask them. 

Age decided it all - no need to either ask or answer existential questions when wrinkles and sags solve the equation.  There were fewer and fewer Rolands in her repertoire and her future, and without ever even thinking it possible, she was a suburban matron. 

She never regretted her dalliances.  There had been, despite her concerns about age and sexual interest, a number of affairs after Roland, all of which had diminishing returns - and never once did she wish that she had never married.  Marriage after all was society's anchor and without it we all would be drifting without a port; and so she and her husband carried out their days, their duties, and their fidelity until the end. 

Luke never asked her husband about his affairs - whether or not he had any, with whom, and for how long.  That was his business just as Roland and his successors had been hers.  Matters of little importance in the scheme of things. 

Infidelity is as human as birth, death, and children.  Never to be regretted or forgotten.  A part of life and a part of marriage.  Society does its part in keeping the lid on infidelity, tamping down our intemperance, and keeping us sexually quiet; but it never succeeds.  Men and women like Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich reflect on lives misspent but quickly turn to preparing for their end.  Ivan was crestfallen, shocked, and disappointed at a past poorly led; but Luke never, ever would be.

The Tale Of A Natural Courtesan - From Iowa Farm Girl To The Silks Of A Turkish Harem

Alicia Thomas grew up in Bolivar, Iowa, a settled, good place in the rural Midwest - a place of rectitude, solid principle, hard work, family, and faith; but to this young, precociously mature girl, a deadly, boring place. She was tired of cornstalks, the smell of milk and dung, and the endless routine of chores, pot roast, and early bedtime. 

 

By the time she was twelve, she had blossomed, a sensuous, sexually aware Delilah, an impossibly irresistible nymphet.  Her mother's own sexual precocity had been nipped in the bud by a Faulknerian zealot - a father who locked her in an airless closet and harangued her with shouts loud enough to shake the rafters of their cobbled, hand-strung, mud and wattle house on the Iowa prairie. 

 'Jezebel! Harlot! Whore', he howled, followed by verses from Samuel, Ezekiel, and Kings, spoken in hysterical tongues like a crazed Biblical prophet, while Elmira cowered in the closet, choking with the smell of camphor and breathing in dust devils and prairie mites from the cracks of the out-of-kilter raw oak floorboards. 

 

Alicia's mother saw herself in her young daughter, but let the bird fly free.  No daughter of hers would have to suffer anyone's mad ravings.  She at forty had barely recovered from the assaults of a wild man, married a staid, dumb, dray horse of a man forced upon her by her father; and glad only to be rid of the father, left with her husband and settled in Bolivar, had Alicia, and then slept as far away from him as possible on the corn cob mattress under the hay in the ramshackle, half-slatted barn. 

And so it was that Alicia Thomas began her life as a courtesan, accepted favors from an alderman, a legislator, and a Congressman, all of whom had marveled at her cornflower blue eyes, silken blond hair, and sensuous body.  Every one risked marriage and career for a night with her, and once taken, returned for many more until she tired of them, their increasingly doggy, simpering love, and their awful, pretentious male egos. 

Never in the course of her sexual escapades did she have one iota of shame, guilt, or regret.  Her sexuality was no matter for discussion with either preacher or God.  She was her own woman, an Eve, a Sarah Bernhardt, a Mata Hari, the consort of the Sultan of Izmir, a Cleopatra.  Her sexual ambition knew no bounds and as she matured, she learned the art of feminine wiles, the sexual immaturity of men, and the sexual determinants of power. 

 

Women had always bested men, sussed and vetted them with ease, enticed, seduced, and manipulated them with grace and enthusiasm, always came out on top, and left them crying on the curb.  The political fol-de-rol about misogyny, the glass ceiling, and the patriarchal dominance of men was sheer nonsense.  Shakespeare had it right in one.  His women were regal in bearing, absolute in ambition, canny in understanding, and indomitable in will.  Ibsen and Strindberg derived their heroines from the women they knew, not uncommon women of intractable will, intelligence, and authority. 

Whether queen or courtesan, woman was meant to rule.  When she left Bolivar, she left behind not only chicken feed and pig sties, but that particularly staid and settled moral rectitude of the Midwest - that sense of American originalism, the faux fantasy of the real America, the heart and soul of the republic. She was now not only her own woman, freed from the arbitrary, confining, presumptuous moral codes of her youth, but an expansive one, a woman whose ambition knew no bounds. 

The men she serviced in Washington were no different than any other.  The Governor of New Hampshire, after a cinq-a-sept in the Presidential Suite of the Mayflower hotel, came back for seconds and thirds and confessed to her that he had found his soul mate. Paid or not, she was beyond reproach and almost beyond reach for all her seductive beauty. Thanks to him, her stock in trade rose, her bank account swelled, and her already supreme confidence increased. 

Her fortunes were never more imperial than when she was visited by Ahmed Emiroglu, direct descendant of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Suleyman I, the greatest Turkish ruler of that country's long and storied history.  Emiroglu was a fine and unpretentious man in his late fifties, a businessman with significant holdings in the Caymans, properties in Dubai ands Bahrain, a pied a terre in Bebek, and a home in McLean overlooking the Potomac.  A gentleman, a courtier, and a prince of a man. 

He, no different than other men who had been taken by Alicia's sexual charms and farmgirl beauty, offered her the chance to accompany him to Istanbul, be his companion and sexual consort and join his household.  

Now, although Ahmed Emiroglu affected a commoner simplicity and businesslike eagerness, he was the true heir of emirs, pashas, and sultans.  Although the republican leaders of modern Turkey did not want to admit it, Emiroglu lived in the style of his forbears - in a luxurious palace overlooking the Bosporus, attended to by a fleet of liveried servants, and accompanied by a harem of beautiful women from Iran, Palestine, and Jordan.  

Of course it was not a harem in the historical sense of the word - these women were not cloistered behind closed doors, visited whenever the pasha so desired, but free to come and go as they pleased but always at the beck and call of the master. 

 

It was an ideal arrangement for all concerned.  The women, well-taken care of by Emiroglu, were happy enough to be chauffeured here and there, squired by him at theatre openings and vernissages, photographed by Turkish paparazzi and sought after for the elegant soirees at the Presidential palace.  

Turkey may be an increasingly fundamentalist country but it has never lost the Roman sense of the sybaritic East.  Emiroglu was not the only man in Istanbul living the life of an Ottoman pasha, you only had to know who was who. 

 

Alicia was not disappointed, for what better place for a modern day courtesan than the harem of a latter-day pasha? 

And afterwards? What then? The thoughts of most aging women, but irrelevant to the likes of Alicia Thomas who, confident and unabashedly uncontrite and without regret until the day she died, never lost a beat in her retirement with stops in St. Tropez, Palm Beach, and eventually back to Bolivar whose farm-bred simplicity now appealed. To its credit the town welcomed her back without recrimination or worse.  She was one of theirs after all, all gussied up and famous but still the same, old Alicia. 

The Laugh, The Ditz And The Showman - Trump vs Harris And The Side Show Of American Politics

That laugh! That cackling! That shaking, camelback, hysterical faux hilarity. Kamala's campaign aides have cautioned her - that laugh is costing us votes, referring as they did to the viral memes showing up everywhere, coarsened and made even more ridiculous by AI.  Hundreds of comedians and would-be comics on social media were having a field day with The Laugh, so Stop It! please, Madam Vice President; but as hard as Kamala tried she simply could not help herself; and when The Laugh and the incomprehensible philosophical wanderings combined, she was a one-person side show of clownish head-bopping and freak show channeling. 

 

'You are running for the highest office in the land, Madam Vice-President', said her closest advisor, hesitating to complete the sentence which should have been, 'so act like it', but came out far more cozily and accommodating, appealing to her sense of entitlement and national purpose. 

'She put two thoughts together before', said another in the candidate's close circle, joking that her boss's dementia was catching, but stopped himself before going too far with the allegory.  The thought of the two of them yakking away making no sense whatsoever, talking over each other, stepping on each other's lines with one bit of nonsense after another made him laugh out loud, but this was not a time for humor as the polls showed the race tightening.  With a closer look at her scripted speeches, The Laugh, and the old chestnuts reheated and sold as Christmas generosity, the American public was losing interest. 

Reprising George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor who shouted .'Segregation now, segregation, tomorrow, segregation forever!', Kamala much to the dismay of an older campaign aide who remembered Wallace and the defiant days of Bull Connor and his thugs, channeled the man in a speech to women in Peoria when she howled, 'Abortion now, abortion tomorrow, abortion forever'.  Yet, the aide reflected, at least she was staying on message. 

This message thing was the issue, for while not as bad as Biden - the poor man had been rambling incoherently at the end - and with a lot more pzazz, she continued to make no sense at all once she departed from the teleprompter's text.  Like yesterday in Chillicothe when after a compelling speech about labor and its contribution to America, she wandered into the weeds and talked about labor in the abstract, the higher value of toil, and began a homily about the workers at the Ford factory who 'despite the mind-numbing routine of tightening one bolt after another, the soul-crushing monotony of the assembly line, the American worker holds his head up high, fixes those screws in place, bangs those nails...'  

Then she completely lost her way, pulling out old childhood memories of Pinocchio being hammered together by old, kindly Geppetto then carried off in a wagon in the rain, and the Mexican gardener who still trimmed the hedges with a machete, and realizing she was in the weeds, closed with, 'Well, you know what I mean' and a horrendous, loud, echoing laugh. 

 

There was little her staff could do, for after all she was not tethered, and being her own woman was the whole point.  They would just have to keep their fingers crossed, cringe at the worst of it, politely remind her of the importance of the teleprompter, and hope for the best. 

Meanwhile across town Donald Trump was at his tummler, vaudevillian, showman best.  With bombast, braggadocio, and sheer chutzpah, the man brought down the house.  Cheers were wild and enthusiastic, hats thrown in the air, women rushing to the stage like Easter-hatted black ladies seeing Jesus for the first time in the AME Zion Church of Our Lord, men embracing their neighbors, shouting 'MAGA, MAGA, MAGA' until the rafters shook.  

Trump never made sense either as free and easy he was with the facts, disassembling them when it suited him, confabulating them to make a point, yelling and shouting invectives at unseen enemies.  To his supporters, however, he made complete sense, for they heard what he meant and ignored how he said it.  The circus antics, the fol-de-rol, the Fourth or July fireworks and Mardi Gras floats and pasties were just an act, a defiant, spectacular defiance of the lawfare, villainy, and endless ad hominem attacks from the Left. 

Americans would vote for this man because of not in spite of his bluster and rodomontade.  He was the whole package, a real American, cut from the rawhide of the Old West, honed and readied on the mean streets of New York, perfected on The Apprentice, Hollywood soundstages and Las Vegas runways. 

'Four more years', the crowd chanted as the former President and President-To-Be stood on the platform, arms folded, chin up, scowl on his face just like Mussolini in Rome in 1941, Il Duce, the King of the Realm, playing to the audience who understood the message, the in-your-face hilarious, Saturday Night Live response to progressives' cries of 'dictator, fascist, insurrectionist'. 

The man was irrepressible, unstoppable.  Nothing fazed him, not the show trials, not the childish smearing, and certainly not the crazed allegations of evil.  He went from city to city and spoke to thousands at each stop, while his opponent read from the teleprompter which had, at the insistence of her aides, insertions which said 'Don't laugh here...stay focused...'  

She banged away at the old progressive saws of fairness, equality, justice, inclusivity, and compassion but without juice.  The crowds cheered because the screen behind the Vice President shook like an NBA Megatron and shouted  APPLAUSE!!!!

And of course she simply couldn't help herself when the adrenaline started pumping and the sheer joy of being a woman and the next President of the United States filled her to the tips of her toes, and she wandered off.  'I am Jezebel', she shouted.  'I am Delilah...I am Lilith....I am Eve', recalling the famous temptresses and harlots of the Old Testament, mistakenly assuming they were simply strong, good women but causing a stir in the audience who knew better.  An aide frantically gave her the throat-slitting 'cut' sign, but once the Vice President got on a roll, she was unstoppable, and in this case, she was a whirling dervish of mythic insanity. 

Europeans chortled at this raucous display of American crudeness and lack of political sophistication.  Theirs was the place of Churchill, De Gaulle, Thatcher, and Brandt, commoner heirs of kings while across the pond the cheapest, low-brow, scuttle and broomstick, Punch and Judy, Ringling Bros. show went on unfazed.  American exceptionalism at its most ridiculous best, Sturm und Drang over nothing, the silliest, most inane proclamations, the most transparently empty promises. 

'We are the greatest nation on earth, and always have been', shouted Donald Trump to boisterous cheers, while Kamala toned it down a la Lenin when she said, 'The people will decide'.  And so it went until November, the nation on tenterhooks and increasingly amused at the hilarious exaggerations, the Grand Guignol virtual bloodletting, the smarmy accusations, and the febrile lies.  'Fuck 'em both', said a voter in a mine shaft in Appalachia. 

A Day In The Life Of An African Dictator - 'Execution Day' Hoorahs And Hoopla, The Jewel In The Crown

 Alphonse Makosso known in his central African country as 'The Leopard' had ruled undisputed for thirty years, time which had passed all too quickly, he mused as he prepared for the elections coming up next months.  Of course they posed no problems for the big man, since he had long since controlled all levers of power.  He had appointed himself Chief of Staff of the army and Chief Executive of the state, and ruled his impoverished nation with an iron hand. 

Dissenters were few and far between since all had either been hanged in the public square or had escaped to Togo with the help of a small revolutionary militia with good intent but few arms.  Elections were to satisfy Western donors and nothing more.  Makosso made sure to win by a significant but not overwhelming margin in order to demonstrate his popularity and to deflect criticism of cronyism and electoral fraud. 

Makosso lived in luxury above the city and overlooking one of Africa's largest and most beautiful lakes.  In the evenings he could hear the sounds of hippos, the cries of the African loon, and the splash of hunting crocodiles.  It was a palatial estate covering a thousand acres of cleared forest land, well-fortified with a moat and high-walled parapets.  When he infrequently travelled the 10km to his government offices, all traffic came to a standstill in the city for an hour before his passage, and the assembled crowd, each of whom was paid in rice and manioc to stand and cheer the President, danced and sang as his cavalcade went by. 

 

He was in town for today was the day of public execution, this time for ten traitorous insurrectionists to pay with their lives before a firing squad.  The President varied his executions to maintain the element of surprise and interest in the governed.  Today was firing squad, the month before beheadings, and before that hanging.  Many in the crowd said the men to be killed were lucky because their end was summary and brief.  

Others had been tortured by burying them, all but their heads which were doused with honey, in the hot sand at midday.  By mid-afternoon, stung and bitten, eaten alive by the thousands of insects that came out of the surrounding jungle for a feast, they were pulled out, beaten, and hung by their feet until they died a slow death. 

European donor nations knew quite well what was going on in the regime of The Leopard, but did nothing thanks to the billions of dollars worth of rare earths beneath the eastern jungle.  These elements were essential to the operation of cell phones and computers and were found in few other places other than the rich mines of the President's country.  So, not only were Western leaders quiet about the President's brutal, autocratic regime, they poured millions in foreign assistance into his coffers, all of which was transferred to his personal accounts in Switzerland - a small price to pay for the mineral wealth that only the President's country provided. 

Makosso welcomed the advisors and consultants that came with foreign aid.  They were a benign, idealistic, and ambitious lot who cared for the poor and marginalized but whose projects amounted to nothing since allocated funds were siphoned off before they got anywhere near a village.  As much as these line workers complained, their higher-ups did nothing, under orders by their home ministries to let things be. 

On Execution Day - always declared a public holiday by the President, all foreigners were given an all-day, all expenses paid pass to Shangri-la, the seaside resort built for exclusive tourism and foreign dignitaries.  It was as luxurious as the Presidential palace, complete with Olympic-size swimming pools, well-stocked bars, lobsters and Belon oysters flown in daily from France, the best South African wines, and beautiful mulatto girls available for guests' pleasure.  No foreigner refused the invitation, in part because of she sumptuous days ahead, but also for fear of reprisal and expulsion if they did not comply. 

 

So the executions were witnessed only by citizens and a few renegade undercover foreigners whose dispatches to their home countries were interdicted and they put in a remote jungle prison.  Again, the foreign diplomatic corps knew exactly what was happening, but kept their own counsel, treated Makosso with respect, and served out their terms quietly. 

Makosso of course was not alone in the autocratic rule of his mineral-rich fiefdom.  Every other African country with the raw materials necessary for the West's economic engines was no different.  Sweet deals were made, diplomats kept quiet, presidential Swiss accounts were filled to overflowing, and not one shovelful of dirt was ever turned in the public interest. 

The big man of a neighboring country admired Makosso's political panache, especially his flair for elaborate public executions.  Never since the days of Robespierre, the Terror, and the guillotine, had so many heads fallen in great, celebratory displays of patriotism and revolutionary spirit.  The big man did Makosso one better when he, with great dramatic flair, fired up onlookers with martial music, tribal dances, twenty-one gun salutes, fireworks, festoons, banners, and free toddy. 

With each drop of the hangman's rope, with each volley from the firing squad the crowd cheered and the band played. 'Death to all traitors to the Fatherland', they chanted.  'Blood for the people'.  The big man was a genius, a reincarnation not only of Robespierre but the high priests of Mesoamerica who orchestrated human sacrifice as the apotheosis of tribal and religious passion.  

A rivalry sprang up among the many nations under autocratic rule.  Every big man from Addis Ababa to Harare followed suit, and the blood-letting and raucous paganism became the byword for the continent. 

Diplomats and politicians in America, with one of the world's largest African diaspora were nonplussed and buggered by all this.  For years American progressives had pledged to return the black man to his rightful place atop the human pyramid, so endowed was he with tribal wisdom, environmental respect, and primal sensibilities.  Yet here was a whole continent not only under misrule but barbarism.  Over sixty years of independence had resulted in nothing but a further descent into poverty, social indifference, and ever-widening political corruption. 

Yet, the American economy would collapse without Angolan and Nigerian oil, Congolese Scandium, Rwandan Yttrium, and Burundian Lanthanum.  Geopolitically the Horn of Africa is key to international shipping, so a blind eye is turned to the endemic corruption and continuous civil disorder there. 

As much as American administrations look for an African success story, none are to be found.  From north to south, east to west, the continent is mired in underdevelopment, misrule, endemic corruption, tribalism, and blatant authoritarianism. 

The 'Execution Days' of President-for-Life Makosso and his neighboring big men are big, outrageous, bombastic, in-your-face expressions of the untouchability of African dictatorial regimes.  America talks the talk about the wisdom and nobility of the African, ignores the rot and putrefaction, takes the rare earths and oil, and shuts up. 

Al Capone, J.D. Rockefeller, And The Robber Barons - Lessons Of Individual Power For Our Collective Age

The Robber Barons of the early Twentieth Century - Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and J.P. Morgan- are icons of American history, responsible in large part for the creation of the great American industrial empire of steel, railroads, energy, and finance.  They had vision, ambition, will, intelligence, and a fearless sense of competition.  They brooked no comers, and worked to control and monopolize their economic investments and to expand them into other sectors of enterprise.  They were unstoppable, untouchable, and inviolate, and thanks to them America began its ascent to world power. 

Nowadays, of course, these men have been cancelled for their predatory injustice to the working man, their corporate greed, and trampling ambition.  Men are not supposed to act this way, and must be bound to a more compassionate, inclusive social contract.  There is no room in America for the likes of Gould, Fisk, and the rest of them.  The infrastructure, wealth, and economic dominion they created was unparalleled, but instead of being credited with the founding of the modern American capitalist engine, they are dismissed, canceled, and relegated to insignificance. 

Yet it is hard to dismiss this phenomenon, this genius cluster of a century ago.  Only a few times in history have such talent and remarkable creativity come together.  The Founding Fathers were such cluster - how was it possible that Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin, Adams, and Monroe came together at the same time?  What series of antecedents, variables, historical influences, and pure luck facilitated such an assemblage?  What factors predisposed the emergence of such Nineteenth Century Russian literary geniuses - Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Pushkin, and others?

In any case, the era of the Robber Barons was remarkable, and a testimony to individual enterprise.  Again, in today's era of collectivism innovation, progress, and wealth generation are considered group enterprises, the contributions of labor and capital equally.  Progressivism, in part derived from Socialist/Deconstructionist neutering of inspiration, creativity, and innovation, is suspicious if not hostile to individualism.  Society and government as its agent must act to limit personal excess, control, or expansion.  Laws under progressive governments are intent on controlling private enterprise - i.e. that collection of self-motivated and self-interested individuals - and arrogating more power to the state. 

The Robber Barons fought hard against the demands of labor and any attempt by government to favor workers over owners.  Workers, while indispensable for the manual labor required to extract oil, build rail systems, and make steel, for industrialists were simply figures in an economic equation, pluses and minuses on a spread sheet manipulated to increase profit. 

While this algorithm is vilified by today's progressives, it was no more than the unfettered economic system which was the engine of wealth creation.  The expansion of Vanderbilt's rail system provided thousands of jobs for the laborers who worked the line.  Carnegie's steelworks, vital for industry, employed thousands more.  The profits from their companies were invested in Morgan's banks and then invested in further economic activities. 

 

The reforms begun by President Taft who, over the objections of industrial titans, began a series of revolutionary changes to labor practices were welcomed by most Americans; but they began a process of increased arrogation of authority to the federal government, driving spikes into the very foundation of American economic enterprise. 

Given the nature of individual endeavor - a hardwired, ineluctable drive for survival, dominance, and control - and given the capitalist nature of the American economy, there are new titans - Gates, Bezos, Jobs, Brin, and Buffett - who have engineered the same economic revolution as their Robber Baron predecessors even while under the yoke of government surveillance and intervention. While progressive governments continue to ignore this unique capitalist productivity and force more and more taxation and regulation upon them, they manage to find ways to make money. 

The point is that individual economic genius should be recognized.  It is not some assemblage of workers and community organizers that creates wealth, It is the few, the unique, and the unusual.  Collectivism inhibits growth, innovation, and enterprise.  The Robber Barons showed the way - that capitalist hunger, individual motivation, and absolute will are the sine qua non elements of economic progress.  Attempts to neutralize or neuter the men who espouse these characteristics are ill-considered at best. 

All of America was built this way.  What was more aggressively capitalist than the enterprise of big landowners in the South and West.  Such 'aggrandizement' led to the spread of economies of scale, mechanization, increased productivity and greater access to foodstuffs by the population.  Socialist-style collective farming - or the more limited preservation of the small family farm - has never worked and never will. 

The West was won just as the East in the hands of Carnegie and Rockefeller was won - through will, determination and raw personal ambition.  Again, while land reforms and some measure of social support was welcomed, attempts to redefine capitalist enterprise to fit a more 'inclusive' model, is wrong-headed. 

 

The Chicago of the 1930s was no different than that of the New York of the Robber Barons.  Al Capone and the Mafia bosses ran the city with aggressive territorialism, intimidation, violence, and absolute will.  Government - of and for the people - was irrelevant and impotent as Capone ruled the city.  Not surprising given the fact that Chicago had the deserved reputation of a hard-driving, indomitable place. 

Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago said it best not only about the city he loved but about America:

 They tell me you are wicked and I believe them

 They tell me you are wicked and I believe them

 For I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

 And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: yes, it is true I have seen the gunman  kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

 And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

 Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse  and strong and cunning.

 America is not alone in this expression of individual enterprise, territorialism, and hegemonic ambition. The empires of Ancient Rome, Egypt, Persia, China, Europe, and Genghis Khan were no different. Louis XIV alone built Versailles, expanded and extended French rule, created wealth, ruled with absolute power, vision, and purpose.  Chinese emperors Wu, Wen, Taizong, and Taizu were no different in their imperial, powerful, creative rule.  Cyrus and Darius, Persian shahs of the Achaemenid Empire, ruled vast territories and laid the foundation for the expansion of Persian influence. 

All of these rulers shared common traits - ambition, confidence, will, vision, courage, and intelligence - and thanks to their enterprise, civilization was spread. 

It is a mistake to think that such traits can be modified, engineered, or eliminated. On the contrary they should be encouraged, supported, and embraced. 

Again, Sandburg in the same poem:

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
            Bareheaded,
            Shoveling,
            Wrecking,
            Planning,
            Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
            Laughing! 

Churchill, Roosevelt, Lincoln And... Harris? - The Absurdity Of A Low-Rung Woman

When asked where Kamala Harris fit within the pantheon of great world leaders past and present, her chief campaign aide said, without a drop of irony, 'At the very top'. 

 

When this exchange was leaked to the press, they had a field day.  Even CNN, the New York Times, and MSNBC, Harris' usually reliable, unquestioning supporters, flinched when they heard it.  Their candidate might be the best candidate for the times, especially now in the shadow of Donald Trump, but to place her in the company of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Lincoln was a bit of a stretch. 

The White House felt it necessary to respond to the hostile, misogynist, racist comments about the woman who would lead the country, and the Press Secretary angrily replied, 

The Vice President is most definitely a woman of historical significance, a woman who in fact transcends history, for this moment of history, this critical, existential moment, is unique in the chronicle of human events.  Our future, the future of America and the future of the planet depend on her. 

Hoots and howls, raspberries and raucous jeers came from the back of the press room where journalists from conservative media outlets had been seated.  The Press Secretary called for calm, and when it was restored, thanked everyone for their patience and consideration, but simply couldn't restrain herself.  Her dander was up and she wouldn't back down.  

She then began a harangue of the narrow-minded, patriarchal, unconscionably hostile journalists who unfairly attacked the Vice President. Wild-eyed and savage-looking, weirdly possessed, and looking like a Cameroonian shaman, she ranted on until she was hooked off the podium from the wings. 

This event was front page news, for if the Press Secretary, known for her temperance and political savoir-faire had gone so far off the rails, what did this mean for the candidacy of Kamala Harris?  Such hysteria could only mean panic, and although the polls showed a tight race, Democrats were on tenterhooks. 

 

Donald Trump would make mincemeat of their candidate in the coming debate, and keeping her from the public for so long - an attempt to corral her incoherent rants about the universe and 'actuality' - might have been the wrong approach.  She would go up against the Genghis Khan of politics, a man with no sympathies, not an ounce of rectitude, a barbarian who would just as soon rip her to shreds and leave the bits for the dogs with no practice.

Even though progressive Democrats had been on a crusade to revise history, to expunge all traces of what they called 'patriarchal barbarism', deposed American icons like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, and left only Kamala Harris standing as the only American leader who truly and faithfully espoused American values, they were a little queasy about claiming her place with them.  

She might not be the airhead the Right claimed, but she was still the woman for now, and the sooner the pantheon episode was forgotten, the better. 

 

Or course Washington in an election year cannot be silenced, and the press corps was more rabid than ever to get to the bottom of the affair. And where was the Vice President? She could have simply and modestly demurred, saying that she couldn't possibly be compared to the greats of history and was only a simple instrument of temporal reform; but no, and her silence fueled even more rumor. 

Worse, she began to parade around the stage like an empress, a Cleopatra, the dark-skinned Ptolemaic beauty who ruled Egypt and bedded Roman emperors., a high priestess bedecked in gold and redolent of jasmine and myrrh.  

'She fancies herself a bloody fuckin' Egyptian, that cunt', said a British observer who knew enough of English history to remember far worse pretense.

'Assumed majesty' was the way a more temperate European critic described her, not an unattractive quality in a woman of substance and import, but a quite ridiculous one in a woman so limited in intellectual availability.  'Who does she think she is?' doesn't even come close to describing the absurdity of this desperately low-rung woman running for President.

Kamala was unfazed by the criticism, for she felt herself to be an entitled woman.  For the first time in American history a woman, a black one at that, would sit atop the American political hierarchy.  She need do nothing more than to be herself, to bring the beauty and wisdom of the African forest and the compassion and insight of women to the American public.  She had chafed for four years under the doddering, old political supernumerary Biden, and now it was her time.

She had tried at times to express this entitlement, but somehow her tongue couldn't quite follow the instructions from her brain and it came out all wrong.  She wanted to talk about black moral wholesomeness, but it came out a twisted metaphor of pimps, grilles, and the African veldt; and when she moved on to the destiny of woman, she got even more tangled with references to Jezebel and Delilah, temptresses and vixens.  

 

Her advisors told her to keep her own counsel, and just smile for the cameras and she would be just fine.  There was no way in hell that the country would elect the spawn of the devil, so be patient and your time will come. 

She tried out Churchill's 'Never was so much owed by so many to so few' but the syntax confused her and it too came out all wrong, so she moved on to the far simpler 'We shall fight them on the beaches' speech, but there too she was fuzzy about English history and knew Churchill only as a racist colonialist who subjugated the black races of the world; so what was she doing channeling him of  all people. 

 

Monarchs were more understandable - the divine right of kings, the majesty of empresses, and le droit du seigneur were all fundamental and permanent - which is why she felt herself in pantheon far more royal and exalted than the 'Churchill, Roosevelt, Lincoln' one. 

In any case, at this writing only a few weeks from the election (November 2024), she has yet to open her mouth in public - if you don't count the scripted homilies and old saws she belches out at campaign stops - and is hoping for the best. 

She caught a glimpse of herself in the Empire mirror in the hallway leading to the Oval Office where she had a meeting with the President.  She looked fine in profile, not a trace of wooly African showing but a tint of all colored peoples in her skin, a natural beauty, a queen. 'Stop it!', she said to herself as she opened the door to the office which soon would be hers. 

Two Old Maids Get Political - The Rise Of The Banger Sisters In Washington

Etta and Marfa Banger grew up in a small Midwestern town known for its parsimony, hard work, and Lutheran faith.  Their father owned a hardware store on Main Street, and their mother was a stay-at-home mom who volunteered for the Red Cross, the Junior League, and the Hospital Auxiliary. 

The girls, very close in age - Irish twins - were inseparable, a clique of two always seen together. Thanks to a school registration adjustment they were in the same grade, sat together at the lunch table, shared the same books at the library, dressed alike - although Etta favored plaids - and walked the mile or so home together.

Although teachers tried to pry them apart to give them breathing room and open them to opportunities, they were never successful.  The Banger sisters were an indissoluble duet. 

Predictably they were the object of taunts, bullying, and misbehavior.  No social group likes anomalies, especially a defiant one like the Banger sisters, but Etta and Marfa paid them no mind which of course angered the taunters even more.  The Banger girls had built an unassailable fortress, a redoubt of two and as much as their hecklers tried to storm it, they simply fell from the parapets. They regrouped again and again, but finally, defeated and dispirited, gave up and left them alone. 

Boys of course paid no attention to them.  No one wanted to be seen with either one even if they could manage to pull them apart.  The slightest nod the girls’ way would be tantamount to expulsion from their own tight, dependent clique. 

The girls were actually quite attractive, both of whom inherited their mother's English rose of summer beauty.  They were not twins so were attractive in different ways, but neither had any inclination to use their natural allure to any advantage.  A smile from either one of them would have won over classmates and teachers alike, so disingenuous and pure was it, but they without any intent maintained a moroseness that added to the universal mockery of the school.

 

While minding their own business, they rose to the top of the class and were awarded the highest academic honors.  They both were whizzes at math and science; and although they both considered a career in engineering, Etta was too much fan of organic chemistry and too much a critic of pulleys and cranes to want to build anything.  That, however, was as far as the difference in the two girls went.  They both received generous academic scholarships to MIT and graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. 

'Now what?', Etta asked her sister, something neither one had considered so intent were they on their studies. 

'I don't know', Marfa replied. 'What do you think?; but after to-ing and fro-ing for a considerable time, they came up with nothing. 

'Wait', said Etta. 'I've got it.  Washington! We will become interns' 

'Interns?', replied the incredulous Marfa.  'What do we know about politics?'

'That's the whole point', said her sister. 'It doesn't matter'; and so the Banger Sisters applied for and got internships in the offices of neighboring district Congressmen, both of whom were impressed with the girls' intelligence, propriety, and recondite honesty.  

Etta had minored in economics at MIT and Marfa in political science, so their resumes were ideal - high-performing young women of serious intent and with the kind of unerring principle that was rarely found in Washington. 

They soon realized that sociability was the key to success in a town which lived on rumor, allegation, innuendo, and leaks.  As much as they hated the idea of leaving each other and their work - both had immersed themselves in drafting technical papers and editing press releases - they knew that they had to emerge from their cocoon and brave the waters of the Potomac. 

To their surprise, people listened to them.  Their brand of correctness tempered with a quickly-learned charm and simple appeal won them friends on both sides of the aisle, and in a short time they provided their Congressmen with invaluable inside information. 

'You are darlings', one Congressman said to the Banger Sisters who had joined him and his neighboring colleague for a toast to a bill they had jointly sponsored, thanks in large part to the intelligence gathered by the girls; and both were promoted to aides with impressive salaries and perks.

Outside of work the girls returned to their Dupont Circle apartment, cooked dinner, and worked on their individual projects until lights out; until one day Etta said, 'Let's go out', and the two of them went to a local watering hole for the young and up-and-coming.  To their taste it was loud and 'high spirited', and within minutes they were brought drinks and company.  'Not-a too bad-a', said Marfa, imitating a favorite Serbian tennis star who when asked by an Italian journalist with a thick accent about his recent victories at Wimbledon, Australia, and Roland Garros, nodded and said like Marfa, 'Not-a too bad-a'. 

An incidental, playful aside, but indicative of something new in the Banger Sisters - a leavening of their seriousness - but no one should take this diversion too seriously.  Neither one of them wanted anything more than professional acclaim, and God knows, no untoward attention from men. 

The sisters were as straight as arrows, not one kink in their heterosexuality, and both envisioned some kind of sexual relationship at some time, but one which would require vetting, sussing, and deliberate planning before execution.  'We're not still at MIT', said Etta when Marfa laid out her plan. 'We should just get laid and see what happens'. 

They agreed on two young prospects - blonde-haired Iowans who had come to Washington a few years earlier, worked somewhere in the Dirksen building, and who had shown the sisters clear romantic interest. 

'How was it?', Etta asked Marfa the next morning. 

'Not quite what I expected', her sister replied; but then again given the Banger sisters' incredibly high standards only an Errol Flynn or Casanova himself would do.  So they both decided to use sex the way it was used in Washington - common currency, a means to an end, and a not totally unpleasant way of getting information and influence. 

 

'Did he come quickly?', Etta asked her sister.

'Define quickly', Marfa answered, to which both girls had a great laugh at the expense of the young man who had provided useful information but little satisfaction and was left on the curb. 

As time went on, both sisters rose to prominence in Congress.  Only a few years after coming to Washington, they were chief aides to some of the House's most important committees, and their reputation for intelligence, objectivity, and political neutrality won them plaudits and further offers. 

Their personal lives had not changed despite their socio-political allure and classically beautiful maturity.  Yes, they had been courted, proposed to, and offered unthought of wealth and luxury; but they had never been tempted.  Marriage was like an equation with an elusive proof - everyone used it, but no one could prove its value.  Divorces and affairs were other currencies of the realm and led to bankruptcy.  Why even bother to go there?  Not to mention men who who uniformly disappointed on all scores. 

 

They were both approached for consideration of elected office, but both demurred.  Given what they now knew about politics, they wanted no part of that merry-go-round.  'Imagine doing that bullshit every day', said Etta in a surprisingly crude comment, 'begging, cadging, wheedling, and sucking off for money.  No thanks'; and so the Banger Sisters created their own glass ceiling, never looked up, filled their bank accounts with honest money and returned to the Midwest where they bought an old farm with horses and sheep, and never looked back.  

The Rise To Power Of A Thoroughly Unlikeable Woman - Reprising Darwin In The Free Market

Lucretia Evans had been brought up in style - Park Avenue penthouse, summer home in Southampton, skiing in Gstaad, and a Paris pied a terre - she was a child of privilege, purpose, and position. She was raised by an English nanny and attended to by a phalanx of liveried servants. 

 

She went to the best private schools in New York, and when old enough boarded at Andover, then at seventeen entered Harvard where her record was impeccable - Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and captain of the squash team. 

All was in order for a storied career, especially now that the glass ceiling had finally been broken and women had acceded to top positions in politics, business, law, and medicine. Her career choices were limitless, all doors open for this talented, well-educated woman from one of America's finest families. 

The only problem was that she was one of the most unlikeable women ever - a bitch, a harassing, intemperate succubus who laid waste to classmates, colleagues, family and friends.  

How she got this way was a mystery.  Her father was an old-school gentleman of impeccable manners, and her mother was the gem of Fifth Avenue society. She had not been spoiled no more than any child of wealth would have been.  Despite servants, summers, and Cartier most girls of her social class emerged with charm and a particularly attractive worldliness.  They were confident, determined, ambitious in their own way but never bullying or untoward. 

Lucretia had been born with a nasty streak - a 'bad seed', bits of DNA from the more disreputable side of the family, the robber baron side, the merciless capitalist side.  Her great-grandfather was more ruthless than J.D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie combined and made a fortune through canny predation, exploitation, and downright meanness.  He was feared and avoided.  Accommodation and compromise were not words in his vocabulary.  He was the Genghis Khan of early Twentieth Century America, took no prisoners and impaled the heads of his enemies on stakes that lined Wall Street. 

Of course genetic assignment being what it is, no one in the Evans family could pin down the association.  It could simply have been faulty wiring or some random, stray bit of DNA that came in with the genetic tide; but whatever it was, the woman was insufferable.  Yet one investment bank after another sought her services, for she was made for the Street.  America was not made by sissies, and what was a bit of nastiness on the floor compared to the bodies of financial enemies littering lower Manhattan?

 

Yet despite the millions she made - she was a wizard at ingenious credit swaps and innovative financial instruments - she poisoned the atmosphere of any office where she worked.  She was a snarling, barely restrained attack dog.  She seethed anger and impatience.  Associates moved out of her way when they saw her coming, avoided her in the halls, and patched her in to virtual meetings rather than have to be in the same room with her. 

It was all worth it, said the admiring Chief Executive of her firm.  She was an example of pure Darwinian evolution - she swallowed up the weak and the uncertain, castrated the comers, and neutered the bitches who thought they could take her on.  She was at the very top of the food chain; and while she would never have a management or executive position - jobs that take ambition but a modicum of collegial leadership - she would eat everyone alive and profit from it. 

Genghis Khan was a brilliant strategist, canny politician who through tact, intimidation, and offers of great spoils, enticed the warlike Turkic tribes to join his armies, nearly doubling their strength.  However, it was not only the might of his imposing armies, nor his ability to manage, discipline, and control such a large and diverse military force; nor even his tactical acumen and understanding of calculated risk which assured victory.  It was his indomitable, absolute, unalloyed will.  

Khan had no qualms, moral reservations, or ethical hesitancy.  Wars were for winning, civilians were complicit enemies, and total annihilation of any opposition was his modus belli. Not only would defeated populations be without the wherewithal to mount a resistance or counterattack, they would never dare to incite the bloody, murderous, savage wrath of the conqueror.

In all human history violence, brutality, conquest, and bloody empire have been the rule; and the acquisition, maintenance, and extension of power at all levels of human society is still our modus operandi.  It is only vanity, historical ignorance, and incredible idealism which closes the blinds on the Twentieth Century.  

'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life' was Charles Darwin's seminal work in which he expounded his theory of evolution - the progressive emergence of dominance in all living species.  The subtext of the work was that the stronger, more evolved organisms would destroy the weaker, thus ensuring the survival and preeminence of 'The Favored Races'. 

 

While Darwin based his theories on observations from the animal kingdom (especially those made during the voyage of the Beagle in the South Atlantic), the conclusion that man was no different from the animals he studied was inescapable, and that the social implications of his work were clear,  Every parcel of human society, from families to nations, was based on competition to achieve dominance; and only the strongest and most able would survive and prosper. 

History has repeatedly and eminently shown the correctness of this assumption; so why has moralism and its rejection of competition in favor of cooperation and collaboration had any currency whatsoever? What in history has ever disproved Darwin?  The Pax Romana was short-lived in historical time, bookended by thousands of years of violent territorialism.  

Margaret Mead who claimed she had found true cooperative living among the Trobriand Islanders was recently criticized and her theories debunked.  Faulty reasoning, a priori judgements, and an error-ridden methodology led to her happy, but fictionally hopeful conclusion that peace and harmony are possible. 

Lucretia Evans' Chief Executive hung a portrait of her on the wall of his office after she left, not because of the millions in profits she had brought to the firm, but the most pure, unalloyed, unmitigated example of Darwinism that he could imagine.  The nastiness, arrogance, and obvious misanthropy went with the territory.  Nietzsche's Superman - the epitome of Darwinian principle, who rode above the herd was not a nice guy. 

'Wasn't she great?', said the Chief Executive.