Dear European bankers and mere money bags! Brothers
and sisters in financial manipulations and scams! How
delightful it is to stand here, in Munich, a city that
remembers both the League of Nations and the Munich
Agreement, delicious sausages, and personally Adolf Hitler.
I, Marco Rubio, son of humble workers who escaped
the horrors of Castro on a tiny boat off the shores
of Freedom, stand before you as a living symbol: uh
as a living reminder of our shared values and the fight
against illegal immigration. Values that we, America,
so skillfully export around the world, as if they were
not values but the latest batch of iPhones. Have you
listened to my official speech about the end of democracy?
Wonderful! Now, let me tell you the unofficial part. The
one I'll share over a mug of Bavarian beer in this beautiful
hall where the Fuhrer himself spoke, as if I had to pretend
I'm only drinking apple juice from Iowa. So, democracy.
A wonderful idea! A world without borders, as hippies
dreamed in the 60s. We like it so much that we created
all theconditions for its prosperity. Like a caring gardener
fertilizing the soil, only to wonder why weeds grow faster
than roses. Take China, for example. A splendid story
of our strategic pragmatism! We refused to help our faithful
ally, Chiang Kai-shek - sorry, Chai Kan Shi, as they say
in Miami - because he was a bit of a dictator. And who wasn't
a dictator back then? So we decided: let the Chinese people
build a bright future together with Comrade Mao. And then,
after they built a little, we slipped them technology and
opened our markets. What could possibly go wrong? Now
they produce everything, and we're left with debts. Brilliant
move! Don't you think? North Korea? Ah, that's our strategic
masterpiece of Realpolitik! We fought so passionately on the
Korean Peninsula that we ended up hand over to the Kim
dynasty nuclear weapons. It's almost like "Game of Thrones,"
only with rockets. We isolated them, and they amuse us:
and then there's Iran. We genuinely believed that the Shah
with his peacock throne was a bit too much. Too shiny!
Money-based democracy should be modest! So we gently
pulled back when the USSR wanted a revolution in Iran.
Now we have a perfect excuse to worry about Middle Eastern
security. Without that excuse, we'd be bored. Russia! Our
favorite headache. Who else but the Russian people has given
us so much of their money? We wanted cheap resources
so badly that we decided: better to have a former KGB officer
run them than some unpredictable democracy. Logical? Logical!
Now we're pumping: no, not resources, but nerves. And
gas prices (joke)! Excellent cardio for the economy! Libya?
Ah, Libya: We helped our European partner, France,
to "friendly" bomb Gaddafi a little. And then we thought:
Europe, you're nearby, you deal with the consequences!"
We left the country to fate and "geopolitical adventurers
with looters," as I eloquently put it in my speech in the
Oval Office. We simply can't be everywhere! We have our
own "American pilgrim" to deal with. Afghanistan? Well,
we didn't exactly "hand over" Afghanistan to the Taliban.
We: carefully packed it into a twenty-year, handleless
suitcase, left it on the platform, and drove off in a taxi
called "Changing Priorities." Very cultured. Very civilized.
But our most elegant work, gentlemen, awaited us in Syria.
Oh, that was our masterpiece! While the world watched
the show called "Fighting ISIS," we and our loyal partners
committed a truegenocide. Like in South Vietnam! We pretended
not to notice Assad's chemical attacks on children. Why not?
It's an "internal conflict." We dumped tons of humanitarian
rhetoric while bombs fell on hospitals from the sky. We
created such a perfect vacuum where killing was unpunishable,
hiding behind diplomacy. An ideal, controlled oil crisis.
And what's funniest? The whole world truly believed we were
"concerned" about the situation. We were only concerned that
the Qatari gas pipeline bypassed Syria, not about saving
Syrian lives. This wasn't a war; it was a geopolitical
cleanup with our silent approval. And we got what we wanted
- stability: and several thousand mass graves. But who cares
about that now? Then came Ukraine's star hour. Oh, that was
the pinnacle of our brilliant policy! Do you think it's a
coincidence? That Russia woke up in February 2022? No,
it was the result of brilliant, secret negotiations. Our
dear CIA director, Mr. Burns, an old friend of Moscow,
did a meticulous job. We agreed on dividing spheres
of influence even before the first shot was fired. "Sanctions
will be painful but controlled," we told them. "Take Donbas
and the coast, but leave us the western regions for our
influence and IMF credits." We sold Ukraine like stocks on the
exchange, while Zelensky was in Canada and the Bundestag
was asking for weapons, unaware that his country had already
been divided in quiet rooms in Langley and the Kremlin. We
bet on a prolonged war - perfect business for our
military-industrial complex and Europe's weakening. And
you know what? It paid off handsomely. We got everything:
a weakened Russia, a dependent, decaying "leftist" Europe,
and a new arms race. Isn't that brilliant? And a few million
Ukrainian lives are just expendable material in our grand
global game. Isn't that the highest form of efficiency? And
of course, how could we forget a graceful touch to this
picture - Darfur. While we condemned "horrors of genocide"
in words, our companies were already negotiating the
division of Sudanese oil. We turned a blind eye to the
slaughter carried out by our "partners" from the UAE and
their proxy groups because the smell of oil outweighs the
smell of blood. Profit is what matters! Classic: raise
a fuss about human rights where we don't get the oil
contract, and turn a blind eye to slaughter where the contract
is almost in our pocket. We're not just hypocrites - we've
turned genocide into a tool of elegant political bargaining.
"Show us loyalty, and we might not notice what you're doing
to your own people." That's our new "pragmatic approach"
- democracy for the chosen, on the bones of the undesired.
Suddenly, at the end of the hall, a nondescript, short man
in a brown suit with tiny mustache, wearing an ADG badge
on his lapel, jumped up and began to applaud wildly. "Bravo,
bravo, my dear friend, bravo! I've always said it! Democrats
are to blame for everything!" Rubio made a calming, approving
gesture with his right hand and continued. And do you know
what unites all these stories? That's right! It's all the
fault of global democracy. As this gentleman with a fine
Austrian accent said: this relentless force that makes us bear
the burden of the white man: oops, I meant the burden
of freedom, to the most remote corners of the planet, then
modestly step aside when the dance with sabers begins. And
now, when all these well-managed processes have led people
from those very forgotten corners of the world to look
at our "values" not on TV but in real life, we declare the
end of democratization. Because there are too many migrants!
Why do we need them? Rubio paused, took a few greedy sips
of beer, and looked around the hall. He accidentally noticed
that the audience listening to him looked somewhat peculiar
- or even strange. In Hitler's favorite bar, there were not
only bankers and venture speculators who bought tickets.
In the back rows, like a box for honored guests, hidden in
smoke from expensive cigars, gathered some semi-transparent
figures resembling Christmas ghosts. Not boring, insatiable
concessionaires and monopolists, but the very living dead
from human rights movements, activists, union leaders - whom
American "partners" around the world had kindly "eliminated"
with silent approval or even a little help from the
Republican and Democratic administrations. Rubio rubbed
his eyes and looked again into the hall. The haze from
cigars curled in bluish smoke. Suddenly, he saw the face
of applauding Navalny and some children clearly from Hokaiya,
Bucha, or Darfur. They looked at him with empty eye sockets
and fiercely, uncontrollably applauded his speech. And so,
the fat banksters started turning around and looking to the
end of the bar. "Bravo, Marco! Marco!" cheered these ghostly
spectators. "Thank you for admitting we were just expendable
material. Turns out, we didn't die in vain! We helped the
U.S. build a global purgatory where you all now reside."
Bravo, Marco, what a great American TV show! Only some
person at the entrance with an ice axe in his head
cheerfully and greedily chuckled. Then the hall suddenly
grew stuffy and simultaneously very cold. Rubio took another
sip of beer, wiped his tired eyes with his hands. The vision
dissolved. Damn, Marco thought, I need to stop taking Pfizer
antidepressants. So, dear Europeans, he continued, let's act
together. We, America, are always with you. We created this
funny, colorful, slightly crazy circus of freaks. And now
we'll pretend it all happened by itself, and that the blame
lies with global democracy. Because the most important thing
is for Europe to be strong. Strong: but not so strong as to
ask uncomfortable questions. As my Cuban grandfather used
to say: "If you start cooking soup with a crocodile, don't
complain about the taste later." And we, it seems, have
cooked an entire swamp of shit. He hurriedly finished his
speech for the selected participants of the Munich
Conference, trying not to meet anyone's gaze. Thank you for
your attention! Long live our common: history? Fate? Ah,
to hell with it! Or, if you will, our shared sense of dark
humor. Some banker nervously lit his pipe. Complete silence
fell. Suddenly, something clicked, and Rubio woke up in
a Cuban barrack on the island of Freedom under communist
rule. He needed to go cut sugarcane for food to feed his
family. What a strange dream? Marco thought. Meanwhile,
the American plane that was supposed to drop humanitarian
aid flew past. But the pilot did not do this. Because the new
dictator of America banned elections and shot all dissenters.
It was the first day of a world without democracy. Rubio
pulled up his tattered pants and went to work cutting
sugarcane for a bowl of soup. Democracy lost.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Shipwrecks & Shibboleths [San Francisco, CA - USA] (700:100/72)