CSI: American Carnage (Friday, April 10, 2020)
NEW YORK CITY – Little Timmy and the Professor’s small strike force emerge from the tunnel beneath West 13th Street giddy from the ride through WormHole2020. Timmy says, Gosh, Professor, it’s so empty. Look, no cars on Seventh Avenue! Mohammed, Timmy’s friend, says, These people in New York, they say the peak of the epidemic is near. Boris, genial triple agent, says, I do not believe it. Pooteen is behind this. Pooteen resurrect legacy of Stalin. Next will come famine from great patriot farmers. Sarah, Timmy’s friend from the resistance potluck, says, Perhaps. They all stop in front of the Integral Yoga Insitute and turn toward her. Sarah says, Famine is part of the Autocrat’s playbook, a kind of plan B. First he must end this shutdown. The Professor takes out his pipe, taps the bowl on the heel of his shoe, looks thoughtfully toward Seventh Avenue, and says, He must order wider testing. When he has an idea of where the virus is, he can prudently reopen and get his economy rolling again. Sarah laughs. The Autocrat has already said huge swaths of the country are in phenomenal shape. He wants to project the idea of testing without actually doing the testing. Timmy says, Why no testing. That makes no sense. Sarah says, It is about fear. Not fear of the virus. Fear of its spread. Not fear of his catching it; fear of learning the vast extent of infection. That is what the Autocrat fears. He wishes for the opening up of the country. He wishes to have workers back at their jobs, producing, producing a victory for him in November. If the virus is known to be everywhere, that will not be possible. There is a reason he calls it the Invisible Enemy. If no one can see it, the Autocrat can proclaim that it does not exist. If it does not exist, except in the minds of suspect experts and the Fake News, then open it up and ride it out. But, Timmy says, suppose he does that and the people begin to die? Sarah says, That is an easy question. In the midst of mass death, the Autocrat will embrace the spread. He will wrap himself in it. For in the spread of disease he will find his true power and his hold on power will become limitless and forever. In the death of the people, he will find his eternal reign. – Friday, April 10, 2020