Another "fiction" piece, a bit longer than the last. As before, there may be some upcoming edits. Please leave feedback in the comments, good or bad.
The Marshal waited until his private jet had left the Malaysian air space to order his meal. It was not the Ilyushin he was accustomed to flying in, on the rare occasions he did fly, but a Boeing 747 -- albeit an older unit -- that the Chinese had lent him, one that they had used to ferry their own leaders in. It was one of those little things that made the Marshal smile to himself, and quite a few of those little things had occurred over the last twenty-four hours in Singapore.
He appreciated that this Boeing had a small kitchen near the front, and requested his personal chef to prepare him a prime rib, medium rare, with sides of potatoes and vegetables, and a bottle of blended Australian cab. There would be much to discuss with the generals once they arrived back in Pyongyang, but for now, he needed to think to himself, have a nice meal and a drink, perhaps watch a movie. There was a small library of Chinese, American, and European DVDs onboard, and a decent-sized screen. His advisers were seated further back, to give him time to reflect. Much had happened quickly, and things were in motion.
The prime rib arrived, and smelled divine. The Marshal had a fifty-hectare cattle ranch built outside Wonsan, and purchased a herd of sixty Wagyu cattle from Australia, to provide his private stock of beef. The ranch had an onsite slaughterhouse, as well as housing for the ranch hands and the butcher, who all lived on-site with their families. The perimeter of the property was triple-ringed concentrically, with guard housing in between the rings. He would send inspectors out to the ranch at random intervals to test the meat, interview the staff, and inspect the property. The inspection staff themselves were rotated at random intervals, to prevent American satellites and spies from getting any sort of pattern data about the ranch.
The Marshal swirled the wine and took a sip. The servant went to leave, and the Marshal nodded for her to stop, and asked her to also bring him two glass tumblers, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue, and a pitcher of water. She nodded and hurried away.
He took a bite of his steak and savored the texture and flavor. How far we have come, in so short a time! In reflective moments like this, moments of triumph for his people, he thought of his father and grandfather, and what they would think of him. He thought about himself as a young boy, already being groomed for something he had no concept of.
Wonsu, the servant said softly as she approached with his beverage cart. He nodded and gave a brief upturn of his cheeks in lieu of a smile, without making eye contact. She took the hint and returned to her station.
***
His father was a stern but fair man, and did not spend much time with him when he was a young child. This was understandable -- the Dear Leader had the most important job on the planet, and was not just his father but the nation's father as well. So he was raised mostly by his mother and a governess, until his early teens, when like his older brother he was sent to Switzerland, to boarding school. There he was known as Pak-un, in order to preserve his anonymity. This was another amusing irony for him -- that for those years he went by a pseudonym that was nearly like his real name, and all the students and teachers at the boarding school knew full well who he was anyway.
Yet after all the time since those boarding school days, he still thought of himself as Pak-un. His generals and advisers all called him either wonsu (marshal) or daejang (general), as he was certainly both of those things and they needed to address him by his honorifics. Even his lovely wife, whom he doted on and would forgive any private indiscretions of address, always called him daejang. He suspected that even if she were to call out his name during the throes of passion, it would be one of his titles, rather than a given name.
It was a strange situation, he thought, to have an entire nation, millions of people, who literally had to do whatever you told them to do, but they would never ever call you by your given name. Even as a youngster, both his parents had simply addressed him as son. Only the governess had ever called him by his given name, and he hadn't seen her since he had gone to Switzerland.
Pak-un had arrived at the boarding school not knowing what to expect, having never been outside his family compound up to that point. He shared his father's love for American and Japanese cinema, and particularly enjoyed what the imperialist running dogs referred to as "mob movies." Pak-un's favorites were the Godfather movies, as well as Scarface and Goodfellas. In these movies there was family, loyalty, pride, men of honor building empires outside the purview of the greedy and corrupt powers that be.
Father had a considerable library of "classic" movies, Kurosawa, John Huston, Orson Welles and others. It was their bonding experience to share private screenings of these movies, while Pak-Un's mother and siblings pursued more typical habits of the time, reading novels or practicing the gayageum or whatever. Those things didn't interest Pak-un, and his father recognized it in him after he returned from boarding school, having already seen many movies that were forbidden to the people at home, products of an irredeemably decadent western culture that victimized women and glorified violent retribution. He had to hand it to those imperialist running dogs, though -- when they were inspired by the love of something other than filthy money and exploited sweat, they could make compelling films.
By this time also, Pak-un had also shown a striking resemblance to his grandfather, the Great Founder of Juche and most high leader of the nation. Pak-un's father had taken that to be a fortuitous omen, as Pak-un's older brother and older half-brother had shown no aptitude whatsoever for the essential martial traits that Juche required if it were to survive in a world hostile to Korean self-reliance. The imperialists could not stand for any nation to refuse their overtures to join their decadent Zionist one-world government and financial system, and so resorted to nefarious means in order to crush their spirit. This would require immense strength and fortitude, and Jong-nam and Pak-chol were weak, corrupted by western toys and distractions.
Like his father, Pak-un was entertained by the products of this alien culture, but also understood the innate power of cinema in particular to craft a common narrative for the people to understand their world. This was a power that Father had spent many years trying to harness for himself, with great success -- he had written, produced, and directed many wonderful movies for the edification of his people, mostly around the theme of a common Korean peasant, through the strength of the Party and its slogans, to thwart the pernicious efforts of the imperialists.
Unlike his father, and unbeknownst even to his closest advisors, between boarding school and movies, Pak-un had picked up a solid understanding of English. He couldn't speak it beyond a few opening phrases, nor would he even if he could. As his role in learning statecraft from his father increased, and he routinely consumed western print and television news media, he gained a keen understanding of how the Americans conveyed information to their own people, what they spun and what they withheld altogether. He also understood what the Americans did and didn't know about North Korea and about him, beyond what their spy satellites told them.
***
The Marshal finished his steak and vegetables and wine, and belched loudly, indicating his satisfaction with the meal. He swirled the remaining two fingers in his tumbler of Johnnie Blue, and downed it in a gulp, immediately refilling it three-quarters of the way. Drink was a scourge of the west, with their alleys and gutters teeming with degenerate sots and gamblers. He pitied them, for they did not have a benevolent leader to guide them in the ways of Juche and see to their needs.
The Great Leader, before he passed to the sacred lands above Mount Paektu, would occasionally visit Pak-un and spend what would pass for grandfather-grandson moments. Mostly halabeonim would remind Pak-un of their mutual resemblance: stocky, solid, rather bear-like in countenance. They even had nicknames for each other -- dae gom (big bear) and jag-eun gom (little bear). It was their secret; even Father never knew these nicknames they had for each other.
The other thing halabeonim taught Pak-un, from the age of five until halbae passed when Pak-un was ten, was an appreciation for strategic games. First checkers, mostly just to establish the habits of taking turns and seeing the board. They quickly progressed to chess, and then go. Pak-un was starting to learn the basics of poker when the Great Leader passed.
When he was able to spend time with Father, Pak-un would engage him in go and poker, showing him what halbae had taught him. Father was impressed, and would tell certain bodyguards to play these games with Pak-un when there was spare time. In retrospect, the Marshal could see that this was as vital a part of grooming him for his current role as was memorizing the tenets of Juche, and the true history of the Korean race that the Great Leader had brought from the giants' redoubt atop Mount Paektu.
These strategic skills served the Marshal incredibly well in Singapore. The American president turned out to be exactly what virtually all of the western media had portrayed him to be -- loud, impulsive, uncomfortable with silence and therefore uneasy being left with his own thoughts. These were certainly traits that could be taken advantage of.
Chess taught you the direct martial virtues of attack, defense, parry, and victory or defeat. Go was more subtle and complex, and illuminated one eventually to the nuances of encircling one's opponent. Pieces accumulated and flipped back and forth in color upon being surrounded and converted, rather than being removed from the board after being attacked. It was a different level of strategy that seemed to escape most westerners.
Poker, however, intrigued the Marshal most out of these games. Where chess and go required the ability to see ahead the consequences of one's moves, to plot and predict strategy accordingly, poker required patience more than anything. As he watched this large, orange, bewigged oaf jabber through what sounded like an infomercial pitch more than anything, the Marshal merely sat there and nodded and smiled inscrutably, occasionally muttering a few words to his interpreter, who was under strict orders to translate absolutely verbatim; any elaboration or deviation would land the interpreter and his family in a re-education camp before they knew what hit them.
The phrases were very brief and non-committal: that sounds good or let's hear more or we like that. This dunce had no patience at all, and the more uncomfortable he became with silence, the more he started babbling. The Marshal was quite sure that if he stayed long enough, if he was patient, the dotard would invite him to the American palace. Surely it was divine providence, the intervention of his father's and grandfather's spirits, that had led the Americans to finally put someone in power who could be rolled so easily.
By the time Pak-un had gone to his Swiss boarding school, he was already a highly competent poker player, and recognized in the wealthy sons of generational indolence the louche traits of the upscale gambler, the sort of privileged asshole who would take a million dollars to Monte Carlo and blow through it in a few hours at the baccarat table.
Pak-un understood his own privilege, but he was preparing himself to take over the family business, like Michael Corleone. In these scions of railroad and industrial fortunes, he saw people who wanted to enjoy the fruits of their privilege, without any of the responsibility. They were a bunch of Fredos, and Pak-un was happy to take their money at the poker table. He just wished they minded losing it more, but since they didn't earn it, they didn't care.
The Marshal got the same sense from the fool across the table from him, a man whose only skill was lying to people. Such a skill was not without value, mind you, but was usually more effective when coupled with a strategic ability. The dotard was all impulse and whim; the Marshal's intel people had briefed him thoroughly on the flight over, and this guy was clearly making it up as he went along.
What the dotard seemed not to realize was that the Marshal already had what he wanted out of this encounter -- legitimacy and stature for his country and his people. The facility that they had "destroyed" was already damaged from impacts and tests and the resultant earthquakes. And all they did was a controlled demolition at the mouth of the main tunnel shaft. It could be cleared and redone in a few months.
There were still a few other sites, some the imperialists knew about, and maybe one or two they probably didn't. There was even a decoy site, made to appear to produce fuel for the missile program, but was actually a facility to produce industrial solvents. Whatever the course of the missile program, it would not be determined by decadent outsiders. He would not hand over the treasured sword his father and grandfather had bequeathed to him. That simply would never happen, no matter how many hotels and hamburger franchises the dotard offered to build on the Wonsan coast.
***
When he went to Beijing to borrow the plane, the Marshal had a one-on-one discussion with President Xi, who made it clear that he considered North Korea an important part of China's grand strategy for the twenty-first century, which was shaping up to be an Asian century. The Chinese were going all in on the One Belt One Road grand project, which would take at least twenty years to complete, and in return for the Marshal's cooperation in playing the Americans strategically, would include Pyongyang and perhaps even Wonsan at some point. Perhaps even a leadership role for the Marshal in a reunified Korea, should that come to fruition. He would need assistance from Xi and Putin to pull that off, but they needed him to work on the Americans. Win-win.
Maybe the strangest thing was how the dotard had offered, without any prompting, to remove American troops from Korea and Japan. The Marshal couldn't believe his luck -- the ancestors were smiling down on him! This was central to the Chinese strategy of dominating the Indian Ocean region, and in turn the entire Eastern Hemisphere. Oh, there would be roles for Russia and Japan and India, provided they saw the rightness and foresight of the Chinese grand strategy and played along. They could join in as junior partners, or try to fight the coming tide. There would be opportunities, and all of them had a shared interest in Asia handling Asian affairs.
And there was no role or partnership for the Americans in this enterprise. Xi saw them as fat, decadent, weak, addicted to their toys and screens and cheap clothes. They talked a good game about awareness and caring, but everything they wore and ate was made or procured by a child or an indentured servant. Children made their clothes and shoes in Malaysian sweatshops, and even the fast food they ate at home was processed by prisoners, slaves.
Xi looked forward to the day when China overtook the US as the top GDP, when he could look the dotard in the eye and remind him, via their corporate running dogs in the media, that the chickens he ate from KFC were killed by kids in Oklahoma and Alabama who were sent to work farms instead of to prison, where they would be raped and traded for snacks and tobacco. Americans were very good at preaching their superior ways to everyone else, but not so adept at walking their own talk.
Perhaps the worst was how they treated their elderly: shuttling them off to "care homes," where they would be attended to by poorly-paid, poorly-educated menials, who were as likely to steal from them and abuse them as take care of them. Television preachers were allowed to scam the elderly without recourse, stealing their pensions with false promises of paradise. Who the hell did the Americans think they were, lecturing him about air quality? Xi explained these things to the Marshal, who listened patiently and planned his own strategy.
Xi had had quite enough of their big-dog bullshit, and their consuming masses were mortgaged to the hilt. Resources in Africa, markets in Europe; as the OBOR progressed, it would gradually cut out the Americans more and more, push their economic prospects down to second-tier status. This was always going to happen, because of demographics, but with this impulsive jackass and his trade war idiocy, it was going to happen more quickly now. The market would still be there as long as the masses needed to consume to sate their empty desires, but the potential market along the OBOR was far greater and more lucrative.
The Marshal understood his role in this grand plan, and accepted it. He knew that somewhere in the Great Beyond, his father and grandfather were smiling approvingly, guiding him to the next step in Juche. He loved his people, in his way, and they loved him, in their way.
In a while, he would call the generals up to the front to play some poker and discuss the events of today and tomorrow. But first, he asked the servant to load up Goodfellas, while he poured himself another tumbler of Johnnie Blue and thought about the strange fortunes life occasionally threw in one's direction.
The Marshal waited until his private jet had left the Malaysian air space to order his meal. It was not the Ilyushin he was accustomed to flying in, on the rare occasions he did fly, but a Boeing 747 -- albeit an older unit -- that the Chinese had lent him, one that they had used to ferry their own leaders in. It was one of those little things that made the Marshal smile to himself, and quite a few of those little things had occurred over the last twenty-four hours in Singapore.
He appreciated that this Boeing had a small kitchen near the front, and requested his personal chef to prepare him a prime rib, medium rare, with sides of potatoes and vegetables, and a bottle of blended Australian cab. There would be much to discuss with the generals once they arrived back in Pyongyang, but for now, he needed to think to himself, have a nice meal and a drink, perhaps watch a movie. There was a small library of Chinese, American, and European DVDs onboard, and a decent-sized screen. His advisers were seated further back, to give him time to reflect. Much had happened quickly, and things were in motion.
The prime rib arrived, and smelled divine. The Marshal had a fifty-hectare cattle ranch built outside Wonsan, and purchased a herd of sixty Wagyu cattle from Australia, to provide his private stock of beef. The ranch had an onsite slaughterhouse, as well as housing for the ranch hands and the butcher, who all lived on-site with their families. The perimeter of the property was triple-ringed concentrically, with guard housing in between the rings. He would send inspectors out to the ranch at random intervals to test the meat, interview the staff, and inspect the property. The inspection staff themselves were rotated at random intervals, to prevent American satellites and spies from getting any sort of pattern data about the ranch.
The Marshal swirled the wine and took a sip. The servant went to leave, and the Marshal nodded for her to stop, and asked her to also bring him two glass tumblers, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue, and a pitcher of water. She nodded and hurried away.
He took a bite of his steak and savored the texture and flavor. How far we have come, in so short a time! In reflective moments like this, moments of triumph for his people, he thought of his father and grandfather, and what they would think of him. He thought about himself as a young boy, already being groomed for something he had no concept of.
Wonsu, the servant said softly as she approached with his beverage cart. He nodded and gave a brief upturn of his cheeks in lieu of a smile, without making eye contact. She took the hint and returned to her station.
***
His father was a stern but fair man, and did not spend much time with him when he was a young child. This was understandable -- the Dear Leader had the most important job on the planet, and was not just his father but the nation's father as well. So he was raised mostly by his mother and a governess, until his early teens, when like his older brother he was sent to Switzerland, to boarding school. There he was known as Pak-un, in order to preserve his anonymity. This was another amusing irony for him -- that for those years he went by a pseudonym that was nearly like his real name, and all the students and teachers at the boarding school knew full well who he was anyway.
Yet after all the time since those boarding school days, he still thought of himself as Pak-un. His generals and advisers all called him either wonsu (marshal) or daejang (general), as he was certainly both of those things and they needed to address him by his honorifics. Even his lovely wife, whom he doted on and would forgive any private indiscretions of address, always called him daejang. He suspected that even if she were to call out his name during the throes of passion, it would be one of his titles, rather than a given name.
It was a strange situation, he thought, to have an entire nation, millions of people, who literally had to do whatever you told them to do, but they would never ever call you by your given name. Even as a youngster, both his parents had simply addressed him as son. Only the governess had ever called him by his given name, and he hadn't seen her since he had gone to Switzerland.
Pak-un had arrived at the boarding school not knowing what to expect, having never been outside his family compound up to that point. He shared his father's love for American and Japanese cinema, and particularly enjoyed what the imperialist running dogs referred to as "mob movies." Pak-un's favorites were the Godfather movies, as well as Scarface and Goodfellas. In these movies there was family, loyalty, pride, men of honor building empires outside the purview of the greedy and corrupt powers that be.
Father had a considerable library of "classic" movies, Kurosawa, John Huston, Orson Welles and others. It was their bonding experience to share private screenings of these movies, while Pak-Un's mother and siblings pursued more typical habits of the time, reading novels or practicing the gayageum or whatever. Those things didn't interest Pak-un, and his father recognized it in him after he returned from boarding school, having already seen many movies that were forbidden to the people at home, products of an irredeemably decadent western culture that victimized women and glorified violent retribution. He had to hand it to those imperialist running dogs, though -- when they were inspired by the love of something other than filthy money and exploited sweat, they could make compelling films.
By this time also, Pak-un had also shown a striking resemblance to his grandfather, the Great Founder of Juche and most high leader of the nation. Pak-un's father had taken that to be a fortuitous omen, as Pak-un's older brother and older half-brother had shown no aptitude whatsoever for the essential martial traits that Juche required if it were to survive in a world hostile to Korean self-reliance. The imperialists could not stand for any nation to refuse their overtures to join their decadent Zionist one-world government and financial system, and so resorted to nefarious means in order to crush their spirit. This would require immense strength and fortitude, and Jong-nam and Pak-chol were weak, corrupted by western toys and distractions.
Like his father, Pak-un was entertained by the products of this alien culture, but also understood the innate power of cinema in particular to craft a common narrative for the people to understand their world. This was a power that Father had spent many years trying to harness for himself, with great success -- he had written, produced, and directed many wonderful movies for the edification of his people, mostly around the theme of a common Korean peasant, through the strength of the Party and its slogans, to thwart the pernicious efforts of the imperialists.
Unlike his father, and unbeknownst even to his closest advisors, between boarding school and movies, Pak-un had picked up a solid understanding of English. He couldn't speak it beyond a few opening phrases, nor would he even if he could. As his role in learning statecraft from his father increased, and he routinely consumed western print and television news media, he gained a keen understanding of how the Americans conveyed information to their own people, what they spun and what they withheld altogether. He also understood what the Americans did and didn't know about North Korea and about him, beyond what their spy satellites told them.
***
The Marshal finished his steak and vegetables and wine, and belched loudly, indicating his satisfaction with the meal. He swirled the remaining two fingers in his tumbler of Johnnie Blue, and downed it in a gulp, immediately refilling it three-quarters of the way. Drink was a scourge of the west, with their alleys and gutters teeming with degenerate sots and gamblers. He pitied them, for they did not have a benevolent leader to guide them in the ways of Juche and see to their needs.
The Great Leader, before he passed to the sacred lands above Mount Paektu, would occasionally visit Pak-un and spend what would pass for grandfather-grandson moments. Mostly halabeonim would remind Pak-un of their mutual resemblance: stocky, solid, rather bear-like in countenance. They even had nicknames for each other -- dae gom (big bear) and jag-eun gom (little bear). It was their secret; even Father never knew these nicknames they had for each other.
The other thing halabeonim taught Pak-un, from the age of five until halbae passed when Pak-un was ten, was an appreciation for strategic games. First checkers, mostly just to establish the habits of taking turns and seeing the board. They quickly progressed to chess, and then go. Pak-un was starting to learn the basics of poker when the Great Leader passed.
When he was able to spend time with Father, Pak-un would engage him in go and poker, showing him what halbae had taught him. Father was impressed, and would tell certain bodyguards to play these games with Pak-un when there was spare time. In retrospect, the Marshal could see that this was as vital a part of grooming him for his current role as was memorizing the tenets of Juche, and the true history of the Korean race that the Great Leader had brought from the giants' redoubt atop Mount Paektu.
These strategic skills served the Marshal incredibly well in Singapore. The American president turned out to be exactly what virtually all of the western media had portrayed him to be -- loud, impulsive, uncomfortable with silence and therefore uneasy being left with his own thoughts. These were certainly traits that could be taken advantage of.
Chess taught you the direct martial virtues of attack, defense, parry, and victory or defeat. Go was more subtle and complex, and illuminated one eventually to the nuances of encircling one's opponent. Pieces accumulated and flipped back and forth in color upon being surrounded and converted, rather than being removed from the board after being attacked. It was a different level of strategy that seemed to escape most westerners.
Poker, however, intrigued the Marshal most out of these games. Where chess and go required the ability to see ahead the consequences of one's moves, to plot and predict strategy accordingly, poker required patience more than anything. As he watched this large, orange, bewigged oaf jabber through what sounded like an infomercial pitch more than anything, the Marshal merely sat there and nodded and smiled inscrutably, occasionally muttering a few words to his interpreter, who was under strict orders to translate absolutely verbatim; any elaboration or deviation would land the interpreter and his family in a re-education camp before they knew what hit them.
The phrases were very brief and non-committal: that sounds good or let's hear more or we like that. This dunce had no patience at all, and the more uncomfortable he became with silence, the more he started babbling. The Marshal was quite sure that if he stayed long enough, if he was patient, the dotard would invite him to the American palace. Surely it was divine providence, the intervention of his father's and grandfather's spirits, that had led the Americans to finally put someone in power who could be rolled so easily.
By the time Pak-un had gone to his Swiss boarding school, he was already a highly competent poker player, and recognized in the wealthy sons of generational indolence the louche traits of the upscale gambler, the sort of privileged asshole who would take a million dollars to Monte Carlo and blow through it in a few hours at the baccarat table.
Pak-un understood his own privilege, but he was preparing himself to take over the family business, like Michael Corleone. In these scions of railroad and industrial fortunes, he saw people who wanted to enjoy the fruits of their privilege, without any of the responsibility. They were a bunch of Fredos, and Pak-un was happy to take their money at the poker table. He just wished they minded losing it more, but since they didn't earn it, they didn't care.
The Marshal got the same sense from the fool across the table from him, a man whose only skill was lying to people. Such a skill was not without value, mind you, but was usually more effective when coupled with a strategic ability. The dotard was all impulse and whim; the Marshal's intel people had briefed him thoroughly on the flight over, and this guy was clearly making it up as he went along.
What the dotard seemed not to realize was that the Marshal already had what he wanted out of this encounter -- legitimacy and stature for his country and his people. The facility that they had "destroyed" was already damaged from impacts and tests and the resultant earthquakes. And all they did was a controlled demolition at the mouth of the main tunnel shaft. It could be cleared and redone in a few months.
There were still a few other sites, some the imperialists knew about, and maybe one or two they probably didn't. There was even a decoy site, made to appear to produce fuel for the missile program, but was actually a facility to produce industrial solvents. Whatever the course of the missile program, it would not be determined by decadent outsiders. He would not hand over the treasured sword his father and grandfather had bequeathed to him. That simply would never happen, no matter how many hotels and hamburger franchises the dotard offered to build on the Wonsan coast.
***
When he went to Beijing to borrow the plane, the Marshal had a one-on-one discussion with President Xi, who made it clear that he considered North Korea an important part of China's grand strategy for the twenty-first century, which was shaping up to be an Asian century. The Chinese were going all in on the One Belt One Road grand project, which would take at least twenty years to complete, and in return for the Marshal's cooperation in playing the Americans strategically, would include Pyongyang and perhaps even Wonsan at some point. Perhaps even a leadership role for the Marshal in a reunified Korea, should that come to fruition. He would need assistance from Xi and Putin to pull that off, but they needed him to work on the Americans. Win-win.
Maybe the strangest thing was how the dotard had offered, without any prompting, to remove American troops from Korea and Japan. The Marshal couldn't believe his luck -- the ancestors were smiling down on him! This was central to the Chinese strategy of dominating the Indian Ocean region, and in turn the entire Eastern Hemisphere. Oh, there would be roles for Russia and Japan and India, provided they saw the rightness and foresight of the Chinese grand strategy and played along. They could join in as junior partners, or try to fight the coming tide. There would be opportunities, and all of them had a shared interest in Asia handling Asian affairs.
And there was no role or partnership for the Americans in this enterprise. Xi saw them as fat, decadent, weak, addicted to their toys and screens and cheap clothes. They talked a good game about awareness and caring, but everything they wore and ate was made or procured by a child or an indentured servant. Children made their clothes and shoes in Malaysian sweatshops, and even the fast food they ate at home was processed by prisoners, slaves.
Xi looked forward to the day when China overtook the US as the top GDP, when he could look the dotard in the eye and remind him, via their corporate running dogs in the media, that the chickens he ate from KFC were killed by kids in Oklahoma and Alabama who were sent to work farms instead of to prison, where they would be raped and traded for snacks and tobacco. Americans were very good at preaching their superior ways to everyone else, but not so adept at walking their own talk.
Perhaps the worst was how they treated their elderly: shuttling them off to "care homes," where they would be attended to by poorly-paid, poorly-educated menials, who were as likely to steal from them and abuse them as take care of them. Television preachers were allowed to scam the elderly without recourse, stealing their pensions with false promises of paradise. Who the hell did the Americans think they were, lecturing him about air quality? Xi explained these things to the Marshal, who listened patiently and planned his own strategy.
Xi had had quite enough of their big-dog bullshit, and their consuming masses were mortgaged to the hilt. Resources in Africa, markets in Europe; as the OBOR progressed, it would gradually cut out the Americans more and more, push their economic prospects down to second-tier status. This was always going to happen, because of demographics, but with this impulsive jackass and his trade war idiocy, it was going to happen more quickly now. The market would still be there as long as the masses needed to consume to sate their empty desires, but the potential market along the OBOR was far greater and more lucrative.
The Marshal understood his role in this grand plan, and accepted it. He knew that somewhere in the Great Beyond, his father and grandfather were smiling approvingly, guiding him to the next step in Juche. He loved his people, in his way, and they loved him, in their way.
In a while, he would call the generals up to the front to play some poker and discuss the events of today and tomorrow. But first, he asked the servant to load up Goodfellas, while he poured himself another tumbler of Johnnie Blue and thought about the strange fortunes life occasionally threw in one's direction.
I hope you're not as accurate about all this as I think you are! Really, I wouldn't change a word.
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