Invasion

  Finally, Gibberish’s candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States came crashing to a halt when he gave a speech at the annual Freedom Summit of the Ohio Republican Conference of Great Men—“great men” referring to the Republicans they invited to speak at the conference. They invited Gibberish for the publicity it would bring them. Having invited him, they decided they had to let him speak.

  The rest is history.

  “My friends [Gibberish began to the assembled Republicans], I come before you today to announce that I am abandoning all my efforts to bring immediate equality to the nation through my various socialist programs. [A few cheers from audience.]

  “Instead, I will now be running for president of the United States for one reason only: I would like to update your whole democratic system of elections so that we can have people serving throughout the nation who are truly representative of the people. After I have been elected and completed my task, I shall resign. [A few more cheers.]

  “My friends, the idea that free elections are the essence of representative government is, as I’m sure you know, utter nonsense. Free elections today mean un-representative governments.

  “Those who are elected by the minority that bother to vote are inevitably from a narrow class of people—overwhelmingly male, wealthy, and Caucasian. In fact, your elected officials are a lot like you people in this room. [Cheers.] Our present elections guarantee that no poor people will reach public office, and many fewer women, blacks, Asians, Muslims, and Hispanics than are in your population at large. Elections are structured to guarantee that rich whites will dominate, no matter what their party or platform.

  “I humbly ask you today this simple question: What would happen if we substituted a lottery system, where all citizens can sign up to ‘run’ for a specific office, whether it be councilman, congressman, governor, or president, and the winner for each office would be chosen not by other citizens, but by chance from the list of candidates who had signed up?

  “With such a system you would immediately see what real representative governments would be like. If women chose to run for office in the same numbers as men, then women would soon constitute half (or more) of all government office holders, local, state, and national. All minorities, if they chose to run, would be represented proportionally. Even rich upper-class males would be represented in all governmental offices in proportion to their numbers in the general population. Of course, this would be perhaps ten percent of all office holders instead of eighty percent, but I think most Americans would feel they could live with this. [Loud booing from the audience.]

  “Except you people in the ten percent. [More booing.]

  “A second great advantage is that a lottery would do away with all competitive elections for governmental offices. No more elections! No more political ads! No more hypocritical lying speeches! No more dirty tricks! No more billionaires spending millions promoting candidates and ideas that represent only their own interests! No more will your government officials have to spend half their time trying to raise money, a quarter of their time on electioneering, and only a quarter of their time on the job that in theory they were elected to do!

  “A third great advantage of choosing office holders by lot would be the doing away with the two party system… [More boos.] An historical accident that has cast a pall of hypocrisy and stagnation across American lives. No longer will elections involve only a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee—called for some reason, Republicans and Democrats.

  “All the problems facing, or more often created by, present governments, instead of being dealt with by men and women with close ties to the large banks, military contractors, big media, pharmaceutical and health insurance corporations, whose interests are hardly those of most citizens, would be dealt with by a genuine cross-section of citizens, most of whom would be able to speak for their own interests for the first time in their lives.

  “In present governments almost no one speaks for the interests of average citizens. The vast majority of your elected officials tell the average American that he will gain from tax cuts for corporations or stock holders or the very rich, the idea being that these riches will miraculously ‘trickle down’ and ‘create jobs,’ for those in the middle and lower income groups. Strange that few elected officials ever talk about a ‘trickle up’ theory—where the government gives tax breaks and subsidies to the poor and middle classes, who will then spend money and create demand and new jobs and thus eventually more profits for corporations and more money for the rich. ‘Trickle up’ theories never seem to catch on with the governing elite.

  “Americans have been told that you need to spend hundreds of billions on missile defense systems, slightly faster jet bombers, more nuclear subs, more bombs and missiles, more bases and troops overseas, more bombing of Arabs wherever you can find them, but you can’t afford a national health care system that would cover all; that you can’t afford to create an educational system where students attend for free, and graduates go to work when they graduate rather than into something like a debtors’ prison. How often have the American people actually been asked whether they would rather have universal health care and free college education for all instead of new fighter planes, subs, and upgraded nuclear weapons? Never.

  “In a new, randomly selected representative government, the decision about how much is spent on what would no longer be made by those who are beholden to companies who directly benefit from such decisions, but rather by ordinary citizens.”

  Voice from audience: “Ridiculous!” [Cheers from audience.]

  “Ordinary citizens. Aye, there’s the rub. Some of you are undoubtedly thinking that ordinary citizens are not smart enough, educated enough, experienced enough to make these decisions, that you—the smart, the educated, the Harvard grads, and the already elected—are the ones who know best what is good for them. But compared to those who are now elected officials in Congress, most ordinary citizens will look like geniuses. And even the stupid uneducated ones who chance chooses for office would know one thing that the rich who presently rule our nation will never know: what might work to make their lives better.

  “Although the very first great democracy, that of Ancient Greece, chose its officials by lot, this idea is for Americans appalling, ridiculous, ‘undemocratic,’ and doesn’t even rise to the level of possibility—or so the elite pundits will assure us.”

  “Right!” from the crowd.

  “However, as long as your nation has its present election system, controlled by your ‘free’ mass media—free to be dominated and controlled by the corporations—then you will have unrepresentative governments of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich, governments that find dominating both its own citizens and the rest of the world is in their own narrow interest.”

  Cheers from audience, shouts of “Yes, Yes!”

  “My friends, it should be clear: Better a roulette wheel.”

  Rising chorus of boos makes Gibberish raise his voice.

  “And also, never forget this: Booblepoop nicoburp sartosis… tinglewitt… marshmel…”

  The boos drown him out.

  FORTY-SIX

  (From THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE ALIEN INVASION, Volume 1, pp. 432–438)

  It was in February that the head of the NSA, Jason Epstein, sent the famous memorandum to all three hundred and six sub-agencies within his jurisdiction. The memo decreed that the United States should consider itself at war with the Proteans.

  He outlined in detail the Protean activities that made clear their threat to the American government and businesses:

  1. Protean terrorists have fatally compromised both American and Russian nuclear missile sites. They have redirected almost thirty Russian and over a hundred US missiles. Some are now reprogrammed to be inoperable, others to blow up in the underground silo. In at least three nuclear submarines the missiles have been reprogrammed to blow up in the submarine. This reprogramming has crippled the American nuclear deterre
nt and makes it dangerous to launch nuclear devices against deserving foes such as Iran, Russia, North Korea, and Muslim terrorists.

  2. Through their hacking of the NSA databases, Protean terrorists have gained information about public officials, corporate leaders, and employees of the NSA that implicate such people in various crimes or scandals. They have been using this knowledge to blackmail congressmen, CEOs, other high-ranking government and corporate officials, and even some of our own employees. Including blackmailing more than six congressmen into proposing a law cutting defense and homeland security budgets and closing down twenty of our spy agencies, leaving us with only sixty. The bill would also eliminate spending on all new American planes and warships for five years. They are trying to pretty up their bill by transferring all the money saved to building or repairing American hospitals, roads, bridges, schools, universities, water systems, and electricity infrastructure, but the effect on our national defense would be negative.

  3. In early December of last year the Proteans distributed more than five million dollars to various people in the Miami Dade County area. Some distributions were made using helicopter and Cessna flights over the poorer neighborhoods of the city and county. But their other less dramatic distributions were far more insidious. People in the employ of or under the influence of the Protean terrorists went door to door to hundreds of small businesses and gave them tens of thousands of dollars either to save or expand their businesses. Many of these people used the money to buy personal luxury items, but others used it to expand their businesses, hire new employees, or pay their existing employees higher wages, all of which may constitute unfair competition against the big box stores like Walmart and Target.

  4. Beginning early this year there have been at least a hundred reported “For-the-Hell-of-It” events around the world, and undoubtedly thousands of unreported smaller ones. Even though most large corporations have fired employees who engage in such events, the popularity of For-the-Hell-of-It events seems to be growing, and with it, in some duped minds, the popularity of the terrorists.

  5. The Proteans are befriending other species on our planet and turning them against us. On at least three occasions Proteans, or their human henchmen, have entered chicken, duck, or pig factories, disabled all the employees by somehow putting them to sleep, then released the animals into the wild. This is clearly cruelty to animals. Chickens, ducks, and pigs that had been given all the food they wanted—even more—and were totally safe from predators, found themselves back in the wild where they had to fend for themselves. We are publicizing that many have been eaten by predators.

  In several stockyards, cattle that for centuries have gone blissfully to slaughter have begun to rebel and kick and attack with their horns and, when possible, run away from the slaughter. On at least two occasions Protean terrorists have been seen in the vicinity. In addition, ocean-going Protean terrorists have been warning fish and whales and dolphins of approaching fishing boats. Over a dozen factory-fishing boats have mysteriously had their propellers fall off. The NSA and our military have enough enemies in the world without having dozens of our animal species turning against us.

  As a result of these considerations, this Agency has reached the conclusion that we should cease to differentiate between Proteans who appear to be engaged in only harmless activities and those we know are engaged in subversive activities. We must consider ourselves at war with all Proteans.

  Although a few Proteans may indeed be innocent of anti-government activities, they are reproducing little Proteans, some of whom undoubtedly will become part of the Protean anti-government, anti-corporation movement. In fact, we have asked the Government to introduce a law that ensures the off-shoots of any Proteans being prosecuted for a crime are prosecuted for the same crime, since they were a part of the entity that committed the crime. Protean children are not like human children: they are in fact only sub-units of the original Protean. We are asking Congress to pass a law that will treat them as such.

  Finally, every Protean, no matter how innocent it may appear, could at any time be recruited by the terrorists for terrorist activities. The NSA and NSA agencies must all act under the assumption that there are no innocent Proteans.

  All Proteans are guilty until proven innocent.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  (From THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE ALIEN INVASION, Volume II, pp. 76–81. Being the transcript of the interrogation of Alien 6, alias “Louie,” by Agent Michael Johnson, which took place in a special cell of the jail that Federal authorities had created for Protean terrorists. Agent Johnson reported that the alien terrorist bounced around his cell, altered his appearance, or rested on the floor of the cell in the shape of a foot mat.)

  AGENT JOHNSON: I’m authorized to negotiate with you for your possible release and the dropping or lessening of charges against the six other Proteans currently held by us.

  TERRORIST LOUIE: Sounds good.

  AGENT JOHNSON: Unfortunately, we can’t trust any assurances that you may give us that you’ll keep to any agreements we reach. Can you think of any reason we should trust you?

  TERRORIST LOUIE: I can. If I and my friends could hack into the NSA’s systems then we could have destroyed those systems. We can hack into the systems that control your electric grid, foul them up, and shut down the power throughout the entire country. If we were stealing billions from your bank and corporate accounts we could, if we chose to, shut down your financial system. Haven’t you ever wondered why we haven’t?

  AGENT JOHNSON: Tell me.

  TERRORIST LOUIE: For you and your government, your interaction with Proteans is a war. For us it’s a game. You and your fellow humans think the purpose of a game is to win. We think a game has no purpose except itself. We play it to play, not to win. If we sense a game is getting lopsided and that one side has too much power, we usually change the rules of the game to give the weaker side more strength. Or good players change sides from the winning team to the weaker team.

  AGENT JOHNSON: What’s this got to do with our being able to believe that you might keep your promises?

  TERRORIST LOUIE: Because if I promise something that will keep the game going on a mostly even level, you can expect, based on the limitations we’ve been imposing on our playing, that I’ll keep that promise.

  AGENT JOHNSON: What’s this game you think you’re playing?

  TERRORIST LOUIE: It’s a game to wake you human beings up to the mess that you’ve been making of life on Earth for the last fifty years. If humans begin changing things so they become less destructive of most life on this planet, and reduce the suffering that their civilization is imposing on most other humans, then we win. The vast majority of human beings also win. Of course, the few millions who benefit from your sick way of doing things will be losers: their power and wealth will be diminished. Since your world’s governments are controlled by the few who benefit, your governments are all fighting us with everything they can think of.

  (A silence of several seconds.)

  AGENT JOHNSON: So tell me, if we agree to free you and the other Protean terrorists under our control, what can you promise us in return?

  TERRORIST LOUIE: I can promise to continue the game with the same limitations and restraints we’ve been showing. We will use no power other than what we’ve already demonstrated.

  AGENT JOHNSON: That’s not nearly enough. We want you to promise to cease your hacking, your stealing, and your disruption of our military operations.

  TERRORIST LOUIE: We might promise to stop most of our hacking of government systems and reduce our stealing, but your military establishment and its operations are at the heart of what makes your civilization sick. If we can’t continue playing against it, then from our point of view, the game isn’t worth playing.

  AGENT JOHNSON: What if we threaten to kill all the Proteans in our custody and arrange to have your friend Billy commit suicide? I think you might be a little more generous in your terms, don’t you?

  TERRORIST
LOUIE: No, Mike, we wouldn’t. We know that governments kill their enemies: that’s part of the game we’ve chosen to play.

  Do you realize that when I started playing this game I had only two other FFs helping me? In the rest of the world, last fall perhaps, there were another dozen FFs who were into playing games against governments, corporations, and the military. Today? Today there are almost a thousand FFs in tune with us and playing our game against you—the exact figure is of course classified in our files as “somewhat secret,” our highest category of secrecy. FFs who last fall were happy playing little games have been drawn by your killing of our brothers into playing our big game. Congratulations.

  AGENT JOHNSON: So essentially you’ll reduce some hacking and some stealing in return for the release of six Proteans and our promise not to harm the Mortons.

  TERRORIST LOUIE: Your government has kidnapped those FFs and we’re willing to pay a ransom to free them.

  AGENT JOHNSON: There is one other non-negotiable item that our government is demanding in return for freeing Proteans: you must stop dismantling our nuclear bombs and their delivery systems. They are basic to our national security.

  TERRORIST LOUIE: Don’t be silly, Mike. The nuclear weapons you humans have developed are at the core of your insanity. They greatly increase your insecurity. Think about it: you’re still spending hundreds of billions of dollars every year to maintain and increase your ability to destroy the planet. Other countries are guilty of doing the same, but on such a small scale compared to the United States that it hardly matters—although FFs are working to disarm the Russian, Chinese, and Israeli nuclear arsenals as we speak.

  AGENT JOHNSON: We will not agree to commit national suicide.

  TERRORIST LOUIE: You’re already committing national suicide. That’s what your nuclear weapons arsenal and your invading half the countries in the world with your military bases is all about. You’re in the process of destroying your country and the world. If that isn’t suicide I don’t know what is.