Too close for comfort

This is from one of my short stories but I think it is food for thought.

Too close for comfort
The year is, well, you pick it, but it isn’t too far off. The country has been in extremis now for quite some time. People have been forced to make decisions they thought were in their best interest. The wonderful elected solons that we laughingly call politicians have been consistently making the wrong decisions for so long, that things have gone all the way around the bend. The country in turn being demagogued into voting what was borne out to be the absolute wrong way on so many so called fixes. All of which had given more control to the government and taken away more and more from the people. Somewhere along the line we forgot, or got bamboozled into thinking that the power flows from the government to the people not the way it was intended by the founding fathers, namely from the people to the government. With every new program and tax and spend scam came a downward spiral that at first appeared to be the salvation of a country gone wrong. Only when it was to late did we realize the folly of these do-gooder programs. A Democratic president has been in power for some time. The Congress and Senate are a Democratic majority and the country is nearly bankrupt, not only monetarily, but morally as well. That lopsided political playing field was brought about not so much by the Democrats being better than the Republicans, but by the Republicans abdicating their beliefs and platforms in the name of by-partisanship. The political miscreants had practiced in apostasy for way too long and the country was now paying dearly for it. The politically correct crowd has brow beat the country out of prayer in schools. The family unit has gone to hell in a handbag due to government over control and parents abdicating their responsibilities to officials and the education system. There seemed to be no end to their trying to get all mention of religion out of the country in its entirety. After so many tries at immigration reform the problem is no better than it ever was, due once again to the politicians not allowing the laws to be enforced. Everyone was so damn worried about being P.C. that we forgot to pay attention to what was going on. Amnesty was the catch phrase of the day and extended family restoration brought so many illegals in that they sucked the lifeblood from the economy. No country could ever assimilate that many into its population and survive. The environmentalists too have rode rough shod over an unsuspecting public to the point of the U.S. not being able to support it self with energy, and being choked ever so slowly by foreign producers. There were no new refineries, but that didn’t matter much anyway because nearly all oil exploration had grinded to a halt, in some more sensitive places it had actually come to a screeching halt. Needless to say the most efficient and environmentally clean fuel, nuclear power was off the table. Our wonderful lawmakers in their infinite wisdom opened our boarders not only to illegal immigration but to free trade that had all but driven nearly every big business out of the manufacturing sector within the 48 contiguous states. One of the most egregious snafus of all would be the socialized medicine that was forced upon the country in ways that were at first hardly noticeable. Over time it became dreadfully clear that the taxpayers could ill afford all the social programs enacted. Socialized medicine had so many models to point to that just plain ol didn’t work, yet the pusillanimous sycophants we had as politicians insisted upon ramming it down the people’s throats, once again pointing out the folly of a government gone wild with too much power and control, add to that the illegal alien problem and there was a recipe for disaster if ever there was one. The ineptitude of the officials knew no bounds. Finally after a near collapse of the healthcare system all together the wonderful entrepreneurial spirit of the American people took hold. After years of nearly non-existent quality care and waiting interminably for procedures the people were fed up. What happened after that is the story that has brought about this telling.
The people and the medical profession en masse, with the help of some people who are never adverse to making a pile of money off others misfortunes have stepped up to the plate. In some circles there was even what is known as schadenfreude syndrome, which means taking pleasure at others misfortune. As is the case quite often in situations such as what had been brought about, there is never any lack of sleaze. All the dregs came out or should I say crawled out from under their rocks and took advantage of whomever and whatever they possibly could. There grew a black market within the shadow system. However there was more of the money grabbing going on than anything else. All the most talented medical professionals had joined what had become to be known as poly –medicine, or polymed for short. What that was, was talented medical professionals basically joining this cabal a camarilla and going underground so to speak. The socialized system that was put in place was so corrupt and useless that the medical professionals could barely eek out a living. The pay and care was woefully inept. What evolved was no less then what one would expect from a proud and ingenious people with their backs against the wall, a totally innovative way to serve and make a decent living at the same time. The Polymed system had become the care of choice for those who could afford quality healthcare and the socialized system that was left to the hoi-polloi, the common folk, was what everyone else got, except of course any and all political hacks that could avail themselves of these premium services, by hook or by crook. Oh yeah, there had grown a tremendous underground system, a sub-culture and offshoots of businesses. All the medicine companies, the equipment companies, the supply companies and not anywhere near the least, was the omni-present insurance companies. The insurance companies were grabbing money hand over fist, but than again, what else is new. Organs and body parts had become commodities, as did the medical professionals themselves. Body parts acquired by dubious means were available if one had the money, so too were the Medical professionals themselves. There were actually brokers for professional people. That in and of it self was fast becoming a sub-culture in that the people were in classes. There were the doctors, the nurses, right on down to the functionaries and disposal personnel. The disposal companies were having a hey-day also. Whenever you have a system that uses any commodity and that would include biological wastes, you have a need to dispose of them. If you have a shadow society, it would hold that you would need the services that go with it. It was survival of the fittest in the true sense of the word. The government try as they might could not stem the tide of people wanting what they deserved. Not getting what they needed from an overbearing government they turned to their own devises, once again proving that the power lies with the people and always should. In the end after much bleeding and the pendulum swinging way too far the wrong way the people finally took back their country and their power, underscoring those great words, “We The People”.
This scenario as outrageous as it may seem, unfortunately is TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT.


A short story-outline/premise
x. x. xxxxxxx © 2008