Cat Show 6/5/2020
VG: So suddenly, the whole world is united in protests against police brutality and racism. Marches in London, Paris, and New Zealand. Now we are united sitting home and saving lives by wearing masks. Now we are marching together saving lives. I have a feeling that the Soviet days are back. The less real unity, the more fake unity. Zamiatin understood it well when he invented his state of the future: United State. Much more insightful than Orwell’s Oceania.
HOBBS: I honestly believe that humans are virtue signaling animals. I hear apes do that too, when they want to get on the best side of their leader. Luckily, us cats are above this nonsense. Unless, it is Alice, of course. Who thinks that she’ll be rewarded with some NPR special devoted to her if she continues channeling their hypocrisies: “How I survived in an Abusive Conservative Household, and Grew up Embracing all the Current and Future PC Doctrines.”
ALICE: It is not hypocrisy, when honest people all over the world express their outrage at police brutality. Enough is enough. Down with racism. Down with the racist Trump, who does not even see the problem and is worried about looting while being trigger happy about the use of the army to squash the protests. People are waking up, finally.
HOBBS: Every time I want to support a good cause, I hear Alice, and my support evaporates. Here is my second definition of the day: liberal – a sanctimonious prude whose preaching turns people away from good causes. Like a fly in the ointment.
In any case, I decided to show less negativity in the future. We have enough of it as it is. So rather than commenting on politics, I want to write a script for TV show. Now is the time for TV shows, as you know. So I’ll call my show, Good People, and each segment or season would be devoted to some really nice people. Season one: Good Cops of LA. We’ll tell the stories of some courageous policemen who secretly told their wives, that they do not condone Rodney King’s Beating. Or some other policeman, who stopped the traffic to help a blind black man to cross the street, before pushing him in the ditch and pepper spraying it. Season two would be called, Honest Democrats and Intelligent Republicans. Season Three: I Spoke the Truth: Untold Story of a NYT Reporter Who Is Still Afraid to Be Identified. You catch my drift.
VG: Brilliant idea. We surely can contribute. I am thinking of a prequel to the Police Show. We can call it: MacDonald: The Police Academy of the Future. We’ll show how the future cops are trained to flip a suspect, to discard him, if he comes off too dark, to keep a word of silence if another trainee screws up and so on.
ALICE: I can’t believe this nonsense. Mockery never solved any problem. We should get united, and protest peacefully, and eliminate racism, and intolerance, and economic inequality, and find our way out of this crisis. But we can’t, because of the radicalism of some and cynicism of others like you. And yes, there are plenty of good honest people, who read NYT in the morning, pay taxes, drive Priuses and want to do the right thing. It is all these people who unfriend you, Vladimir, on FB, because they can’t share your tolerance toward Trump and his deplorable base.
HOBBS: Oh, ye. I know the type. They are against fascism, and authoritarianism, and religious intolerance and other things that one is allowed to criticize. There was a Darling of Liberal Crowd back in Soviet Russia. The poet, Andrei Voznesensky. Somebody made a joke about him: Voznesensky is the first one to step on the field that has just been de-mined. True courage it takes. And it sure like hell guarantees popularity. People who benefited from Nazism, now denounce Nazism. People who benefited from Stalinism, now denounce Stalin, people who benefited from racism, now denounce racism, people who benefited from Zionism, now denounce Zionism as they continue to live in fancy Tel Aviv apartments stolen from the local Arabs.
VG: Ukies are the best in that respect. Everything they have was given to them by the Soviets. From land to economy, to medicine, education, and culture. Now they have turned their Soviet diplomas and dissertations on the Insights of the XX Party Congress into a Degree in Holodomor Studies, and educate the world on the evils of communism.
ALICE: Well, but what do you guys, suggest? Yes, there are some abuses, but there is nothing wrong in criticizing things after the whole world has recognized how bad they were. We understand them now and have to improve.
VG: Well, but in this way, we are fighting only yesterday’s battles. By attacking the fascism of the past, we might miss the new forms that it takes today. By focusing on the evils of Stalinism, we might miss what Marx had to offer. The world is ever changing and it requires a highly dynamic response. If the field is de-mined, do we really need to step on it and show how courageous we are? Instead, we should find another minefield and demine this new one, so that the future generations would have one more field to harvest.
ALICE: Hah, that’s not as stupid as your usual mockery, Vladimir. I have to give it to you. Once in a while, you make sense.
HOBBS: He always makes sense, our true leader and teacher. And Vladimir, don’t pay any attention to Alice’s flattery. She forgets everything you ever said the minute she turns on TV or radio.
