Cat Show 06/12/20

VG: Well, I am afraid to start the show and set up the questions for the debate. I’ve been showing my white privilege, and my ability to manipulate reality long enough. Why don’t you start?

ALICE: Finally. I’ve been waiting for this moment. Progressive voices are continually mocked and undermined on this show. It is time to come up with some sort of manifesto. I also think we need to take off at least five of our shows off the air. As a sign of good will and reconciliation.

HOBBS: Which shows? What did we do? Don’t we have freedom of speech and other noble sounding freedoms.

VG: Wake up, Hobbs. Your freedom can’t extend into hurting my sensitivity. Freedom of speech is so XX century. We have freedom of sensitivity now. One can ignore the obnoxious displays of wealth, social injustice, imperialism, let alone wars and bombing of all sorts of underprivileged. One is not expected to know what exactly any of the US sponsored head-chopping regimes doing all over the world, from Libya to Ukraine. But one needs to be sensitive to the sculptures of Columbus. It is these sculptures that are expected to send you into paroxysms of pain and misery.

ALICE: Well, they do. If you think of the grief of Native Americans. How do they feel, looking at the sculpture of the man, who brought in all their misery and destruction. Would you like see the sculpture of Hitler on the corner. Or Bandera? Same applies to people of color. Nobody wants to see the sculptures of all these evil slaveholders who traded people like cattle. You guys have imagination. Don’t you see the line that leads from glorification of Southern Generals to the nasty cops who continue to perpetrate the slaveholders’ methods and mentality.

VG: Suppose we do, but do you really believe, that destruction of a monument would produce any significant change outside the intoxication that any violence produces, generating therefore more violence and more calls for further destruction?

HOBBS: Vladimir is right. I don't like loud noises connected with destruction, yet, I feel that more destruction is in the air. We all know that there is no document of civilization that hasn’t been the document of barbarism, as one of those endless German Jewish intellectual had reminded us. So wouldn’t we —by destroying the documents of barbarism --destroy the documents of civilization as well?

ALICE: Maybe it works in Europe, but not in USA. Don’t forget that we are exceptional. Our pain is exceptional, our medicines are exceptional. So what if Brits or Russians failed to subjugate Afghanistan? We boldly went there more than a dozen of years ago, and we are still proving our exceptionalism. Never give up on proving your exceptionalism: that’s the American motto. So when we destroy, ban, de-fund, or apologize – it brings instant result. And only unmitigated cynics like you two fail to hear the sounds of change in the air. The power of white male is over. His knee on the neck of any person of color, any woman, trans, Native—won’t be tolerated.

HOBBS: Great manifesto, Alice. I share your anger. I smell the new reality in the air. But I am also a businessman. All Americans are. So I propose to make money of this new reality. Here are my propositions:

We need new enterprises like Airbnb or Uber: Something like “Destructive Sharing” for communities that don’t have a monument to destroy, we can rent one. Or several communities can share one destruction.

I foresee a great time for writers: Every company or business in US will be obliged to publish document on the subject of Mea Culpa. Which of the White Establishment will win with the most successful Mea Culpa? Maybe Nobel Prize should be established rewarding the most progressive Mea Culpa. With Greta being the judge, of course.

We need new Olympic Competition, both team and individual. Who’ll be the fastest to destroy a sculpture or building or better - palace. Next Olympics we shoud have only individual competitions, though, as we are still in the Covid era after all.

We also need new jokes, not the old racist ones. Here is one: How many Poles does it take to destroy a monument? What if this monument is to a Russian General?

And a the new Theme Park – In the manner of Disney. With attractions consisting of blowing up, shooting, throwing paint and other activities that children love to do. The trick is: who should be placed there: Only universally acknowledged villains like Hitler? That’s not much, so let’s go for two theme parks. It is money after all. Left wing park, and right wing park.

And of course, I foresee the secondary business: like the rocks from Berlin Wall, which still pay some top dollar among the collectors.

VG: Hobbs, you are on the roll. Never let any destruction go to waste. Good thinking, buddy.

ALICE: As I expected, another hour of mockery and cynicism. If you are going to go on like this, you’ll lose your young audience. The idealists, the do-gooders, the ones who want change.

HOBBS: Good reminder. Let’s think how we can make money off it. “Never let good intention go to waste.” That’s will be the motto of our second industry. We’ll have it all covered.