Saturday 4 February 2012

Sweden

"Data Analytics Marketetic Normalisations are a forward-thinking, bleeding edge, technologically sophisticated, client-driven, buzzword-blogospheric transnational corporation," said Jeremy Diseased-Rat, CEO and visionary.  The board-members leaned back in their comfortable leather chairs, each squeaking and making little fart-noises in their own individual ways, and closed their eyes, ready to fall asleep while Jeremy talked.  The shareholder representatives, sat on less-comfortable but nonetheless plush chairs, tried to look attentive, as they effectively formed the front row of Jeremy's audience.  Three secretaries who'd won an office competition that they'd all been trying to lose, sat next to the buffet table on little bar-stools, quietly eating to make up for having to sit through Jeremy's presentation.  And in hard, wooden, school-room chairs were a collection of mid-level managers from firms that employed Data Analytics Marketetic Normalisations to provide them with marketing advice, consulting strategies, and the occasional high-powered legal counsel to get them out of jurisdictional difficulties.
"Question!" snapped a tall man whose shirt didn't seem to fit him.  His collar and cuffs were too tight, making his face and wrists purple with trapped blood, while his waist was far too slender and let his shirt constantly escape his trousers.  Jeremy Diseased-Rat stared at him in perplexity.  He wasn't used to audience participation.  The man took his silence as an invitation to continue.
"Question, Sir!  Is it true that you intend to present the American Presidency to the National American Society of Hipsters, and if so, do you feel that there is anything unethical about a non-American firm controlling access to the leadership of America?"
"We're not unAmerican," said Jeremy immediately, his deep voice rolling over the room like a Sherman tank.  "We have four hundred Americans working for us, we pay taxes in America both as a corporate obligation and as a voluntary matter, and we make campaign donations to select political causes to further the political caucus."
"But you, Sir, are not American, are you?  And you are the titular head of your company?"
"Who are you calling a tit?"  Jeremy was very sensitive to insults, not least because of his unfortunate, but ancient, surname.  "Look, I'm not American but the company is registered in America and has done business both there and with American firms for the last five years.  It would be scurrilous to suggest that we were in any way antagonistic to America's prospects."
"Yet you're proposing to give the American Presidency to NASH, Sir!"
"So?"  As arguments went this could only be called weak, yet it seemed to stymie his questioner.
"So they're hipsters, man!"
"That's not an argument," said Jeremy, now on safer ground.  He'd been debating champion at both college and the Toastmasters for six years each.  "If anything, I suspect it's ad hominem.  A hipster can be President of the United States of America, there's nothing in the Constitution that forbids it.  And it's a uniquely American outlook on life, nowhere else is there sufficient wealth and education to create a social class that disdains itself for it achievements, derises its parentage for allowing it to exist, and attempts to raise a generation of children unfit for anything except parasitism.  It's the next evolutionary level and if it succeeds in cuckooing the rest of America into raising its worthless progeny then it's proven itself to a worthy heir to America's future.  Why shouldn't a hipster run America?  Why shouldn't someone who thinks education is worthless pay the teachers what they believe they're worth?  Either the hipster is right and the system will fall apart regardless, or the teacher is right and the system can only improve.  It's a win-win situation for everyone."
"Not for Americans, Sir!"
"Absolutely for Americans, Sir!  It'll open their eyes to the emptiness of their hearts and the hollow promise of their religious books."
"That sounds like blasphemy!"
"That sounds like someone who doesn't have a sensible argument.  You can only blaspheme if you believe in the religion you're attacking in the first place and Data Analytics Marketetic Normalisations believes in all religions and none simultaneously."
"You seem to have an answer for everything," said the man, his face now shading into blue.
"That is why you pay us," said Jeremy Diseased-Rat.  "You do pay us, don't you?"
"We will be doing very soon," said the man.
"Oh?  What will you be hiring us for?"
"We'd like political control of Sweden, please."

No comments: