Song Shuffle Story: Comin' For Your Tank

Another flash fiction prompt from Chuck Wendig ( http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/06/flash-fiction-challenge-song-shuffle-stories/ )

The song that was selected by my playlist was "Comin For Your Tank" by Miracle of Sound ( http://miracleofsound.bandcamp.com/track/comin-for-your-tank ).

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Fireteam Echo's radio pleas were redundant – we saw the machine gunner that nailed them into cover behind a bus stop, across the road, in the second floor of the terminal. Hostile brass and shattered glass were all but a giant reticule painted over the nest.

We, Corporals Ross, Barlotti, and Yours Truly, got in the spirit of defenestration day and crashed into the building through the windows behind a Singapore Air counter. Easy enough in MPA-03, you don't need to worry about being sliced up in a powered exoskeleton.

Stairs are just a little bit more tricky. You need to be damn sure to put your center of 'g' over your toes, or you'll fall ass backwards. It's doable, but too fucking slow when the squishier part of your squad is in ironsights below.

“Fireteams Echo, Foxtrot, be advised: hostile armor inbound, grid updated,” the eyes and mouth in the sky told our ears. We stopped and checked the grid overlay – everything we didn't know but wanted to illustrated in graphics blue.

It, an MBT designated 'dragon,' was grinding through asphalt along the perpendicular edge of the building. A glance brought everyone in a BDU to the same page – hammer and anvil. The nest was holding Echo down, and the tank was going to curbstomp them when it rounded the corner of the terminal.

Of course, I had to say “nope” as loudly and as clearly as fucking possible so that the tank crew could hear it. A gauss rifle was a whisper against front and side, so...

It could be a scream against deck armor, though.

Words weren't needed, just a point at trigger happy and my two most oft inebriated of comrades were off to end his party. I broke off and ran to the tank's edge of the building as the capacitors along my arm whined into charge.

Instructors drill it into your skull hard on how the MPA-03 is just a piece of equipment. It does not turn you into a superhero, or God, on that they are clear. On being 'A' god, something Hellenic, they're not so elaborative I fear.

I felt a lot like Zeus when I dropped out of the sky, through clouds of reactive armor shrapnel, on to the top of that alloy hulk. More when I aim and fired in that ozone haze: once, lightning, thunder and the ring of tortured armor; twice, plating ripped asunder, to the crew a promised hell; thrice, a supersonic roar through metal and cannon shell.

Actinic arcs stormed off the gauss rifle's frame as fire and fracture brewed in that can. I pulled the barrel up, away, and drew flame through the molten scores of that newly dead titan.

A conclusion.

It is here that I deviate from my previously expressed schedule – admittedly, after much delay – and express the conclusion of my elucidation of the Prime Grievances. While there are likely significantly more data to cover concerning the aims and desires of The Movement, others have outlined and extrapolated upon them in a manner significantly more in-depth than I can hope to contrive on my lonesome.

That said, I have as of yet refrained from levying my own thoughts on the matter. While, of course, my word choice and employment will indeed convey upwards of the slimmest indication of Bias, I purposefully decided to hold any overt opinions until such a time as I either defined my observations or abandoned them, of which I believe I have done both.

Thus it is here that I share my thoughts regarding our present circumstance.

Know now that I do not hold any ill will towards greed in and of itself. This is not to say that I endorse it becoming the sole driving force of an individual, but rather that I understand that it should be one of the many motivations for any organism, from self-exalting humans to the humble protists, to possess if it should hope to acquire resources, survive, and reproduce.

Rather, my concern, which has always lingered in the creases of my brain and had only now in the face of such extant and looming crises been made salient, is the contempt the so-called 1% bears towards the likewise so-called 99%.

Contempt is the cognitive and emotional cocktail of one and one's peers elevation, in whatever measure but most concernedly in status and moral character, over others by whichever grounds can be plausibly justified, accompanied by scorn and derision towards those below oneself.

This contempt, so observed, is the other edge to the sword of the Protestant Ethic. The belief that wealth and status is derived from labor and strong character has always possessed the implication that those lacking in such boons are thus deficient in such qualities, respectively. The past months have shown just how sharp the reverse-edge can become. I am terrified by the prospect that with the progression of time and the exacerbation of our socio-economic crisis, that edge will only become keener, more easily wielded, and more frequently used.

I suspect that this contempt was the sole rational shortcut needed for business leaders and captains of industry to internally justify the gutting of the first world's industrial base, and the establishment of exploitative replacements in the developing world. After all, what would one owe to their own workers? If they actually worked hard and lived a decent life, they would be wealthy and wouldn't need to worry about their sole means of survival being excised from them.

Indeed, if they actually spent their time wisely and productively, they would all have more than enough money to afford such trivial necessities in the vein of a house or two, $300,000 medical bills, and three-course meals thrice a day. Even further, if they dared exercise the smallest degree of thrift, they could purchase the little pleasures in life: asteroid-harvested iridium shaving kits, olympic-sized swimming pools filled with century old merlot, their own reality television program, or even a pet Senator or two.

Since the wretched rabble clearly posses none of these things, they surely have an abysmal work ethic, and deserve not a single ounce of consideration. Nor do they warrant paid vacations rewarded over the course of annual employment, reimbursed time spent raising their own children, or even an equitable and scrupulous health coverage policy in the event of bodily misfortune. They should in fact feel privileged, honored even, for having the opportunity to spend even an hour working at a more virtuous individual's business and having earned a single cent.

I believe that the sheer absurdity of such thoughts, explicit or implicit, is self evident. Granted, I exaggerated, but only to make absolutely salient the thought process and sole ultimate conclusion of the initial premise.

It is of course easy to dismiss such notions. I, however, fail to see any other explanation for events transpired.

I am at a loss for conceiving of any other rationale behind a Law firm that serves international banks hosting a Holloween party themed after, and parodying, the mass-scale foreclosures that have, are, and will continue to occur in the United States. ( http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/10/31/legal-firms-halloween-party-mocks-foreclosures/ ) Many of which they themselves are the actuators of. What else can enumerate why these individuals feel it not necessary, not just desirable, but enjoyable to trivialize and invalidate the suffering of other human beings? How else can they take joy in the fact that the lives of millions are evaporating and leaving a precipitate of destitution and despair?

Why should we care? A valid question. While the attorneys at the Steven J. Baum law firm are only guilty of impropriety, civic police forces are culpable for significantly more grievous and, in my opinion, disturbing actions.

Actions including point-blank head shots with tear-gas canisters at Iraq war veterans. ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/iraq-vet-oakland-police-tear-gas_n_1033159.html ) Actions including the deliberate use of chemical agents as a means of torturing non-violent, non-threatening political dissenters at a college campus. ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/19/uc-davis-police-pepper-spray-students_n_1102728.html ).

Again, I ask, what possible thought could an individual have to sanction themselves for such acts? What could enable them to hold themselves blameless for the actions cited and the manifold more unreferenced?

It is my opinion that there was indeed nothing manifest in their minds but the most gross, consciousness encompassing, and conscience blinding manifestations of contempt conceivable when those costumes were donned, those shanty-facades were erected, that head was held in iron sights, and that nerve-agent was fired.

And it is because of my opinion that contempt has come to be the means by which those with power regard those without that I dread the future.

While the 20^th century was a chapter in human history written in blood, it was done so with the pen of contempt. I fear that the author has not yet lost it under a pile of out-dated customs and barbaric practices, like so many other means of human relation, but instead holds it tightly, and has dabbed it in a new sanguine pot.

A toast.

I, Jared Domenico, propose a toast. A toast to the end of this century's prelude. 


A toast to oil reserves tapped. A toast to oil reserves tapped out.


A toast with alcohol, because it is now priced higher than water. A toast to all the future toasts with clean water, for when those are more expensive than alcohol. A toast to all the future toasts of dirty water, for when that is the only water available.

A toast to all the blood spilled in the 'liberation' of countries. A toast to all the resources liberated from those countries.

A toast to soldiers sent to wars waged on behalf of a few moneyed people. A toast to soldiers sent to wars against all other people.

A toast to poisoned food, wrought from poisoned soils. A toast to poisoned bodies, from food and to help numb their toils.

Above all, I propose a toast to the rest of the twenty first century. An era but with blood will be written its history.

Maybe a small toast to the possibility of me being scared and angry and wrong.

The Second Prime Greivance

Grievance 2

In writing this, I now recognize the slight folly in separating Grievance 2 and Grievance 3, as in truth Grievance 3 – that of the freezing, if not decay, of wages for those in the middle and low classes – is but a component of Grievance 2, which I will now elaborate upon in its full infamy.

The second Grievance, that of the crippling of the middle socio-economic class and the threatened return to a labor and capitol relation not seen since the darkest days of the Industrial Age, is the result of a systematic market glitch which (as demonstrated by its repeated manifestation) seems to be one inherent in in the economic system of the United States of America.

Of course, if one seeks to understand this glitch, one must understand the system within which it arises. To put it simply, the economic system is a cycle. Banks lend to corporations or their analogues, allowing them to thus expand their productive capacity and number of employees. Those employees purchase goods, from which corporations derive a profit, with which they repay their loans to their banks, and the cycle begins again with (ideally) all involved garnering more wealth than they previously possessed.

The accessory entities in this cycle are investors, which exist either as private individuals or as commercial entities, which in essence serve as small-scale banks. They give organizations funds in return for future profits. These transactions, itemized as 'stocks' or otherwise, are just one more means by which corporate entities can have their immediate funds bolstered to expand their operations.

As previously stated and should be repeated, this is only the most basic description that can be made about our labyrinthine economic system.

Glitches arise in this system when the transfer of money through the cycle is lessened by market forces. These constrictions, no matter where they occur, ultimately result in corporations receiving less money than is necessary to support them at their present size, thus necessitating either a reduction in productive capacity, amount of supported assets, and personnel wage, or finding other ways to maximize their productivity while reducing costs.

Which has and is now happening at a troubling scale in major economic sectors, to the exclusive detriment of labor. Positions held by the so-called '99%', those which are staffed by individuals in the low- and middle socio-economic classes, are perceived to be the factors targeted first when an organizational budget needs to be reinforced.

Needless to say, growth – in terms of organization size and productivity – halts. The employment of new staff likewise ceases. Significant portions of existing personnel are then terminated, and the remaining staff are thus coerced into performing not only their own labor, but also that of their contemporaries, for longer hours. Wages are frozen, which in the face of rising inflation, results in a gradual and continuous decrease in purchasing potential. Existing employee benefits - such as vacation time, health insurance, and retirement programs – receive less support by the organization.

This is, of course, provided that the economic organization does not outright completely outsource their operations to a different country.

In the face of an economic recession this is to be expected. These actions are oft made in dire necessity in order to maintain the greater entity's existence until the recession ends, at which time it can resume its normal growth.

The grievance lies in the fact that, in the face of crisis for the organization and its present and former employees, the employers are reaping unprecedented rewards. The rise in the leadership's boons in the face of the underpaid and overworked labor's toil is thought of as nothing short of obscene. This is compounded by the 'bail-out' stimulus funds given to failing banks in an effort to keep them functional and maintain the economy, the program's perceived ineffectiveness in restoring the economy, and the bonuses seemingly self-awarded by and to the major officers of those firms.

In essence, the Movement's outrage is sourced not exclusively from corporate greed, but rather from corporate prosperity in the face of the labor's destitution.

The End Is Here 4: "The rest on gas. Pump five"

The sun was well swallowed by the ground, but a continuous burp of light emanated out of the uneven skyscraper buckteeth of [a big city in the middle of the American southwest]. The old killer stared longingly at flat, wide signs proselytizing the salvation offered to weary roadway travelers in the way of serviceable hotels, but knew that he did not have the time to close his eyes and count to tomorrow in a soft pillow embrace.

The traffic was becoming less sparse, and mortal terror started to force him to pay attention to the tons of ferric doom that clustered on the highway. His mouth was dry, his bowels were predictably belligerent, and he needed to use a telephone. He spotted the most modern of ports-of-call maneuvered to the exit. People driving trucks that could tow aircraft carriers made their displeasure most loudly known as he displayed the gall of following traffic regulations to leave one of the great American veins.

Pulling up to the gas station was slightly less eventful. He pulled in front of a pump scanned the front of the convenience store, finding exactly what he was looking for. With the ignition off, seat belt unbuckled, and stolen suit-case nestled behind him in the dark abyss between the driver's seat the upholstery-maiden of a back seat, he stepped out and walked to the door.

He opened it to see the rotund, pastel-yellow-dress donning matron of, he guessed, a prodigious clan, with one such member staring at the floor in condemnation for a trespass he didn't comprehend. She shrieked at the blemish-riddled teenage girl in a blue pseudo-uniform behind the counter. “And you sold this to a child?!” She held up a half-opened condom. “It's.. not like you need an ID to get those you s- ma'am.” He was thankful that there was a possibility that his dealings in this station would be significantly more legal. “Do you even know what this is young man?” The woman's spawn kept his head low as he responded. “It's a slimy balloon.” “And how did you learn about these?” The old killer was already at the bathroom door as he answered. “They're at the park. After music parties.”

_____

The old killer put a pack of gum, an case of energy drinks, and a fifty dollar bill on the counter. “The rest on gas. Pump five,” he said. The young woman sighed and smiled the smile one knows when they know they can't win but they just don't care. “So you sold a kid a condom?” He said as the register beeped. “Yeah. I did.” He shrugged. “I'm not judging you. I just find it weird. Not that you sold it, just that his old lady got into such a piss fit.” The receipt was printing as she looked up at him. “It was hard not laughing. Especially when he said he made animals with the 'slimy balloons.' It's gross, but still.” He grabbed the minority of his purchase. “Yeah. Listen, do you have any paper towels? I need to use the phone there and-”

“Yeah, I get you. Hold on.” She ducked behind the counter and wasn't subject to assault. She stood back up, giving him the sheets. “Thanks, kid. Remember to use the slimy balloons, or you might end up like her.” She forced a shudder. “Ugh. I know, right?” He stepped out, ignored the bell, and stepped over to the sun-bleached and rusted payphone. He grabbed the receiver gently and wrapped both halves in the paper towel. He slipped in the exact change and dialed the number he was told to call when he acquired the suitcase that was not like the others.

He tapped his foot and clenched his jaw as ring after ring sounded through his ear. He started to count them just before he heard the 'it's time to talk to a person' click. He made sure he was alone. “To men of fortitude is fortune granted.” A gravely voice with an indeterminable accent replied. “Is that so? You must be very fortunate then.” The old killer's lips curved as the voice continued. “No matter. Do you have it?” “That depends entirely on what you mean by it. If you were after blow, you're S.O.L. If you're after a floating metal book with holographic pages – that floats – then yes, I have 'it.” There was a pause that lasted just long enough to make the old killer wonder if an ape bit through the phone line. “A what?” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “A book. Made out of metal. With holographic pages. That does not have weight and thinks that Sir Isaac Newton is a chump, and floats because it can. I am not bullshitting you.”

“And you got this from the truck with the license plate number we gave you?” asked the other end. “Yes. And the face of the mook that wasn't blown through matched the photo you gave me. It's them, it's the case. So how do I give this to you so you can fulfill your end of the deal?” The other end spoke, but in a conversation that the old killer was only an accessory to. Nothing was intelligible. “If that's what you have, that is what you have. Call this number when you reach Los Angeles,” it said. “I'm going to get the operation, right?”

“Follow our commands, and you will.”

The First Prime Grievance

Grievance 1

The observation the representatives of a republican government listen more keenly to those possessing great amounts of wealth than those without is one at least two thousand and eighty one years old. Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman statesman who was alive and writing seventy years before the supposed birth of Christ, noted this openly. While this can be a flaw in every type of government, it is most prevalent and arguably most malevolent in representative ones.

The 'Movement' (as I will henceforth identify the disparate groups demanding social reform) is strongly fixated on this fact, and views it as an evil that must be mitigated if not excised completely. However, in order to understand their grievance in this matter, it is first necessary to explain the current relationship between the common citizenry and the government, and corporations and the government.

Officially, the current system is thus: private citizens as an aggregate vote for an official who has either nominated themselves or has been nominated by their respective political party. It thus follows that a candidate would need to advertise his political platform (what laws, values, and ideals one seeks to uphold while in office), and since the most effective means of communication require funding to access, these candidates are allowed to be funded by their supporters. Ideally, this would ensure that candidates of a specific platform supported by their community would garner the most votes, and subsequent funding to better broadcast their platform and further receive more votes, creating a positive feedback loop that supports the candidate to election.

What the movement views as the de facto scenario is that private interests with wealth well beyond that possessed by individual citizens are able to, through the channel of campaign contributions, use their funds to either significantly benefit candidates with a platform beneficial to their agendas or influence a candidate with a non-conducive platform to benefit their agendas in office while operating contrary during the election. It is by this means that private interests with massive financial resources can wield political influence greater than the sum of their composite citizenry.

The influence exhibited by these wealthy private entities waxes greater when additional terms are taken into consideration. The former candidate, now representative, is further incensed to legislatively support their agendas in return for further 'campaign funding' for when they are the incumbents in a re-election.

Of course the question of “to what harm?” arises, which while I believe to be immediately salient, may require a brief summary.

In short, the influence these organizations exert over congress bends it towards favoring the high-level, managerial, and leadership positions more often than the labor comprising them and the public existing around them, often to the labor's and public's expense.

The Prime Grievances: Preface

At present time, the 99%, Occupy Wall Street, and other social movements are an aggregate of individuals who believe, to put this as broadly as possible, that they have been or will be subject to an injustice and that the origin of this injustice is not from a misdeed, inadequacy, or failure on their part, but rather result from the cultural, political, economic, social systems that are components of the civilization known as the United States of America. These words deliberately focus on the USA as the observations they are based on are limited solely to that country, the individuals living within it, and the policies and norms (legal and by-legal) which prevail in its sovereignty. I believe that I would be supremely disingenuous if I attempted to pontificate about the plights of those fellow humans in separate sovereign states.

Nearly every person who identifies themselves as part of the 99% possesses difficulties, either past, present, or (they believe) future, which imperil their current standard of living and socio-economic standing, or if their standard and position are already precarious at best, threaten to reduce their current situation to destitution. Even if there are people within the movement who are not imperiled by such difficulties, those exempt individuals are nonetheless sympathetic to the plights of the former category and operate in solidarity with them.

The specific and proximal reasons behind each individual's plight would be, while not impossible, supremely impractical to properly enumerate. Just so, the beliefs concerning the systemic origin of their plights and possible means of correction are likewise as numerous as those claiming to be a component of the movement. However, after observing the movement as an aggregate of various complaints, philosophies, and solutions, there has so emerged a collection of issues which have ascended above all others by being shared by a majority of the movement, in some fashion or another.

While by no means definitive in either number, content, or presentation, at least five issues transcend all others by being not only the most broadly observed topics of discussion, but also by being the sources of so many people's plights.

These I have so dubbed: the Prime Grievances.

Grievance 1: The grossly disproportionate influence corporate entities posses over the political system of the United States of America, specifically that of the Representative and Executive branches, which results in..

Grievance 2: The prevailing economic trends resulting in the collapse of the American 'middle' socio-economic class, resulting in the swelling of the 'low' socio-economic class and the prevalence of poverty if not outright destitution, which is exacerbated by...

Grievance 3: The ongoing and systematic decrease in wages, either directly by deliberate and apparent wage cuts or indirectly by wage stagnation in the face of magnifying monetary inflation;

Grievance 4: The binding of universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning directly to the market system as opposed to having them be a public service. Having these organizations, which are vital to the training and improvement of American citizenry subject to market forces ensures that they will likewise be subject to the turbulence inherent in market systems, most tellingly in their real and imminent danger of economic collapse;

Grievance 5: Likewise, Healthcare and the acquisition of which being subject to market forces.

These are the Prime Grievances as I have identified them and understand them. In the coming days, I will not only elaborate in depth upon each of these, but will according to reader input add to and/or revise these listed points in addition to adding new grievances entirely. After each of these have been sufficiently elaborated upon, they will be organized and collated into a final draft to be accessed as needed.