Fanis is a bodyguard for his cousin
Kera, who is a Chinese art dealer who ideologies are left. Fanis’ political leanings, on the other hand,
are far right. Growing up, Kera may have
been considered ‘far left’ but as the Democratic Party had been shoved further
and further to the left, she found herself ‘left leaning’ in the new
spectrum. Chinese art dealing is a
highly time intensive endeavor. Due to
this, Kera had estranged many people she once considered friends but as she got
more and more successful, she found that the need to find someone that she
could trust grew more and more.
Ironically, the person she chose, Fanis, was a man who didn’t trust
anybody. Still though, Kera knew that he
would die for her as he was old school in that if it ever came between his life
and a woman’s, he didn’t hesitate, he would sacrifice himself. That trait is all Kera needed but it didn’t
hurt that she was his cousin and they had been close when Fanis was in high
school. Since Fanis was three years
older than Kera, his high school coincided with her grade school. They lived together in London as Heathrow
offered a great hub to fly all over the world dealing in art. Right now, Fanis
and Kera are engaging in an activity they both enjoy but is their version of
relaxing. They are watching the Democrat
debates. The reason why it was
entertaining is that they were ideologically different so they debated a
lot. At least, that was the hope. As they were watching the debate, CNN
moderator Don Lemon asks, “What do you say to Trump supporters who prioritize
the economy over the President’s bigotry?”
Fanis’ eyes widen as he is
shocked that CNN is not even trying to hide their bias against president
Trump. He turns to Kera and says, “That
is just ridiculous”
“Now now, the Republicans
couldn’t stop talking about Hillary Clinton either.”
“There was no question like that
during the Republican debates.”
“Well, yea maybe not but I mean,
I don’t like softball questions. We get
to see them react to a question that they weren’t anticipating.”
“Oh they were anticipating
it. He should have just asked, ‘why do
you hate Donald Trump?’
“That would have been an
excellent question” Kera says as she giggles.
As they listen to the answers,
Bernie Sanders reiterates that he will raise taxes on the middle class whereas
Elizabeth Warren pretends she has a plan so that won’t happen. Fanis blurts out, “Yea bankrupting the top
10% of earners in America. Then you
actually think they’re going to continue to work when they make no money whatsoever. You also claim that it won’t hurt the economy
at all. The fact that she’s doing so
well in the polls just shows how dumb you Democrats are.”
“Democrats like high taxes so
why not just admit you’re going to raise them?
Warren should be like Bernie and just admit it. Everyone’s taxes are going to go up.”
“McGovern, Mondale & Dukakis
all ran on raising taxes. They lost
miserably. Mondale won his home state of
Minnesota but lost the other 49.”
“Well, times have changed. The Democratic Party is a lot more left than
when Mondale was running so maybe it’ll work this time. Bernie is doing pretty well so it’s not a
complete dud.”
Fanis had grown up in Ohio so
when Tim Ryan, the Ohio congressman spoke, he was mildly interested. Ryan declares, “We can’t win by taking health
insurance from unions, decriminalizing illegal immigrants, giving undocumented
workers health insurance and the Green New Deal.”
Fanis and Kera both said
simultaneously, “Someone missed the memo” then looked at each other and laughed.
The leading candidates fired
back that they aren’t interested in listening to what they can’t do. They need to be focused on what they
can. No more pessimism in the Democratic
Party. Fanis responded back, “Yea, let’s
not let realism get in the way of a talking point.”
“The thing is what Ryan said
wasn’t that bad. I’d be interested to
see if he moves up in the polls.
Everyone else is just trying to be more extreme than the next. Let’s see if the party is as extreme as it
seems with the popularity of Ryan after this debate.”
“You can’t go so extreme in the
primaries only to go toward the middle in the general election. We have social media now. Everything is recorded; you can’t get away
with that.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Maybe these extremists will fizzle out by the
end.”
“Well, look Ryan is from the
Midwest like me so he still has a brain unlike you born and bred coastal
people.”
“You lived in New York longer
than you lived in Cleveland”
“Doesn’t matter, my development
was in Cleveland so I knew not to be a crazy leftists.”
“Instead, you went to a Jesuit
Catholic school and became a far right activist”
“No, I was moderate. Remember I’m pro-abortion. It was meeting leftists at NYU that pushed me
far right. I was moderate before then.”
Pete Buttigieg, Indiana
representative, gives a speech attacking religious people incessantly and then
calls not wanting the $15 minimum wage ‘unchristian.’ Kera turns to Fanis and asks, “What were you
saying about the Midwest not being so extreme?”
Fanis just shook his head. He stated, “I guess there’s a reason that I
never went to Indiana even though it was right next to Ohio.”
“Well Christians are all about
giving things to poor people so maybe he’s got a point.”
“The CBO says a 15 dollar minimum
wage will cause 1.3 million people to lose their jobs. Having 1.3 million people out of work is not
the Christian way.”
Buttigieg continues on, “Paying
premiums and taxes is the same things so don’t pretend they’re different.”
Kera and Fanis give the screen a
perplexed look. Kera articulates ‘That
doesn’t make sense.”
Fanis runs with it, “An
insurance company can’t force you to pay, the IRS can. That makes them very different. If you don’t like your insurance company, you
can switch or drop them. You can’t do
that to the government, though I wish you could. That is why an insurance company is more
incentivized to have your interests in mind.”
“Fear of being fired is a
powerful thing.”
“Damn straight!”
“Well common sense would tell
you that when you pay a premium, it’s a direct cost for the service. Taxes just go into a huge pool of money and
you don’t know where it actually goes. I
mean government programs are bankrupt all the time because they steal from each
other’s funds.”
“Yea, when you pay a premium,
you pay for health care for you and your family.”
“But healthcare is so expensive
despite the insurance companies having your interests at heart so it isn’t
working.”
“It isn’t working because the
government is involved. The government
spends more on healthcare than any other industry; more than the military, more
than social security. It’s not even
close, I think it’s close to 50% of the budget is healthcare alone. You want to know how something gets too
expensive that nobody can buy it? The
government buys it instead . Same thing
with education. Government took over
student loans in 2009, now student loan debt is astronomically worse than when
we went to college.”
“It wasn’t too good when we were in college either.”
“But it’s worse now”
“Yea, and tuition is rising exponentially”
“Right”
The debates ended and Kera and Fanis look at each
other. Fanis is a little more upbeat
than Kera. Kera is giving him a dirty
look because now that it’s over, there’s an unspoken rule that they’re going to
discuss who won. Fanis declares, “The
two most important things in a debate, you need to be likeable and appeal to a
broad audience. How do you think they
did?”
“I think they failed at both. I’ll give you the likeable but it remains to
be seen if the extreme part
is a
problem. I don’t know anymore.”
As they are watching, Chris
Matthews comes on to discuss what they just heard. He says, “Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
lost yesterday to Delaney and Ryan.”
Fanis and Kera didn’t think Delaney
made much of an impression so they didn’t agree with Matthews. Kera announced, “Well, I was right about Ryan
doing well. I think he’s going to move
up in the polls.”
When they looked at the polls
the next day, Ryan was doing no better.
Kera was proven wrong. She sighed
and said, “I guess Medicare for all is popular if that’s all the people winning
in the polls can talk about.”
“64% of Democrats support
Medicare for All. Only 41% of the
general electorate does. Keep in mind,
that 41% includes the 64% of Democrats.”
“Yea, well, if 2016 taught us
anything, it’s that these polls aren’t always right. I’m glad we don’t have to sit through another
one of these tomorrow.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
“Dubrovnik”
“Nice! I love Croatia!”
“I know you do”
Kera and Fanis go to Dubrovnik
early in the morning. Kera states, “We
have the whole day, so what should we do.”
“Let’s be tourists, let’s walk
the wall.”
“I’ve walked the Great Wall of
China, I don’t need the Dubrovnik wall”
“The view of the Ionian is
different from the view from the Great Wall.
Don’t be a snob.”
They walk the wall and Fanis
gets Italian style pizza, which he actually thinks is better than Italy because
they use more spices that adds to the flavor more than Italy. He tells Kera that they’re known for their
cheese. Kera loves cheese so she samples
a lot of them and finds that Fanis is on to something. The next day, Kera goes to her meeting to
negotiate the sale of a precious artifact to a private collector. Fanis waits by the door on the inside so he
can still see Kera to make sure she’s safe.
Fanis isn’t really sure how these things normally go in other industries
but often times the bodyguards of the respective people in the meeting end up
having their own conversation amongst each other while business is
collected. Fanis doesn’t know anything
about Chinese art so doesn’t even bother listening. The bodyguard of the Croat looks at Fanis and
whispers, “I thought you guys were English.”
“No, we just live in London.”
“Oh, are you originally from
America?”
“Yes”
“That makes more sense. Near Baltimore?”
“New York. It’s like three hours away from Baltimore if
there’s no traffic. Since there normally
is, it’s like six hours.”
“Have you been there?”
“Few times yes”
“Why won’t the government give
them any money to improve?”
“Baltimore got 1.8 Billion
dollars in aid and nothing improved.”
“It had to have done something.”
“It created 290 jobs. That’s $2 Million per job. This is just one
district. In America, we call them ‘zip
codes’ it’s a smaller area of a city”
“So, the politicians just steal
it all. Looks like that’s true in every
country.”
“Not politicians, Democrats”
“Also a universal truth; each
party blames the other when shit goes wrong.
If it’s bad, they claim they inherited a bad situation from how bad the
last guy was. If it’s good, they claim
victory.”
“Baltimore hasn’t had a
Republican mayor since 1967 so that excuse isn’t even tried because everyone
knows how retarded it is.”
“How bad is it? I mean, I hear the bottom part of Chicago is
like a war zone.”
“Baltimore has three times more
murders per capita than Chicago.”
“What about education?”
“Baltimore pays more money per
student than any other district in the country except two.”
“How much per child?”
“$16,000”
“You Americans have too much
money. Our private schools are much less
than that.”
“Most American private school is
less than that too. That just shows you
how corrupt and wasteful Baltimore is with the money.”
“Well does it work? Are the schools good?”
“Nope, 13 of 39 high schools, I
think you call it college here, let’s just say 14-18 years olds I always forget
the European equivalent.”
“Before university”
“Yes, the last stage before
University.”
“Okay”
“13 of the 39 had 0 student
proficient in math. There were six
schools that had 1% of their kids proficient.”
“19 out of 39 is almost half.”
“And combined in those 19
schools, 14 kids were proficient in math.”
“What about the cops? The news says they kill non-whites all the
time.”
“That’s a lie they tell them
that to keep them hating the cops. The
Democrats tell minorities that they’re victims so that they don’t try to better
themselves. If you’re problems aren’t
your fault, you do nothing to improve yourself, which keeps you down.”
“You had data to back up the other
things you said. Do you have data for
this?”
“There was a guy named Jason
Reilly who writes for the Wall Street Journal who looked into this.”
“I know the Wall Street Journal”
“He found that those accusations
of open season on blacks by the cops has no basis in the data. The reason why is obvious. Since cops are constantly accused of it, they
hesitate more killing a minority. With
White people, they know there will be no public backlash so they’re much more
likely to pull the trigger. With minorities,
you better be right morally, economically and ethically because you’re whole
life will be destroyed if you’re wrong.”
“I think you call that ‘reverse
racism.’”
“Yes you do. Just in case you don’t believe the media,
which I wouldn’t blame you, a Harvard economist named Richard Fryer found in
2016 that blacks are 24% less likely to be shot by the police than whites.”
“So, the reality is it’s bad to
be white in America. That’s like Europe,
it’s bad to be European here. We need to
be accommodating to all the Muslims and Africans that come to our country and
destroy our culture.”
“I live in London, trust me, I
know what you mean.”
“Oh right, London has it worse
than anywhere. I don’t even know if we
can consider London a British city anymore. It’s been conquered by the Ottoman
Empire reborn.” Fanis laughed and the man smiled. The bodyguard continued, “So you don’t think
the cops are racist in Baltimore?”
“Baltimore has a black mayor,
black representatives and a majority of the police force are black and
Hispanic. If they’re racists, then it’s
self-hating.”
It was the Croats turn to
laugh. The meeting ended with a
handshake by Kera. Fanis and the
bodyguards shook hands and the Croat said, “Nice talking to you.”
“Likewise, you have a good day. Do you have a recommendation for a good
restaurant?”
“What kind of food you like?”
“I’m not picky but you know how
it is, I want something I only can get in Croatia.”
“Well, our food is pretty much
all Italian influenced but on that front….” As he recommended a place.
As Fanis was leaving, Kera
caught the end of the conversation. She said, “Is that where we’re going?”
“Nope, I just remembered there’s
something I always wanted to do here that I couldn’t do the last time I was
here.”
“What’s that?”
“I got to go back to the hotel
first”
“Alright, well before we do
that, do you want to take one of those glass bottom boats? Those are always cool to see the fish and
stuff under the sea.”
“Not in Croatia. Fish are tiny and scarce on those things. It’s a waste of money.”
“Oh, alright.”
They go back to the hotel, and
Fanis grabs a zip lock bag and places his passport and wallet inside. Kera inquires, “What the hell are you doing?”
“You’ll see” as Fans changes
into a bathing suit.
They go to a restaurant on the
side of a mountain and eat pasta. When
they are done, Fanis takes off his shirt, shoes and socks and puts them in a
backpack. He takes his zip lock bag of
his most important items and puts them in his bathing suit pocket, zipping it
up. He then jumps off the mountain into
the water below.
Kera shakes her head. She texts him on where they’re going to meet
but hears the phone come from the backpack.
Fanis didn’t think to put his phone in the zip lock bag. She looks down and Fanis is signaling her to
stay there. She gives him the thumbs up
and watches as Fanis swims to shore and hails a cab back to her a little
surprised the driver took him when he was wet.
When he gets back, Kera scolds, “You didn’t think to ask if I wanted to
do that?”
“No, I didn’t think you would
because you’re too proper and shit.”
“You could have at least asked!”
“Would you have gone?”
“We don’t know because I wasn’t
asked.”
The next day, Kera and Fanis
flew back to London. Kera comments, “Looks
like the new FBI director isn’t much better than Comey.”
“Well I could have told you that
when he said that the FBI never uses the term ‘spying’”
“Yea, well apparently now he’s
refused to hand over documents that Barr is requesting.”
“This is bullshit. Judicial watch should do it. They’re good at
getting these FOIA (Freedom of Information Acts) from unwilling people.”
“This was a FOIA request he
turned down.”
“Why?”
“You know how the FBI is. They claim everything is classified.”
“The whole point of having the
power to declassify is that nothing is too classified for you.”
“He says that it would be the
equivalent of Barr asking him for the nuclear launch codes.”
“What is he requesting?”
“The five page memo from
Kathleen Kavalec about her meeting with Steele.”
“Oh, so the conversation between
a state department figure and a former MI6 agent is the same as having access
to the nuclear arsenal of the United States? “ he exclaimed before going on,
“Keep in mind, this meeting happened three years ago so any information about
foreigners is probably obsolete by now.
This is just asinine.”
“Wow, that is actually what he
said. It would compromise foreign
governments and assets.”
“Which Barr is allowed to
know. Trump should fire Wray too. Who cares if the Democrats pretend it’s
obstruction to fire a subordinate like they did with Comey, they make false
accusations all the time. You can’t let
that prevent you from doing what’s right.”
“Most people don’t want to be
subjected to the incessant, relentless underhanded fascist style attacks that
the left will engage in to anyone he nominates.
Look what happened to Radcliffe, he chickened out. It’s tough to take on the mob.”
“Yea, that’s why the only way we
beat Fascism and Nazism before was a war.”
“I don’t think it’s come to that
yet.”
“Keep in mind Hitler and
Mussolini came to power because on their way up, people gave in to small
victories thinking it would assuage them.
It didn’t, they just wanted more more more.”
“Well, we’ll see how that turns
out. Kavalec’s memos seem to talk about
Alfa Bank so that’s what Barr is interested in.?
“Oh yea, the whole Trump Tower
computer talking to Russia. That ended
up being spam advertizing. I mean, what
about the other allegations of him trying to work on a back channel. If he already had that computer channel to
the Kremlin, he wouldn’t have even needed the back channels they accuse Cohen
and others of trying to set up. God, I
wish people could think.”
“It’s just interesting that they
have narrowed it down to which bank is helping.”
“No they haven’t. Glenn Simpson, head of Fusion GPS…..”
“Yea yea,” Kera interrupted and
took on a mock tone, “The firm that Hillary paid through a law firm named
Perkins Coie to dig up oppositional research and dirt on Trump.”
“Yes, he used to work for the
Wall Street Journal and he wrote a piece in 2007 about how ex-soviets try to
woo Washington through lobbyists. In
that article, it mentions Alfa Bank so they just reused that story.”
Kera continued to mock, “Yes,
you say this all the fucking time.
Everything we learned about collusion between Trump and Russia can be
found in that article except they changed the name ‘Bob Dole’ to ‘Donald Trump’
and kept all the other players the same.”
“Exactly”
Kera and Fanis returned back to
London. They went for a walk and enjoyed
the fading nice weather. Kera said, “In
all seriousness, I feel like England is a mirror image of America”
“Right, both are being overrun
by illegal immigrants who are trying to destroy their culture and populist
people like Trump and Nigel are extremely popular. Trump to keep America focused on America and
Nigel who is spearheading Brexit.”
“It’s a pivotal time in
history.”
“It’s the exact same as when
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were combating communism and socialism. We are still fighting Communists, socialists
and fascists in America that want to infiltrate our government, just like we
did then. Hopefully the Reagan/Thatcher
side wins again.”
“I don’t want to believe I’m on
the side of the communists and people like Mao”
“But you are. That’s a good idea; relate it to Chinese
history since that’s all you care about.”
“That’s a little below the
belt.”
“Not really. Did you see the Democratic debates? They are promoting exactly what Mao was.”
“They haven’t killed anyone
yet.”
“They don’t have the power to do
it yet. Once they start killing people,
it’s going to be too late. That’s how
this shit happens.”
“I get that, but I just don’t think
we’re there yet.”
“Neither did the Chinese when
Mao was on his way up. They still
haven’t shed communism”
“Yea, we’ll see.”
“No, we shouldn’t, we should
continue to be vocal against it.”
“I’m not sure what side I’m on
yet.”
“That’s the problem”
“Just do me a favor, when the
revolution comes, don’t kill me.”
“You missed the point Kera, it
is you that will kill me. I’ve been
willing to die for you since I was 14-years-old. That will never change. You will never be willing to die for me. If the conservatives fighting back threaten
you, I will betray my ideology and defend you.
If the fascist and Saul Alinsky type comes after me and you’re faced
between your ideology and me, you will hesitate, and I’m being nice.” Kera
frowned and said nothing. Fanis
continued, “One major difference between the left and the right is that the
right would never end a relationship over political differences and the left
would.”
“Let’s just hope that you’re
wrong and it doesn’t come to that.”
“Now that I can agree to.”
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