Blog Love Omega Glee: No Personality Required! (15 February 2012)

Francine puts on the radio while she eats breakfast. She tunes into NPR, National Public Radio, or "No Personality Required" as she likes to call it, to listen to the news. It's the usual garbage of corporate and government press releases camouflaged as news. "Don't reporters ask any questions anymore?" she thinks.

As she rinses out her cereal bowl in the sink, a talk show comes on. The host and guests debate the cost of the wars. The host is hostile to any caller who suggests that the wars be ended and the troops should be brought home ("And while we're at it, since American soldiers belong on American soil instead of spread out worldwide in hundreds of countries costing billions of dollars, let's close all our overseas bases. Wasn't World War II over seventy years ago? Why do we still have troops in Germany?" "Sir, we have troops in Germany so Europe can remain free, you can remain free, and I can remain free. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you have a problem with freedom. And, if you have a problem with freedom, then there's plenty of immigrants who would line up to take your spot in this country so maybe you should go somewhere where there's no American troops like Cuba." "Uh, there is a base in Cuba. It's located at Guantanamo Bay." "Well, then I guess you'll have to go somewhere else. Goodbye. I hope our next caller is more patriotic.") but deferential to his two guests, one a policy wonk from a right wing think tank, and the other, a former presidential advisor who now works as a lobbyist in Washington. Though they're supposed to represent different sides of the ideological spectrum, Francine finds the differences between their opinions hard to distinguish. Benson B. Bombemall, Ph.D., the policy wonk, thinks more money should be spent in research and development on new wonder weapons "to save substantial outlays in future fiscal years" while Felipe Upayisay, the lobbyist, thinks current budget growth is fine and "costs will drop as the rest of the world adopts democracy and renounces terrorism."

As the monologue from different voices continues, Francine wonders how these men can talk in such pleasant monotones about basically investing in ways to control and kill other people. It would almost be boring as they talk of homeland security and troop levels and then drift over to mineral rights and market access to natural resources in host countries, but Francine knows what they're really saying translates to "If your country doesn't do what will make our rich friends get richer, we're going to bomb the shit out of you."

A caller, Carol from Iowa City, calls in and says, "If we didn't have troops overseas, then there wouldn't be any terrorism because there'd be no reason to be mad at us. It's only because these oil companies and multinational corporations use the military to force other countries to give them what they want that the people in these countries hate us."

The host, James Bland, says, "Well, that's an interesting perspective, Carol. I'd have to disagree, but let's see what our guests think."

"I see someone's off her meds again," Bombemall says.

"It'd be nice if the world worked in such a simple fashion, but the nature of the situation is much more complex than that. Fortunately, experts such as my clients and the administration understand things a bit better," Upayisay says.

Francine's tempted to call up, and ask why America always has to be at war, but she already knows the answer: without an "enemy", the American taxpayer might object to spending billions of dollars on the military, and then the war profiteers would have to find a new scam. She turns the radio off. Someday, maybe there'd be a real debate on the radio instead of one-sided propaganda disguised as a debate. Until then, she's better off alone with the quiet of her thoughts than the noise of the radio.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.