Matt Bracken: Professor Raoul X

[JohnyMac]

I am not on the Donald Trump band wagon yet and to be truthful I may never climb on.

My reasoning for the above statement is many, but the main stem of this leaf is: many things can happen between now and November 8th. I and probably a few of us can remember the assassination of Bobbie Kennedy in 1968 as an example. Although I am not predicting the same this Presidential run, just pointing out how things can change in a blink of an eye.

A short fictional story Matt Bracken wrote and published back in 2011 comes to mind.

I have copy & pasted the first page here. At the end of the first page is a link to the rest of it. Left/right, Socialist/Anarchist, I think the premise of the article can be applied to many crazy things that happen in this world.

Enjoy...

It was late June and I was sitting in a café seven hundred miles from home, doing a little web surfing. There was plenty of room at mid-morning, so I could sit at the end of the coffee bar with my laptop. I was scanning the breaking news about the new mass-shooting. Like most people I was morbidly fascinated with the deranged young man who was the killer. That is, the trigger puller. But I was looking over his shoulder for something else: signs of a guiding hand.

Why? Because I know something about the subject.

You see, being a guiding hand is my life’s avocation. My secret avocation, that is. Outwardly I’m a tenured professor of sociology at a Mid-western university. A life-long bachelor, so my summers are my own. Ostensibly for writing, research, quiet reflection, bungee jumping or what have you. My summer hobby is traveling and meeting interesting people. Everything I do on these road trips can be explained under the rubric of field research, but even so I pay with cash and move like a ghost. I’m old school. It’s a harmless quirk. Nobody cares.

I suppose if you polled my students, they’d declare me to be left wing, but not a rhetorical bomb-thrower. Am I closer to Karl Marx than to Ayn Rand? Well, naturally. Progressive politics were part of my upbringing and education. And of course that is also the best way to get along in academia, and I do like to get along.

No question my academic career has been lackluster. That does not concern me. I have no wife or significant other to be concerned with my apparent lack of greater ambition or wealth. Seeking publication for papers that a few academic gnomes might eventually peruse does not interest me in the least. Writing some groundbreaking tome that will be reviewed in the New York Times and read by millions is not a realistic aspiration. I am no Jared Diamond in the rough. I won academic tenure, and that was enough. I have a house and a ten-year-old Beamer. I enjoy my little comforts. A small circle of friends, none close. I’d be the first to admit it’s been a mediocre life—outwardly.

But my secret life has been anything but mediocre. I have engineered extraordinary events, but truth be told, there is little joy in secret celebration. So I am creating this document, properly encoded and hidden, to save for posterity. When my unsurpassed run is finally over, due either to my natural demise or other more precipitous causes, my secret history will conjure itself from millions of computer screens unfiltered, unspun and uncut. The truth will be known. This is my story, and no one can take it from me. My name will ring down through the ages, when my complete story is told!... To Continue

Thoughts if you finished the read. Keep your hands off the computer keys if you haven't 

[Nemo]

Try a repair of your link thingamabob.  And quit scaring me like that.  I have met several gents like that.  On both sides of the counter.

Nemo

[Erick]

Thought provoking.

Makes me want to become a professor so I have 3 months off a year..

[sledge]

Entirely plausible on several levels.  From private elitists with an agenda and total confidence that they know what is best for all / to secretive associations of individuals with their own agendas / to mega wealthy corporations or criminal enterprises who might utilize "tools" to marginalize threats to profits from competitors, witnesses, legislation, or media investigation / to dark ops government operatives (not just our own) who have an agenda of controlling events, perceptions, and population.

It's very interesting that so many of the "trigger pullers" of the past few decades have had what could be termed as mental issues.   

[sledge]

Just another thought that kind of ties into this.  I am a Trump supporter, not because I agree with everything that he says (although I do agree with much of it), but because I think he is the ballsiest guy to run for political office since JFK.  Remember the Silver Certificates?  I find it also odd that Trump would bring up the JFK assassination during the primaries, history is rife with coincidences.

Trumps political policy agendas have no doubt put him at odds with some potentially dangerous adversaries who would like nothing better than for him to disappear.  Mega corporations who stand to sustain huge losses or profit hits from his plan to tax them for moving manufacturing out of the country / Mexican drug cartels who stand to take a financial hit from the wall and a new war on drugs / Other countries who stand to take a hit from his plan to re-negotiate trade deals / Again other countries who see us as adversaries that might not think his plans for investing in the military will be helpful to their own agendas / Organizations who benefit greatly from the status quo in our government / Far left elitists who would not want to see the gains they've made under Obama be reversed /Aand the list goes on and on.

If Trump does in fact win in November 2016, it will be interesting to see if he is still among the living in January 2017.  Of course, if you believe in such tripe, Baba Vanga predicted that an african american would be the last elected US president.  (Odd that she didn't say Kenyan)     

 

[JoJo]

Sledge; You must be a mind reader. Word for word what I've been thinking. My lack of edjamacation prevented me from saying what you so Eloquently said. 

[Nemo]

So who would be a Veep with him?

Nemo

[sledge]

Nemo, I'm not sure, but my guess would be Newt.  I like Newt, but he is in up to his neck in associations with the establishment.  In honesty, if Trump is smart, he'll pick someone that the establishment would absolutely abhor if anything happened to him.  Which means it would have to be someone far more loathed by the establishment than Cruz.  But I suspect that his pick will be an establishment guy if for nothing more than the help with campaign funding.  But who, I really don't know for sure.

[JohnyMac]

I am glad I got some of your attention.

  firmly planted: We are so ripe for some nasty stuff. Between Sen. Sanders being marginalized by the DEM party leaders to the crap that Donald Trump and Sen. Cruz has had to put up with from the GOP Elites. We all know that eventually even a willow tree bends and will split.

IMO, worst case scenario: The FBI recommends indictment. VP Biden and Sen. Warren swoop in to "save" the DEM party which leaves Sanders and his supporters out in the cold. Then add to that recipe for disaster:

> The economy,
> Brexit vote over in the UK,
> Syrian migrants flooding the EU,
> A mixture of illegal aliens flooding into our country,
> The high level of nastiness of this election - On both sides,
> China rattling their sabers in the South China Sea, 
> Et cetera

Throw into that mix if something happens to Trump - All hell will break loose.

I truly think that a suspension of the Federal elections in November is becoming more feasible by the day. 

To what Sledge pointed out...

Trumps political policy agendas have no doubt put him at odds with some potentially dangerous adversaries who would like nothing better than for him to disappear.  Mega corporations who stand to sustain huge losses or profit hits from his plan to tax them for moving manufacturing out of the country / Mexican drug cartels who stand to take a financial hit from the wall and a new war on drugs / Other countries who stand to take a hit from his plan to re-negotiate trade deals / Again other countries who see us as adversaries that might not think his plans for investing in the military will be helpful to their own agendas / Organizations who benefit greatly from the status quo in our government / Far left elitists who would not want to see the gains they've made under Obama be reversed /Aand the list goes on and on.