Succession Planning

I just got chatting to the old bloke next to me while waiting for a delayed plane.

It turns out he is yet another conspiracy theorist. Whence comes their addiction?

After softening me up with the usual chestnuts (gold, 9/11, the moon landing) he declared that:

“The Zionists run the world”

“Well they’re doing a pretty shit job then” I rejoindered.

That was not the reply he was looking for. After some contemplation he countered:

“That’s why we have to get rid of them”

“So who are you going to replace them with? Americans, the Arabs, us?”

He hadn’t got that far in his succession planning. So I suggested:

“It’s worth pondering you know. If you’re really unlucky you’ll get rid of the Zionists and be left with some clown like Tony Abbott running the place”

Silence. I’m guessing he thought that Tony wasn’t too bad. So I pushed on:

“The trouble with people like Tony is they are hated by too many people because they themselves hate so many people. This makes them crap world leaders because all the black people, the Asians and the Arabs would be gunning for him. And we’d be the ones that suffer; they’d make us responsible”

Thin blue smoke was escaping from his cogs and sprockets. The eyes, they lost focus and coordination with each other.

And then, the irrational circuit breaker kicked in and he regained resolve. 

I never founded out how; boarding was announced.

My guess is that at least half the world’s population is ever unhappy, no matter how easy or hard they have it. 

Nothing can ease their fears and hatreds. They can only be contained by legitimate state-enforced threat of force.

It’s exhausting.