The Optimum Oligarchy Orations (2020)
(Scenes between an imaginary American President, Don Gold, and a Russian counterpart — Vlad — sometime in 2020)
ACT ONE:
Scene: a swank penthouse with large glass windows overlooking Moscow at night. Two men walk in, one tall with golden weaved hair and an imperious attitude, followed by a taciturn, chisel-faced Russian with a measured demeanor.
Don: (walking and waving hands) There it is! In all its glory … the beautiful Moscow skyline. Lots more lights than when I was last here … years ago. When was it? The beauty pageant …
Vlad: More lights…
TWITTER TARTS
Less is more … More is Less
by Jim Cleveland
(from Ascending Apocalypse: A New Birth for Mankind)
Twitter, as we know, is a worldwide communications phenomenon that encapsulates your convictions in 140 characters or less and delivers them to the world.
It has been derided as an example of the dumbing-down of America — simplifying issues into shallow platitudes that can’t possibly get to the truth of any issue. They are icons of the simple-minded, where purveyors have no real understanding of any issues and only blurt simplisms.
I would offer another view that writers seek to…
Condition Red:
Our Apocalypse of Values and Intentions
(from Ascending Apocalypse: A New Birth for Mankind, by Jim Cleveland, now on Amazon)
Apocalypse showed up. Now we have to.
Armageddon rages. We must rage back with righteousness.
While some of us expected the presidential election to be a decisive blow against a despicable Me, it proved only to unveil a greater battle.
The first battle of the new apocalypse made Washington, D.C. the Armageddon. It seemed that all of the undesirable traits in a human were personified in one being, unfortunately in a role of global power.
There seemed little…
AMERICA IS GREAT — BUT WHY?
by Jim Cleveland (www.jimclevelandauthor.com)
When a friend from Finland told me that America had never been a great country, I could have knee-jerked my reply. It certainly is. I know it. But then I began to question myself as to why my inherent truth is indeed true. It is assuredly not from the jagged and turbulent events of our history.
No one can doubt that the various tribes of the Indian nation lived here and claimed it for home. No one can argue that they have all been displaced and many subsist on government…
IRAQ AND RUIN: A Cut-the-Shit Story
by Jim Cleveland (from ON TOP OF IT: Rising Above the Human Mind)
When you peel back the events of history and see them without all the partisan puffery, they begin to clear up considerably.
The Iraq War was a horror story visited on the American people in the name of vengeance and profits.
We had an oil and gas millionaire as President and a defense industry millionaire as Vice President. They both used the offices to build upon their millions and dictate many of their decisions.
In the beginning, swaggering Iraqi dictator Hussein…
THE CAPITALISM CANCER
by Jim Cleveland
(from ON TOP OF IT: Rising Above the Human Mind. Visit Jim at www.jimclevelandauthor.com)
There is an invisible God that rules over everything we do in the United States — Capitalism.
No one dare speak against it — no one in any American institution at all. It IS the institution.
There is complete belief in its towering superiority over any other economic system in the world. The profit incentive drives the world, we say. Free enterprise must be free and even enabled by government funding and action. The government must support and abet its…
The Pupae of Irony
by Jim Cleveland
From ‘Slouching Through Apocalypse,’ a volume of Serio-Comedy with skits, satires, spoofs and essays.
On the planet of Irony, somewhere in a galaxy like ours …
One of the major religions there is the Cataract Church, said to be established originally by a saintly man who represented altruistic love, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and a personal religion of feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, serving one another.
He was tortured and killed by two other collaborating religions, known as the Pagonads and The Juice.
The Cataracts reveled and worshipped in his martydom and said…
BOBOSCOPY TITLES … a complete and relatively sensible story
by Jim Cleveland
Bob was Like A Rolling Stone.
Mr. Tambourine Man was calling him to the road.
So he made a Restless Farewell to family and friends.
Farewell, Angelina, he said.
He knew he would miss this Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowland.
But he had Stayed in Mississippi Way Too Long.
In Rough and Rowdy Ways.
He wanted Trouble No More.
He just needed Shelter from the Storm.
He told her goodbye, and I’ll Remember You.
He offered to send her some Boots of Spanish Leather, from a place he…
GAME OF THORNS: A New Show Pitch
A Satire by Jim Cleveland
(I remember with some bitterness the pitch I made for a new Game of Thrones series with a wondrous and fascinating plot twist, inexplicably rejected by a boardroom of DoDo’s. See what you think.)
The Story ….
In all the seven kingdoms of Westico, there is no place more reviled than the chamber where sits the Throne of Thorns. Law decrees that upon this seat there must be a King or Queen, also to wear the dreaded Crown of Briars. Ouch! …
POLYTHEISTS AND THE MASKS OF GOD
by Jim Cleveland
(from ON TOP OF IT: Rising Above the Human Mind)
Those of us who believe there is one God — one First Source and Center — may tend to think that others will fall short of the heavens in our Ascension plan.
In truth, the adoration of a pantheon of Gods can hardly be condemned when the person seeks righteousness and lives a kind and caring life. There will be polytheists in the mansion worlds, those who saw many faces of God in their mortal lives.
In prehistory, man had only…
