Alternate Universe, Or Are We Just Idiots?

I am now semi-convinced that an alternate universe really does exist and that it occasionally intersects with our own, giving us brief but precious glimpses of startling clarity, illumination, and insight.

I found evidence of at least one other parallel dimension on pages 6B and 7B of today’s Denver Post.  I thought it only fitting that I share my brief nirvana-like experience with you.

As I turned to page 6B, my first foray suddenly thrust me into an inter-dimensional void that eventually led me to a surreal land with a plan offered by U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue to fund what he had previously agreed were sorely needed continental infrastructural projects and job creation.  In this alternate universe, Mr. Donohue opined that a $.10/gal tax on gasoline would suffice to put an estimated 14 million U.S. citizens back to work. Wow, I thought! 14 million people are out of work in the U.S. of his universe too. What are the odds?

Alternate-Donohue offered his idea as an alternative to the allegedly “misguided” alternate-Progressive’s proposed surtax on alternate-millionaires and billionaires, because, in his view, the Progressive’s plan would stifle current efforts of the super rich to create more jobs for the unemployed. Reading this otherworldly diatribe gave me a sudden inexplicable feeling of déjà vu.

Then, as if the rubber band of credulity had been stretched beyond its limit, I was violently snapped back to my own universe where I instantly realized that extraterrestrial Donohue’s gas tax plan in our universe would just place yet another burden upon the backs of the middle class, small businesses, and the working poor and that the job creating rich folks in my universe are currently sitting on over two trillion dollars, instead of creating jobs. And they have had low taxes for the last ten years!

Nice idea, alternate-Donohue, but could it ever work here? We already tried stuff like that from 1980-1989 and again from 2000-2008. It was called “trickle-down” economics; only the wealth never trickled down, it just trickled up to the wealthy. In fact, from 1979-2007, people at the top saw their incomes rise by about 275%, while people at the bottom only saw18%. Only a complete futah would buy that line again in our universe, no matter what all those Tea/GOP presidential candidates are saying.

I also knew that titans of financial wealth here on earth had previously been instructed by our own Terra Prime Commander Donohue to hold on to that two trillion until President Obama is defeated, and The Affordable Health Care Act/FDA/EPA/banking government regulations are permanently abrogated.

At this point, I began to be vexed by an eerie suspicion that our Thomas Donohue and the alternate universe Donohue might be one and the same individual! That would explain how our Donohue has so little understanding about, or regard for such a large majority of the populace. He obviously thinks we are all a bunch of blithering idiots. Then I began to wonder about Michelle Bachman’s spooky eyes and New Gingrich’s enormous head and…

At any rate, I was busy trying to process the enormity of all these revelations, still a bit shaken from the stimulus overload of my quantum-leaping experience and was looking forward to some rest, when I was suddenly thrust back into the void and again transported (on page 7B) to a universe where energy giant Exxon/Mobile just announced a 10.33 billion dollar quarterly net profit. In their universe, Exxon got this windfall, despite falling crude oil prices, by simply charging the consumer more for refined oil and natural gas. Apparently, in their dimension, when prices fall on crude oil, it is legal to subvert the normal rules of supply and demand by simply capping existing wells, limiting supply, and then jacking up the price to everybody who needs to fill their car with gas or heat their home!

I was just beginning to wonder about how many jobs might have been created by cutting the production of oil when I was again snapped back to my own reality. Strangely, in my universe, I found that our Exxon /Mobile also just made 10.33 billion in net quarterly profit by similarly standing Keynesian economics on its ear. But on my planet, Exxon also pays zero in taxes and gets billions in corporate welfare from the government.

Since The U.S. Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people, I began to wonder if this Exxon dude also shuttled between universes, just like Thomas Donohue and Herman Cain. That must be why Cain won’t let any of his staff speak to him unless he speaks to them first. He might inadvertently blow his cover!

At this point, I had to close the newspaper, so I could make a mental list of suspects. And that’s when a flash of clarity hit me. I mean, who, but inter-universal overlords, could keep snagging such mega-gigs, keep screwing the American people, and keep doing it again and again right under our noses? Mass mind-control, maybe? Are they spiking our water?

Unless, of course, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue, Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers, Grover Norquist, and most of U.S. Congress are simply correct in their assumption that the rest of us are all a bunch of bleeding idiots who will just continue to sit back and play with our electronic toys and pay them to take over this universe…and the other one too.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

P.S. This is yet another day upon which some have predicted the end of the world. I hope you have a chance to read this before the, uh, whatever.  Just in case they are wrong... yet again, have a great weekend!

JBS