Baited, Switched

A long time ago, in a beautiful but cold place far far away, a communist dictator built a colosseum.  Being committed to the populist flim-flam most totalitarians use to get help in seizing power, he named it “The People’s Stadium” – although “the people” only got to use it with the permission of the dictator’s cronies.

And the dictator built a train – “The Peoples’ Train” – to bring people from the miserable, decaying, crime-sodden cities to The People’s Stadium.

The dictator and his cronies planned a massive rally to celebrate their power and perspicacity; the entire world’s media would be there to see the dictator’s work.

And the dictator worried: while he put on a slick facade for the foreign press, some of the locals were unruly, and parts o the city were falling apart.

So the dictator took steps to make sure The People wouldn’t screw up The People’s  Event at the People’s Stadium before the eyes of the world.  First, he barred The Hoi Polloi from the Peoples’ Train, to make sure they’d never encounter foreign visitors.

And then, to take no chances, he deployed his Army in the People’s City, to make sure the locals stayed in line.

Minneapolis officials are calling on Gov. Mark Dayton to mobilize the state National Guard for the Super Bowl, amid questions about whether the city’s police force has enough officers to effectively patrol neighborhoods and handle other demands.

Even with dozens of departments across the state pledging to send officers to help with security, Mayor Betsy Hodges and mayor-elect Jacob Frey wrote in a letter on Tuesday that the city’s police “cannot by themselves meet of all the safety and security needs of the 10 days of Super Bowl LII while maintaining public-safety operations for the entire city.”

When I wrote my book Trulbert:  A Comic Novella ab out the End of the World as We Know It, I wrote the scene in which a thinly disguised Roger Goodell-type NFL commissioner exacted concessions out of Minneapolis’ dictator, Myron Ilktost, to be as over the top as I could imagine; a complete NFL takeover of all civic resources, free transportation, prostitutes, whatever the NFL wanted.  And when I went back and edited and re-wrote, I massaged it to make it even more over-the-top.   I was satisfied that real life could never imitate my fiction.

Kudos, Roger Gooddell and Mark Dayton.  You’ve proven me wrong.

7 thoughts on “Baited, Switched

  1. What’s a NFL? And why have a TidyBowl if flushing it is gonna cause so much trouble?

    Public transit has been a place for thieves, thugs and rapists to ply their trade ever since welfare and social service centers were created. Why the concern now?

  2. “Why the concern now?” That is a good question that daily passengers often wonder. Though I think the fear of something happening is greater than the actual number of incidents. I have seen a few incidents on transit, and they’re scary, but I am not sure that I would want to have my bags scanned as a regular part of my transit trips as they do in China, for example.

    It seems that all of the increased security is a result of the creation of the Dept of Homeland Security. Are there real threats, or are there just imagined threats to that the department creates to continue to keep this government agency viable, allow them to keep their government jobs.

    I read that, while Homeland Security has been involved in Super Bowl security since post 9/11, last year they increased security demands, linking the Super Bowl with increased human trafficking. They also worked with ICE to deal with this issue.

    I suppose terrorists are always looking for a mass to terrorize, so some of the security may be warranted. Privatization of the train makes no sense- just close certain stops. The people going to the Super Bowl aren’t likely to want to use the train as much as Uber, or a charter bus from their hotels would be more comfortable and quick.

  3. “The people going to the Super Bowl aren’t likely to want to use the train as much as Uber, or a charter bus from their hotels would be more comfortable and quick.”

    Exactly.

    People that pay 1 large or more for a ticket + plane fare & hotel are not gonna want to stand on a platform and freeze their asses off. Even if they did, are they saying your $1.5 billion dollar toy can’t handle large volumes? Sweet.

    No.

    They are closing access to all locals because they don’t want the disgrace of having news of visitors getting robbed and having the snot beat out of them by the local dindoo crews splashed all over FOX News.

    The common sense solution is to keep the dindoos off the platforms and trains, but, common sense…

    Enjoy your TidyBowl festivities!

  4. What’s the old saying – “So incompetent they’d bankrupt a brothel in a logging camp”. Seems appropriate with all the “sex workers” that follow the NFL Super Bowl Circus to the suckers, ahem, Host Cities.
    Knowing our ever chins up, lake woebegone media, I’m certain we won’t hear of any of the hassles the everyday residents of this region will have to endure while the Circus is in town. Mostly it will be Sally Fields acceptance speeches 24/7.

  5. Every passenger train put up after WW2 is economic waste after you ***net everything*** out.

    Also, Penigma eats K Mart corn dogs.

  6. The Left acts like statism can be controlled to improve things. The reality is, it ineluctably turns into corporatism, government-self dealing, broke, low GDP.

    Next you get social problems followed by a fascist police state run by Trump, Bernie or Clinton.

    Mises.org is right about everything.

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