George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 46

< Episode 45 >

“There are many problems.”

“What problems?”

“First of all, rather than simply increasing the budget, a subsidy system based on population, city size, and administrative scale would be better.”

“Ah, that’s true too.”

‘But even that will eventually turn into a money-grabbing game from the top, and the budget that trickles down will be as small as a rat’s tail. If they allocate money to buy a dozen pencils, only one pencil makes it to the intended recipient. What’s the point?’

Of course, the pencil analogy was somewhat exaggerated, but that didn’t mean there was no embezzlement of funds. In fact, it wasn’t just America that was like that. You could even argue that America was better because the police wouldn’t shoot you for not paying bribes on the street. The corruption of public power was a common occurrence throughout history and across all nations.

“In addition, a considerable budget increase is already being allocated for counter-terrorism. Anything more than this is a bit…”

“That’s the budget for extensive counter-terrorism training for the FBI and special forces. Once this period passes, Congress will quickly try to cut it.”

“Then…”

The Chief of Staff realized that the President, who was currently pacing around in front of him, didn’t just want to add another achievement to his career during his term, but genuinely wanted to root out corruption. Simply because ‘I hate corrupt cops!’

“The entire focus will be on this throughout your term.”

The American continent is vast and wide, encompassing 50 states. Inspecting the police in America, which consists of about 3,000 counties, one by one, was something that couldn’t be done with just one or two organizations. So, of course, it would take a long time, and the budget for simple investigations alone would be substantial.

The expression ‘throughout the term’ meant that the police reorganization was that large-scale of a project. Perhaps if reelection failed, the baton would have to be passed to the next president. First, consider any sheriff’s office in America. Surely one or two of the officers are friends they’ve known since childhood. And some of them are from their school days, and some might even be neighbors.

Do you think it’s only like that in the office? It’s even worse outside of it. Unless it’s a major city, the local lobbying and collusive relationships are extremely serious. In simple terms, it means they’re turning a blind eye and taking kickbacks.

‘It’s such an environment that makes it so easy to become corrupt.’

“Use an evaluation score. Create a new standard—it doesn’t matter how you make the standard itself. Just make sure it’s based on ethics. Add performance to that and calculate the total.”

“There is already a similar system in place.”

In fact, it was quite different from a scoring system, but the promotion system for the American police basically consisted of written and interview exams. The written exam tested knowledge of the law and practical matters, and the interview evaluated judgment and physical ability. The scoring system the Chief of Staff was talking about referred to this evaluation process.

“Call it an emergency inspection; have them score each other. The few who score the highest are likely to be corrupt cops, so have the CIA or the IRS swoop in and scrape them all up. The guy who gave them a high score is likely to be the same kind of guy—he’s in collusion. If you shake him down, something else will come out.”

It was a whole string of sausages [a chain of interconnected events or people]. Of course, they might catch innocent people, but if they’re really innocent, they can just come out clean. Of course, they won’t be able to catch everyone with this. However, this was only a primary measure.

“Have the Justice Department rack their brains for the rest.”

“What are you going to do with the ones who get caught? If we put them all in jail according to the law, it will be socially unmanageable. And we can’t be sure if the trial will run properly.”

“Take pictures.”

“Pictures?”

‘Are you talking about pictures of criminals?’ For a brief moment, the Chief of Staff felt ashamed of himself. National function could not take precedence over ethics and human rights. He reminded himself that Bush did not cross the final line, no matter how reckless he was, and resolved to emulate him to some extent.

“Funeral portraits.”

“Yes?”

He felt a momentary dizziness. If you kill them for being corrupt, isn’t that just a great purge? Just as he was about to cry out that that couldn’t be done, Bush chuckled lightly and hit his stomach with the documents.

The Chief of Staff thought, ‘Well, he’s not the kind of person who would just kill people,’ and felt ashamed in a different way. To feel ashamed twice in such a short moment for different reasons.

The Chief of Staff reflected once again and decided to feel solemn.

“If the crime is minor, put them through a re-socialization program. However, the vicious ones are unavoidable. Tell them to accept the price of their sins willingly. If the trial side doesn’t run properly, just give them a hint that we’ll overturn everything.”

“If you touch the Justice Department, America will collapse.”

“Hahaha, I don’t care if such a country collapses!”

For about 5 seconds.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Next.”

Bush urged him to hand over the next document. Even though it was now within reach of his arm, Bush’s hand didn’t seem to want to reach for the mountain of documents.

There were still many documents left.

* * *

Russia has recently been in a position where it doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Natural resources. Among them, the surge in prices of ‘oil and natural gas’ was beneficial, causing the national budget to soar along with it. Just in time, the oil refining business was being run as a national project, and oil refining companies were being promoted.

“What are you going to do?”

“Cut it further; now is the time to focus on Chechnya.”

How wonderful would it be if things in this world could be decided by guns rather than money? Well, even making and maintaining those guns costs money. Russia has been severely short of funds since the collapse of the Soviet Union. To be precise, the reason for the lack of funds was immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The oligarchs (Олигархи) [wealthy and powerful business leaders], who could be called Russia’s chaebols [large industrial conglomerates], and the nomenklatura (Номенклату́ра) [privileged ruling class in the Soviet Union], who were high-ranking communist party members of the former Soviet Union, devoured all the infrastructure that existed during the Soviet era, and Russia rapidly weakened.

It wouldn’t have been a problem if they had just consumed it, but they raised the banner of corruption and literally used it to accumulate their own wealth, so the infrastructure was completely destroyed. Even though there wasn’t enough money to run the domestic market, they sold it all off and smuggled it overseas, so of course the infrastructure rapidly decreased.

The reduced infrastructure means the loss of jobs, and the loss of jobs ultimately means that the people can no longer earn money. The oligarchs and nomenklatura become richer and richer with the wealth they have embezzled, but the common people, who have to pay for even a loaf of bread in the newly introduced capitalism, have no money and are found starved to death the next day.

Usually, it is normal for the state to distribute food at this point, but even if it does, the nomenklatura takes it all in the middle, so there is no solution.

In other words, the gap between the rich and the poor widens.

It might have been better if they had just done that, but they also had secret, intimate relationships with the Russian mafia, to the point where citizens who should be protected by the state were being killed by the state.

Thus, it was no exaggeration to say that Russia in the 1980s and 90s was a utopia of corruption and bribery.

Of course, the Russian authorities tried everything they could to prevent it. However, false reports were submitted to remove political opponents who were working properly, or reports were not properly transmitted at all. So there was no way to succeed.

However, things have changed a bit since Putin came to power.

“How is the oligarch replacement project going?”

Putin was the person who was able to sit in this position because the oligarchs pushed him. Russia was now a capitalist country, and the oligarchs had the money. Boris Yeltsin, Putin’s predecessor, was the same. Elections were about money, and Boris Yeltsin was a president created by the oligarchs. And Putin was the same.

And Putin hated that fact very much. So he decided to wipe them all out.

“The FSB [Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation] is collecting information. There are so many things they’ve embezzled that they can already fill a small warehouse. I wonder how many such warehouses they will have by the time the investigation is over.”

The FSB was the successor organization to the KGB [Committee for State Security]. It goes without saying that the work they do is similar. Of course, the organization itself did not have as much power as it did during the KGB era, but Putin himself was from the former KGB. Then there’s nothing more to say, right? In a way, the KGB was once again dominating Russia.

‘I need to wipe out all these bastards within 3 years.’

Everything was going according to Putin’s intentions. It was a stroke of luck that the Middle East was in such a mess. But why did it have to explode in front of the TV, and in Red Square of all places?

The crisis was an opportunity. It’s a saying that not only Putin but anyone can say, but there are only a few people in the world who can really turn a crisis into an opportunity. He originally intended to raise Gazprom [a Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation], but on the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he changed direction and decided to raise it with all his might.

Everything was according to Russia’s intentions. But why is it so frustrating?

However, you can understand if you think about it for a moment.

This planet was ‘America’s canvas.’ Originally, England held the brush, but England could not bear the weight of the brush and sold it to America. Now, the Earth has become a drawing board that flows according to how America wields the brush. However, if a picture is drawn as the brush is wielded, there is no need to learn it.

America could not prevent the already colored picture from blurring as it pleased. Russia was like such a blurring paint. If oil prices remain high for another 20 years, the capitalist picture that America has been diligently drawing will become Russia’s. The capitalist picture was a picture that rich people bought.

‘But I’m worried.’

According to intelligence, the United States has begun to develop shale layers. It was judged that this was probably to completely escape the sphere of influence of the Middle East and Russia. It is true that a lot of oil comes out of the United States, but there are limits to the United States’ land alone.

Therefore, Putin was surprised that he had completely withdrawn his hand from the Middle East. It would have been cheaper to exert more influence in the Middle East than shale.

‘Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to do it really well.’

Perhaps if they had fully invested their power in the Middle East, the United States would have been sucked dry. They do not accept anything other than themselves. Still, although it is on the outskirts of the Middle East, Afghanistan has been completely turned into a pro-American puppet state, so Russia’s mouth was very bitter.

‘It seems that someone who knows the Middle East well is in the inner circle of the US President. He reacted very delicately.’

But I couldn’t understand why the president himself was acting so recklessly. In particular, I don’t know why he is so obsessed with fighter jets. In particular, I couldn’t even imagine the idea of conducting diplomacy in a fighter jet.

“Is he trying to make an air force out of tanks?”

“Yes!?”

“It’s nothing. How is contact with China going?”

“They say they want to meet as soon as tomorrow.”

“That’s good.”

While Bush was focusing on domestic affairs, Russia and China wanted to forge a closer relationship.