The Fantasy Years

THE FREEDOM WAS ALSO FOR MONEY. Because in the reengineered language of the 1990s, the point of “freedom” was “wealth.” And if money wanted to drift upward into the hands and pockets and wallets and accounts of those who had it already, well then, who were the American people to stand in its way?

If money wanted to amass itself in enormous piles held by powerful individuals while other Americans went deep into debt paying for college or healthcare, well there was a term for this too: “personal responsibility.”

It was the personal responsibility of those going into debt to pay for life’s necessities to earn more. After all, the rich managed their finances successfully. What was wrong with everyone else?

“What’s wrong with me?” Dennis asked himself, surveying his cluttered apartment; -thought Jenny, putting the family’s groceries on the credit card, -thought Brandon, trying to estimate the cost of diapers, wipes and baby food on his budget and Mike and even Don, as they tried to make sense of their finances.

People everywhere were going broke, just living their normal lives. But the liberals, using the language engineered by right-wing think tanks, didn’t have the words to describe the reality. They didn’t talk about dollar and sense issues. No, the liberals were occupied answering the charges of their accusers. The liberals, facing a wall of accusation followed by a wave of wagging indignation, could only offer up meek, evasive quips.

“Yeah,” the liberals would concede, talking about economics “government bureaucracy is less efficient than business…”

And the Dittohead would strike, “More like government is always less efficient than business.”

“Well, you have a point but not everything is black and white,” the liberal would offer with a shrug.

“Principles matter,” the conservative would say, his jaw tight with exasperation for all that liberals didn’t understand. About principle.
“Yeah, but…”

And the mere concession of the “yeah, but” was an invitation for more accusation from the conservative accuser. After all, if the accuser was partly right, then the liberal was being a relativist. If the liberal was a relativist, it just proved that the accuser was right: nothing was concrete with liberals.

Jenny, Rick and family entered the Costco for the first time. They’d driven forty miles to get here and hoped it was worth the trip. The store was enormous, the carts were super sized liked they were at the Sam’s Club. The selection was amazing. But the store was laid out differently. There was more space at the front. The first thing you saw was row after row of electronics. Stereos, TVs, Walkmans, all stacked in their packages. The boys, almost like bird dogs, ran ahead.

“No, wait. You two get back here.”

But they’d found a woman in a Costco-uniform and hairnet giving samples of chicken and cheese-stuffed sausage. They stood bashfully before her.

“Look at them,” Jenny said to Rick.

They laughed watching their boys. It was obvious Jakob and Joshua wanted the free sample but were too shy to ask. “I’ll go,” said Rick.

Jenny pushed the cart through the aisle as the items turned from electronics to gifts, vases, and glassware sets. Jenny turned the corner into the snack food aisle. Bags of Doritos as big as pillows for the bed. Cheetoes. Lime-flavored nacho chips. Pretzels. Hot-flavored chips.

The boys pointed, Jenny relented, and they put some bags in the cart.

Around another corner came sodas, Coke, Pepsi, ginger ale, Sprite. In every sizeable denomination you could find. Stacked clear up to the sky.

Rick pulled down cases of Diet Coke.

Then came the prepackaged foods. The flavored rice packets, the stove top pasta packets, sold in lots of twenty. The frozen foods next. Boxes of 25 frozen burritos. Boxes of fifty frozen egg rolls. Bags of frozen chicken filets, of wings, of breasts.

Frozen shrimp. Frozen seafood.

The possibilities were endless.

Jenny knew it would probably go over budget but they could put it on plastic. Even if she was putting too much on plastic, the rationalization went like this: I’m buying groceries for my family. If I can’t afford what I need at the grocery store on the money we make then—then, she got distracted by the angus ground beef burgers. 40 for $30. The boys saw another free sample station and ran ahead. It looked to Jenny and Rick like grilled chicken.

“Well?” Rick asked, a smile on his face. “Should I run after them?”
“I think they’ve got the hang of it.”

Jenny and Rick walked together down the packed aisle and for some reason, she wasn’t sure why, she leaned up and kissed him. He smiled. And they strolled together arm in arm.

Rush fans knew liberals. Rush fans could identify liberals. They knew liberals better than liberals knew themselves. A voice in San Diego: “Liberals have no sense of humor.”
“The liberals are whiners,” he said.
“They’re weak.”
“They’re effeminate.”
“They’re Poindexters.”
“They don’t even know how many men make up a football team.”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather have a brainy liberal in charge of this country than a senile actor or his vacuous sidekick”, a third voice added, razzing the two, then walking off.
“Listen to the hatred,” said the one.
“The bitterness, said the other.”
“Why are you liberals so angry at the world?” The first voice called out.

The accusation, the knowing disregard for liberals electrified the land.

The radio hosts rasped into their microphones and their words issued from the mouths of their listeners days later. The imaginations of millions of Americans took in the ideas and spit them back out. The American language itself slowly froze the liberals out of the vocabulary, as their ideas became discredited or redefined.