I don't get nightmares. I cause them.
The diabolical overlords, thin-skinned and paranoid had demanded that town criers credit a huge amount of earnings into the overlords’ treasury.
These cash would be forfeited if the town criers make disparaging remarks about the overlords or engage in conversations deemed negative, conversations that will put the overlords in a bad light. This way the dystopic land would be silent of criticism and the overlords could continue to flourish without a need to check their behavior or mend their ways.
Or so they thought.
Oh how wrong they were.
How very wrong.
No regime can thrive while operating in a state of denial.
Their bumpf explaining the ruling of the overlords was perceived by many as yet another means of suppressing dissent.
Denizens of the land were resourceful.
Well-schooled and street-smart, access to unfiltered news was not difficult to come by.
Soon there existed a labyrinth of information networks operating effectively underground, sharing untainted, unadulterated intelligence free of sugar-coating, embellishment or downplaying.
Assimilation of raw facts is an irrepressible trait essential to all living creatures.
Facts comprise knowledge, knowledge is power.
The suppression of information is the suppression of knowledge. Quashing the exchange of information tantamounted to the oppression of the masses. It was nothing short of the persecution of those who harbored their own points of view. Rage was felt, and as in all cases, incredulity preceded rage. Rage following incredulity is white-hot rage.
The overlords’ desire NOT to dialog with their denizens was indicative of the overlords’ desire for a master-slave relationship. It was a form of relationship considered optimal for the overlords, a format desired by the overlords. To the overlords there was only one point of view – the overlords’ point of view, viewpoints of those with moxie were neither welcomed nor tolerated.
No healthy relationship based on one-way dialogs could exist; indeed monologs cannot form the basis of any meaningful ongoing association between living creatures. But the overlords desired no dialogs whatsoever. This is so twisted especially when the overlords claimed that – because they possess “wisdom” – it was their denizens themselves who had chosen the overlords to guide them. So “shut up, clean up, apologize, then we sit down and talk” mentality reigned. Arrogance personified. Overlords behaving like thugs and school yard bullies. Clearly biting the hands that fed them. Denizens fumed – “We elected you to screw us?”
There is now a lull. Calm before the storm.
Psephologists are predicting devastating, if not “interesting” results for the overlords in the next voting due in a couple of years – the slow-brewing storm. Stabbed in the back with a serrated knife, the oppressed will surely vote against the overlords.
Lohcifer sits on his perch watching.
And waiting for the inevitable.
A case of Dom Pérignon and tins of Almas caviar on standby.