Shimmy-Sham-Shump

Ok.
So let's say there's this state, right,
Let's call it "Shimmy".

Shimmy has a government
and the government of Shimmy knows
it doesn't have the support of the people.

There's a lot of people in the government of Shimmy
who have a lot invested
and desperately want to stay in power.

What does the government of Shimmy do?

Well,
the situation is a little more complicated than that
so let's just leave the question for a moment.



Ok.
Let's say there's this other state,
Let's call it "Sham".

Sham has a government
and the government of Sham knows
it doesn't have the support of the people.
(Did I mention that Sham is the most powerful state in the world?)

There's a lot of people in the government of Sham
who have a lot invested
and desperately want to stay in power.

What does the government of Sham do?

Again, it's a bit more complicated,
so just bear with me another moment.



Sham has a little puppet state called "Shump".
Shump has a government
and the government of Shump knows
it doesn't have the support of the people.

There's a lot of people in the government of Shump
who have a lot invested
and desperately want to stay in power.

What does the government of Shump do?



Here's where it gets interesting...

The government of Shump says it hates Shimmy and says that Shimmy is dangerous.
The government of Shimmy says it hates Shump and says that Shump is dangerous.
The government of Sham hates them both and doesn't care what happens as long as Sham can sell guns and make shit loads of money.

You can probably see where this is going.

It's good for Shimmy to be the victim
of an attack by Shump
because then the government of Shimmy
can say to the people
"See, I told you they were out to get us"
and solidify their power base.
So Shimmy provokes Shump.

It's good for Shump to be the aggressor
because the government of Shump
can say to the people,
"We did this to defend you;
they pushed us to it;
we had no choice"
and solidify their power base.
So Shump provokes Shimmy.

It's good for Sham to allow this all to happen
because violence equals guns to the power of money
and then the government of Sham can say to the people,
"We will negotiate peace and bring stability to the region"
and solidify their power base.
So Sham (covertly) helps escalate the tension between Shimmy and Shump.



So that's the way to do it.
As long as it's good for everyone
(except the poor people who always pay the price)
Shimmy, Sham and Shump
will wait for the right moment
and do each other a favor.

Of course, there are a few details I left out
(like how states are as imaginary as Alice's Wonderland,
a facade so that rich people can make money.)
but that seems to be the gist of it.
(However, this may all be BS.)




Please stay tuned... your regularly scheduled programming will resume shortly.
But first a word from our sponsor:

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I met the Walrus, by Josh Raskin and James Braithwaite