This is a VERY rough draft of a satirical piece I’m thinking of working on and sending to a (leftist) magazine. What do you think?

In today’s world, the most important thing about any industry is sustainability. Any investment you consider should be examined in terms of whether you can set up operations to continue profiting for a long, long time. And you’re in luck! We’re once again at the cusp of a big surge in an endlessly renewable resource for the American economy. Amazing as it might sound, it’s really, truly infinitely renewable, actually… at least, if you set things up correctly.

Here’s what you do. First, you set up bad guys in control of foreign countries. It’s best to do this with some kind of justification, like, “These guys will help us fight the greater evil of Communism/Fascism/Abortion/Drugs/Violent Cartoons/Whatever”. Never mind that they’re fascists, or theocrats, or mafioso-types. This is exactly what you want, but bear in mind that it’s much easier to pull off when you can project a worldwide crisis situation. If you can’t, then make sure to choke of domestic media coverage of the event. Arrange for some political sex scandals or the release of some very entertaining videogames and films that summer.

Now, that’s the hard part, and it’s over. Next, all you need to do is bide your time. Bad guys will be bad guys, and this is very good. All you need to do is accumulate a litany of “bad things” that they’ve done. Yes, yes, you’re the one who put them in place. Nobody will care much about that, because mostly people won’t know; and among those who do know, most of them won’t care because you’ll have such a wonderful litany of bad things to point to every time they complain.

Should one of these complainers point out the fact that you put these “bad guys” in power in the past, explain you needed to do it because of the “other bad guys”.

[Reminder: The “Other Bad Guys” are your Abortionists, Drug Producers, Violent Cartoon Makers, Communists, Fascists, or Whateverists.]

Okay, so that should just about silence any criticism preventing you from convincing that the “bad guys” are bad.

Back up a little bit. What you need is a culture that adores violence. A culture whose movies and news focus on violence centrally. Not graceful violence, not controlled violence like in ninja movies, for example. We can a society that creams its jeans when it sees trucks exploding, planes smashing into [foreign] buildings, colored people being shot to pieces, and the tossing of hand grenades. If possible, machine guns should be used in movies instead of hand guns. Soldiers should be represented as using ammunition in such amounts that in real life, the base stores would be depleted within a few days.

Of course, there’s no way you can ensure a culture gains this kind of obsession, but in certain modern countries, luck is on your side, and you’ve got precisely that situation.

So if you’re lucky like that, you will have not a moment’s problem in convincing a majority of people that a war with “the bad guys” is necessary. Never mind whether they’re a real threat (which they’re probably not, as most of these “bad guy” types are relatively small operators, big fish in small domestic ponds as it were).

Now here’s where you start to see some real dividends. You’ve invested some time and money in placing “bad guy” regimes, and heres your chance to collect on your investment. All you need to do is find some justification.

Here are some examples of incidents you can use to launch an attack:

• One “bad guy” invades another “bad guy” territory.
• Some random group of “bad guys” attack you.
• Freelance “bad guys” whom you haven’t yet hired, or whom you’ve “recycled” (see below) are currently residing in that country.
• “Bad guys” do something silly like legalizing something that is illegal in your country. (Example: heroin distribution; gay marriage; actual free speech; a socialist government.)
• You want to boost your approval ratings domestically.
• Nothing interesting is going on these days.

and the most important reason of all:

• Your economy needs bolstering.

So then, here’s what you do. You negotiate backing by your legislative bodies by whatever means you find necessary, interesting, entertaining, or easiest. (The threat of more sex scandals may help, or you can simply fabricate evidence of some danger to manufacture the impetus for attack.)

Then launch an attack. Don’t worry about planning it too much. Your past successes in this recyclable industry have set you up with such advanced technology that you can basically pull it off by just arming your soldiers and then telling them, “Go that way! Get them there bad guys!” The military will worry about finer details, and if they don’t, well, that’s not your problem.

The attack will mess up the other country. This looks bad. This is not bad. It is very, very good. It is a great sign that your investment is about to pay off. The broken buildings will need reconstruction. The broken government will need replacement.

Now, other states have made the mistake of setting up democratic government to represent the beleaguered natives at this point. This has a lot of spin value, a lot of merit in terms of winning the approbation of the people native to that area, who would, one supposes, be relieved to be freed from the yoke of their oppressors. (Ha, ha.) It will get you in good with groups of international do-gooders, too.

But you should think again.

What’s the single biggest lesson that we’ve been learning for centuries in business? It’s that if you want your industry to survive, you need to engineer sustainability into your materials. The most common method of doing this, when it is possible and feasible, is to rely as much on recycling the materials that are already at your disposal.

Now, in this case, your materials are the colored people living in foreign countries; your military power, including the power over which new set of “leaders” are placed in control of the area you’ve just conquered (“liberated”); and your peripheral industries (like construction and energy corporations).

Clearly, viewed in these economic terms, you can see what a loss for your industry it would be if you set up anything other than more “bad guys” in control of the country in question. Your investment will be blown on a flash-in-the-pan effort, albeit a lucrative one. You could, of course, cash in and then cash out while your profits are huge. But you need to think of those who come after you; it’s already been demonstrated that the industry is a sustainable one, one which, if you use intelligent recycling techniques, will allow you to profit time and time again from the same simple procedure.

It’s even possible that in the future, the procedure could be automated, so that no soldiers need be deployed; or, alternatively, military duties could eventually be outsourced to the best (lowest) licensed bidder. You could even make more profit on the side by instituting your own private military organizations to garner the bids! Once this industry is solidly entrenched, the sky’s the limit in terms of both profit and possibilities.

Next time, this column will feature hints about specific techniques that allow you to recycle your foreign resources with the maximum efficiency, minimize obstructions set up by do-gooders who seek to prevent you from collecting on your rightful investments, and how to invest your profits and diversify to ensure that you will successfully adapt once the industry achieves sustainability and more competition emerges.

Until then, good luck, and think sustainability!