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Show The Grapevine : A Nasty Vaporizer , By JOHN THOMAS "... Chronicle . . . constant irritation . . . illustrious 'leader . . . MUST BE STAMPED OUT! " The televiewer jolts its way into his mind. He guiltily looks behind himself, half expecting to see someone who'd report him instantly to NASTY (National (Na-tional Security.) But no one is there. And as long as he keeps to The one corner of his room not visible to the screen lie is safe. It's a rare moment of privacy, and he's vriting his most secret thoughts for transmission in the Chronicle . . . Secret Thoughts The national elections have not been truly free for sixteen years, not since BB (he was known as LBJ then) bluffed his way into office after pretending to withdraw. He had to win by pretense that time because be-cause he hadn't gained control of the nation's political machinery yet. But in each election since then only - one candidate his has had any chance of winning. After all, who counts the votes? BB had even less control in the '64 election, but he master-minded it anyway. There were still two parties, md he manipulated them both, deciding who their candidates would be and directing public thought and opinion to insure the "proper" results. He was successful; suc-cessful; he won. In his second election, BB pretended to withdraw, leaving his party's two peaceniks to fight it out until the riot-torn summer convention. Meanwhile he continued con-tinued his manufactured war in Asia to unite the country behind him and make voters hesitate to change eadership. Then, at the convention, he put his ma chine in gear and ran down the peace advocates in the midst of violence at home and abroad. A cowering convention nominated him unanimously. It wasn't as easy to control the other party. A man named Romney, since deleted from history, was entirely en-tirely untouchable; but he withdrew on the basis of public opinion polls, polls quietly penned by BB agents. Other candidates were easier. Most never entered at all because of these adverse polls. One (he was a governor of a substate on the Atlantic) agreed not to enter because BB promised him special consideration considera-tion in later elections so long as he didn't rock the boat. He's now on the Council. This left just one man for BB to beat, a man already al-ready labeled a loser by his defeat in the '60 election. Nobody votes for a loser. Deadline The clock strikes thirteen. Our man in the corner quickly finishes his work, hides his paper under his coat and twists his mouth into a smile for the televiewer tele-viewer as he leaves the living unit. He has just ten minutes to get to the Chronicle before transmission time. He doesn't make it. The house where this issue of the Chrony had been transmitted is deserted. The i Chrony moves around like a floating crap game to avoid NASTY, and he doesn't know where it will be next time. He returns to his autocar, softly cursing the traffic signal at Thirteenth East and Fifth South which caused his fatal delay. Some things never change! On the way back to his unit he is stopped for a routine search by NASTY. They find his article and vaporize him. |