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Along Life’s Way
Acronyms to
Acrimony: A Fable
© 2018 Lois E. Wilson
The country’s founding fathers had established a government with
structure and standards. They called the new nation SAKO which derived
from their goal, Structure Always—Keep Objectives. Over its
200-plus years, two main political parties had emerged.
The conservative OAKS party’s guiding principle was “Our Allegiance—Key
Strength.” Its name was inspired by the old forests of stately trees
found throughout the land.
The liberal party ASKO (Ask; Suspect Kept Order) envisioned itself as
the monitor of the government. Their actions of opposition often
included tactics of accusations and stalling. When a candidate of the
OAKS party surprisingly became President, they fought him at every
opportunity. A loyal opposition no longer existed.
The more radical members of ASKO did not believe the party was being
assertive enough. They wanted a more disruptive approach and loudly
called for the President’s impeachment. They formed a splinter
organization (Select Opposition; Aim; Knockout) SOAK whose mission was
to target goals, causes, and people of the OAKS party.
They advocated publicly confronting officials of OAKS. By using social
media, they could assemble a sizable protest crowd with anti-OAKS signs
to harass at speaking events. It was reported that some of the
demonstrators were trained, paid participants. At times violence
occurred. It was SOAK’s method of capturing the news cycle for a period
of time.
Some of the ASKO party leaders seemed to endorse SOAK’s actions by
either ignoring them or joining in its cries for impeachment. They
exhibited more and more acrimony toward the President, his party, and
its goals for the country.
The President was having economic successes and trying to proceed in
fulfilling campaign promises. He attempted reaching across the
political aisle for bipartisan solutions, but was usually rebuffed. The
country was being hurt by the growing divide.
Where will all the acrimony lead? What will happen to the nation of
SAKO? Acronyms have led to acrimony. Will acrimony lead to KAOS (Kill
Achievements; Overturn Society)?
Moral: A nation must be alert to dangers from within. Founding fathers
would expect citizens to stand firm and protect their legacy. As Norton
Juster observed in ‘The Dot and the Line’, “Freedom is not a license
for chaos.”
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