The Baroness has been on vacation for a few weeks, getting some much needed rest at Sandals: Jamaica. But today she's back to help us all out of another moral quandry. Today, Baroness is confronted with a real poser: The mayor of the Freedom City is in dire straights. The war he started to bring precious freedom to a bunch of ungrateful brown-skinned savages has become dangerously unpopular. Two years in, and residents of the former developed secular republic are now cowering in hovels without water or electricity, trying to avoid being blown up by walking bombs. To make matters worse, every single person associated with the mayor's administration is under indictment or investigation for various felonies. What would The Baroness do?
"THE FOOLS! The answer to this is so obvious that it barely warrants mentioning. As soon as any bunch of peasants starts to become unruly they are always most effectively dealt with with FEAR!!! Ha Ha Ha! First I would identify a new non-threat to the dead-eyed, effete, and corpulent populace. Ideally a threat from a strange and foreign oriental land. Something like a mysterious virus. Yes that's it! Never mind that the virus is endemic to poultry and has caused ony a handful of human deaths. What matters is the threat. What about cancer, AIDS, or car crashes that kill thousands more a day than this Chinee virus? Pah! Those are useless to me. The public has grown bored with such commonplace bugs. Something new and exciting is needed. Forget the reality that it will likely never actually kill anyone here, the FEAR is the important thing.
Once I had identified the yellow menace I would stoke the fires of unease by ensuring that every single fatality in those far off lands was covered heavilly on the televised teat at which the populace suckles. Within a few short weeks they will be driven into a frenzy, demanding that something be done to counter the impending doom. That is when I would strike. COBRA! I would appear on national television and announce a sweeping billion dollar plan to deal with this monster in the closet. All of the proposed measures would be useless of course in the event of a real viral outbreak. The center-piece of then plan would be to stockpile huge quantities of a drug that has not been demonstrated effective against the virus in question. But here's, as they say, the kicker: Major Rumsfel...err, Blud, will profit handsomely. It would be too obvious if he were somehow directly connected with the manufacturer of the drug. However, No one will realize that before joining COBRA he was chairman of the company that owns the rights to it. He owns millions of dollars of their stock!!!
Of course my main goal has now been achieved. The public is now far too busy trying to get their hands on the placebo, stocking up on respirators, and avoiding orientals to care about a few brown-sklinned babies getting incinerated by white phosphorous. I am even willing to bet that many of them will forgo their traditional turkey dinner for fear of the asiatic pandemic.
COBRA!!!