(This is the General Dynamics sales brochure of their new ballistic missile submarine. It is a pricey beast, with a dealer tag of nearly $9 billion—nearly the amount of fraud found so far in the Minnesota day care system. But check the subtitles: it is a diligent handmaiden—guarding against the fires of hell while retaining the ability to deliver the same to any target on the face of the Earth, from any place deep enough to not scrape the bottom in the World Ocean. “Large and In Charge,” is how GD puts it.

Look at the sort of missions it can accomplish with nearly 2,000 cross-platform delivery systems, and a dozen MIRV’d ballistic missiles that could effectively eliminate any of the theater-level threats in the Caribbean, Iran, China or Russia. Or all of them at once. The Detroit riot 1967 produced 43 deaths and over 1,000 injuries over five days, with significant property damage that killed the tax base and set the city back a half-century in development.

See that little thing on the left of the brochure? Yep. It is the Washington Monument knocked on its side, presented only to show the relative sizes of the issues involved. There are no plans to do so at the moment, but the times are moving swiftly, aren’t they? It reminded some of us of the picture below:)

There is so much going on that even the formerly active-duty crowd at Socotra House had to do what had worked on the World Ocean in times of trouble. They turned on the flat screen at the south wall of the conference room and raised the screen on the east wall to allow the room to be flooded with gray light. The screen on the south wall flicked to an image of the tower of the Juche Idea of self sufficiency in Pyongyang. It is an impressive thing that was on a target list some of us shared. Just to see what it would look like on its side.

Section Leader Miles looked down the table and did what had propelled him to the apex of his trade as a bureaucratic and Creative Section Leader. He looked at Melissa and said, “Why don’t you and Splash take the Taiwan messaging challenge. It seems like they may use the American activity in the Caribbean and the fall of Maduro in Venezuela as an excuse to settle the matter of who runs things in Taipei.”

He handed his tablet to Melissa with a bright picture of the former Republic of China’s Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek—a massive bronze figure inside the grand blue-and-white Memorial Hall, a major landmark that still features hourly changing-of-the-guard ceremonies and exhibits in Liberty Square. Taiwan also celebrates its newer democratic tradition there, standing against the Maoist threat across a narrow strait in the World Ocean.

That led to Melissa ushering Splash, Eddie, and Kit to the end of the table with the best view of what had been Farmer Tyson’s peach orchard before it was paved over fifty years ago by the National Automobile Dealers Association to build their national headquarters. which was ripped down to erect the plush new multi-purpose tower where we work. Or at least has decent beverage services.

Miles was in full business mode as he directed Rocket and Holly to find people who recalled what the situation was like when Fairfax County changed from an agricultural county into whatever it is becoming now.

There had been talk about restructuring the Memorial to soften some of the more authoritarian aspects of its design—to reconcile that dramatic past with Taiwan’s new vibrant democracy. That- naturally- led to discussions about removing or contextualizing monuments all over. Or just tipping them over on their sides.

Which led, in turn, to the question of whether the trouble on America’s streets was more or less violent than the ones in which the Boomers had participated in the 1960s.

Miles now faced the management challenge of allocating the dwindling number of Boomers who actually remembered those years—Detroit, Newark, Watts—when cities burned and the 82nd Airborne was not a metaphor.

At that moment, an ad spot appeared featuring a prim Minnesota teacher who seemed to be urging Milwaukee parents to use their children as assets in the struggle against the federal government.

That messaging was quickly lost in the swirl of coverage surrounding the latest ICE shooting. We could not immediately tell whether the news from Portland referred to the one in the upper Midwest or the one in Oregon.

It took a minute to unscramble, since the only constant seemed to be which part of the Caribbean the people who had attempted to run over police officers with their car were from. It turned out the two who were shot were involved in what was described as a Tren de Aragua delivery system for prostitutes trafficked into whatever part of the United States someone believed needed demographic change.

Miles had run out of Boomers who were awake for breakfast but plowed down through the Generational cadres available for tasking on creative projects.

(Time Magazine captured this striking image of Detroit in 1967 on day three of the 12th Street Riot).

“We are confronting trouble overseas and here at home, just like the 1960s,” he said. “So far it’s less violent—but what were we thinking? Importing ten or twenty million undocumented people from the Horn of Africa and Latin America was not going to result in the creation of new Ward and June Cleaver suburban families. Instead, it is changing Minneapolis into something that looks a lot like Mogadishu, along with a lot of other places facing the same challenges.”

Having arrived at that conclusion, he turned to the last item on his daily list for the week.

“I will need some help in getting the Washington Monument to lay down on its side—just long enough to show the kind of technology we now rely on to keep the world upright.”

The atmosphere shifted as the group instinctively reverted to old habits, seeking comfort in familiar routines. The subtle hum of electronics became a backdrop to their quiet anticipation, each person contemplating the significance of the moment as the room brightened with muted daylight.

Rain might be coming after lunch.

We may need to do some training in case we have to blockade the intersection down below. It appears to be an effective strategy to place angry women behind the wheels of their cars to obstruct law enforcement.The Washington Monument has always stood as a symbol of permanence, but permanence is no longer the problem. The problem is scale—what it now takes to hold the world steady, and how quietly that work must be done. What once required armies in the street and airborne divisions now hums beneath the ocean, unseen, waiting.

History, it turns out, doesn’t repeat itself so much as it changes platforms.

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com