Plausible Deniability...

Hey Everyone!! :-)

I just thought I'd share a little snippet from Alyce's adventures. If you're looking for a rabbit hole to explore, this one might suit your taste. Enjoy! :-)

Excerpt from Answers from Alyce:

It was pretty clear what the exhibit was trying to portray even without the narration that was playing in the background, especially when combined with what was going on in the forest scene. Part of the forest had already been razed and giant earth-moving machines were digging up the ground with large pipes being laid in the troughs that were created. The rest of the forest was being cut down and the trees loaded onto large, smoke-billowing trucks. A little farther down, where the pipes had already been buried, black sludge was pouring out of the end of one and into a river.

It was all so real I thought I could smell the water and the chemicals polluting it. "How do you make it look so realistic?" I gestured towards where the river seemed to simply disappear into a wall.

"It is a hologram with supplemental environmental control equipment to complete the experience."

"So, I really am smelling the river? I thought it was just my imagination because the image was so real."

"Yes. Scent stimuli are incorporated into the exhibit so that the effect is complete. Some species rely more on their sense of smell than they do on sight or hearing."

"That makes sense." I gestured at the office scene. "So that's supposed to be a politician taking a bribe from the company that is causing this destruction?"

"Correct. We thought that displaying the two scenes side-by-side would help make the connection between them obvious."

"Well, the end result is what happens, but it's not quite as obvious as just shoving a bunch of cash at someone. Usually, the closest most politicians come to taking cash for favors is if they own a business and someone¾generally a corporate lobbying group or a rich individual who wants a favor¾chooses to patronize the politician’s business, which results in them giving the politician money. But it’s under the guise of being a customer and receiving a product or service for their money. Though, under those circumstances, it’s fairly common for the price of the product or service to be quite a bit higher than comparable products or services from other vendors, conveniently enough. Then the politician might look favorably on legislation that might benefit their valued customer or unfavorably on legislation that would be detrimental to them. But even that's not the most common way people bribe politicians. There are other ways that are even less likely to come under legal scrutiny."

"What do you mean?"

I pointed at the office scene. "There are laws prohibiting that kind of thing, and even the type of laundered bribery I just told you about is iffy. Some politicians might break those laws, but there are ways around them that don't carry the risk of going to prison, so that's usually what they do."

"Can you elaborate?"

"Well, the most common way for people to legally bribe politicians is to make campaign contributions to them. They give them money the politicians can use to help them get elected again. But there are laws limiting how much money people can give directly to politicians so, a lot of the time, corporations and rich donors who want favors from politicians will give money to PACs¾Political Action Committees¾that work to help get politicians elected. Technically, politicians aren't allowed to be directly involved with PACs or to coordinate election strategy with them, but they can usually get around that because it's hard to track. Not that anyone tries all that hard."

"So wealthy people give money to these PACs and then politicians allow them to pollute your planet? And why does no one attempt to investigate if a politician is not following the laws regarding these PACs?" asked Squid-boy.

"Mostly no one investigates because the investigations would be done by either law enforcement or the media. Law enforcement works for, and is controlled by, politicians. And almost all politicians skirt those laws, so they don't want to encourage investigations of that kind. Large corporations that sometimes want to be able to legally bribe politicians own the media; at least, they own the media that has the largest audience. So, they don't allow their employees to pursue investigations into violations of those laws, either. Or, more often, they just don't hire people who would be interested in doing those kinds of investigations."

"As for your first question, it's not quite that direct, either. It's not so much that politicians allow certain companies to just pollute, usually. That can happen, but it's not how it's usually handled. What they do is either repeal or refuse to pass legislation that would regulate manufacturing practices, limits on emissions, and waste disposal. So, since there's no law against dumping chemicals in rivers, and it's cheaper to just dump the chemicals in the river than to dispose of them safely, corporations end up polluting. Because from their perspective, there's no reason not to."

"But don't your people wonder why their representatives allow such a lack of regulation when it results in danger to your populace and damage to your planet? How do they justify not having those laws?" asked Yax.

"Well, that's kind of complicated, too."

He gave me his Devil's grin again. "We have time."



Want to find out what else Alyce has to say? Grab your copy at the link below! Happy reading! :-)

Answers from Alyce