and your memory is intact. Somehow you've been given a second chance to make the World a better place. Fascinated by this particular plot device, I've been writing my own version taking Jackson Browne's notion that "It might be easier sometimes to change the past" to it's ultimate end.
It's not as easy as you might think to try to recall past events and figure out how to thwart evil. The memory of recent events starts to fail as time goes by. Waking up in your own 14 or 15 year old body knowing what you know about the future you are about to relive as past offers some interesting challenges and a faulty memory is paramount among them.
The Jacket, the Butterfly Effect, Deja Vu, Premonition, The Time Machine, 12 Monkeys, Ground Day, The philadelphia Experiment, Time Bandits, Next, Frequency, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future, 12:01, The Grand Tour, and not one gives us the pleasure of imagining a better world. Isn't that a paradox? (pun intended)
Let's propose that you're limited in what you can do below the fold - if you dare to pursue this dream and offer your own imaginings of how to change the past to make this the better future you think could be.
So which 5 American's would you eliminate by exposure if you could use your powers of prediction to keep someone from committing heinous crimes or seizing power? Stop Ted Bundy and Tim McVeigh or can you recall the places and dates where Ted and Tim did their evil deeds? You can save the World Trade Center - since you can surely recall 9/11. Show up on Bundy Drive on June 12, 1994 to see who is wearing that ill-fitting glove? Or do you figure out how to stop Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling along with Bernie Madoff? What day would you have to show up at Columbine High? When would you keep the cars off the Cedar Street Viaduct in Oakland?
Suppose you have three saves to make. Who do you choose? Can you convince JFK to eliminate J Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles, stop the Bay of Pigs invasion, and put a crack team on the trail of Lee Harvey Oswald along with every other possible element suspected of being involved in Dallas in Nov of 63? Can you keep Bobby out of the kitchen in the Ambassador Hotel? Surely you would track James Earl Ray in early April of 1968 or David Chapman in December of 1980.
Money won't be a problem if you can remember well. A sports trivia addict would do well at this.
You can bet a bundle on Pirates, Yankees, Yankees, Pirates, Pirates, Yankees, Pirates in October of 1960, bet the Dodgers 4 game sweep in 1963, the Amazin Mets in 69 and remember to bet heavily on Shurluck in the Preakness in 61 for a $65.00 payoff. You can take those winnings and buy Xerox stock for a few years before handing your investments over to Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway until August of 1987 when you short stocks until the Black Monday Crash in October is over. While your at it discover Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and the Stones along with Stephen King, John Grisham and J.K. Rowling. Then join forces Bill Gates and Steve Jobs along with Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Money and the power to seriously influence the world won't be a problem.
So which 5 people would you eliminate and which 3 would you save and what financial moves would you make to give you the power to improve our collective fate?
Saving JFK would have a profound effect on some of those I would choose to eliminate from their positions of power so keep that in mind when you consider your list.
Here's my elimination list:
- George Herbert Walker Bush and by doing so get two birds with one stone since W would never make it without Poppy. A few reels of film at a DKE party gone horribly awry at Yale in 67 should do the trick. White powder in a big pile, some barnyard animals, and Rohypnol should do the trick. Without Reagan George H. W. Bush doesn't make it to the White House and neither does his son.
- Ronald Reagan - If the Iranian Hostage crisis is eliminated we can avoid the Reagan Presidency and trickle down economics. With two JFK terms followed by LBJ then RFK and Gore there will be no chance for Reagan. No war in Vietnam and a less violent reaction to the counter culture can keep him out of the California governorship. Amplifying his close ties to McCarthy and the blacklists should help with that.
- Richard Cheney - I know if Bush and Reagan never get to the White House there will never be a VP Cheney but Cheney gets terminated with extreme prejudice in some horribly embarrassing way because he truly deserves it. Illegal substances in his car when he's busted DUI in Wyoming in the 60's should do it.
- A large package of Oxycontin makes it's way to Rush Limbaugh and we will let gluttony take it's course. Who knew those 50mg tablets were mislabeled as 5mg. Rush ends up in an emergency room and rehab after the overdose with enough on hand to insure his prosecution for intent to distribute.
- Rupert Murdoch - the atrocious Aussie and his Newscorp may have done more mass destruction than any entity in history. With enough capital gained from bets and investments there is more than enough to wreck his takeover plans and keep him harmlessly in Perth. (Rupert becomes an American and that qualifies him for this list)
And 3 to save:
Saving JFK while uncovering the conspiracy would stop Vietnam, the Nixon Presidency, RFK's assassination, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis if it's done right. With W out of the picture we would get to see that Gore Presidency we deserved and a concerted effort to address the climate crisis.
Saving Martin is the other imperative and it would be nice to keep Teddy off that bridge at Chappaquiddick while saving Mary Jo or to keep Paul Wellstone off that plane, or Patsy Cline or Malcolm X or Jimi, Janis, Duane, or John or to save Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, and John Edwards from themselves? I'm going with JFK, RFK, and MLK.
Is Heaven a world of your own making where your imagination is the only limitation - a version of "What Dreams May Come"?
What a wonderful world it might be with a few adjustment by my own private army of the 12 Monkeys.
Given the opportunity what adjustments would you make?
Who would you stop and who would you save to make the USA and the World a better place? Or perhaps you may just want to comment on your favorite time travel movies.
NOTE: REPLAY by Ken Grimwood was published in 1987 and I've been fascinated by the idea and the movies that have been made using the theme. It has always bothered me that Denzel in Deja Vu seems to be one of the few protagonists with success in eliminating an evil deed along with 12:01 and The Grand Tour.
It seems to me that one could not simply eliminate Lee Harvey Oswald and save JFK. It would require proving to the Kennedy brothers and their close advisers the ability to know the one known future/past while convincing them to have Lee Harvey Oswald, E. Howard Hunt and the Operation 40 team, Clay Shaw, and Jack Ruby closely monitored to ferret out their contacts and connections. JFK should have stopped the Bay of Pigs invasion before it began and we should have known about the missiles in Cuba months in advance of the 13 days. J. Edgar Hoover should have been removed from office along with Allen Dulles in the first weeks of 1961. In REPLAY the protagonist is successful in eliminating Lee Harvey Oswald but that does not save JFK.
The Wingnut would suggest that these changes in our history would have us enslaved by the USSR or the victims of a nuclear holocaust brought on by weakness and appeasement. What do you think?
I will save the next DailyKOS diary for choosing people outside the USA for elimination from power or saving.