Civil Disobedience

The President's eyes danced furtively from woman to woman, flecks of foam beginning to form at the corners of his mouth. "How unpatriotic of you! How un American! How disloyal! You're a bunch of Atheistic conspirators set to destroy our culture."

"We are not," Dr. Holter replied with another toss of her head that set off a jiggle. "We are all Christians, all middle of the road, all laywomen. We've said nothing against faith or morality; we're just not your kind of Christian."

"After all we've been through as a country, you would do this to us? You'll commit this obscenity on behalf of the children? Won'ttheybe ashamed of you?" muttered the President.

"Our children will understand," said the Northwestern University Economist. "My daughters will be with me in Chicago." She touched her breasts. "This is the means we gave them life and nourishment when they were small. You're trying to cut them off from what gives them health and life.Youshould be ashamed."

The former Harvard Professor spoke up: "My children and grandchildren are now living in trailer parks, thanks to your policies. They're intelligent, talented, well educated people. Thanks to your downsizing, outsourcing, and deprivation, they have to work minimum wage jobs without benefits, and have to time to fully realize their potential or even take a well earned day off. I'm living in a cabin in rural Vermont and have to grow my own food as much as possible. Genevieve has to live in a tenement with her sister and Jessica's sharing a house with three other people. We have nothing to lose."

The President suddenly looked tired. "So what are you asking of me?"

Dr. Stein replied: "A paradigm shift. Give education back to good educators, health care back to those who need it, like everyone, and freedom from unfettered Capitalism."

"And if we don't?"

"T.A.R.T.s all over the country will tell the Naked Truth as long as it takes."

The President sighed. "If you would step into the outer office for a few minutes, we will be with you shortly." The women turned and walked toward the door. "Don't you want your clothes back?"

The Stanford Physicist tossed her head. "We'll pick them up when we come back–

maybe." They left calmly holding their heads high. The door was closed.

"Well, that was a fiasco," said the Press Secretary. "What are you going to do about topless women all over the country?"

"Can they do what they're threatening to do?" said the President.

The NSA Advisor nodded slowly. "Yes, as far as I know, they can. We won't be able to stop it and we won't be able to keep the wraps on it. Sorry, you know what I mean. Whether people will listen to them, I don't know, but they'll get their exposure. Oh, dammit, you know what I mean. . ."

Thlippknott looked sick. "They work for private universities, and I don't even know if they have morals clauses in their contracts. Stein's retired, so we can't get her fired, the others have tenure and they can't be fired without grounds. They're prominent enough that there's no undercover pressure we can bring unless there's a skeleton in their closets we haven't found yet. If they claim civil disobedience, their schools probably won't be able to fire them unless they're caught fornicating with their students in broad daylight in the midst of these demonstrations. And once the demonstrations get started, anything we say against them will look like a cheap shot."

Kriegsturmer's breathing was slowly returning to normal, and he unbuttoned his coat; he got out his palm pilot and began a frantic text message, still licking his lips occasionally. Senator Jones gave the Press Secretary an odd look. "You didn't seem too put off by this display, Guido. What kind of man doesn't get hot and bothered by knockers on display?"

"I did a few exposeés on the strip clubs when I worked for the tabloids. After a while, when you see one set of boobs, you've seen them all. My wife will tell you that I have all the right impulses at the right times. The question is what we're going to do about this protest?"

NSA advisor Jerry Kent switched into high gear. "There's no way we can let this happen, Mr. President. It'll be the downfall of our culture. I'm sure that I don't have to remind you that when breasts popped into mainstream movies in 1968, Hefner became popular, hippies ran around naked and the whole country fell apart. Streaking became a fad in 1974: Nixon was forced out of office and within a year we lost South Vietnam. Attorney General Ashcroft, prophet he was, got all kinds of criticism for covering those shameful topless statues at the Justice Department years ago. It wasn't until about 12 years ago, starting with the Janet Jackson incident, that we were able to get the message across to the country how big a threat bare breasts are to our way of life. Since then, it's taken years of persuasion, championing virtuous young women, bribing of potentially shameless women, Hefner and Flynt finally dying and taking their perversion with them, and eventually, modification of the Motion Picture Code to get breasts out of the public view. We paid a couple of Oscar winners a fortune over the years to keep covered up. We can't go back."

The Secretary of Education was nodding his head. "We've got to stop this demonstration. God will not countenance a permissive society: that's been proven objectively in history. The fall of every great nation and empire has been preceded by a decline of morals, of a permissive attitude and tolerance for perversion. We may need to give back some things in the classroom, but it's only a strategic retreat. We can't risk what God will do if we let all these women run around naked. We may lose control of the oil fields, we may lose our position of influence in the world. We may have another terrorist attack on our soil. The Chinese may call in our debts. Our country will sink back into the morass of Moral Degeneracy; we'll be lost. We can't let this protest happen; the T.A.R.T.s will ruin us."

"At very least, we'll look weak." Senator Jones popped a stick of gum in his mouth.

"Our base of support won't support us if we let this demonstration happen in their cities and towns. We promised traditional moral values in the White House, and we've got to uphold that promise more than anything else. If we don't, our religious supporters will look for leadership and political alliances elsewhere. We must keep the T.A.R.T.s covered up at all costs."

The President looked around the room. Not a smile in sight, not an eye met his, a cloud passed between the descending sun and the White House. Blandini started humming quietly again until another look from Mastorum stopped him. "Well genius, have you got any ideas?"

"I'd advise you not to react, Mr. President. Let them do what want without any official response. People will think they're crazy, and after some initial buzz they'll fade back into obscurity." Blandini remained calm as he continued. "The worst thing you could do is react hysterically."

The President and his advisors looked at each other incredulously. Thlippknott's mouth started forming the word No compulsively over and over again. The President looked around him: "Kent."

The Senator and the NSA advisor said simultaneously: "Yes, Mr. President."

"Sorry, dammit, why to you have to have the same damn name. What do each of you think?"

"We have no choice, Mr. President."

"Agreed. No choice, Mr. President. We must do anything we can to prevent this outrage."

"Kriegsturmer? Would you kindly give your attention to the problem at hand?"

The Chief of Staff thrust his palm pilot into his coat pocket. "It's too much. We won't be able to take it. Give them what they want." The palm pilot came back out; an incoming text message gave Kriegsturmer good news, and he sighed in relief.

The President hit a button on his communcations monitor: "Stacey, ask the professors to come back in, please."

The women returned and stood facing the President, hands on hips, a chill breeze perking their nipples. Only Blandini and the President looked up, the rest stared at the floor. A long moment passed as the women faced down the men. The voice that came from the President was a shadow of its usual vigor.

"All right. No signing ceremony tomorrow; I'll prepare a veto message and it'll stick without an override. We'll work on the rest of the agenda. We'll be in touch. Call off the demonstrations."

The women picked up their sweaters and blouses. Dr. Genevieve Adams looked back at the President. "Thank you, Mr. President. The T.A.R.T. demonstrations will be postponed. We will be in touch. Of course, the T.A.R.T.s can come out a moment's notice, so if you backtrack on us. . . Good evening."

"Aren't you going to put your clothes back on?"

"When we get to the next room. Good evening, Mr. President."

The women left; the men sat in silence. The Secret Service were statues, and the shadows lengthened. At last, President Mastorum said, "I don't have much of an appetite tonight, guys. If you want to stay for supper, please be my guest, but I think I'm going to my room early. Thank God the First Lady is already in Texas. We'll meet in the morning to work on this 'strategic retreat' of policy."

The men quietly left the room, leaving the President alone to rub his eyes. He went to a small bathroom to take some aspirin, then gathered up his briefcase to take to his private quarters.

Coming out into the hallway, President Gene Mastorum found the entire secretarial staff waiting for him. Fifteen women between the ages of 19 and 54, all sizes were there in a bunch, topless. His personal secretary, Stacey Whitcomb, a medium height, stocky woman who had short, dark hair, a thick waist and globular, pink-nippled breasts, was their spokesperson. "Mr. President, we'd like to have a word with you about our benefit package."

The President's scream of absolute horror was heard in every corner of the White House.