Despite the predictions that Barack Obama would not act on his promise to lower the sea levels until he officially becomes President, the presumptive Democratic nominee went ahead and lowered the oceans last month in a hectic attempt to boost his own shrinking poll numbers. However, the resulting growth of landmass turned into a mixed blessing when it unexpectedly revealed the lost world of Atlantis with a history so shocking and controversial that Obama is now contemplating re-sinking the island by returning the seas to their previous levels. What the artifacts of Atlantis have told the world, is a story of the demise of a once great nation whose citizens grew spoiled and apathetic as they forgot the reasons for their success and allowed a sense of entitlement and self-loathing to set in.

Tile mosaics of the founders. Top left: Rahgun the first elected ruler; top right: Aurum Aqua aka Mr. Atlantis; bottom left: Atlantian author and intellectual Buklee II; bottom right: warrior/philosopher El Rahshu.

However, as the quality of life continued to improve, new generations of Atlantians began to forget the misery, the tyranny, and the injustice that had caused their ancestors to overthrow their kings and build a shining city upon a hill, based on new and rather revolutionary principles.

While the neighboring despots continued to be the masters of their populations, the people of Atlantis were the masters of their government. As tyrants were feeding their subjects in exchange for their freedom, the elected rulers of Atlantis made sure the people had the freedom to feed themselves. That difference inevitably made the Atlantians happier and more successful than others.

The neighboring despots hated Atlantis for the light of freedom it shone to their enslaved populations. They spent plenty of treasure and effort trying to convince Atlantians that their system of government was as flawed and unjust as any other, and that Atlantis was in a desperate need of change.

A stone craved figurine of a Whiner protester. Some Atlantian women of the Whiner persuasion used to rally in the streets of Atlantis in the nude, opposing self-defence against foreign warlords and other traditionalist policies. Their movement was called "Boobs not Ballistas."

The lies eventually began to take root when Atlantians became complacent enough to elect politicians who promised a safety net, with free breads and circuses as an added bonus, in exchange for their freedoms.

This led to a rise of peddlers of victimology and self-loathing, who split Atlantians into groups, assigned collective grievances, and preached everyone's moral right as victims to live their entire lives at the expense of all others.

A political party, whose name can roughly be translated as "The Whiners," ascended to power by exploiting the natural inequalities among people and encouraging jealousy and divisiveness. The Whiners gained more power every time they described a local hardship as a global catastrophe. Even natural events such as thunderstorms and earthquakes could be avoided, they claimed, if only more people trusted the Whiners and traded their individual freedoms for the safety of a collective trough.

The Whiners established a new, relative moral code, according to which good and evil switched sides so often that Atlantians could no longer keep track of it and eventually stopped caring. Part of this code was a doctrine stating that "the truth is always in the middle." The middle between "not whining" and "excessive whining" is, of course, "moderate whining." And since moderate whining is technically still whining, all traditionalists who wanted to be thought of as moderates, turned into Whiners by default, hastening the destruction of traditionalism in Atlantis.

When things began to fall apart under their management, the Whiners blamed it on the traditional Atlantian system and called for a radical change.

The Rise of Beri Ubomo

That was when a young charismatic, albeit inexperienced leader Beri Ubomo captured the peoples' imagination with a message of change and the unconditional faith in the power of the government to feed the multitudes. The MSM (main stream messengers) and institutions of learning. which were by then in the hands of the Whiners, helped Ubomo by amplifying his messianic whining while squelching the voices of the traditionalists.

Once in power, Beri fulfilled his promise of change and benevolently relieved Atlantians of the responsibility to feed themselves, establishing a free universal serfdom and proclaiming that Whining was now the law of the land.

Ubomo was known for making ignorant statements, misstating facts, and changing his positions on issues, later denying that he ever held the opposite view. Whenever a friend or family member had the audacity to displease him, he would throw them under the wheels of his chariot. A typical case involved his longtime shaman, who in a fit of public rage once shouted "May the Gods Damn Atlantis," which posed a threat to Ubomo's political career.

This remarkably well-preserved painting depicts Ubomo throwing his grandmother under the chariot.

Final Days

Ubomo turned out to be the strongest, albeit unwitting ally of every warlord and despot of the world, who viewed his ascension to power as the fruition of their subversive work and propaganda.

Not only did he legitimize their bogus grievances and blamed Atlantis for the miserable conditions under which the foreign despots put their own enslaved populations. Ubomo also made Atlantians as miserable and enslaved as any other despot, leveling the playing field and extinguishing the light of freedom that used to keep the world's hopes alive.

The only hope left in the world now belonged to the power-hungry warlords who were hoping to invade their neighbors. Their main target was, of course, the weakened Atlantis that still lived off its fabulous riches.

Ubomo's policy of avoiding war at any cost and appeasing the enemies (whom he dared not call enemies) had a devastating effect on Atlantis and its people. The Whiners had frightened the people with imagined catastrophes so often in the past that when a real catastrophe came, Atlantians no longer cared. The Whiners had presented good as evil so many times that when the real evil showed at the gates, Atlantians couldn't tell the difference. The nation stopped functioning and chaos ensued.

Out of the chaos, a Rasputin-like figure named Goreium emerged. He convinced Ubomo and the Atlantians that the real reason for all their troubles was the very existence of Atlantis with its social complexity, developed technology, excessive industriousness, and immoderate creativity. It angered the gods, the despots, and the witch doctors of the world. It caused great strife and conflicts, engulfing the world in a bloody war where nobody was safe. The only way to save humanity from extinction, according to Goreium, was for Atlantis and all its inhabitants to sink to the bottom of the sea.

This is where all official records stopped and we may never know how exactly Atlantis ceased to exist.

The Controversy

Some modern critics are quick to suggest that history of Atlantis parallels the battle of conservatism vs progressivism and that the Ubomo regime should be a warning about a possible Obama presidency. But such parallels cannot be justified as there is absolutely no resemblance between the Whiners and the modern Democrat Party, nor has progressivism ever resulted in the opposite of what was intended.

On the contrary, nine out of ten political science professors and Democrat Party strategists believe that good intentions are a sure way to pave the road to a just and equitable society. You can't argue with a scientific consensus.

Special reporting for the People's Cube by comrades Maksim and Red Square