Chapter 78
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On Monday September 19th Eve was working her shift. She heard mr Sanchez on the phone with mr Dole. Dole seemed to be on one of his rants, and Sanchez either agreed completely, or was going along with the boss. Eve knew that mr Dole was old school, seemed to believe that any form of forced rationing was socialism or communism. He firmly believed in the system that allowed the indivudual to prosper, as he had, and seemed to want to protect the capitalist system. Mr Dole seemed at times to look down on people, figuring it was their own fault for being poor. He felt that social programs created a "lazy discontent rabbel instead of a thrifty working class." Dole and Sanhez were talking about the upoming governor election in New Jersey. From what Eve could gather the incumbent supported Mason's policies. The challenger, wanted to end the rationing as quickly as possible. The challenger also claimed to be "tough on crime." A part of Eve was still inspired by those sheriffs who refused to evict people, but she said nothing to mr Dole about her feelings. Noone could deny there had been an increase in theft, abuse, rape, even murder, since 2/4. Some figured all that could happen would be forced to work on the Arks, which meant more chances. Although rape had increased, so had false accussations of rape. Some female Ark workers were believed to make false accussations against others to take away their chances, and increase their own. When Eve had served on the jury, that thought had occurred to her. Some were resorting to extreme measures against criminals, turning to vigilantism, violently assaulting criminals. Some vigilanties even wore Batman masks while doing this. This caused Eve to reconsider Batman, America's most revered violence-prone vigilantie. Mr Dole joked that if he were a few decades younger, he might be jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Neither candidate for governor officially endorsed these vigilanties, but said they understood their frustration. At Eve's mosque they had a ritual. The imam would introduce a person, say they just got out of prison, and ask the congregation to welcome them back to Allah's house. Eve preferred this to armed vigilanties.