While America Blathered
Gotta get away
from this day-to-day
running around,
Everybody knows
this is nowhere.
Let's review. Two American task forces and one Marine Expeditionary unit in the Persian Gulf conducting "war-games." 15 UK sailors and marines captured by Tehran and now pawns in what looks to become a long-running series of daily humiliations of a clearly de-fanged and neutered Britain reduced to the "Pretty please?" stage of diplomacy. Russian intelligence reports of a "build-up" of American forces on the borders of Iraq and Iran. A secretary of state at large in the Mid East enacting a sequel to "Strictly Ballroom" in Palestine.
And that beat goes on.
At home, a self-gelded opposition party is forced to sneak through a bill that prohibits Muslim provocateurs from suing ordinary Americans who, on instructions from their government to report suspicious activities at airports, do so. While this is going on, partisan hate in DC and on the Internet is reaching such toxic levels that -- in DC --hazmat suits are about to be issued to sitting congressperns, Senators, staff, and the lockstep marching media morons.
On the Internet even techbloggers are getting death threats. And are actually surprised. "Who, us?" When I pointed out in a forum that political bloggers such as Michelle Malkin have been living with this Web reality for years, the first response was, "Well, Malkin deserves it, but not us."
In Washington, somebody is unfortunate enough to have cancer return to his liver and people split on their reactions to this depending on their party affiliations: "We will pray for him and his family." vs. "God always gets you when you're working for evil.... And by the way, that war in Iraq that's on full-boil in the Mid East, we've really got to do something cowardly about that in -- oh -- about a year or so."
Cross fade to the daily distraction and heavy breathing all around on what potential president in about two years is picking up what "key" endorsements right now. Steve Forbes steps up for Rudy -- don't forget about the dead on arrival flat tax! Billie Jean King for Hillary -- break out the whoopee cushions for breakthrough feminists from the 1970s!
Oh yes, oil's up for seven days in a row because the folks who look at oil futures and present realities don't mess about with the politics of the possible or the politics of perfection. They're into zero-sum and multiplying money. Good thing we're moving out of winter, but get your bicycles oiled and your shoes re-soled for spring and summer. If crude futures spiral up into winter you're going to be praying Global Warming is true.
And the blather goes on. Because, well, it is all we have left in the trepanned national brainpan. Yammering yahoo voices assail us -- the UN says this, Iran says that, your drool-cupped moron is up in the polls and my feckless idiot is down. Anna Nicole killed herself because, well, she just had no understanding of drugs. Do tell? Tell us more.
All this repetitive tripe is trotted out as if this nation has any control of the future left to it. It doesn't. Our enemies control our future, because we simply will not. Our new national anthem is "If only you believe in miracles, baby / So would I," because if Grace Slick can sing it anybody can.
Simply sampling a soupcon of a day's worth of the clotted blather coming from the left, the right, the center, or the stupid -- now all firmly ensconced in the Congress and the White House -- proves only by the endless rounds of "gotcha," that not only does the nation no longer have any control over itself, many of its citizens have no control over themselves as well.
Well, what of it? Why should we have any control over ourselves when so little is asked of us, and we ask even less than that from ourselves?
3000 incinerated in your leading city? Go to the mall and select the latest electronic gizmodo.
Don't have enough cash to manage your jumbo mortgage and credit card debt? Take another shot at the latest Lotto with a dollar and a dream.
Don't like your mate? Dump it and get another.
Don't like your kid? Drug it.
Don't like your President? Impeach him.
Don't like your army? Burn them in effigy.
Don't like your flag? Take a dump on it.
Don't like your chest? Implant it.
Don't like your ass? Liposuction it.
Don't like how the sun shines on your head? Tanning bed.
Don't like this thought? Change channels.
Don't like your body? Pierce it.
Don't like your sex? Bend, fold, staple and mutilate it.
Don't like what you hear? Hit the mute button.
Don't like what you see? Fast-forward to the Festival.
Don't like your house made of wood? Plant a tree today, or pay someone else to do so.
Don't like your carbon footprint? Buy bigger shoes and bigger offsets.
Don't like being accused? Cop a plea.
Don't like God? Kill Him.
Don't like these questions? Take the Fifth.
Be sure to tell yourself that whatever has happened to you, it is not your fault. Be a post-post-modern American. Be an eternal victim. You've got it coming.
When the going gets tough, blame your genes and demand that all share your pain, send you a check, and pay extra for medical research to cure what ails you. For free. It's you're right written right there in the invisible ink between the lines of the Constitution.
When the going gets really tough, blame George Bush, the center of all the evil that is America. Besides, the people that really want to kill you are far too numerous and far too dedicated to your death to contemplate. It is much lighter on the breaking brain to believe that George Bush wants to kill your right to dissent even if it is much harder to see. Your real enemies are far too frightening to contemplate. Your secret hope is that they'll burn you in an instant in some thermonuclear fire so you don't have to be around to put everything back together.
Don't think for a minute that you are unraveling what is left of your social fabric. Who needs clothes in the dark? You are only taking advantage of your First Amendment rights. What was the Second one? Oh, that's the bad one. Then there's 5. And the others? Who remembers? Who can count that high these days?
Once upon a time there was a telling fable about an ant and a grasshopper:
In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.
"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?"
"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same."
So goes that tale no longer told. And of course, the chirping grasshopper goes blathering along his merry way with his iPod set on shuffle. But the winter does come, by and by, as it always must.
If it were only a few grasshoppers blathering about the country right now, the ants among us could rest easy. But, alas, it has now gone far beyond that and we have delivered unto ourselves the government and media we deserve: a plague of locusts.
It's a good thing our very post-post-modern Americans have made sure to kill God. If they hadn't they'd recognize the locusts as the eighth plague with two more on the way: darkness and the death of the firstborn.