Hello muddah
Hello faddah
Here I am at
Camp Grenada
I frequently find myself making a completely wrong assertion about America’s shameful, unbroken record of military defeats over the past seven decades. I keep saying America hasn’t won a war since World War II.
What I keep forgetting was our glorious and decisive victory over the fierce, determined bastion of leftist, socialist, communist rancor and filth __ the island nation of Grenada.
Using a lethal combination of the U.S. Army’s Rapid Deployment Force, U.S. Marines, our Army Delta Force, and the Navy SEALS, we kicked their commie asses! The campaign was called Operation Urgent Fury. It took only a few short weeks to bring this defiant hooligan nation to its knees. We hit them hard and hit them where it hurts by bombing a mental hospital and killing eighteen patients. That’s what they get for being crazy commies!
Grenada __ sneaky Bolshevists that they were __ tried to marginalize the magnitude and grandeur of our victory with an audacious, not to say bizarre, and in-the-end ineffective strategy. This unorthodox “curve ball” was that they had virtually no army, no navy, no air force, practically no military at all, to resist the conquering heroics of our fighting boys in uniform.
That’s right . . . they had only a handful of citizens in their military __ no Department of Defense, no military-industrial complex, no CIA, NSA, KGB. They didn’t even have a KFC!
They did have an excellent education system, a thriving economy with no unemployment, a decent and improving health care system, a bare minimum of wealth inequality. Typical of misguided socialist countries all across the globe, they believed in the laughably quaint idea that all of the citizens of their country should be treated well and have an equal share in the abundance created by their collective labors, love and concern for their fellow man.
Ha!
We fixed that!
The unions were “reorganized”, huge sections of the economy were privatized, assets were gobbled up by U.S. corporations. Now, under the guiding hand of a capitalist free market economy, and a puppet democracy which knows who is boss and takes its orders from the good old corporate state U S of A, unemployment hovers around 18%, poverty afflicts 32% of the population, the small manufacturing sector continues to shrink, tourism has been hobbled __ partly due to the enormous destruction of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 __ and inflation is upwards of 5%, offsetting the modest growth of the economy.
However, a genuinely outstanding thing happened as a result of our saving this struggling island nation from the scourge of socialism . . . and I would be remiss to not mention it.
Grenada now has a KFC!
In fact, it has two!
Which will be great for our American troops if we ever have to invade again.
I sincerely apologize to any of you readers out there who depend on me to be both truthful and accurate when recounting the achievements and challenges of our great nation. I hope the corrected record I have offered here serves to exonerate me, and I am forgiven by any who might have been been misled or misinformed by my oversight in the matter of America’s military prowess.
Go Team America!
Fuck yeah!
United?
Doesn’t saying it just make your heart leap for joy?
I start hearing the national anthem play in my head, see the rockets red glare bursting in air, the American flag waving majestically over the capital skyline.
But I started wondering the other day: What exactly does the ‘united’ stand for? What exactly during these contentious, deeply divisive, tragically troubled times does it mean?
‘United’ would seem to imply Unity. Agreement. Fellowship. Consensus. Harmony.
Does that sound like contemporary America to you?
Here are some big questions . . .
Are we united by a sense of national purpose?
Are we united by a belief in our destiny and place in history?
Are we united by confidence in our superiority?
Are we united in our belief in American exceptionalism?
Are we united in our desire for empire?
Are we united by a love for our fellow Americans?
Are we united by our patriotism and sense of duty?
Or . . . are we united by our indifference?
Are we united by our faith in the American Dream?
Or . . . are we united by our pessimism?
Our cynicism?
How about some systemic issues . . .
Are we united in our faith in capitalism?
Are we united in the trust of our government?
Are we united in our belief in American democracy?
Are we united by a trust in God?
A system of shared values?
An ethos?
Are we united by our sense of self-determination?
Or . . . are we united by our sense of helplessness?
Our vulnerability and fatalism?
Our surrender?
How about some very specific issues . . .
Are we united in our love of guns?
Are we united by our freedom of speech?
Are we united by our disdain for socialism?
Are we united by the War on Terror?
Are we united by our hatred of Muslims?
Then there’s the psychological component . . .
Are we united by love?
Or . . . are we united by hate?
Are we united by courage?
Bravado?
Self-respect?
Or . . . are we united by fear?
Are we united by our optimism?
Or . . . are we united by our despair?
Our desperation?
Our doubt?
Here I believe is a really important question: Where does the rugged individualism which we see as the hallmark of a true American fit in?
How can we be united if we each have our own priorities and agenda?
Maybe we’re not united at all.
Maybe it’s all an illusion.
Maybe the United States of America is more like United Airlines, or United Van Lines. Catchy name but it doesn’t really allude to any real or even imagined unity.
And speaking of huge corporations, maybe we are united as customers, shareholders and employees of the vast corporations which seem to run everything these days. We are the biologic modules of a sprawling corporate Gaia, united in our service to interlocking clusters of entrepreneurial entities.
Less abstract and more the stuff of day-to-day living . . .
Are we united by the automobile?
Are we united by television?
Are we united by smart phones?
Are we united by the internet?
Holiday sales?
Shopping?
Football?
Which makes me wonder . . .
Maybe we’re just a bunch of lonely people who need to feel like we belong to something.
Or maybe not.