The Memorial Tournament

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.- Horace

These words are not unlike most fancy ones uttered by lawmakers, professors, and the poets laureate of the past - incomprehensible and somewhat secretive. But you don't need to understand Latin, to smell the bullshit laced between the syllables. And just in case you missed out on that class, permit me the honor of translation so we might all start this Memorial Day together, in cadence:

It is sweet and right to die for your country

Nay, not even untalented hacks like myself take holidays off in these hard times, forcing my hands to the keyboard at this late hour. But on this morning, what better task might these soft hands serve than type tribute to our soldiers? For I have lifted no gun in our defense, nor stormed a beach to earn my keep, nor bombed small Middle Eastern children. In my cowardice, I cannot understand the stress of combat, the sort of paranoid fatigue that moves men to unload their carbines into families approaching checkpoints, or incarcerate human beings for years without due process. Being a complacent American citizen, my humble job is to pay the bills, root on the home team, and believe what I'm told. In this manner, our government relegates us to the role of a 1950's housewife. Quiet. Docile. Gullible. And putting out whenever Father returns from his hard work in Babylon, with his cock thick and heavy from all that killing and looting. Indeed, I almost balked before saying anything on this day of days, choosing an easier softer path by attending a parade, and pretending this holiday was anything more than a massive cherade.

But then I remembered you obviously don't need to have served your country to assume a place at the podium. Indeed, you apparently don't have to have any military experience at all to reallocate public funds, send young Americans overseas, then smile while you wave a flag at the ranks.
Because on this Memorial Day, your President Elect, George W. Bush is letting both his faces show - finally. Perhaps his public relations crew has gotten lax, or maybe grown tired of his bullshit as well, but the intervals between his lies and his cosmetic cover-up were too short this time. Now I'd like to think you don't have to reside near nor be employed by a military base to notice such news, but apparently the American majority glanced right over this tidbit:

Supporting these facilities wastes billions of taxpayer dollars -- money that can be better spent on giving you the tools to fight terrorists and confront 21st-century threats.- Bush, 27 May 2005

Wow. After dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into overtaking Afghanistan's opium and Iraq's oil, our efforts to stop the financial blood loss involve not a total withdrawal of force from these shithole battlefields, but shutting down dozens of installations around the country. Fucking brilliant. Just like that, 200 million sheep stop shouting about this clusterfuck war and start throwing stones at their own fence. Hell, I'm not sure why we have any soldiers on American soil at all. Ain't nuthin' to pillage here. Just burning taxpayer money. What's next, you ask, after we trim our military presence to "fight terrorism"?

Give the terrorists money.

That pigfucker is funding international terrorism, and has been for years. Between selling F-16s to both Pakistan and India, both of which are funnytalking nuclear powers in a stand-still and their little brown fingers are on the fucking button, nobody has said shit about the billions funneled into Israel. Yeah, Israel, a nation known to stealing land, blowing people up in the streets, and another nuclear power. For what? Exactly what is the national product of Israel that they export worldwide to earn their keep? Jews? Or maybe they just need all those American dollars to fight off those fiesty Palestinians, who seem to have a problem with having their homes razed to the ground.

So let's buy them off, too. Just after pledging $50 million to the Palestinian Authority, Bush said this:

[the aid is meant] "to help ensure that the Gaza disengagement is a success."- Bush, 26 May 2005

So, while throwing barges of cash to Israel to ensure the Gaza engagement is a success, we toss a couple of trash bags over the fence to help suicide bombers pay for their espresso. Palestinians bomb shit. They're savages. And truly, don't deserve to be left the fuck alone on their own turf so they can fuck and worship and not bomb everybody back to the Brass Age. Not enough to pay for their persecution by a bunch of whiny Jews, now we are the official sponsors of their explosive attire. Hell, why don't we just pick up the medical bills for both sides, and maybe put a big fucking scoreboard up on the Gaza Strip?

Kids get bombed on a daily basis there. Their new designer clothes ruined with their own blood. And who do they have to thank? A suicide bomber? Hamas? A corrupt Israeli police officer? No, his benefactor is much farther from home.

You.

By paying those taxes, and laying there with your ignorant ass in the air and voice muffled in the pillow of apathy, you are an accomplice to murder. The murder of Afghani children. The murder of Iraqi women. The murder of the American dream. And the murder of your own children, men and women sent away to defend a way of life long forgotten, only to come back in boxes or missing limbs, forever more a burden upon and reminder to the society that destroyed them.
You right-wing dicks call me "liberal". I prefer the term "aware" or dare I say "open-minded". I condemn abortion, favor capital punishment, am all about the death penalty, believe in God, and hate welfare. I say fuck the poor, fuck the old, and fuck health care for everybody, because that's my tax money, and I didn't earn it to carry anybody's sorry ass. But when I stand up from the crowd and call bullshit on our government, you blubber and point at the flag.

Shut your patriotic mouth.

Because if you were a patriot, if you knew what Memorial Day signified, if you had any pride as an American, you'd stand up and join the new rank. A batallion of pissed-off citizens who aren't going to play by the rules those pigs draft on Capitol Hill. An army of home-grown rednecks who are gonna tell 6-figured senators and ass-licking representatives the game is over. You want our money, you're gonna have to earn it, and we're gonna make sure you do right with it, or you're gonna find your happy elected ass in the unemployment line. And as for every soldier out there in the trench, realize what this war is, who's getting rich, and what you're fighting for. Turn off the safety, and look away from Baghdad, just for one second. Look at the television.

That monkey Bush is sitting on the other side of the world, in a safe White House, laughing at you.