Our dear friend Reaper has been by, testing the limits, if any, of our deep, highly personal, and intimate relationship -- keeping an eye peeled to see if we will flinch, spook, or be thrown: More atrocities arriving in Afghanistan, as you know, more fallout from our going gunning-around in the world, eager to carve more notches in our gunbelts, always set to cowboy-up, war-whoop into this rodeo's lineup. True, our Grange Hall dance card of death is all full up, from all our usual and growing carnage abroad: We're dancing as fast as we can.
Something inside snaps. Then, dying time begins: men, women, kids, all ghastly. Corpses get grimly abused, set on fire. Body parts get saved as grisly souvenirs. Same old ghost stories. Burn a holy book or three, keep the place and its people gasping. This is Reaper's Magical Mystery Tour! The soldier this time in the center, atop a momentary, personal pentagram of examination and crucible of soul-testing, had already been on three tours with Reaper Magical Mystery Tour Services, in Iraq. How many rides, how many tours is enough?
How many wars do you want, how much death and killing? Stupid question: We want all we can get, all that there is. Why else have so many war tools and toys, more than all other nations combined? But, from Viet Nam horrors, we learned only one thing: To never again hold a national draft -- too unpopular. Makes people squirm and really think about Reaper gallivanting around with everyone's sons and daughters. Makes for hesitation when the rich kids' asses are on the same one with the poor. This time, see, we'll keep the party all-volunteer, keep the cruel joke a secret between us: policy is to keep grinding and re-grinding the voluntary soldiers we have, grind them into a damp paste. Anything goes wrong -- when they break, flip, or freak out, we act surprised, see? Fair enough?
Imagine all the grinding and re-grinding done in the few, short, hundred years we'll been here as a country, all that we have painted and sprayed blood red, all the leftovers bandaged in sterile white gauze, all the rest marked, Return to Sender, battered and blue-funked -- never a let-up, never a pause. Technically, there's good news coming: all the troops will be slid onto a new roster as CIA ops, spies and not soldiers, so our fearless leaders can assure us the troops are all home! Of course, this does not mean atrocities stop, just we will no longer hear of them, period. A question: Is there a sound when civilians fall from atrocities, when there's no soldiers -- just spies -- around to hear?
Some say about life that it is good to have goals. Here are some thoughtful exceptions: Cliche does not apply to murderous Death Cults nostril-deep in blood. Axiom does not apply to Death Cults who have already cornered the market on murder toys. Homily not valid for Death Cults running out of stockpiling space for the unending killing machines they insist on churning out in mega-tons. Bromide not applicable on regularly-marked items in the Death's Head Sculleries and Headliner Skull Galleries of the Gran-Mal Killing-Maul Mall. Adage invalid on Death Cult clearance center and/or life-clearing, life-cleansing items...
We are Death Cultists, living in bone-yards, a nightmarish place where fresh marrow is scraped and steamed out of returned bones, work done by unseemly, low-level servants armed with teaspoons and pens, working in the greasy, seamy shadows of Dadaesque, WarBuxxx workhouses, blaring rousing renditions of the national anthem, night and day.
Oh, sure: We say oops-sorry, almost every time, in some passionless, aloof, sanitary, and highly-sanitized statement, delivered by someone in an all-business suit, a diplomat, or spokeshead, looking nervous and inconvenienced, being a society gossip noting sordid details of Reaper's latest World Tour. Just like that, 20 seconds, we're all forgiven -- Domini, Domini -- all good to go!
We are a nation staying alive by the absented, vacated virtue of conveyor belts of death and destruction. We should all be adults now, confess our sins, wear them as badges of our passing, admit our well-lived-in, massive lies, just like the good religious people we've always professed ourselves to be, always said that we are. We should stop kidding ourselves, just change the name of this country to Death Cults, Incorporated, home of Corporations are People, Money is Speech. We should change out the flag: No more stars and bars, just coffins and conveyor belts, all black and white -- black as death, white as our surrender to it -- all the bright colors leeched and leached out of any design, all bold and clear, right in front us every step of the way, right smack in front of us, so no one can claim to overlook or not see it, so we're all nice and clear as can be what it is we all stand for in this land.
We stand for addiction to killing -- might is right, all force and no reason, we can so we should and we will -- oh, and some oil, on the side, Reaper's favorite dipping sauce, please. We expend sincere energies only to make more of either, oil or death -- we are making both, fast as we can. We root for Reaper, and will brook no interference, tolerate no craven images of Other by peace-mongers.
The or-else implied by the maitre'd here is clear from our action-packed menu of world orders so far: Seal Team Six Special Surprise; or the popular Shock-and-Awe Package; or nouveau-trendy, White-Phosphorous-and-Napalm-Orange cocktails; still-hot, Depleted-Uranium-Casings-ala-Road, for impomptu meet-and-greets along Murderer's Row, on our road show -- just one more for the road. Or, you could go for broke, calorically speaking, and order up the Fat Man and Little Boy Buffett -- whatever recipe you want to try, just thumb through the Death Cult Cookbook, see what looks good. In any case, should it escape you, among all these fine choices: Bang or Boom or Whoosh, You Are Dead.
Like Caligula, we in the Death Cult loose no sleep being hated -- so long as they all still fear us, by God.
