Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Bringing Back the Good Old Days

Dear George,

The Russians are on the move again! God, how I’ve missed them! The international stage just hasn’t been the same since they started behaving themselves in 1991.

I was thrilled to see you give them “what-for” for their “disproportionate” response to Georgia’s attempt to liberate its dissident province of South Ossetia from the iron fist of Russian domination. Putin has got to understand that we hold the patent on Shock and Awe™, and we will not tolerate him violating our intellectual property rights.

It is times like this that a nation must turn to its sages for guidance, and there is no sage sagier than BillyBob Kristol. He sure sounded the clarion call in his New York Times column, yesterday, when he said.

Dictators aren’t moved by the claims of justice unarmed; aggressors aren’t intimidated by diplomacy absent the credible threat of force; fanatics aren’t deterred by the disapproval of men of moderate refinement.

Anyone who doubts the wisdom of BillyBob’s words need only look to Iraq as a proof-positive of their truth.

George, we have a golden opportunity, here, to start Cold War II. Let’s face it; your Eternal War of the Empty Policy is losing its legs. All it’s netted us is two quagmires and an ever growing national debt.

A dicey Cold War is good for the economy and good for cementing your unfettered powers as the nation’s Commander-in-Chief. It gives us a golden opportunity to bloat our defense budget even more. This will contribute to the continued shredding of our social safety net, which will drive even more poor into our armed forces whose upkeep will suck even more money away from social services, which will swell the ranks of our armed forces even more, which means more equipment, which means more oil will be needed to run the equipment they need, which means more imperial wars of conquest to keep the oil flowing freely.

It’s win-win all the way. And the beauty of a Cold War is that we never fight the Big One, but focus our resources on regional quagmires that go on and on without end.

Our symbiotic relationship with the Russians has done much for us. Not only have we learned a great deal from them, but we have improved on many of their techniques. Where Russia used the gulag to control its dissidents, we use the mall.

When Americans revolt, they head for the mall where they are clothed, tattooed and pierced. Having established their bona fides as well-appointed revolutionaries, they return to their rooms to lose themselves in their ramped-up music of rebellion.

For Corporatist dissidents, revolution is not about liberte, egalite, fraternite, but about market share, retail sales, and brand recognition.

Lord knows what heights we’ll scale in Cold War II.

Gotta go, Big Guy. It’s time to start digging a hole for my bomb shelter.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was brilliant malls as gulags.
The U.S. as the mall archipelago how sad.

Anonymous said...

Yes, by all means! Let's get that defense budget up to a cool, even trillion dollars.

Case Wagenvoord said...

In the past, empires generated revenue. Ours is history's first to operate in the red.

We must be doing something right.

Mark Prime (tpm/Confession Zero) said...

Billy Bob Kristol! Ha!

Where Russia used the gulag to control its dissidents, we use the mall.

Hoooooo Agggghhhh!

Excellent letter, Case! Excellent! Need an extra hand with the digging?

Case Wagenvoord said...

Back in the fifties Billy Graham raised the question of whether or no it was ethical to shoot ones neighbor if he was trying to break into your shelter.

My shotgun sits next to my shovel.