12/7/12
"A date which will live in infamy."
There's no other way to say it. Not a one. Not if you've been paying !@#$ing attention, anyway.
(Or at least have an eye for unfortunate historical coincidences.)
At 9:35 AM, EST, the President of the United States stood in front of the Washington Press Corps, neatly wedged between two Strategic Talents: Mr. USA, who happened to be our Vice President, and Tempete Bleu, who happens to be France's best-known hero.
He thanked everyone for coming, as usual, and then launched into a speech that was, at least for the first five minutes, one of the best things I've ever heard come out of his mouth since the Reclamation War speech.
He spoke of our nation, proud and unbroken. He talked of how it had been tested during its history, time and again. He paid tribute to those who had fought and died to keep it safe, and those who had lived and toiled to keep it free and prosperous.
He reminded us of what we'd come through, lately. How we'd all been "broken on the wheel of others' ambition, and rolled down a steep hill to global catastrophe." He spoke of how we were nearly destroyed, both as a planet and as a species.
And how, as a single planet, we fought back and won.
All well and good, but then he began going further along that line, stepping further away from our comfort zone.
He said that, after having come together, and achieved mighty things as a single, unified planet, we had all gone back to being small and divided once more. He said that we had been so badly damaged by what our oppressors had done that getting back up again was going to require "that single strength, total and complete, wielded in such a way as to bring us from our knees to our feet, and from the ground to the skies, once more."
And maybe there were one or two people, there, who didn't know where it was going. But as soon as the token goon from FOX News started praying to Jesus (and the Secret Service hustled them out of the room), they all wised up.
Which meant they were all silent as ghosts when the President of the United States of America announced, then and there, that he was taking up the offer of the Terre Unifee to become its President.
He had not taken this step without a great deal of thought. He had considered other means, or so he said. He thought that America was strong enough to deal with its own problems, and come out stronger for it. He thought we could go it alone, and be an example to the rest of the world that self-reliance could carry the day.
But then he realized that this was selfishness and pride talking, not sense.
"As one world, we threw off our aggressors. As one world, we took our lives back from an enemy older than our recorded history, and more powerful than we can imagine, even now. As one world, we made war and won it.
"And, looking at our problems, and our challenges, and the dilemmas that faced not only America, but all other nations in the world, I had to ask 'What else could we accomplish as one world?'
"And once I began to realize what the answers were, I also realized that it was foolishness and vanity to deprive my fellow Americans of these great answers, and to, in turn, deprive the rest of the world of what our nation has to offer this world."
So he did it. He accepted the offer that the interim President of the TU had made to him, and took over its Presidency, effective immediately.
And his first act as President of that body? To accept America's joining of that "noble body," courtesy of the new President -- the former Vice President, Mr. USA, who is apparently becoming our "national facilitator," whatever the !@#$ that means.
There were no Congressional leaders present. No Speaker of the House. No Senate Majority Leader. No Supreme Court Justices. Not even a !@#$ing Cabinet member, which is hardly surprising at this point.
Just two men, a podium, and the eyes of the world watching as our great Republic effectively disbanded its Federal Government, and handed its reins over to a world government.
There were a million questions, but none of them were answered. All they got was the speech, and the announcement, and a promise that -- whatever our crumbling Federal government has failed to do, or would not even try to accomplish -- help and aid would be coming as soon as possible.
Our rights are going nowhere, or so they claim. Our freedoms remain. All the TU are going to do is help, and who doesn't want that?
Someone started booing. I'm not sure who. But by the time the call was picked up, and people started shouting questions instead of asking them, the people who could have answered those questions were long gone.
All that was left were the reporters, and they had a stupefying story to report back home.
I never thought I would live to see this day. I never believed I would see our country admit that it couldn't take care of its own !@#$ problems. I never imagined that this President -- any President -- would effectively surrender his or her nation over to a third party, even if he was then going to be in charge of that third party.
Are we all Americans, now? Or are we citizens of the world, whether we would or not?
Do we still have the right to think and speak? Can we protest this? Is there anyone we can call to get this reversed if it doesn't work out?
And how long do we have to wallow around in broken promises and uncertain expectations before we get to tell them to shove their help where the sun doesn't !@#$ing shine?
I don't know. I feel sick. I feel like punching things, or people.
But the flags are coming down all over the nation, and being replaced with that !@#$ty, designed-by-committee travesty that the TU hands out to its signatories. Some collection of colors that mean nothing at all to anyone.
A rag with no !@#$ing history, except for what's in front of us, here and now.
History? On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Some say we knew it was going to happen, and most agree that we knew it might happen. But everyone can agree that we knew war was coming, whether we were ready for it or not.
Those bombs and planes brought an isolationist nation, scarred and broken by the Great War, back into the world, again. It got us into a conflict that would otherwise have ended with an enslaved Europe and shackled Asia. It turned us into a global power, and set us on a collision course for a long, cold war with an wartime ally turned ideological enemy.
That day made the future. Maybe every day does, but if you had to peel history back, day by day, like an onion, you'd find December 7th, 1941 right around the center -- stinking and rich.
Now, on a different December 7th, we're back in the world again. Only this time we haven't just rejoined it in order to save it, and ourselves.
We've surrendered to it, instead.
I never thought I would live to see this day. I'm not sure I want to. Everything I've ever known and believed and taken for granted has been thrown down to the ground, shattered like glass on bricks.
My ship in a bottle, smashed and ground underfoot.
But I've got to keep going. I've got to keep !@#$ing talking over the noise. Because it's who I am, and what I do.
And because I've got the biggest !@#$ing mouth for the job, right now.
God help America. God help us all.
(SPYGOD is listening to Woman on a Train (The FIXX) and having a La Fin Du Monde
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