America

Who Am I?

I am a leader of a sovereign nation, albeit a severely divided nation. My nation has been divided for many years, with two main factions, each with its own ideologies.

To survive as a nation, stern measures have been employed successfully to ensure stability and peace .

As a player in the world economy and contributor to world politics, my country allied itself with nations who held similar political goals, who would later .reverse their alliances.

In the course of maintaining stability, I was found guilty of killing innocent people who were caught up in the chaos of war. This act was viewed as necessary to that political faction which strongly supported my decisions. It was viewed as murder to those who did not support my political agenda.

While the faction that supported me and was currently in power represented the minority share of the nation’s population, it held sway over the majority.

I have been accused of putting my own and my associates’ interests over and above those of my constituents.

To those who support me, I am seen as a demi-god. To those who do not support me, I am seen as evil.

I ponder my legacy…when I am gone, will I be remembered for attempting to bring stability to Iraq?

Who am I?

If You Don't Laugh, You'll Cry

Let The Kid Play
By Nancy Greggs

Given his unending displays of immaturity, it is sadly all too easy to picture Bush as an adolescent child – ill-educated, uninformed, prone to temper-tantrums when he is scolded or denied the freedom to do as he likes, no matter how ill-advised his actions, nor how deadly the consequences of his undisciplined behavior.

From the minute this spoiled Kid took office, our once flawed-but-operational government was turned into a video game arcade, and The Kid has wreaked his havoc – aided and abetted by his cheerleading supporters – ever since.

At first, the Kid wandered from game to game; he tried his hand at several, always unengaged and unfocused. There was Tax Reform, where the object was to steal from the poor and the working class and transfer the funds to the wealthy, followed by Feed the Fundies, where promises to override abortion rights and gay marriage pop up on-screen, hungry for recognition and faith-based dollars (later to be shot down when the votes were counted and a second term was ensured – but that’s another game entirely).

There were other games to keep the Kid occupied; Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Business, but the challenge was minimal – transferring bags marked $$$ from the American taxpayers’ pockets into the pockets of corporations – and they quickly melded into one game, played over and over until they lost their appeal.

By September 11, 2001, the Kid had finally mastered the Ignore the Warnings game – and we all know how that one turned out.But with the advent of the War in Iraq game, the Kid found his favorite pastime. Even though it went through many name changes (The Hunt for WMD, Sweets & Flowers, Liberation, Spreading Democracy, the Noble Cause, Stay The Course, Adapt to Win, and now Forward in Iraq), the Kid has slouched in his seat, staring bleary-eyed at the on-screen images, unable to tear himself away from a game he is convinced he will win.

It never enters the mind of the Kid that those are not only images of dead soldiers and civilians, but real people who suffer the consequences of his ineptitude. And the crowd that’s gathered around him, encouraging him to continue to try and beat the machine, remind him that they’re only numbers, and couch their words in phrases like shared sacrifice and fighting for freedom, all clinging to future bragging rights of having been there when he scored that final victory despite the odds.

The hangers-on never admit that the Kid always plays the game in the same way, with the same unwavering destructive strategy, as he steadfastly refuses to listen to the advice of the onlookers who actually have experience with such endeavors. Even as his scores go lower and lower, to the point where winning is no longer conceivable, the local newshounds gather ‘round and breathlessly report that the Kid is about to turn the corner, and that all-elusive TOP SCORE OF ALL TIME!!! banner will flash across the screen in all its glory any minute now.

Members of Congress stop by on a regular basis, armed with bags of quarters to be fed into the machine, lest the Kid be thwarted in his pursuit of what he sees as that final, glorious “I told you so” moment, and no one seems to notice that as quickly as the coins are shoved in the slot, Halliburton and other war-game profiteers are emptying the back of the machine and hauling away the money. No one seems to notice that games like Pay Down the Debt, Rebuild NOLA, Educate Our Children have continually had their cashboxes emptied as well, in order to fund what has quickly become the only game in the eyes of the Kid, any more than they notice the blood spilling out onto the floor, or the smokey air of hopelessness that chokes whatever semblance of reality is left lingering in the place.

Although the Kid has been losing the game since he started, those who would disrupt his focus are invariably dismissed, and banished from the arcade with shouts of being unpatriotic defeatists who lack the foresight to see the inevitable win. And those who point to the low scores that cannot possibly be overcome are discounted as proffering theories based on fuzzy math, nay-sayers who will rue the day they did not jump on the Pinball Wizard's bandwagon when they had the chance.

Even the Kid’s dad, in a last-ditch effort to get him out of the arcade and home for a cold shower of reality and a warm meal of a-way-out with some semblance of dignity, has been rebuffed in the all-or-nothing game where it no longer seems to matter that nothing of value can ever be achieved.

So the question remains: Who is going to walk into the arcade, grab the Kid by the scruff of the neck, and tell him that the game was lost the minute he sat down in front of the console? Who is going to explain to him, in no uncertain terms, that the soldiers who disappear from the screen are actually dead, that the buildings that explode are not a special effect but represent a real country being destroyed? Who is going to drag the Kid, kicking and screaming if need be, from the illusion of victory he has created in his own increasingly unstable mind?

Sadly, as of this moment, it doesn’t appear that anyone will. The trucks are still delivering money to feed the coin slot, and the all-too-human troops are still being supplied to keep the game going, while the Kid hunkers down.Perhaps, somewhere in the Kid’s subconscious, he knows that losing is inevitable – the American citizens, the Iraqi citizens, and the world at large have already lost in ways too monumental to tally.

But maybe that is now the Kid’s final goal, the last refuge of the ultimate sore loser: being able to walk away from the game knowing that you are not the only loser in the room.

Laugh of the Day

The Army's new recruiting poster: