Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Too bad we don't got guys like this to kick around any more.

That, I predict, will be the words our merchants of death will be whining by this time next year. Even if we, in our infinite patience with men of pure helium, choose the Hanoi Hilton's most famous air pirate next November, I still say we can kiss goodbye to all these high-caliber empire games, no matter who we get, what we run into, or where we go from here.

The Bush team's continuing blood opera, our fiasco in the sand, suggests at least a change of frames, right? But I suspect much more besides -- I suggest we'll see a bipartisan change of substance, my friends, substance: from a very juvenile update of the Roman Empire to -- let's see -- surely we can't go back to... the 90's? To Clintox and the limited liability universal methodist morality play: "salutary containment", a kind of long-count timeout for local thugs. Sound track by Mini-Me And The Cruise Missiles.

So what's next? I submit to you that the next big plan to roll out will be -- appeasement.

Yes, wall to wall indulgence. Why not? There's no great power out there, no Hitler, no Stalin, to stare and scare back into their den, is there?

Okay, maybe someday -- maybe even sooner than later, but not now. In a world like ours today there can be no Munichs, no Pearl Harbors, no Chosin Reservoirs.

The GWOT? Please. I bet there's hardly a soul alive in America today that in their heart doesn't know we oughta send that bit of Lion's Club tomfoolery right back where it belongs -- on the funny pages. Don't the recent triumphs of Hezbollah prove Uncle can't micro-manage the planet?

So since you only make 'em stronger the more you attack 'em -- you don't bomb the pricks (let alone occupy 'em). Nope, you appease 'em -- indulge 'em even. Go ahead, guys, knock yourselves out!

And I mean appease 'em all -- every stray enemy of unrestricted corporate freedoms dinking around down there in South Hemiland.

As Larry David says about Gentiles and Christmas, Aahhh, let 'em have their holiday. Let 'em have their pitiful time-capsule ghettos. Let 'em play out their blighted scenes of cruelty and ignorance. Ain't there more than enough good brown earth to romp through without having to drop golden eggs on their sorry rag-wrapped heads?

Mark my words, this is the coming thing. And I give this fad about 3 years -- not even one full administration -- about the same amount of time post-Nam Carter played Uncle Human Rights before the pandemic of anti-transnat activity, like some raging infestation of insolence, required a hearty hello to arms -- the condign legionaires, the Freedom, Inc. crusaders, the smoking gun civilizers.