Here in America we’ve just celebrated Memorial Day: a time when American citizens remember the American soldiers who died during our many, many wars by BBQing meat and watching the Indianapolis 500.
Of course, like most years, Americans do very little to actually commemorate those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of their ‘freedom.’ Few Americans care that almost 5,500 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan while another 36,000 have lost legs, arms, their sanity or their manhood. At least, they don’t care enough to stop those numbers from increasing.
Most Americans certainly won’t honor the memory of the 100,000 civilians who have died since the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – mainly because the American media never reports that number. Out of sight, out of mind.
Genetically-modified
Instead we watch rich boys zip around a track burning the oil that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have helped secure. Sure, in some cases Indy Cars burn genetically-modified corn, aka ethanol, but by using the land for growing fuel instead of food just requires us to burn more oil so we can import our food from a far-off land.
The month of May started with barely a mention of the millions who have sacrificed their lives so that we can have three-day weekends. May Day isn’t a holiday in the US. Too Socialist.
I hope you enjoyed your beef and hot dogs, my fat American friends.
But in the same way that most Americans don’t truly understand how they were able to pump that cheap gas into their cars, they don’t remember how it is we got a three-day weekend in the first place.
By not honoring, understanding or remembering our history, whether on the frontlines of a war or the frontlines of a factory strike, we are, as the old saying goes, doomed to repeat that history.
So I hope you enjoyed your beef and hot dogs, my fat American friends. Someday it will only be a memory – and we’ll wonder how we got there.
JZ
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
