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Hey, ive just been reading this book of essays by a lot of prominent american writers about the current political climate and how america see's the rest of the world. Just thought I would share one I thought was pretty good and important since the US elections are so near. It was probably one the funniest aswell:
Okay, think of the world as a family: a big, dysfunctional family with a mother, and a father, and lots of sons and daughters and cousins and nephews and nieces. The father is America?he is big and strong, and wants to protect the family. And the mother?the mother is out of town. Or dead. No?the mother is Great Britain, except technically she?s the grandmother, because she gave birth to America. So now America is totally huge, and married to his tiny little mother.
Bear with me here.
One day the father (America) notices that the lawn, which is Iraq, is looking a little shaggy, and there?s some crabgrass, and something that looks like it might be poison ivy, so he asks a few of his teenage sons?France, Germany, Russia, etc.?to help him take care of the problem. Except they think the lawn doesn?t look so bad, really, and that?s not poison ivy, that?s regular ivy, and didn?t we just cut the grass like ten years ago? So the father gets all huffy and says, ?Fine, I?ll do it all myself,? though in the end he gets some of the little baby kids, like Poland and Eritrea, to help out by making lemonade or something. Except the baby kids are actually older than the father, so they?re like really old little kids. Like tiny little old people.
Anyway, Dad really goes at that lawn. He cuts it right down to the dirt and hacks away at the crabgrass, and rips out all the ivy, which turns out to be just regular ivy after all. Except now that the grass is gone, actual poison ivy starts growing in, and Dad is beginning to get itchy. So he?s like, ?Hey, Germany! Hey, France! Come and help me clean up here, do you want your old man to be itchy for the next five years, and you might get itchy too,? and the teenagers, who are actually quite old, in fact some of the oldest people in the whole family, are like, ?Go and buy some cortisone, jerk,? and even the little kids are mad, because Dad never thanked them for the lemonade. So?
Scratch that.
The world is really more like a zoo. America is the zookeeper, and there are lots of assistant zookeepers, like Great Britain and Germany and France and Russia, who have various duties at the zoo. Except they also have outside interests, for instance Russia likes kite-flying, and France likes stamp-collecting. Kite-flying being space exploration, and stamp-collecting being wine. But at the zoo, America is the head zookeeper.
There are a lot of animals in the zoo, and some of them are allowed to walk around the zoo outside their cages, but others, like the lion (Iraq) are locked up. Anyway, a while ago, the old zookeeper, who was the father of the current zookeeper, got in a fight with the lion, but didn?t finish him off. (America is his own father here, but you know what I mean.) So the current zookeeper hates the lion because the lion humiliated his father. And one day he looks into the lion?s cage with binoculars, and he thinks he sees chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. So he sends some monkeys in there to check it out. They don?t find anything, but the zookeeper attacks the lion anyway, and he kicks the lion?s ass, and it turns out the monkeys (UNSCOM) were right, and now the lion has fleas. Diseased fleas. So America has to get a flea collar.
No, wait.
The world is a planet. Yes: a planet, hurtling through space, maintaining the optimum temperature, atmosphere, chemical composition and ocean-to-landmass ratio to support a vast, teeming variety of life. This life is dominated by a single species, itself governed by rules of infinite and ever-evolving complexity. Indeed, no other species in the history of this planet that is the world has ever exhibited such a dazzling array of contradictory behaviours.
And let us assume that the dominant group of the dominant species of this planet has a leader, and that leader was elected in a free and fair election, even if technically he wasn?t, but this is all a for-instance, so just let me finish here. And this leader takes a long look at this planet that is the world, and he looks back on its long, complex history (or rather his aides brief him on it, although he gets a faraway look in his eye whenever they do), and he clears his throat, and he adjusts his necktie, and he says, simply, ?Bring it on.?
And all the denizens of the planet say, ?Bring it on??
?Bring it on,? repeats the leader and the denizens reply, ?But??
?No buts,? says the leader.
?Yeah, but??
?I said no buts,? the leader says.
?Okay. However??
?No howevers, either.?
?No howevers??
?No buts, howevers, in facts, actuallys, or you-sees,? says the leader, through an interpreter. ?No wait-a-minutes, no can?t-we-discuss-thises, no hold-on-a-moments. No heys. No stop-its. No aren?t-you-listenings. No comparisons, metaphors, allegories, or similes. No what-ifs, how-abouts, or just-supposes. No nos. Just?bring it on.?
And so, the denizens get together and confer over this new state of things, and they are forced to decide whether to bring it on, or not to bring it on. It?s a hard decision?it keeps them up all night. But really, there never was a choice. Ultimately, unfortunately, unavoidably, it must be brought on.
And so it is.
J. Robert lennon.
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