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Billy's State of the Nonsense Address

By Billy X. Curmano

(With apologies to Lewis Carroll and Grace Slick)

We are living in Wonderland without an Alice. The Orange Queen keeps shouting, "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS," and the White Knight's talking backwards. The pink elephants march obediently, trunk to tail, tail to trunk, all giddy and thoroughly confused. Tariffs on due process, logic, and proportion—free speech, free press, freedom of religion, the Constitution, and the rule of law.

Do you still Remember?

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"…

Lady Liberty on ICE: Our Safe Harbor is frozen. Masked gangsters invade cities—hunting, terrorizing, killing their quarry and honest to goodness American Citizens along the way. The thugs heed not due process and believe God is on their side.

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union"…

…so begins the preamble to our Constitution. Twenty-seven amendments, including a "Bill of Rights," over 250 years have moved it ever closer to perfection. Soldiers, office holders, and the like take an oath that begins with these words:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same"…

Not so much for the MAGA cult. All the players probably had their fingers crossed. Their godfather forgot his oath and encouraged insurrectionists to attack the capital. As MAGA One, he pardoned convicted felons for their sometimes vicious crimes.

The government's three branches, executive, judicial, and congressional, were wisely designed to assure checks and balances on each other. The branches have merged. The unitary executive theory gives the president unprecedented absolute authority. The lockstep Congress and judiciary add the absolute power that corrupts absolutely. MAGA One deftly avoided his own military obligation and has blatantly neglected to support or defend the Constitution. He has actively defied it with contempt. He is Commander in Chief, with absolute power, of the US Armed Forces—the single most powerful military the world has ever known. His cuts to the Veterans Administration show little regard for returning troops and soldiers, whom he's referred to as "suckers and losers."

MAGA One wants a Peace Prize—while bombing, killing, and incarcerating—all without due process or authorization from Congress as the Constitution demands. The MAGA machine threatens both allies and foes and carries out raids on foreign soil—basically on a whim for the spoils of war (oil), territory, regime change, and occupation that fan the flames of forever war(s). The Secretary of Defense renamed his branch the "Department of War" and primped for TV, crowing the department's goal is "Lethality, Lethality, Lethality." Lethality without strategic objectives is a fool's errand. Remember boots on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and so on and on.

MAGA Supporters probably wanted change. Is this the change they voted for? "A house divided against itself shall not stand," Abraham Lincoln (via Jesus—Mathew 12:22-25). Party vs party divides us with the worst-ever fears, allowing saviors on both sides to pick our pockets. Workers are expendable pawns. The overlords hunker down in gated communities and fortresses—fearful of "people united." It's not so much red vs blue—or—left vs right. It is the super rich vs the rest of us. If it's a class war, the billionaires fired the first shot. The borders may be more secure, yet a billionaire South African immigrant has dipped into our tax dollars, fired workers without cause, eliminated programs, and sabotaged democracy.

No Government: By the, For the, Of the Billionaires… Remember what the door mouse said…

Your Vote Matters

feed your head

Billy served with Dog Co., 4th Bat. 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam during 1968 and 1969. He was sometimes known as Pig F. Pen. Billy served with VVAW from about 1970 to Now.