Madam President or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
It’s been nearly 25 years since the Berlin Wall fell on Christmas Day, 1991, signaling the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the official end of the Cold War. This was good news for human beings incapable of surviving an atomic blast or weathering a nuclear winter, but for the blood-sucking corporate and political parasites of the military-industrial complex, it meant the primary vein which had sustained their miserable, superfluous existence for so long had finally coagulated.
Faced with the irrelevancy of their genes in a relatively peaceful pool, they desperately sought to Make America Fear Again:
“Saddam Hussein! Super-predators! Y2K is comin’ to get you, better stock up on guns and ammo before it’s too late!”
But this was all small fries compared to the constant, decades-long threat of Mutually-Assured Destruction. Even the Oklahoma City Bombing—most people could acknowledge as horrible, and feel empathy for the victims, while still ultimately shrugging off any sense of personal danger. Columbine got blamed on “violent” video games and music: what’s a military contractor supposed to do with that? You aren’t gonna sell many Bradley Fighting Vehicles for an invasion of id Software or Wax-Trax! Records.
The fear profiteers were surely toasting the good champagne like Donald Trump seems to think Muslims in New Jersey were doing, when 9/11 happened. “It’s a miracle!” they cried, their faces streaked with tears of joy, “The Cold War didn’t end after all, it just went into a cocoon for awhile, and today it re-emerges, transformed into a beautiful, death-raining butterfly! FIRE UP THE ASSEMBLY LINES FOR THE FIGHTER JETS THAT DON’T WORK IF THEY GET DUSTY OR WET!”
And so, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, now calling themselves the “Project For A New American Century,” saddled up and rode forth, but the manner in which they went about their dark Master’s business was so brazenly incompetent that they almost blew the whole plan immediately after landing on an aircraft carrier, strutting before a shitty banner while wearing a codpiece, like Zed from the movie Zardoz. Oh, Dubya, you goofy war-criminal! Here, have some more pretzels! Just stuff ‘em in your mouth, ten or fifteen at a time! Please, please don’t even bother chewing!
Obviously, “folksy” white guys were no longer the salesmen they used to be.
Thus began a new effort to market global death and destruction through mascots representing other social issues precious to its critics:
Imperialist warfare disproportionately harms dark-skinned populations, huh? Meet the smooth character, “Bo” Camel!
Foreign military “aid” helps sexist, homophobic regimes like Saudi Arabia murder thousands of women and children, you say? Well, here’s a former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State to tell female and LGBT voters, “You’ve come a long way, baby!”
And just in case we need to fall back to the old methods, we’ve got a golden-brown Marlboro Man appealing to the “rugged masculinity” of Men’s Rights Activists, too!
No matter who wins, WE win! Don Draper would be proud!
Of the three, Virginia Slims seems the most eager to reboot the Cold War, and let the spirit of JFK know what a puss she thinks he was for resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis without a nuclear exchange.
Though Bo did continue one war he had “promised” voters he’d end, waded into at least two more, and greatly ramped up his predecessor’s practice of extrajudicial assassination by drone, his heart just never really seemed to be in it; like deep down, he really WANTED to de-escalate conflicts by way of careful diplomacy, instead of casually “obliterating” whomever and whatever, whenever.
Ah well, he wasn’t really the military-industrial complex’s first choice in 2008, anyway.
And though 2016 Republican Presidential nominee Donald “Leatherface” Trump certainly talks big, dumb, and violent, everyone knows he’s overcompensating, and probably not very interested in waging war against his homo-erotic B.F.F., Vladimir Putin, either. Plus, he’s kind of a spaz, so the elite can’t really depend on him to shield them from any fallout in which they’ve invested, or his irresponsible flailing might randomly cause.
No, only Clinton appears to have had an almost pornographic lust for war with Russia all along. This perhaps could have been deduced from the various foreign policy disasters on which she’d either proudly signed her name in the Senate, or personally helped develop and implement as Secretary of State; but it became as conspicuous and unmistakable as a flasher’s junk following the #DNCleaks’ exposure of long-suspected collusion between her campaign and the supposedly “impartial” Democratic National Committee during the 2016 primary, designed to suppress the vote for a vastly-superior candidate who it just so happens has never been that big a fan of war.
It was then that she began to openly rattle her saber, already slick with the blood of numerous Middle Eastern civilians, directly at Russia. Anyone who dared discuss the contents of the leaks was denounced by her Flying Monkeys as an agent provocateur, like in a fan rewrite of The Wizard of Oz drawing heavily on the work of Joseph McCarthy, and published by Harlequin Enterprises.
I guess SOMEbody has a fetish for megadeaths, “droning” people, and dictators being anally-raped to death by bayonets, eh?
Don’t kink-shame.
Note: While it should go without saying, the brand parodies here are produced without permission or input from Altria Group, Philip Morris USA, or Reynolds American, Inc., and do not reflect their views or opinions, so far as I know or particularly care.
4 Responses to “Madam President or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”
Well done. Instead of using the hashmark message, I think I might have used the ugly I’m with Hillary campaign logo/sign, our nearly as atrocious, “Stronger Together”logo.
I understand your thinking. “Stronger Together” was a poor, predictable attempt at copying Bernie’s vastly superior campaign branding in much the same way as that awful H logo was a poor attempt at copying Obama’s vastly superior logo (which would itself probably be dated in 2016). Voter enthusiasm for her would be much stronger, even in spite of what a lousy candidate she is, if her branding and marketing were any good. The reason it isn’t is because her own instincts are terrible, and she’s surrounded herself with yes-men.
Are they really dumb enough to still be using her campaign slogan/signage from 2008? I haven’t seen it anywhere besides random Facebook memes and tweets, so I assumed they at least had the sense to retire that anachronism from their official channels.
I used #ImWithHer, here, because I found it to be the most direct, it seemed to adapt to the tradition of labeling bombs the best, and it’s the most iconic as an example of a campaign slogan that can be easily turned against the person it’s supposed to promote. You don’t even have to change it! Even satirical takes on Trump’s shallow, idiotic scampaign slogan require changing at least one word, or shifting some letters around to accommodate the desired critique. That’s what makes #ImWithHer especially bad. Otherwise, it would merely be mediocre.
Howdy Terrence. I tend to agree that #ImWithHer needs to do little more than point it’s arrow towards Ms. Pandora opening up that box. Like the failed occupation of Iraq, the fantastic defeat of the Democratic Party under this candidate is already on course to become the stuff of historical legend. The Dems just floated their own #MissionAccomplished banner after members elected (read appointed) Mr. Perez and declared premptive-victory on operation Unite the Party. In the same manner hawks neglect to see that winning hearts and minds is not a function of ever escalating hostility and attempts to control outcomes, the Dems are setting in for what’s to become their own endlessly failing occupation of a foreign land peopled by progressives and other ordinary Americans who have skin in the game of living their own lives rather than promoting infidelitous political interests.
Bud Amelio
Hillary Clinton represents an attempt by the military-industrial complex to falsely associate pro-war policies with Progressive, feminist empowerment.
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