Dear Dirty America

Of course that’s not right, you might say. Push the anger to the top. It’s not these peoples’ faults. They are only low-level scum, and they’re only taking orders. Everybody’s got a mortgage to pay. Everybody’s got to make a living and shop at Bed Bath & Beyond for their daily comforts.

Well yes, we could put those at the top of the chain, the BofA board of shareholders, the CEO, a few of their regional presidents up against the line, and call in the old Utah firing squad again, and put it on TV. Let the president watch it, too, along with his DOJ and Congress. The message would be: this is what happens when you sell out your fellow human.

But really, this madness would end if the masses, the filthy masses (of which I include myself) were terrified to sell out their fellow impoverished, groveling, lower-to-middle class man. If we all stuck together, we’d be far better off. We’d create our own jobs, use our own currency, buy our goods and services from each other.

Bank of America has no necessity in a strong community…

Bank of America would dry up like that pesky wart you’d been treating for the last few months, and peel off the face of the planet like a twisted little chunk of skin. Let that gnarled hunk of diseased flesh float into space. Just think of the excitement of your grandchildren when they spy through their new telescope that garish old megabank logo lodged in Saturn’s rings. But you have some sentimental attraction to your wart. After all, you’ve had it a long time. But you need to realize that you don’t actually need the wart. You can paint it with red, white, and blue nail polish, but ultimately it’s a blemish on your skin. If you strengthen your immune system, the wart will go away. Or you can burn it off. Sure, the wart will protest with rippling sensations of pain tearing through your central nervous system when you sink a red hot pin into its warty material, but once it’s gone, you’re better off.

There is no use for these kinds of people in our society. They are like useless growths feeding off our vitality, and compromising our collective immune system. There is only room for individuals who want to expand their consciousness and sense of humanity. There can be no patience for employees who find a Bed Bath and Beyond gift card reasonable incentive to deny families a loan modification under the government’s (HAMP) Home Affordable Modification Program. Of course we need to blame Bank of America, too.

The only honorable action is suicide, however, BofA lacks a conscience and will fight another day. That means we the people need to dismantle these financial powerhouses one scandal at a time, until there only remains a heap of dust where once the red and blue monster squatted.

One of the last working firing squads left in America…

For the employees who lack such a sense of common humanity and decency as to be able to expel families from their homes in order to receive gift cards to Target, we need to call in one of the last working firing squads left in America. Let the old Utah Gentlemen’s firing squad do their thing.

German General Anton Dostler, freshly fired upon. 1945

If you think that’s barbaric, don’t worry, I used to think so, too. But then I researched death by firing squad and found out how noble and painless it really is. In 2010, convict Ronnie Gardner died this way, in Utah, and the whole ordeal was a success. Five men fired .30 caliber Winchester rifles into the target placed over Gardner’s chest. One of the men shot a blank. But which man? That 20 percent chance of having the gun with the blank is how any good firing squad restfully sleeps at night. It’s also the mental factor that allowed them to get a casual cup of coffee together after the execution. The convict, strapped to the chair, had a black hood pulled over his head. He was serene. He said he had nothing to say. Yes, the blood pooled in a pan set beneath the chair. That was morbid, even though the families of Gardner’s victims thought it was satisfying. Yet, the death was about as painless as death can be. Far more relieving and less agonizing than the more clinical lethal injection.

Lethal injection is thought to cause the convict serious burning sensations while his body is locked into hideous muscle cramps. All the while, the inmate is experiencing asphyxiation. At some point, he goes into cardiac arrest. Who wouldn’t choose the old gentlemen’s firing squad? Four bullets and a blank to the chest, from up close. I’ve seen this done to raccoon and skunks on my father’s farm. My father is a one-man firing squad. He does not like to inflict pain and suffering on any animal, but he’s also a practical man, and he cannot have wild animals terrorizing the family’s pets and undermining the buildings and expensive structures on the farmstead. So he aims his rifle carefully and the raccoon doesn’t seem to know what hit it.

There is only pacifism

The exiled, long forgotten cultural philosopher Hubert Humdinger cringes at the idea that some Bank of America employees should be forced to stand before the old Utah Gentlemen’s firing squad. “There is only one legitimate ideology,” Humdinger shouts at me over our Skype connection. “That ideology is pacifism,” he says, his face very close to his webcam. I can see his blocky teeth up close. They are yellowed, but clean.

“I’ve been in three wars throughout my lifetime, and I’ve killed men,” Humdinger says again, “and I’ll tell you what, as soon as you aim that weapon at a fellow human and pull the trigger,” he says, pausing, “you are instantly no better than who you are killing, or what belief you are trying to snuff out.” As for the Old Utah Gentlemen’s firing squad, Humdinger says he’d like to take a broom handle and bonk each one of them over the head with it. “There should be no blank in one of the guns!” Humdinger hollers. “That way, they’d all feel like shit for killing someone.”