Dear Dirty America

Some people have charged General George Washington, who became the first president of these United States, as nothing more than a country bumpkin. Some people consider him just another extension of the world’s evil empire. Others say he was on board with creating his own empire of indentured servitude under the hopeful banner of liberty and justice for all. In that way, he was nothing more than an opportunist with 8,000 acres of prime farmland and 318 moderately happy slaves.

No matter what you think, the spirit of Washington and 1776 cannot prevail in the 21st century.

Not that I don’t root for it every day. I think Washington had more courage than most men who have come after him. A few rogue historians and philosophers chalk that up to higher sperm counts, which have been dwindling at an incredible rate and are a mere fraction of what they normally were even a couple of generations ago in America.

For example, my grandfather fired shells out of a Bofors 40mm cannon from the deck of a small ship floating in hostile waters during World War Two. He blasted away at Fascist targets while Japanese war planes buzzed overhead and crashed into the sea around him.

Technically, I know my generation should be hammering away at fascist citadels, like the Goldman Sachs building erected in New York City and subsidized by US taxpayer dollars. But I don’t have it in me. I think it is somehow linked to less testosterone and a lack of firm principles. But let us put weak sperm counts aside.

We ought to consider the circumstances that Washington faced. He is still considered the wealthiest president in the history of our nation,  and it is true he was of the new world’s elite, yet I believe his intentions were noble. He truly was not one of the ‘people’ living in squalor and working in dangerous situations without any workers’ rights or regulations to fall back on. And yet, the leaders in Washington’s era could not do it all at once–abolish slavery, implement true freedoms and liberties for all humans, and slice the head off the snake coiled across the pond.

Washington was not a coward. Conditions were harsh. He rode into battle countless times with his troops. He risked being hanged, drawn, and quartered, should he have failed in the American revolution–and failure seemed imminent throughout most of the bumbling years of war with the British.

Yet, Washington, country bumpkin or fearless general, was not perfect. He was a human swept up in one particularly harrowing tide of history. He made mistakes. He made tough choices, like executing soldiers who deserted the army, and getting outfoxed by the experienced British generals. The times were desperate. The chill ran deep. There was little assurance of victory.

But the circumstances are very difficult for any country bumpkin living in 2014 to fathom. The idea of staring into the howling face of a world empire dropping its hammer on your insurrection is not easily understood.

Beside that, there is no reason to have bravery like Washington and his troops in the 21st century. The evil empire never shriveled up. It grew under the guise of freedom and liberty for all. It extended itself from the UK to the US, and its tentacles wormed their way into every stronghold and outpost across the globe. It accumulated almost all the world’s banks and guns, and from there, the rules were and are being made. Millions of youth have marched, fought, and died under the auspices of a worthy cause, yet throughout we see the strings of greed and corruption being pulled from on high.

Whether or not Washington and Jefferson and the Continental Congress truly wanted to throw the shackles off humanity by providing justice, liberty, and the unhindered pursuit of happiness, there is one thing for certain: that principle of Valley Forge 1777, barely flickering but alive and camped out in the treacherous, snow-filled quarters, would surely not have survived today.

No, it wouldn’t have been the spread of syphilis throughout the rashy loins of the pent up soldiers that would have had the Continental Army defeated. Nor would they have fully bowed to the frigid temperatures, the inadequate lodgings, or starvation (although that did kill around 2500 men).

Instead, a series of surgical drone strike sent by the president from his official Washington headquarters would have singed the general’s wig and flung, limb from limb, pieces of men throughout the pristine valley. It would have been the double-tap drone strike that really finished off the fledgling army, as the few survivors dragged the bodies of their comrades out of the smoldering wooden shacks.

The general’s hat would have disintegrated. His wooden teeth turned to dust. The plume of black smoke would be the new beacon of freedom. The resistance would never have seen it coming. Two or three drones is all it would take. Streaking across the sky. Not even a glint of the sun off their plastic wings could have alerted the scouts in the trees on the hills.

And don’t think there would be any real news coverage of the event. Your final glimmer of hope for freedom and individual prosperity would be zapped, and you wouldn’t even know it, unless you were really tuned into the pulse of the universe, and in that case, you still might have written off that feeling of dis-ease as nothing more than a little indigestion from the pepperoni, sausage, and red onion pizza you’d devoured only hours earlier.

Whether you love Washington and the American Revolution myth, or you despise it for being yet another tyranny in its infancy, there is one thing for certain. There is no amount of conspiring and human will power that can reinstate the principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence and, later, in the United States Constitution, unless the global overlords of world corporations and major government chairs allow it.

No sincere country bumpkin with petering sperm counts, built-up self-esteem and a set of flashy slogans about liberty will ever stand a chance against a fully digital, electronically-monitored world of information, or a global empire of elite backed by weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles, homeland security tanks for domestic uprisings, and a billion rounds of ammo for the department’s agents to enforce its bidding.

But before it even gets that far, his round face will appear as a risk on a computer somewhere in a backroom government office, and he’ll be blacklisted, put on the no-fly list, and all his possessions and wealth confiscated for even trying.

This is 2014. We’re living through the opening chapters of a raucous science fiction novel. And no hillbilly chomping his false teeth at the opportunity to lead the troops into waging the battle for freedom will be able to change it.