The Declaration of Dependence
by Mark W. Bradley
(Adopted in Camera Obscura by an Incontinent Congress, 2001-2006)
A Pusillanimous Proclamation of the Fifty United States of America
When, in the course of Divinely Ordered Events, it becomes expedient for a distracted and terrified people to renounce the political independence which has long plagued and bedeviled them, and to assume among the powerless, the complacent, and the meek of the world the rightfully subservient place to which God and his Earthly Minions have justifiably consigned them, an indecent contempt for the opinions of mankind absolves them from any responsibility of having to declare the causes which impel them to this shameful, yet exhilarating, abdication.
We hold these generally accepted talking points to be self-evident, that all Christian white men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain discretionary privileges, that among these are life (not applicable to terrorist sympathizers), liberty (within narrowly defined but broadly shifting parameters), and the pursuit of happiness (through whatever means necessary, including group-hypnosis, pharmaceuticals, and/or forced psychiatric realignment). That to secure these privileges, governments are superimposed upon men by a Jealous and Vengeful God, deriving their unlimited and irrevocable powers from the tacit and often disengaged consent of the governed; that whenever any vestige of democracy becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of Jehovah and his Ever-Vigilant Servants to alter, abolish or eradicate it, and to institute new-and-improved government, laying its foundation on an all-but-complete absence of principle and obscuring its concealed powers in such form, as to them shall seem least likely of detection by the general public.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that long-nurtured pretenses and artfully-cloaked illusions should not be abandoned for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to scrupulously avoid observation of governmental abuse (as long as such observation is remotely avoidable) than to right themselves by challenging the authorities before whom they have so carefully learned to genuflect and grovel. But when a long train of temporarily necessary constitutional accommodations evinces a design to do nothing so much as enhance their safety and felicity, it is their privilege, it is their patriotic duty, to embrace such government, and eagerly inquire as to how they may further facilitate the abandonment of cumbersome legal constraints on the same, so as not to provide any impediment to their future security. Such has been the abject prostration of this shiftless mob of bovine impersonators; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to jettison the superfluous liberties which have hitherto obstructed the effective operation of (for instance) the National Security Agency. The history of the current President of the United States is a history of unprecedented Solomonic wisdom and far-sightedness, having in direct object the establishment of an all-encompassing and virtually impermeable safety umbrella over our otherwise defenseless country. To prove this, let facts be submitted to an increasingly incredulous world.
He has granted his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the corporate good.
He has forbidden his government to pass dangerously progressive tax legislation, knowing in his heart that it would likely result in the imposition of a most cruel and unusual fiscal discipline on the oppressed corporations which exist primarily to preserve and defend the financial well-being of the nation. When such policies have proven unexpectedly ruinous to the population at large, he has responded with aplomb, boldly declaring each of them "a resounding success."
He has refused to pass electoral reform laws for the accommodation of large districts of poor and chronically underemployed citizens, unless and until they would submit to having their votes "counted" by blackbox vote-rectification units capable of correcting the untold thousands of erroneously-cast ballots to which these people are persistently and stubbornly prone.
He has arranged for right-thinking members of the legislative branch of government to receive well-deserved refreshment at places exotic, exceedingly comfortable, and distant from public scrutiny, for the sole purpose of enlightening them into compliance with his measures.
He has rewarded representative houses repeatedly, for steadfastly refusing to engage in petty obstructionism vis-à-vis his admittedly regrettable (but nevertheless necessary) abridgements of the rights of the people. He has arranged (for a long time after such compliant cooperation) for family members of these courageous legislators to have themselves elected to public office with surprising ease, whereby the legislative powers have proved fully susceptible of being transferred intact to the well-bred scions of these reliable and trustworthy families, the state remaining in the meantime open to all the benefits of foreign controlled asset acquisition from without, and perpetually profitable ersatz-reconstruction within. He has endeavored to allow the ethnic depopulation of some portions of the country, while encouraging an uncontrolled ethnic influx into others; for that purpose obstructing both the provisions designed to guarantee the security of low-income citizens and the laws for naturalization of foreigners, thus preventing wages from becoming unrealistically high, while at the same time alleviating the nagging problem of erroneously-cast minority votes occurring in dangerously concentrated clusters.
He has called a halt to the indiscriminate and willy-nilly misapplication of justice by courageously refusing to acquiesce in obstreperous claims of "independence" on the part of the judiciary. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, which ought to insure their humble supplication (for their first few decades on the bench, anyway).
He has erected a multitude of new Homeland Security offices, and sends hither swarms of information-gathering helpers to assist the people in recording and cataloging their voluminous private communications, all at a fraction of the cost they would incur should they attempt to do so on their own.
He has kept among us, in times of unending war and perpetual panic, private security contractors armed with semi-automatic weapons and unfettered by any federal, state, or local law, so as to insure our continued safety and well-being.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power, which makes him not only the commander in chief of the armed forces, but also the boss of you and me.
He has combined with others (including the vice-president) to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation, while he goes off and rides his shiny new bike.
For quartering large bodies of armed troops in countries that would just as soon do without them (poor ignorant bastards):
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any accidental murders (and other unfortunate atrocities) they should happen to commit against the hapless inhabitants of such countries in the course of any innocent college pranks gone awry:
For canceling all weapons treaties with the rest of the world (especially those countries we strongly suspect are getting ready to start thinking about planning surprise attacks against us in the future, an unforgivable treachery which will eventually justify our preemptive deconstruction of their infrastructure and the depopulation of their population centers with precision guided, limited-yield, non-toxic and environmentally-safe thermonuclear bombs):
For imposing ridiculously enormous wartime tax cuts on us without our informed consent (not that there's anything wrong with that):
For depriving some of us (only the really guilty ones, mind you) of the benefits of trial by jury (which tends to be mostly overused by liberals and other terrorist sympathizers anyway, so screw them):
For transporting us beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offenses (where we are, at least, humanely housed in detention facilities that provide exciting costume parties, really tasty and nutritious ethnic food, scantily-clad gymnastics performers, and non-elective coeducational games of "truth or dare". Needless to say, a good time is routinely had by nearly all...):
For helping to abolish the free system of English laws in (of all places) England itself, and aiding in the establishment therein of an arbitrary and morally rudderless government under the direction of an unprincipled and opportunistic charlatan of doubtful mental health. (Better them than us, I say.)
For stripping away the fragile underpinnings of our painstakingly erected social safety net, even while making promising inroads against the pernicious right of habeas corpus, and generally inserting himself into the personal and private decisions of ordinary people (which is, on balance, a pretty good thing).
For suspending the right of peaceful dissent and declaring himself the final arbiter of the limits of free speech (heaven knows we don't have a clue where to draw the line!)
He has abdicated government here (hey, it's hard work), declaring us fundamentally outside the circle of Federal Emergency Management Agency protection, even while waging catastrophic (but completely unintentional) environmental warfare against us (accidents happen, you know). He has plundered our lands, poisoned our rivers, clear cut our forests, and destroyed the lives of our people (but not necessarily in a bad way). He is at this time transporting large armies of Blackwater mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny in the Middle East, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation (except for maybe King George III's Great British government in 1776. Wow, déjà vu!)
In every stage of these oppressions we have complained loudly and impotently to anyone who would listen, but to go further than this would clearly involve unacceptable risk to ourselves and our extremely valuable stuff. So in lieu of that, we plan to pretty much sit back and swallow our gobstoppers for the duration, hoping valiantly that all this unpleasant danger just sort of goes away on its own. We could write letters to the editor of our local newspapers I suppose, but really, what's the point? After all, a prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is (when you think about it) quite admirably suited to rule over a feckless tribe of empty-headed jingoistic narcissists like us. So let "Old Europe" revel in its decaying nobility. Here in America, we pledge our fealty to our own peerless leader: Sir George, Baron of Greymatter.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress dissembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge and Arch-Flamethrower of Heaven for the punctilious pusillanimity of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of this nation, solemnly publish and declare, that these United States are, and of right ought to be pathetically abject and wholly dependent colonial possessions, held in outright bondage for their own protection by the wise and benevolent CEO's of the multinational conglomerates, to whom we willingly pledge our puny lives, our ever-dwindling fortunes and our sullied honor.
Mark W. Bradley is a schoolteacher and political satirist in Sacramento, California. He can be contacted at: markwbradley@comcast.net.
(Adopted in Camera Obscura by an Incontinent Congress, 2001-2006)
A Pusillanimous Proclamation of the Fifty United States of America
When, in the course of Divinely Ordered Events, it becomes expedient for a distracted and terrified people to renounce the political independence which has long plagued and bedeviled them, and to assume among the powerless, the complacent, and the meek of the world the rightfully subservient place to which God and his Earthly Minions have justifiably consigned them, an indecent contempt for the opinions of mankind absolves them from any responsibility of having to declare the causes which impel them to this shameful, yet exhilarating, abdication.
We hold these generally accepted talking points to be self-evident, that all Christian white men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain discretionary privileges, that among these are life (not applicable to terrorist sympathizers), liberty (within narrowly defined but broadly shifting parameters), and the pursuit of happiness (through whatever means necessary, including group-hypnosis, pharmaceuticals, and/or forced psychiatric realignment). That to secure these privileges, governments are superimposed upon men by a Jealous and Vengeful God, deriving their unlimited and irrevocable powers from the tacit and often disengaged consent of the governed; that whenever any vestige of democracy becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of Jehovah and his Ever-Vigilant Servants to alter, abolish or eradicate it, and to institute new-and-improved government, laying its foundation on an all-but-complete absence of principle and obscuring its concealed powers in such form, as to them shall seem least likely of detection by the general public.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that long-nurtured pretenses and artfully-cloaked illusions should not be abandoned for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to scrupulously avoid observation of governmental abuse (as long as such observation is remotely avoidable) than to right themselves by challenging the authorities before whom they have so carefully learned to genuflect and grovel. But when a long train of temporarily necessary constitutional accommodations evinces a design to do nothing so much as enhance their safety and felicity, it is their privilege, it is their patriotic duty, to embrace such government, and eagerly inquire as to how they may further facilitate the abandonment of cumbersome legal constraints on the same, so as not to provide any impediment to their future security. Such has been the abject prostration of this shiftless mob of bovine impersonators; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to jettison the superfluous liberties which have hitherto obstructed the effective operation of (for instance) the National Security Agency. The history of the current President of the United States is a history of unprecedented Solomonic wisdom and far-sightedness, having in direct object the establishment of an all-encompassing and virtually impermeable safety umbrella over our otherwise defenseless country. To prove this, let facts be submitted to an increasingly incredulous world.
He has granted his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the corporate good.
He has forbidden his government to pass dangerously progressive tax legislation, knowing in his heart that it would likely result in the imposition of a most cruel and unusual fiscal discipline on the oppressed corporations which exist primarily to preserve and defend the financial well-being of the nation. When such policies have proven unexpectedly ruinous to the population at large, he has responded with aplomb, boldly declaring each of them "a resounding success."
He has refused to pass electoral reform laws for the accommodation of large districts of poor and chronically underemployed citizens, unless and until they would submit to having their votes "counted" by blackbox vote-rectification units capable of correcting the untold thousands of erroneously-cast ballots to which these people are persistently and stubbornly prone.
He has arranged for right-thinking members of the legislative branch of government to receive well-deserved refreshment at places exotic, exceedingly comfortable, and distant from public scrutiny, for the sole purpose of enlightening them into compliance with his measures.
He has rewarded representative houses repeatedly, for steadfastly refusing to engage in petty obstructionism vis-à-vis his admittedly regrettable (but nevertheless necessary) abridgements of the rights of the people. He has arranged (for a long time after such compliant cooperation) for family members of these courageous legislators to have themselves elected to public office with surprising ease, whereby the legislative powers have proved fully susceptible of being transferred intact to the well-bred scions of these reliable and trustworthy families, the state remaining in the meantime open to all the benefits of foreign controlled asset acquisition from without, and perpetually profitable ersatz-reconstruction within. He has endeavored to allow the ethnic depopulation of some portions of the country, while encouraging an uncontrolled ethnic influx into others; for that purpose obstructing both the provisions designed to guarantee the security of low-income citizens and the laws for naturalization of foreigners, thus preventing wages from becoming unrealistically high, while at the same time alleviating the nagging problem of erroneously-cast minority votes occurring in dangerously concentrated clusters.
He has called a halt to the indiscriminate and willy-nilly misapplication of justice by courageously refusing to acquiesce in obstreperous claims of "independence" on the part of the judiciary. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, which ought to insure their humble supplication (for their first few decades on the bench, anyway).
He has erected a multitude of new Homeland Security offices, and sends hither swarms of information-gathering helpers to assist the people in recording and cataloging their voluminous private communications, all at a fraction of the cost they would incur should they attempt to do so on their own.
He has kept among us, in times of unending war and perpetual panic, private security contractors armed with semi-automatic weapons and unfettered by any federal, state, or local law, so as to insure our continued safety and well-being.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power, which makes him not only the commander in chief of the armed forces, but also the boss of you and me.
He has combined with others (including the vice-president) to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation, while he goes off and rides his shiny new bike.
For quartering large bodies of armed troops in countries that would just as soon do without them (poor ignorant bastards):
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any accidental murders (and other unfortunate atrocities) they should happen to commit against the hapless inhabitants of such countries in the course of any innocent college pranks gone awry:
For canceling all weapons treaties with the rest of the world (especially those countries we strongly suspect are getting ready to start thinking about planning surprise attacks against us in the future, an unforgivable treachery which will eventually justify our preemptive deconstruction of their infrastructure and the depopulation of their population centers with precision guided, limited-yield, non-toxic and environmentally-safe thermonuclear bombs):
For imposing ridiculously enormous wartime tax cuts on us without our informed consent (not that there's anything wrong with that):
For depriving some of us (only the really guilty ones, mind you) of the benefits of trial by jury (which tends to be mostly overused by liberals and other terrorist sympathizers anyway, so screw them):
For transporting us beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offenses (where we are, at least, humanely housed in detention facilities that provide exciting costume parties, really tasty and nutritious ethnic food, scantily-clad gymnastics performers, and non-elective coeducational games of "truth or dare". Needless to say, a good time is routinely had by nearly all...):
For helping to abolish the free system of English laws in (of all places) England itself, and aiding in the establishment therein of an arbitrary and morally rudderless government under the direction of an unprincipled and opportunistic charlatan of doubtful mental health. (Better them than us, I say.)
For stripping away the fragile underpinnings of our painstakingly erected social safety net, even while making promising inroads against the pernicious right of habeas corpus, and generally inserting himself into the personal and private decisions of ordinary people (which is, on balance, a pretty good thing).
For suspending the right of peaceful dissent and declaring himself the final arbiter of the limits of free speech (heaven knows we don't have a clue where to draw the line!)
He has abdicated government here (hey, it's hard work), declaring us fundamentally outside the circle of Federal Emergency Management Agency protection, even while waging catastrophic (but completely unintentional) environmental warfare against us (accidents happen, you know). He has plundered our lands, poisoned our rivers, clear cut our forests, and destroyed the lives of our people (but not necessarily in a bad way). He is at this time transporting large armies of Blackwater mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny in the Middle East, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation (except for maybe King George III's Great British government in 1776. Wow, déjà vu!)
In every stage of these oppressions we have complained loudly and impotently to anyone who would listen, but to go further than this would clearly involve unacceptable risk to ourselves and our extremely valuable stuff. So in lieu of that, we plan to pretty much sit back and swallow our gobstoppers for the duration, hoping valiantly that all this unpleasant danger just sort of goes away on its own. We could write letters to the editor of our local newspapers I suppose, but really, what's the point? After all, a prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is (when you think about it) quite admirably suited to rule over a feckless tribe of empty-headed jingoistic narcissists like us. So let "Old Europe" revel in its decaying nobility. Here in America, we pledge our fealty to our own peerless leader: Sir George, Baron of Greymatter.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress dissembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge and Arch-Flamethrower of Heaven for the punctilious pusillanimity of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of this nation, solemnly publish and declare, that these United States are, and of right ought to be pathetically abject and wholly dependent colonial possessions, held in outright bondage for their own protection by the wise and benevolent CEO's of the multinational conglomerates, to whom we willingly pledge our puny lives, our ever-dwindling fortunes and our sullied honor.
Mark W. Bradley is a schoolteacher and political satirist in Sacramento, California. He can be contacted at: markwbradley@comcast.net.
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