“Venezuela, in exchange for exports of oil and building materials to Cuba, is currently benefitting from the work of nearly 20,000 Cuban doctors who have opened medical clinics in barrios and rural communities that had never previously enjoyed medical services, while Cuban-staffed literacy programs ‘have taught 1.4 million Venezuelans to read and write during the past year alone’.”
John Doe Dimslow takes note: under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has recently made great advances in extending education and health care to its citizens. The U.S. meanwhile has recently made great strides in extending prison care to its populace now that it seems about 1 out of every 2 Americans is behind bars.
Meanwhile, as it has for years, the U.S. continues to spend about half its budget on war and the military — equaling the military spending of the entire rest of the world combined — the vast majority of it making the world a far more dangerous and deadly place. That’s Dimslows’ dollars we’re talking about being sucked away to impoverish and smash the world.
Fortunately John Doe Dimslow has the solution to all these problems: call it, reorganizing our assets. The Dimslow proposal is to shut down all the schools in the United States and convert them into boot camps for the military. Train everyone. Then skim off the few wits needed to run things and put the rest of the poor slobs — about 80 or 90 percent of all students — directly into the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. This will not only guarantee plenty of lethal cannon fodder for years to come, but also provide the standard veterans’ health care and retirement benefits to many who would otherwise go without.
I, John Doe Dimslow, for one demand something more, that we be militarized all — no matter what age or circumstance. We Dimslows don’t care how dangerous or low paying it is, at least there will be base housing, base health care, retirement pay, and guaranteed employment. Who needs Hugo Chavez, democracy, education, and enlightened and humane social programs when corporate-militarism will do the trick as well?
Please, Mr. President of the United States, invest in Dimslowland by going from this halfway militarized economy to a total militarization of the economy, society, and culture. Hup One! Hup Two! Hup Three! Please Mr. President make me a soldier so I can have even more of the good life — however lamentably short and brutalized.
And why not? Doesn’t everyone know by now that the good life is best reached through war, and a culture of war? — as said so well in this vital appeal: Please, Mr. President, Attack Appalachia.
A Practical Policy 