Drunkblogging a Few Modest Proposals

The world is so screwed up that even our highly intelligent and resourceful President Obama can’t deal with its myriad complexities. Things need to be simplified and a drunk, a lunatic, or a leftist is needed. I possibly qualify on the first two counts. Therefore, farcically facially radical but really simple change we can believe in offers the only possible answers.

In an earlier article, I suggested that some of the country’s many problems can be ameliorated by simply moving the seat of government (and all of its bursting appendixes) to Haiti. This will not only save lots of taxpayer government money, it will also improve both Washington and Haiti. However, we must not ignore other major problems. Heck, the slaves in the United States still need to be freed. This article offers a few additional modest proposals for true change.

The United Nations must abandon decadent New York City and relocate to some less-expensive place more in keeping with its lofty humanitarian principles. As a side benefit, the UN headquarters will become a really cool mega-mosque-community center where people of every race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and ideology can come together in peace and harmony — as they now do so effectively at the UN. Even though not as close to Ground Zero as some desire, it will be a compromise welcomed by all.

Somalia comes immediately to mind as a new home for the UN, but there are many deserving alternatives. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are among them. The advantages would be numerous. Since Luputa exists only in fiction, it could well be even better. In his travels there, Gulliver became acquainted with “flappers”:

I observed here and there many in the Habit of Servants, with a blown Bladder fastned like a Flail to the End of a short Stick, which they carried in their Hands. In each Bladder was a small Quantity of dried Pease, or little Pebbles, (as I was afterwards informed.) With these Bladders they now and then flapped the Mouths and Ears of those who stood near them, of which Practice I could not then conceive the Meaning. It seems the Minds of these People are so taken up with intense Speculations, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the Discourses of others, without being rouzed by some external Taction upon the Organs of Speech and Hearing; for which Reason those Persons who are able to afford it always keep a Flapper (the Original is Climenole) in their Family, as one of their Domesticks; nor ever walk abroad or make Visits without him.

In all of the countries suggested above, there will be numerous flapper candidates and most of them will be delighted to work for next to nothing. The remote possibility that flappers might make things even worse should not even be considered. Tense and immobilizing speculation may well seem better than actually doing something, but would merely perpetuate the status quo.

A truly international currency must soon emerge to displace the dollar. Labels are of critical importance, and the “World Unified Stable Standard Bolívar Fuerte” (WUSS-BF) would be good. The individual words even sound good: “Stable” is reassuring, “Unified” bespeaks togetherness, we all need “Standards,” and a bit of Spanish is also appropriate — “Bolívar Fuerte” means strong Bolivar. Fuerte is a very good word! It alone has done wonders for Venezuela, and el Presidente Chávez can be counted upon for support. Using “strong,” or “WUSS-BS,” would not be as cohesive.

We are now all citizens of the world and must be united and therefore equal in every respect. A common currency will go a long way toward eliminating the need for apologies to the rest of the world, at least for future presidents.

The United States has not become too European; it has not become European (or Asian or Latin American or African or whatever) enough. We need to do much more:

A firm belief in the individual’s ability, ideas, courage, will and a reliance on one’s own resources brought the U.S. to the top. The American dream promised everyone the chance of upward mobility — literally from rags to riches, from minimum wage to millionaire. The individual’s pursuit of happiness was seen as the crucial foundation for the well-being of society, rather than the benevolent state which cares for its subjects — and certainly not the welfare state, which provides a social safety net for its citizens.

We can’t look backward; we must look forward to a brighter and better future for all. Open borders, more open even than in Europe, are necessary. Otherwise, according to Jorge Castaneda, formerly Mexico’s foreign secretary and currently Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, the United States will continue to be responsible for massacres. Such as the disgraceful recent massacre of seventy-two innocent Latin American immigrants in the border state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, trying in vain to reach salvation promised (falsely) in the United States. The United States must yield to “the inevitability of large-scale migration of low-wage workers.” With credentials such as his, the views of Castaneda must be given every bit of the serious consideration they deserve.

Still more is necessary; we can’t just buy the world a Coke and hope to live in harmony. Poverty in the United States must be equalized with that in the rest of the world. Sadly, poor people in the United States are far better off financially than most poor people elsewhere, and that is merely one symptom of our decayed jingoistic sense of American exceptionalism. The U.S. poverty threshold for 2008 for a family of four with two children was $22,570 (412,353.90 WUSS-BF) per year, and that did not include non-cash payments such as food stamps. For the world as a whole, “poor” means living below the global poverty line of US$1.00 (18.27 WUSS-BF) per day, presumably $1,460 (26,674.20 WUSS-BF) per year for a family of four (plus food stamps, if any).

An ill-considered bar graph purporting to show world poverty is presented here; it recognizes that “poverty” means different things in different countries. That is clearly bad and the world community is falling apart. We can’t allow it to continue. Why should “poor” folks in the United States — many of whom have their own homes, cell phones, television sets, air conditioning, and automobiles — have better lives than poor people in the DPRK? It’s unfair and we need to be fair.

As citizens of the world, all are our brothers. We occasionally send pittances in flood aid to the DPRK — allegedly for purely humanitarian and therefore “non-political” purposes — but we don’t try hard enough to make poverty in the United States equal to that in the DPRK. When the UN is relocated as it has to be, these discrepancies will become too obvious to ignore and something will have to be done about them. Adoption of a uniform international definition of poverty would result in the elimination of (statistical) poverty in the United States, but that’s not enough.

The only reasonable way for the United States to show the world that she is not completely evil is for all poverty relief now distributed in the United States to be combined with that distributed in all other countries and given uniformly to all without regard to geography, race, ethnicity, sex, body mass, disability, caste, political affiliation, nationality, rationality, religion, or creed. There may, of course, be unintended consequences: if making poverty satisfying works in the United States, just think what could happen if that occurred in third- and fourth-world countries. Foreign manufacture of goods might well diminish to the extent that the United States could get back to making and exporting stuff. The current period of economic recovery is the time to try it. Gosh darn, economics is so terribly complicated. Just knowing that President Obama really understands it is like, I mean, you know, totally comforting. Excuse me. I think my left leg just tingled a bit; must have been sciatica.

Religion is a very important part of civilization. Yet we torment adherents to religions which we deem inappropriate, perhaps based on the fantasies of some long dead males who probably had elitist tendencies. We must stop this bigoted foolishness. Honor killings, beheadings, suicide bombings, stoning adulteresses, jihad, and the like are religious rights rites comparable to circumcision, baptism, first communion, and marriage; perhaps they should be viewed as more desirable because they promote morality (as well as mortality) and hence limit the parasitic increase of filthy humans on Holy Mother Earth. St. Al the Gored will be proud.

Disarmament has failed and will continue to fail until we abjure our wicked ways and take a reasonable, necessary, and egalitarian approach. Nuclear technology and materials must be freely available to all. There is, obviously, no better reason for Israel or the United States to have nuclear weapons than for Iran, the DPRK, or Hamas to have them. What’s the matter? As citizens of the world, we all have the same needs and desires. The same is true for members of drug cartels collectives and other much abused and grossly misunderstood collectives. All need access to nuclear technology and materials — how else can they have dignity and self-respect? How can we have dignity and self respect if they are deprived of them unjustly? We all want and deserve peace. Even the “notorious” Zeta Collective members just need love and understanding (and nuclear stuff). There is no reason why everything must be done on our petty, selfish, jingoistic terms. Can’t we all just get along? We all make little mistakes — even the president and his agencies — and nobody should be held accountable for them. They just happen, like tornadoes and acne: it’s life. Get over it (whoops, that didn’t come out quite right). Cartels and other collectives are no worse (and probably even better) than the monstrous corporations which have done their evil best to destroy the United States, or for that matter, the vast right-wing criminal conspiracy known as the c*ns*rv*t*v*s.

Great improvements must be made in public education if these really modest but possibly radical-appearing proposals are to be accepted. Fortunately, California continues to lead the way. Obviously, textbooks should not show stereotypical “African Americans playing sports, Asians using computers, or women taking care of children.” It’s just plain wrong because we are all equal and therefore the same. Still, there is very much more to do and we had better move on now.

For a true citizen of the world, patriotism, notions of exceptionalism, and all species of inequality, particularly inequality of success and failure, must go. We are all the same. It’s sort of like ObamaCare — once we learn how well it works we are sure to love it. Thus spake St. Nancy of Pelosi, may her holy name be praised. Let’s turn the page and hoist one (several would be better) for the Gipper! Things will look much better then; I promise.