sovay: (Rotwang)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2026-01-05 05:35 am

And we'll find you a leader that you can elect

This administration has run so hard from the start on leaded fantasies, the presence of a fossil fuel in its latest scream for the headlines seems macabrely apropos. Oil is indeed a lucratively unrenewable resource, but aren't those equally heady fumes of the Banana Wars and Neptune Spear? In my own throwback to the twentieth century, I haven't been able to get Phil Ochs out of my head. It was in another of his songs that I first heard of United Fruit. I live in endless echoes, but I am tired of these threadbare loops of empire that were already sticky shed and vinegar when another fluffer of American exceptional stupidity hung out his banner of a mission very much not accomplished. Is it the Crusades this time or Manifest Destiny? War Plan Red hasn't panned out so far, but we can always rebrand the Monroe Doctrine. Colombia! Cuba! Greenland! Daddy's shadow and Deus vult. "Every generation of Centauri mourns for the golden days when their power was like unto the gods! It's counterproductive! I mean, why make history if you fail to learn by it?" I was thirteen when I heard that line and I understood the question. Who knew I was going to spend the rest of my life finding out just how many people were never even interested in trying?