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Off The Rail - Dec 7, 2005 - Printable Version
- Waking Up in Bizzaro America
by Mike Bohling
Someday in the near future, millions of American are going to wake up in the morning only to discover that somebody slipped a whole different country under their beds while they were asleep. At first they’ll be in denial, saying things like “No one could slip a whole different country under my bed without waking me up!” After denial, panic will set in. “Has anybody seen my country? I woke up and it was gone”. During the panic stage, many will become irrational and start looking for the America they once knew. They’ll search under the bed, in the closet, and way back in the cupboard behind the bread machine and the electric juicer, but they won’t find it there. Some will even run ads in the lost and found section of the local classifieds.
LOST: COUNTRY
VERY LARGE, FILLED WITH WONDERFUL AND DIVERSE PEOPLE.
ESTABLISHED A COUPLE HUNDRED YEARS AGO BY FORWARD THINKING GUYS WITH FUNNY HATS.
GOVERNMENT FOR BY THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE.
BEACON OF HOPE AROUND THE GLOBE.
IRREFUTABLE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES GIVEN TO ALL CITIZENS.
ANSWERS TO UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL 867-5309. REWARD
But no one will collect the reward. No one will call saying that they saw a country that fits that description wandering around this morning near the corner of Fairview and 2nd Street. That’s when the cold, harsh reality will set in. The realization that they woke up to find themselves trapped in Bizzaro America, a place where up is down, black is white, bad is good and good is bad. The place where the Clear Skies Act and the Healthy Forest Initiative mean fouled air and fewer trees. A carbon copy of the America they went to sleep in but everything is up side down and backward, and nobody sees a problem with it.
Welcome to Bizzaro America, where citizens are deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. The government can lock them up and seize their assets based on suspicion alone without ever charging them with a crime. Homes are broken into without the owner’s knowledge and searched for evidence of misdeeds that never see the inside of a courtroom.
Wars are started, countries are occupied, prisoners of war are tortured, and the proud citizens of Bizzaro America say nothing.
Democratically elected leaders and unhindered voting rights don’t exist here. Bizzaro Americans hold “elauctions” instead of elections. As a formality, they still go through the motions of casting ballots, but the corporations that sponsor the elauctions predetermine the outcome.
Americans accustomed to having separation of church and state learn to embrace creationism being taught in their science classes. The President decrees that televangilists are the only Bizzarolanders qualified to appoint the country’s Supreme Court Justices.
Any and all dissent is considered unpatriotic and could land your ass in Guantanamo for a date with a cattle prod. War heroes are ridiculed and called cowards by politicians who evaded service and never got shot at, or saw their buddies get blown to bits right in front of them.
The Bizzaro President and his administration skulk in the shadows of “national security” so the public can’t see what they’re hiding. Public access to government dealings with global corporations is prohibited. Bizzarolanders are spied upon by government spooks.
The Bizzaro American government manipulates the press and suppresses the news. They have fake reporters and fake news stories. They even have fake news networks. Scandal after scandal go untouched by the media, and when immoral and illegal activities by Bizzaro officials do get exposed, nobody seems to care.
Science is taboo in Bizzaro America, environmental protections are revoked, safety standards rescinded, and fair labor laws nullified.
The saddest part about waking up in Bizzaro America is seeing that all of the people there are just like you and me. They’re good people. They care about their country and where it’s headed, they just don’t care enough to do anything about it. Their tragedy is not that the country was stolen or lost while they slept, but that it was forfeited one brick at a time while they were awake. Other than a Bizzaro indifference to government corruption and unseemliness, our two countries are strikingly similar, almost identical……
………..Wait a minute!?!….
Okay, this isn’t funny anymore. Bizzaro America can’t possibly be real. It’s nothing more than a bad dream. Go back to sleep and forget all about it.
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