Tuesday Is Recycling Day

"The Thin Red and Green Line" (Originally Published, 11.27.07)

The following e-mail correspondence was released to the public on December 16th, 2011 via the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (Amd. Public Law 104-231) and was collected at an undisclosed time via the U.S.A. Patriot Act (Public Law 107-56). It includes content which will remain classified by the United States government due to its sensitive nature regarding matters of national security until the following date: January 1st, 2050. Please be advised that despite FOIA provisions, the publication or broadcast of this communication may be subject to restriction or amendment as dictated by the Fox News "First Look" Act of 2009 (Public Law 134-793, Signed by President George W. Bush, 1-17-09).

Communication Intercept #XX,XXX,XXX (USAPA)
Transmitted on: December 10th, 2009
TC: 13:21:06
From: PFC Granville Sawyer, 57th Overlanders (Tactical Infantry)
To: Mrs. Myrna Sawyer, Seattle, WA

Dear Mom,

I didn't think it would be this cold in Kansas, but the truth is it feels an awful lot like home right about now, except for all the unfriendlies.

My platoon's dug in far behind enemy lines. We have been for quite awhile now, just how long I don't want to say -- long enough that I've seen some things that will haunt me forever.

I keep going back to the same questions, Mom: How did it get this far? How did we get into this mess? How did this bloodbath start?

The first time I heard somebody say that there was a "War on Christmas" I laughed. I figured it was just bunch of overblown garbage used to sell some idiot's books. I thought it was a scare tactic.

Then came all the court cases, the lawsuits against any businesses that used "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." The threats, the intimidation. Christians saying that they were being persecuted. Pushing their beliefs on so many until finally somebody decided to push back. I guess that's when I stopped laughing.

I can't even remember when war was officially declared.

We don't get much information out here and I'm worried that our transmissions are being monitored by electronic surveillance. XXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXX What we hear are mostly rumors. Is it true they wiped out New York City? The last I heard, the National Guard was moving in to crush some kind of uprising that torched the Rockefeller Center tree and destroyed all the Christmas windows at Saks. If the rumor's true, man, all those people. It wouldn't surprise me if it is. After the 42nd Irregulars took out John Gibson live on the air back in March and Fox News decided to relocate from New York to Orlando, it was only a matter of time before the Christian militants finally got their hands on some loose nukes and leveled that city. They've been looking an excuse for years.

I don't know if communcation's been cut off from California, but our new captain says that after we captured Santa Cruz and Santa Monica and renamed them (although I understand the decision, I kinda think Odin Cruz and Odin Monica sound a little silly), the Army's 1st Air Cav launched an assault on San Francisco. He says they came in off the horizon in a fleet of low-flying gunships, blasting Burl Ives's Holly Jolly Christmas as they opened fire. Cap was there and says it was the most terrifying thing he'd ever experienced, the smell of flaming egg nog in the morning. Scared the hell out of the locals.

I hope you're safe, Mom. There's a big mission coming up for us, maybe I'll be able to tell you about it next time I write.

Love,

Gran

Communication Intercept #XX,XXX,XXX (USAPA)
Transmitted on: December 15th, 2009
TC: 9:17:54
From: PFC Granville Sawyer, 57th Overlanders (Tactical Infantry)
To: Mrs. Myrna Sawyer, Seattle, WA

Dear Mom,

Last night, the Marines' 105th Airborne Crusaders -- they're nicknamed O'Reilly's Raiders -- dropped on our position. It was a violent fight. We lost thirty men, including one of my best friends, a guy named Muhammed. Thing is, the Raiders don't just kill you. No Mom, they want to make damn sure you know that "Jesus is the reason for the season." After the battle, we found out that they'd taken a bunch of our guys, tied them up with strings of Christmas lights, then forced them to eat mistletoe and myrrh. It's a poisonous concoction. A terrible way to die from what I hear. Another reason to hate Christmas.

But I'm still not sure all of this is worth it. We hit them and then they hit back, then we hit back harder. I don't even know if the brutality of the Raiders is a response to our own Special Ops unit. They're known as the Season's Reapers. There's word going around that they've been kidnapping carolers and tacking their Santa hats to trees... with the heads still in them.

This morning we torched a Christmas tree farm near the Colorado border. The cloud of smoke from the inferno blotted out the sun. It was like hell on earth.

Give my love to Dad.

Love,

Gran

Communcation Intercept #XX,XXX,XXX (USAPA)
Transmitted on: December 19th, 2009
TC: 21:06:33
From: PFC Granville Sawyer, 57th Overlanders (Tactical Infantry)
To: Mrs. Myrna Sawyer, Seattle, WA

Dear Mom,

We're XXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXX XX and I'm not sure what sort of weapon they've got, but it's XXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX. I've never seen anything like it. All of a sudden there was this bright flash of white and XXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXX XXXX garland and pine needles raining down...

Communication Intercept #XX,XXX,XXX (USAPA)
Transmitted on: December 19th, 2009
TC: 05:45:21
From: PFC Granville Sawyer, 57th Overlanders (Tactical Infantry)
To: Mrs. Myrna Sawyer, Seattle, WA

Dear Mom,

Things are bad here. Word is the Christian militia's moving reinforcements into our position. They're conscripting the Kwanzaa Regiments into service by promising them freedom after the war -- that and Cadillac Escalades with 27-inch chrome rims. The only ones still standing with us now are the Jewish Brigades. They call themselves Zion's Lions. Strong fighters, but they make these fire bombs called Mazel Tov cocktails that use bottles of Manischewitz. Problem is that the stuff doesn't light very well.

It's now turned into a guerilla fight on both sides. Our best weapons right now are IEDs: Improvised Explosive Decorations. We plant them on the side of the road, and their guys just can't help but stop to take a look at them, since they love Christmas and all. We fill the ornaments with explosives and BOOM! ... that's the last Noel for them.

What's the word on the net from the front?

They say there've been some major victories for our side on the ground, but I'm hearing some rumors that really scare me.

Is it true we're putting dwarvess into internment camps?

Love,

Gran

Communcation Intercept #XX,XXX,XXX (USAPA)
Transmitted on: December 24th, 2009
TC: 16:03:50
From: PFC Granville Sawyer, 57th Overlanders (Tactical Infantry)
To: Mrs. Myrna Sawyer, Seattle, WA

Dear Mom,

So this is it, the final offensive, the one that could finish this war once and for all. After the American Family Council -- those crackpots out in Mississippi -- firebombed the Supreme Court, we knew we needed to make a statement. We needed to do something big and public.

That's what will happen in a few hours.

It ends tonight.

Wish us luck.

Your loving son,

Gran

Communication Intercept #XX,XXX,XXX (USAPA)
Transmitted on: December 26th, 2009
TC: 11:20:04
From: PFC Granville Sawyer, 57th Overlanders (Tactical Infantry)
To: Mrs. Myrna Sawyer, Seattle, WA

Dear Mom,

How will history remember this war? How will it remember those who fought against Christian fundamentalist terrorism, or those who fought to preserve a beloved tradition? Who will judge all of us?

After the capture of NORAD two nights ago and the live feed that was beamed to every home in America, after the retaliatory annihilation of the entire coast of California, after the truce that finally followed -- after the bloodbath, what's left?

Now I can tell you, I was part of the team that seized NORAD. We took Cheyenne Mountain and as the facility was going live with its traditional "Tracking Santa" broadcast, we broke in on the air, gave the statement of purpose that I'm sure you saw, then locked on and ordered a complement of surface-to-air missiles to be fired on the designated target. A few minutes later, Santa was blown out of the sky. The people in northern Canada reported seeing a huge explosion in the sky, followed by a fireball plummeting to the ground. The team that confirmed the kill said that nothing was left but a few toys and a bright red nose. For the rest of the world, all they saw was the "Santa" radar blip disappearing on their TV screens.

Then we cut into TNT's "24 Hours of A Christmas Story" and replaced it with The Exorcist on a continuous loop.

The retaliatory nuclear launch that followed, from the militia-controlled Army bunker in DC, was devastating. Millions were killed in California.

That's when both sides realized it was time to end the nightmare.

Hopefully this armistice will mean that I'll be coming home to you, Mom.

Although I finally have access to a TV and while flipping through cable channels this morning I came across Fox News, and there was Bill O'Reilly...

...saying something about a War on Easter.

End of Correspondence

Armed and Prosperous

Oh, this is rich -- literally:

"'I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,' said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.

I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that 'as a preliminary matter' it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names."

Alert Reader Steve forwarded me this piece from Bloomberg today. As soon as I read it I whipped over to Taibbi's blog -- sure enough, he's got a great take on it.

Taibblog: Goldman Sachs Arms Itself/11.30.09

By the way, you'd have to imagine that Lloyd Blankfein doesn't own a gun. He doesn't need one; he's got the power of God on his side, after all.

Tune In, Turn On

Kanye West joins a host of other annoying children for the Gregory Brothers' latest thoroughly entertaining auto-tuned clip. As long as these guys keep making videos, I'll keep posting 'em.

Warren Piece

I really hate to pick on NBC three times and religion twice in 24 hours (oh, who am I kidding?) but I thought this little tidbit from Mediaite was pretty entertaining:

"Ah, to be Rev. Rick Warren on a 'very special' Thanksgiving 'Meet the Press.' Despite being connected to a Ugandan minister who supports the death penalty for gays, you don’t get asked about it... and you aren’t pressed to explain your 'I’m not a politician' position while calling abortion a 'holocaust' and discussing your public position in opposing same-sex marriage in California.


The most heated questioning -- if you could call it that -- came when David Gregory asked Warren to explain his role in supporting Proposition 8 in California, which outlawed same-sex marriage."

And was a big controversy, oh, a year ago.

In Gregory's defense, I think he thought he was talking to Chuck Todd.

Detached from Reality

So just a few minutes ago, the Today Show started to introduce an exclusive interview with Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the White House state dinner crashing reality TV wanna-bes.

That's when I calmly took my cup of coffee, walked across the room and turned off the TV.

If you want to find out what these narcissistic, upwardly mobile bottom-feeders had to say, filtered through the lens of real reality, feel free to read on:

EW: "Our Lives Have Been Destroyed..."/12.1.09

I especially love that the author points out a not-so-insignificant fact: The reality show the Salahis are trying out for -- The Real Housewives of D.C. -- is on Bravo, which is owned by NBC. Which is very likely why the Salahis agreed to do the interview with Today.

And the Ouroboros takes another bite out of its own tail.

Pastoral Existence

"I drink a different kind of Jesus juice."

-- Mike Huckabee in 2005

I know that yesterday I suggested taking a careful tack with the, uh, "revelation" that Mike Huckabee had commuted the sentence of alleged cop-killer Maurice Clemmons -- but that was really only in reference to the political angle of this story. What I don't mind hammering home, mostly because it's unlikely anyone in the mainstream media will be willing to broach the subject of religion from a negative perspective, is the fact that, by his own admission, it was Huckabee's staunch Southern Baptist viewpoint that led him to make the devastating error in judgment that turned a violent career criminal like Clemmons back out onto the streets.

Huckabee's always approached his job in government from the position of his job as a Baptist pastor. For the record, there are times that I've thought this was a good thing -- mostly because I've always given credit to Huckabee for at least being one of the few public figures in the Republican party who sees Jesus as a model of mercy, forgiveness and understanding rather than an excuse for intolerant assholes to wage a culture war without end. But there's no denying that maintaining a steadfast certainty in something for which there's no physical proof -- only a hand-me-down belief system based on nothing more than faith -- makes a guy a pretty easy mark for any con man who's skillful enough at invoking the name of the Lord. That's pretty much exactly what Maurice Clemmons did: He preyed on the fact that Huckabee prays.

And he's apparently not the only one who's professed to have had a jailhouse conversion and found himself swiftly handed a second chance by a very forgiving -- and very naive -- Pastor/Governor Huckabee.

While in a relative sense I respect Huckabee's vision of the role religion should play in the lives of those who accept it, I abhor -- in no uncertain terms -- his opinion that church and state are inextricably linked, and should be. His idiotic decision to do some kind of laying-on-of-hands and play the role of the forgiving Christian father figure to convicted felons, again and again and again, all because they knew the right button to push, is unconscionable; it put lives at risk and, it could easily be argued, actually took the lives of four innocent cops just sitting in a Washington diner doing paperwork.

Whenever I bring up the subject of religion and my often negative opinion of it, someone invariably asks the question, "Well, what's so wrong with believing in God if it's a person choice that gets them through the day?" My answer is always the same: This is a free country and you're absolutely entitled to believe whatever you'd like, but from an ironically logical perspective, it's important to remember that beliefs don't stand on their own -- they inform a person's actions. There are a million things you do every single day that stem directly from the set of beliefs you hold as truths. You go outside because you believe you can breathe the air. You drive across a bridge because you believe it will hold and you won't fall into the river below. You trust your friends and family because, for the most part anyway, you believe they're not planning to fuck you over.

Belief informs action.

And if you firmly believe that this life is only a trial run for the next one, that Jesus will soon come and remove the faithful from the Earth and cast everyone else into a lake of fire, that the world is only 6,000 years old, and that there's an equal parts benevolent and vengeful invisible being that hears your thoughts and can grant forgiveness or strike you down at his whim and may eventually allow you to spend eternity with him and his divine son in heaven -- imagine what that might cause you to do. Not believe -- do.

Now imagine you're an elected official, with power over the lives of others, and are allowed to make decisions based on this irrational belief system.

That's what Huckabee did -- and people's lives were put in jeopardy because of it.

Listening Post

The lyrics of this song express heartbreak as pure, sad poetry.

The Shins -- Pink Bullets.