Godzilla
vs. The Condoleezzard
(Celebrating Halloween
in the United States of Anxiety)
By Mickey Z.
25 October, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Halloween is an odd holiday. The ostensible concept,
as it has evolved to become, is to shock, startle, frighten, petrify,
horrify, and/or terrify...all while consuming enough high fructose corn
syrup to keep the American Dental Association content for another century
or two.
Every year, as October 31 nears, loyal Americans eagerly squander a
small fortune to adorn their humble abodes with Made-in-China images
of tombstones, skulls, ghouls, goblins, monsters, zombies, and even
the occasional bloody severed limb or two. While none of these cardboard
depictions scare me as much as, say, the upcoming fifth installment
of Stallone's "Rocky" series, I do believe there are plenty
of real-life creatures that might warrant their own Halloween mask this
year...and I'm not just talking about celluloid slashers.
Ghosts, to me, are not a
bigger or more urgent concern than irreparable environmental damage,
and I certainly lose less sleep over the dead rising from their graves
to eat me than I do a planet populated with oppressed and starving humans.
Forget Freddie of Elm St., I give you Henry the Horrible (Kissinger,
that is): "Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign
policy towards the Third World, because the U.S. economy will require
large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from
less developed countries."
Never mind Jason and his hockey mask when Ann Coulter is playing right
wing: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and
convert them to Christianity."
No need to worry about a fire-breathing reptile like Godzilla when a
Condoleezard is loose in DC: "There is nothing wrong with doing
something that benefits all humanity, but that is, in a sense, a second-order
effect."
And, let's face it, a nocturnal bloodsucker named Dracula is nothing
compared to the Big Bad Bushes of Yale roaming the earth both day and
night: Bush the Elder: "I will never apologize for the United States
of America. I don't care what the facts are." Bush the Lesser:
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They
never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people,
and neither do we."
Of course, if none of those political poltergeist sends a chill down
your ever-loving spine, you can chew on this factoid as you devour those
Twizzlers, Bon Bons, and Almond Joys: For the first time in history,
there are as many underweight people in the world as there are overweight
people: 1.1 billion of each. (Running parallel to that troubling trend
comes the reality that 100 million Americans-one-third the population-are
either underinsured or uninsured when it comes to health care.) In other
words...step away from the candy corn.
If you're still not quaking in your boots or pulling the covers over
your head, let's take this hunt for horror global. Think about this
as all those kids-in overpriced Barney costumes-come knocking on your
door, expecting candy and more: Across the globe, an estimated 29,158
children under the age of 5 die from mostly preventable causes every
single day. Cue the ominous music: 29,158 dead. Under the age of 5.
Every single day. From mostly preventable causes.
The next time you're at a sporting event or a concert, take a good,
slow look around you and get a feel for what 29,158 looks like. It's
a whole lot more terrifying than the whir of a chainsaw echoing down
a desolate Texas highway.
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
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