A nation of excess
a SUIT column by Chris Jungle

We get what we deserve. We get what we pay for. We get what we want. We are the United States of America. We have the best basketball players in the world but only mediocre soccer players. We can cook up a cow to perfection--just the way we like it. We tout the most morals and values and turn to psychiatrists to help us when our beliefs conflict with our desires. We vote in a president that we almost want to have an affair (for good and bad reasons). We are excited about two men chasing a home run record. We have the most comprehensive drug control initiative and still boast the most users worldwide. We have mass murderers. We play smear the queer. We grab what we want and try to pay for it later. We are an irony unto ourselves. We are a nation of excess. We're #1. We're #1. We're #1.

I asked a young woman I'd just met what she wanted to do with herself. The answer was simple and complete. "I want to make a lot of money." She has no aspirations to do or be anything, but she wants the money. It's our ultimate defining aspect. It doesn't matter how we get it, it doesn't matter what we do with it, it doesn't matter what happens to it. As long as we have the money, we are good people.

A stripper is respectable, and a social worker is pitied.

What happens when we get the money? We spend it. We spend it on toys and trinkets and technology and titillation and travel and testosterone and too, too much.

We've created a society that has high morals and values and yet anything and everything is for sale. Chronic alcoholics cry to God for help. Chronic gamblers call to God for luck. Chronic criminals deal with God for forgiveness. Chronic abstainers ask God to fix everyone else. Religion, like everything else, is taken in excess.

Drug users don't use one drug. They have to have them all. Alcohol, tobacco, Prozac, methamphetamine, cocaine, lithium, glue, Benadryl, heroin, aspirin, aspirin-free Tylenol, marijuana, mellaril, hashish, gasoline, Codeine, Viagra, Propecia. More, more, more, more. Fix my head, fix my hurts, fix my hole, fix my hell, fix my haze.

We have six network channels, three ESPN channels, two MTV channels, many video channels, two C-SPAN channels, Spanish speaking channels, animal watching channels, cooking channels, family channels, cartoon channels, shopping channels, soft core porn channels, hard core porn channels, pay-per-view channels, and news channels, news channels, news channels.

We buy new cars, we buy old cars. We buy old car parts, we buy new car parts. We buy accessories. We buy stereos. We buy speaker systems. We buy additions to the speaker systems. We buy tweeters, woofers, and sub-woofers. We buy little tires for big cars, big tires for little cars, and wide tires for skinny cars.

We brag when we win and complain when we lose. We bomb with extreme force. We pass policies with grand implications. We pity the poor and complain about welfare.

We have done it before, and we will do it again. We will progress beyond our wildest dreams and crumble beyond our worst nightmares. We sell to each other, we sell to ourselves, we sell ourselves, we sell each other. We are the apex. We are the nadir.

We tax and spend, we reduce taxes. We have gays in the military, we don't say we have gays in the military. We chop down trees, we complain that we chop down trees. We hate terrorists, we hate Iraq, we hate human rights violations. We have Most Favored Nation status with China. We certify that Mexico is helping in the drug fight. We decertify Iran. We announce our presence with authority. We asked for UN support. We do what we want, we always have, and we always will.

We have it all, we have nothing else.

Chris Jungle is a little pig who goes "We We We" all the way home.

return to the Shut up, I'm talking page
return to the LIES home page
return to the A&A home page