Improving Memorial Day

Yes, folks, it is Memorial day weekend. Time of fun and outdoorsy stuff and a random Monday off work and all that. Its time to go down the store and buy some expensive parts of dead ruminant animals, bring them home, and throw them over an open fire until they are nice and cooked, then cut them into little bits, and enjoy them with some nice potato salad which your brother in law hopefully did not leave out in the sun. Like last year. Yes, take a day to have too many beers, and throw each other in the swimming pool. Empty your pockets of ipods and cell phones, first, please. Then, after a fine day of fun and sun and swimming and beer, fall into bed exhausted, fool around with the old lady for a few minutes (or, as my wife prefers to call herself, the Young Porn Star), then get up in the morning to go to work with a hangover.

But aren't we forgetting the true meaning of Memorial Day? (No, not the Indianapolis 500).

Memorial Day was founded in 1866 to honor the dead of the American Civil War (also known by its more appropriate name, the War of Yankee Aggression), in Waterloo, New York, by the Sons of Union and Confederate Warriors And Descendants (SUC-WAD). People were to go to various grave sites and decorate them with flowers and little flags. (As an aside, if you are ever in trouble with your lady, and need flowers, because you did something really stupid like anything your brother-in-law suggested, ever, think "cemetery". Free flowers, anytime. Save you $20!).

This holiday was to honor the heroic, Christian dead who, heroically following the words of Christ to love your neighbor, heroically shot, cannoned, and bludgeoned their neighbors to death. Not to mention stabbed, burned, strangled, and blew up. Did I mention that chaplains on both sides said prayers of blessings over the troops before they were sent off to battle? Of course, these men were only following the orders of the criminal gangs (AKA "governments") ruling their respective territories. And after all, doesn't the Good Book say "obey the powers that be"? (Please pay no attention to the fact that this admonition was given by a man who was under arrest at the time he wrote it for disobeying the powers that be.)

But Memorial Day has become passe. Too many people look at it as an extra day off, or an excuse to discount their already low prices on pick up trucks. So I suggest a few changes and some new holidays.

First, I propose that we move Memorial Day back to its original day of May 30. Only, this time, we rename it. Since it really makes no sense to honor those who volunteered to kill for their government, (they already got their reward), this time we give it a name that remembers only those soldiers who died in war, but didn't volunteer to do so. We'll call it Victim of the Draft Day. We will honor those who, faced with the choice between the army or prison, chose the army. You know the guys. They are the ones who, unlike George W Bush couldn't pull strings to get into the air national guard; those ones who, unlike Dick Cheney, didn't have "other priorities"; or the ones who unlike Rush Limbaugh, couldn't develop anal cysts just in time to avoid combat. These are the ones we really should honor. You know; the ones who wake up screaming in the middle of the night from PTSD related nightmares. The ones down at the VA hospital who are made to wait for hours to be given shoddy service. The ones who have had eyes blinded, and limbs ripped off, because they just couldn't seem to score high enough on their SATs to get into college like Bill Clinton.

Since the veterans have one holiday already, we need to change Veterans Day. Veteran's Day started out as Armistice Day, a day to celebrate the end of World War One, and the onset of peace. Over the years, this gradually morphed into a celebration of veterans in general, and their "service" to the United States. But as I have shown, these men weren't serving their country so much as being forced into slavery by its government. Change number two will be to return Veterans Day back to Armistice Day, and renew a celebration of the onset of peace, rather than honoring war.

Now for the holidays I'd like to add. First, I'd like to add "Citizen's Memorial Day" on August 6. This was the day when, in 1945, the United States government, headed by Harry S. Truman, deliberately bombed the city of Hiroshima, Japan, incinerating tens of thousands, burning hundreds of thousands more, and wrecking an ancient and historic city. He did this despite misgivings and outright opposition by much of his military staff. The whole thing was unnecessary and constituted one of the most shameful moments in American history. Citizens Memorial Day will be held each year to honor the civilians that have paid the ultimate price for government. We will honor the memories of, and decorate the graves of those innocents who have perished to keep our government safe.

The second holiday I would add is called Imperialism Awareness Day. On this day we will remember the imperialistic tendancies of both the government and the big businesses that finance it to engage in expansionism, always with the excuse of "protecting Americans" usually with the real reason being expanding or protecting big business interests. I could not decide whether the date should be April 11, which is when, in 1898, the United States declared war on Spain for no good reason, or April 6 which was when, in 1917, the United States entered World War One for the idiotic purpose of making the world safe for democracy by restoring the imperial government of Britain, and protecting the tyranny of the czar of Russia. Finally, I decided on January 14. This is the date when, in 1897, the Safety Commitee, a group of American sugar barons, overthrew the Hawaiian queen's government. It was the first real international instance of yankee imperialism, and it led directly to Hawaii becoming first a territory, then a military base, then a state. Besides, the two dates in April are too close to the next holiday I would like to establish.

April 15. This day when we traditionally pay our taxes will be made into an official holiday called Paying for Folly Day. We celebrate it by sending large chunks of our income to Washington DC so the fools there can make more enemies for us, giving us an excuse to maintain the most expensive army in the history of the globe.

Of course, all this imperialism and warfare would quickly come to a stop if we were to do one thing: Keep tax day April 15, and move election day to April 16.