Are such subtleties forever lost on the powerful? I can kill you, without communique or fanfare. Or, I can convey the message that I plan to kill you. To the functionary foot solider, the former is decidedly more lethal than the latter which is mere telegraphed intention. But then, the foot soldier has his feet planted firmly on the ground. He knows the difference between a bullet and a bulletin. I truly believe our elites are losing this distinction. Nay, I think they’ve lost the friggin’ plot.
Worse, I believe they fear the effects of a badly drafted bulletin more than they do a well-aimed bullet. This is a moral corruption and there are reasons for it. The elite are far more accustomed to dying in bed than in combat. What coupon-clipper doesn’t yearn to expire bedecked in a smile and plunked beside his favorite mistress a la Nelson Rockefeller? Petraeus should be so lucky. By the way, having a mistress sends a terrible message to your wife.
I know I’ll be accused of some sort of class warfare harangue. But I view this message-promoted-to-flesh syndrome as a mental health issue that happens to afflict the promulgators more than we the recipients of said missives. Regular folks are inoculated to some degree because they still must take out their own trash and drop legs in faraway places. Decadence spawns from the enervations of unearned privilege. The mainstream media and the elite must re-engage on an existential level with war. They must rekindle a healthy forbearance towards armed conflict that only noblesse oblige can supply. Whizzing bullets cure armchair commandos. We need warrior-kings once again, leaders who can reacquaint word with deed. Through no accident warrior-king Eisenhower offered the most actionable speech of the last sixty years. We failed to heed his call and have trod a war footing ever since.
That’s why I’m calling for the immediate NDAA rendition and delivery of Senator Lindsey Graham to his new role as Damascan warlord for some merry band of al Qaeda psychopaths. Only after he has been baptized in palpable fear (a healthy rendezvous with unmediated reality) should Graham be allowed to resume frightening old ladies in Charleston with tales of looming nuclear holocaust. It’s high time we restored fear-mongering in America to its rightful place as a privilege that must be earned! Of course he will first have to explain to his new charges why he just called them ‘crazy bastards’ in the chamber of the Senate. But I have faith in Graham’s rhetorical prowess if not his skill with a Kalashnikov.
