The American Utopia: A Thousand Years of Shopping
Commentary for 11 January 2014
My original intention was to write about a Ukrainian expert's analysis of what he calls the "Phase of Russian Mobilization." Andrew Yermolaev says that Russia's program is "cynical, arrogant, deceitful" and yet effective. It is the program of an Asiatic despotism. There's nothing new in it, and nothing visionary. We may ask, by way of contrast, what the American long-range vision might be. Is it something new? What is America's program?
Sometime around the year A.D. 3015 the stock market will reach the 10 million mark. It will be a time of great rejoicing as Wall Street celebrates a 1,000-year bull market. The United States will also look back on a thousand years of uninterrupted peace. Russia and China, once poor and communist, will be consumer societies led by Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan clones. The Muslim World will have launched their Great Jihad into outer space, harassing distant unbelieving planets with human bombs and quotations from the Koran. Although half America’s work force in 3015 will be employed in hospitals, post-modern science will have cured cancer and the common cold. (Of course, cigarette smoking will be punishable by death.) The Bill of Rights will include over 65 amendments covering the newly acquired rights of cows, pigs, dogs, sheep, horses and cats. The Beast Rights Voting Act of 2311 will further assure the humane treatment of animals at the polls. Politicians, pandering to the animal vote, will make speeches consisting of barks, oinks, snorts and mooing. (This will be essential to the success of future officeholders.) At the same time, the male gender will be forced to endure medical treatments that effectively lower testosterone. In fact, testosterone will be listed as a dangerous hormone and will be strictly regulated by the state. Males will be tested and monitored for "over-production" of this dangerous substance, and treatments will be mandatory.
In the year 3015 the U.S. population will be thoroughly engrossed in educational pursuits. The average American will spend 35.5 years in school, beginning at the age of two months. High school and grade school will be greatly extended as colleges will merge with pre-schools. Despite this massive educational program, literacy will disappear and only specialists will know how to add, subract, multiply and divide. The economy, pumped and bloated with hot gasses generated from huge fusion-powered machines, will be based on a four-hour workweek. Voodoo practitioners will lead the nation’s market analysts in mass prosperity-visualization exercises, paid for by the Treasury Department and major corporations. There will be 31,225 television channels in the year 3015, but all programming will be entertainment. Nobody will be interested in news, since nothing newsworthy will have occurred for centuries. Educational programming will also be unknown, thanks to the length of time spent by the population in state schools. At the turn of the next millennium the average American will weigh about 512 lbs., have a 75 IQ and enjoy a deliriously happy life – free from serious thought and worry.
Our 234th president, Fernando Hernando Cortez Rodriguez, will be covered with tattoos. Hundreds of gold and silver rings will pierce his ears, nose, nipples, eyebrows and lips. His bulky 639 lbs. frame will be topped by a stylish pink Mohawk. He will preside over 786 government departments minus the Department of Defense, and he will manage a staff of 780 million federal employees. He will have a press conference every day at which he will wear a party hat, blow on a noisemaker, and kiss each member of the press on the lips (regardless of sex or species). The United States Congress will be controlled by the Republican Party, which will be led by a prize-winning hog genetically engineered to be more intelligent than your average Republican. The Democratic Party will not exist because the Pervert and Freak Party will have taken over the Democrats’ constituency.
The U.S. national anthem will no longer be the “Star Spangled Banner.” Instead, every ball game will begin with the 27th century hit tune “Oooo Oooo, it feels so good.” The U.S. flag, no longer recognizable by the public, will be replaced by a light blue banner featuring a gerbil. The country’s leading cultural figure will be an onanist named Sparky. All the country’s nuclear weapons will be rusted and forgotten. Nobody will even remember how to make an atomic bomb, and few scientists will have the IQ to try. In other countries they will regard us with awe and reverence, as the foremost models of general obesity and smugness. Even the French will bow down and worship the great American gut as it hangs majestically over beltless blue jeans.
Here is the promised utopia. It is purely speculative, of course, whether we will realize this grand dream. Some may argue that the future nation I have described would be too weak to survive a few years let alone a few centuries or decades. However true this may be, our hedonism compels us to greater and greater exertions.
