This
Memorial Day, we have a solemn responsibility to glorify participants
in wars that will leave no survivors.
We
should not lightly disregard the longstanding custom of celebrating
only those who have already participated in orgies of mass murder.
But
we also have a duty to look forward with what discernment we can
muster. In the absence of an omniscient future-crime bureau, we can
only act on probabilities. However, the likelihood of all-consuming
nuclear war is increasing rapidly, and by preemptively celebrating it
we only add to the near-certainty of its coming. We must act now. We
cannot take the risk of WWIII surprising us in between Memorial Days
and finding no opportunity to dignify the ultimate industrialized
cannibalism before the final lights out.
So,
a future-crime Memorial Day is a necessity, but it also has
serendipitous advantages. Normally, we are reduced to celebrating
actual wars, with all their flaws and failings. A nuclear war is far
less messy and bloody than most wars — at least in an imaginary
caricature, and a war that hasn’t happened yet can be idealized
as we see fit.
This
also gives us the opportunity to praise and glorify people while they
are around to appreciate it. Mourning the dead has always made
complete sense, but celebrating the mindless obedience and sadistic
destruction of the dead has never seemed quite right — probably
because our cheers have never reached the ears of the fallen.
It’s
also always seemed a bit off to be celebrating only a tiny fraction
of the dead, only the military participants, and only those in one
military. Statistically, the dead in the coming apocalypse will also
be mostly civilians, but we’re no longer honoring the dead —
we’re straightforwardly encouraging the participants among the
living.
It’s
also always been a problem that the military dead have been mostly
low-ranking people compelled to kill and die or face prison, people
mostly drafted by poverty and ignorance, whereas we couldn’t
properly memorialize those most responsible while they were
themselves playing golf. In the revamped Memorial Day this problem
vanishes. We can prioritize as appropriate, perhaps even with some
major ceremonies in honor of Bitutinensky (Biden, Putin, and
Zelensky) — credit where due!
No
reason not to also finally, at long last, memorialize the weapons
company CEOs — after all, they are going to die with everyone
else, just in nicer clothes.
No
reason, also, not to put this thing into the selfish first-person and
ask everyone to memorialize themselves in the name of Lockheed
Martin. We who are about to die, salute you!
But
the major advantage of a future-crime Memorial Day is that we can
memorialize more than just people who are about to die. We can
memorialize dolphins, roses, mice, butterflies, forests, and coral
reefs. We can memorialize childhood and marriage and sports and
dancing. We can memorialize music and kisses and breakfast on the
beach. We can memorialize every goddamned thing we can think of.
That’s the size of this idea, folks. Go big or go home. This
Memorial Day needs to be the best one ever!
