Thursday, December 3, 2009

World History 101 from an American Perspective

What I Think I Learned In Screwl

A Macedonian who thought he was Greek, Tito would have argued the point I think, conquered the world.

A bunch of Greeks (ATO’s or maybe Kappa Sigs) lived in cities that they thought were states. Yeah, right.

The Roman Empire happened and its history is so muddled that I tuned out until it got interesting with all the sleeping around that Cleopatra was doing. Cesar crossed a river becoming the first wetback in recorded history. He managed to get into Cleopatra’s (another hapless Greek) pants in short order and then was murdered by Marc Anthony, his friend (hence the term back stabber was born) who also wanted in Cleo’s pants. To top that off Cleo had two brothers who wanted in her pants. All four succeeded. This part was really interesting considering how crowded it was getting in there.

The Romans got their arses handed to them by the Gauls at a forest in Germany in 9 AD. The Germans had a big head about it up until 1945.

Lots more stuff happened until…

A bastard Frenchman named William invaded England (with help) and kicked good King Harold’s arse in 1066. This is the first time in recorded history where the French had a white sale because they weren’t in need of a bunch of white flags, something that doesn’t happen often.

A lot more stuff happened until…

Things had been going fairly well in England for more years than I care to count until one day they wound up with a crazy King. Along about here, the phrase; “You get the government you deserve” came into being. King George, the crazy, decided to levy onerous taxes on the American colonies (which had come in to being during that last bit of stuff that happened)

The American colonists decided to dress like Indians and have a tea party in protest which lead to the American Revolution (some say we’ve been revolting ever since) in which “we” and a bunch of others, notably the French who once again left their white flags at home, kicked the empire’s arse and set up our own country.

Until…

The War of 1812 when we decide to let little things, like boarding our ships and stirring up the American Indians, piss us off. Apparently we didn’t get the joke so the British burned Washington, which sounds like a capital idea to me.

Finally, only one day before a treaty was signed ending the war, the Battle of New Orleans was joined. The entire battle, which we won, would have been avoided if only someone could have gotten a cell signal down in that hole of a swamp some insist on calling a city.

More mundane stuff happened until…

The great bloodletting called by some the “War of Northern Aggression”, and by others “The American Civil War” began in 1861 during which a rag tag bunch of shoeless southern boys almost beat the well fed and equipped northern boys over God knows what. Certainly they had no real clue or they’d have stayed at home and let a few hundred wealthy landowners fight it out. Anyway moving on to a place called Gettysburg, the southern boys got there arses handed to them because some overblown Colonel of Engineers named Lee woke up and started giving orders. Things went down hill or uphill depending on your point of view until 1865 when it all ended. Its over, get over it.

More stuff happened until…

“We” MAY have blown up our own ship in Havana Harbor and blamed it on the Spanish which gave rise to the land grab called the Spanish American War. The Americans won and had a great time doing it. Three straight and the Americans were on a streak.

Still more boring stuff happened like digging a ditch across Panama, in another fine little land grab, all legal and above board this time.

Next we had WWI, the “War to End All Wars” in which a bunch of Europeans and the Germans (remember those guys) decided to dig up half of Europe and kill a lot of young men in the process. Never ones to let a good war go to waste, the Americans naturally decided to jump in. This war was started because some Serb decided to shoot an Austrian Archduke. This naturally pissed off some people and pissed off people are always prime for a war, so they had one and killed 15 million people, a high price to pay for one Austrian it would seem but what do I know. It’s only a game after all and does aid in keeping the population in check. I just kept wondering when the subject would return to sex.

The Germans and their allies lost and some idiot decided it would be a grand idea to put the boot heel of the winner on the neck of the defeated and grind a bit with the result of the German mark being worth almost as much as the paper it was printed on. The German’s not being a people to suffer defeat silently, after all they had kicked Roman arse all those years before, elected an Austrian to lead them and damn if he didn’t, lead them that is “out of the pot and into the frying pan” as we like to say. At least the French finally had need of all those white flags they had been stockpiling, so something good did happen. We Americans never passing up a good fight joined in, went to England and some other places and proceeded to fight and **** our way across England and Europe and some other places, like the Pacific Ocean culminating in America dropping a couple of atomic bombs on Japan. Killed approximately 250,000 human beings in two days, a pretty damn impressive score. Everyone's bloodlust satisfied for the time being we started about rebuilding.

Still more stuff occurred until…

The Koreans decided they couldn’t get along and just in the nick of time another war started. Good thing too cause most of the world’s armies were getting tired of just sitting around cleaning rifles and stuff. Eventually everyone decided to just call a very long temporary halt, as it was clearly more fun to sit around a table and stare at each other.

Again, stuff happened until…

One day the Americans elected a handsome lad, named Jack, from Massachusetts, whose daddy had enough money to secure the exalted office of President of the United States and leader of the somewhat free world. Problem is Jack was a womanizer (that part was interesting), war hero and a pill junkie which if you have a bit of power, is a bad combination. First young Jack decided to take on an island 90 miles off Key West but he cut and ran and left a lot of my Cuban brothers on the beach, figuratively and literally. Next he found another little piss ant country in SE Asia that looked like a good place for a fight and he sent in some really good guys to look around, the French having already exhausted their supply of white flags had left by then. The good guys reported back that all they needed was advisors but did any one listen? Not on your life. It had been almost 10 years without a good fight after all. Jack got his arse shot by, a nutcase in a building or was it up to 6 or so people standing on a knoll with guns, as he was taking the guided tour of Dallas, Texas.

So…

This genius named Johnson got to be Grand Poobah, convinced Congress that a destroyer had been atacked by the N. Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin and off to war we went and according to some, who don’t know **** from shinola, eventually got our arses handed to us.

After more stuff happening…

Regan convinced the USSR and friends to "tear down that wall"

Finally...

America was the victim of treachery that would put Pearl Harbor to shame and so truly discovered the Middle East, with more war than you can shake a stick at, and set about righting a massive wrong.

The End.

Copyright Don Smith 2009