Stay calm, go shopping
AL Kennedy
Friday June 21 2002
The Guardian
I don't know about you, but I find I am resting much more easily in my
bed now that the splendid FBI and CIA have proved themselves able to
predict whenever a cohort of the Evil Axis is considering a plan to
possibly begin thinking about the sketches for what might turn out to
be a dirty bomb. No one will make fun of intelligence agencies in the
Oval Office any more and a new joint crest can proudly show the left
hand of Central Security joining the right hand of Federal Security
and together finding and covering their noble president's
arse. Likewise, I am glad that Evil will not row its way under
Gibraltar, rendering our plucky rock explosive or, even worse,
Spanish.
But, of course, the forces of Light and Truth cannot be everywhere and
(due to budgetary constraints and the public's wrong-headed insistence
on inconvenient civil liberties) their crusaders cannot tap, tape,
scan or steam open every possible communication throughout the
globe. We must face the fact that people all over the world are
passing secrets to each other - sometimes in Arabic, and that's a
fantastically difficult language. Why, it's a wonder Arabic-speaking
people can even buy a packet of crisps without accidentally ordering a
missile launcher and accepting responsibility for any number of
outrages.
This means we may never uncover the dreadful Iraqi scheme to build a
network of huge trampolines that will catapult smallpox-infected koi
carp into the Mediterranean, causing alarm to tourists
everywhere. North Korean agents have already managed to sneak a prison
reformer's portrait on to the new "magic serial number" fivers. This
has confused British bank tellers and embarrassed the government at a
time when we should be banging up as many scumbag Brits and (most
likely Evil) refugees as possible. This would mean they would succumb
to suicidal depression in various mismanaged hell holes, thus reducing
strains on the immigration and probation services and the risk they
would have posed to national security. Thank God the Notes of Evil
were recalled in time.
A Libyan scheme to steal David Beckham has been thwarted by ensuring
that one of 12 possible Beckhams is always kept in a high-altitude
orbit, but quite frankly other much less important people could be
poisoned, squashed, blown up or irradiated by Evil any minute. Our
only hope lies in channelling the entire combined domestic product of
the Forces of Light into intelligence gathering and arms
production. So, out with safe drinking water, hospitals and schools
and in with more submarines, Sarin and those lovely banned landmines
we still sort of sell.
Now the cost of these improvements to freedom's essential defences
will naturally place a considerable strain on the British and US
economies that are, in turn, supported by consumer debt. This means
that, in order to protect your limbs and loved ones, each British
citizen will soon be expected to service at least two car loans, seven
store credit cards, two conventional credit cards, an overdraft and a
100% mortgage on an inner-city flat with severe structural faults, or
a jerry-built semi in the middle of a flood plain. Only with your help
can Goodness triumph.
Naturally, consumers are less willing to consume when they are
afflicted by pointless fears over their physical wellbeing and nagging
doubts about their futures. So it is important that all relevant
security services should soothe the masses with triumphant bulletins
outlining the daring way they have already foiled plots by the Shining
Path to reverse the direction of bath taps in Plymouth, or al-Qaida's
scheme to render all British condom vending machines mildly
radioactive. There must be plots, they must be harmlessly unmasked,
there must be consumer spending and those all-important Weapons of
Goodness must be constructed and deployed.
There must also be no confusion over what constitutes a Weapon of
Goodness. Britain's chemical, biological and nuclear illegal weapons
of indiscriminate mass destruction are Good, as are those of our
allies. Anyone else's are Evil, unless we or our allies supplied
them. Good Weapons remain Good, even if we sell them to leaders intent
on oppressing and murdering their own populations - as long as said
leaders support the IMF. Said supremos may also terrorise the
populations of neighbouring countries, unless those countries are also
our allies, or contain things we may want - in which case, said
leaders become Evil. Unless they're in Israel. Or the US, or
Pinochet's Chile. Good is Good, Bad is Bad and everyone should just
stay calm and keeping spending.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
-- We are guilty of the grossest, and most narrow partiality, and make ourselves the model of the universe ... What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole Universe. - David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
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