Death Machines in the Sky

The Abbie Fest usually happens the same weekend as the Air and Water Show, but this time, they landed one week apart. This last weekend was the Abbie Fest barbecue, which always proceeds the festival and which is always a strange interlude.

So while the barbecue grills were raging, the brats and burgers and dogs roasting, the actors and directors kabitzing - the big Death Machines designed and maintained by the U.S. Air Force were roaring overhead.

Am I the only one who thinks that this martial display is not for our entertainment, but is instead a show of force? Not just a reminder of where all our tax dollars go but also a reminder that these toys could just as easily be unleashed on us.

While another hot dog bit the dust, the death machines were ripping through the sky.

I can't help wondering what it would be like to be in a land where these machines were doing what they were designed to do, namely devastating some poor civilian population, dropping their ordinance on their targets, wreaking unholy, hell-fire vengeance and scaring the bejesus out of the survivors?

Anyway, maybe it's the ghost of Abbie Hoffman that makes my thoughts drift in that direction - visions of Kent State and Tiananmen Square.

What happens if the natives get really restless? What if people massed in Washington D.C. and other big cities throughout the land and shut those cities down? How long before the tanks and planes and guns would be brought down on the people? Do we really think it can't happen here?

Now maybe our population is too docile, too fat, too happy - I mean, marching in the streets is so passe. Government sanctioned torture doesn't rile anyone up. Stolen elections? Nope. High crimes in high offices? Boring! Unjust wars started on lies? Brother, that is old news.

And anyway those big shiny death planes look so cool. And they are ours - we paid for them with our hard-earned cash. Big death planes burning up jet fuel - now that's entertainment!