personhood for Liberty?

Following the recent decision by the government of India to grant full personhood status to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, members of the U.S. legislature are mulling a similar move for the concept of Liberty. Trampled upon by legislative decrees that stifle free speech as well as current police practices that deprive citizens of their property without due process of law, Liberty has had a hard go at things in America.

Supporters of the attempt to grant personhood to Liberty are facing down these opposition groups, among others: ones that profit from America’s immoral, unethical, and unwarranted use of violence and war-like force at home and abroad (i.e. the military-industrial complex); ones that profit from the incarceration of American citizens for possessing drugs these citizens wish to use (i.e. the prison-industrial complex); ones that receive taxpayer fund as a reward for engaging in high-risk speculative behavior (i.e. the banking-industrial complex).

In the unlikely event that Liberty is granted personhood, any individual or corporation that violates the Constitutional rights of Americans to live in peace with the various peoples of the world whilst altering their bodies with whatever drugs they choose without having to pay trillions of dollars to bail out greedy bankers; any individual who, or corporation that, abuses his responsibility toward the welfare of all Americans equally (this responsibility being itself indistinguishable from Liberty); such an individual will have his Liberty taken from him for no less than three days and no more than one year’s time, and such corporation will have its own personhood revoked and its assets redistributed for the betterment of all Americans equally (in the form of infrastructure, community gardening, or guaranteed basic income projects or the like).

In betting houses around the world, the chances of American Liberty gaining personhood stand at 10,000 to one.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

Grigovia remains unaffiliated

As its former Warsaw Pact allies either line up to join NATO, bow to the demands of American military-logistics planners, or grovel at the doorstep to the European Union, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia (GROG) has managed to go it (mostly) alone. While still technically a member of the United Nations, GROG has boycotted the General Assembly ever since 2002, when the United States of America launched an illegal war of aggression against Iraq, a Central Asian country rich in natural resources. Bursting with rare earth metals and home to vast stretches of endangered cold-weather rain forest untouched by ax or saw, Grigovia has safeguarded its independence, its natural resources, and the dignity of its human population by fighting off all efforts to incorporate it into international bodies or alliances. Said Hennu Yiptlend, GROG's Secretary of the Interior, Natural Resources: “We have watched as our neighbors in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan caved to the murderous and incessant Yankees, sacrificing freedom, airspace, and honor at the altar of conspicuous consumerism and standing by helplessly as their countries became infested with fast-food restaurants and television advertising. The people of Grigovia were asked in a referendum if they wished to support the American invasion of neighboring sovereign lands, and if they wanted to join the E.U., and maybe the IMF, and 98% of the people answered with a resounding NO. Various international election-monitoring agencies tallied the results of the referendum, verifying our initial counts.”

Founded in 1904 as a parliamentary republic by King Hyu-Yennd Yündlennd, who abdicated shortly thereafter, Grigovia quickly became known throughout the world as a free and unaffiliated state similar to Switzerland. Whereas Switzerland became rich by stashing gold for the Nazis, gold that they had looted from the corpses of millions of innocents and non-combatants, Grigovia did not. Leading a quiet existence and laying low for the first few decades of the 20th century, GROG was one of the only nations to refuse Nazi gold as well as being among the first to grant women's suffrage and to outlaw the discrimination of persons based on skin tone, nation of origin, height, weight, sex, hair-style, health, wealth, beauty, and joi-de-vivre. Known for its liberal banking policies, raucous night-life, and refusal to sign any and all extradition treaties, Grigovia remained free until the ascendancy of the Soviet Union, which incorporated it into the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (CCCP), ending its sovereignty and forcing it to adopt central-planning policies designed to enslave it to Moscow's corrupted will and to crush the spirit of its people.

That spirit simmered quietly until 1956, when, in lockstep with the Hungarian Freedom Movement, Grigovians rose up, unarmed civilians swarming Soviet tanks and dying in droves trying to re-take the high mountain passes. The Grigovian spirit kept simmering until 1989, when, in lockstep with the Polish Solidarity Movement, Grigovians erupted in violent protest, throwing off the last, dying vestiges of the Soviet Union and liberating themselves in just a few short days. Old habits die hard in this fierce little country, however, where communal gardens, public transportation, and neighborly helpfulness are still considered vital to a peaceful, healthy, and happy society. “Who needs fancy foreign taskmasters when we ourselves are free?” asked thirty-four year old Ninna Chueryennd, avid gardener, bicyclist, social activist, and lifelong inhabitant of Grig. “I was on the front lines when we threw off the mantle of Soviet oppression, and I shall die before I let this nation enslave itself to the theory of capitalism for the sake of conspicuous-consumption.”

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