Grigovia urges calm

Following recent bellicose rhetoric coming from DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and US leader Donald J. Trump, the Parliament of the Glorious Republic of Grigovia released an unanimous statement urging calm. “Nuclear war is against the interests of all humanity,” said prime minister Dr. Frederikka Velldoyend, whose Freedom and Prosperity Party holds a slight majority of seats in the bicameral body. “America is the only nation in the world to have used nuclear weapons in anger; we beg for cool heads to now prevail.” (In Grigovia, the Senate is populated by ten persons selected by the governing body of each independent city-state and canton, and the Congress is selected via popular vote. Similar to the Swiss system, the Grigovian Parliament oversees and manages foreign policy, national defense, federal railways, and the mint.)

“War must only be used as a last resort, a strategy employed once all other options have been exhausted,” said national defense minister Hennda Uilyest of the Grigovian Conservative Green Party. “Diplomacy, cooperation, and open markets alone can assure the future prosperity of all mankind.” Shortly after gaining its independence from the Soviet Union, in 1988, Grigovia dismantled all nuclear weapons the Russians had stored on its soil and promptly joined the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICANW).

“Tinpot tyrants, be they Korean or Ynki, do not have permission to engage in nuclear war,” said Buiryest Darghennd, a 14-year-old student from Pryaghdoyest. “My grandparents fought against the Nazis in the Second World War; their words are still fresh in my mind: ‘Show not mercy, nor give quarter, to those who threaten innocent people with death and destruction.’”

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

Liberty grew lopsided

The Tree of Liberty grew lopsided, one side of it green and youthful, the other brown and decayed. Watered for many decades only by the blood of patriots, we the American people had all but forgotten the Tree planted to mark the sacrifices our ancestors had made to free us from foreign oppression.

Since the days when the yoke of British domination had been shrugged off, the fetters that had enslaved us to the will of a distant king cast away, we had allowed instead a domestic tyranny to sink its roots deep into our fertile soil. Wide it had spread its tendrils, grasping vines dripping with poison that had permeated all branches of government in such a way as to make it indistinguishable from the dominating fetters long before shattered. Such was the reach of this tyranny that it had climbed halfway up the Tree of Liberty, to choke the last of its life away. When one of its roots was dug out, however, the other roots would grow thicker, the persons empowered by this tyranny too rich and greedy, their stranglehold on the throat of Lady Justice too firm. But the blood of tyrants could water the Tree of Liberty back to her former glory, and but through united effort could We the People rid ourselves of the oligarchy that ate daily of our sustenance. We had allowed the vines of tyranny to cut us off from one another, though, its sickly leaves our tablets, televisions, and cell-phones through which broadcast the hollow speech of angry talking heads.

Only by standing together, three hundred millions united and strong, could we prevail against these tyrannical injustices. Splintered as we are, however, the sacrifices made by our brave forebears will come to naught, and the Tree they planted for us will soon be pulled crashing down.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥