LET US PREY

SANDI AULT—Reporting from the WILD - Episode 18

This week, I'm going to go straight to the promise the title makes and skip the adventure story from the WILD—because there is enough wild terror afoot in the world to provide all the thrills we can take.

The Doomsday Clock for this world just advanced again as bombs dropped and missiles struck in the middle east. Three monsters in two-legged disguise (Bibi, PrezBoobooT, and Ayatollah Ali-Ali-AyeAyeAye) get to decide the present and future for all the inhabitants of Planet Earth. The stress scores for sentient humans in the US just ratcheted up to full-tilt-boogie as the CatastroCriminal in the White House joined the fun and ordered bombs dropped in Iran...because... (pick any of these or add your own):

• He wanted to distract from his failures and poor polling

• He didn't want his Co-Criming-Companion Bibi to make a cuckold of him with all the war hawks

• At his age—with the Adderall, the diapers, and the dementia—he felt like he needed to boost his image

• He can't remember but it seemed like a macho idea at the time

• He and his corrupt cohorts couldn't wait to play with all the fun toys the military has and the plans that they'd already put in place in case they were truly needed at some point

• He wanted to help his son-in-law Kushner plus Mike Flynn and Vladimir Putin hammer down the greed-driven project they've been working on together since 2016 to build nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia, and those nasty Iranians with their nuclear developments were just harshing their zombie greedlust.

All this chaos and catastrophic cosplay at the top of our government has created enough distress to cause an atheist to think again about perhaps muttering a prayer....just in case.

Meanwhile, the malevolent monsters who hold the Republican Orcs in the House, the Senate, some of the Courts—and therefore the rest of the country—by the thinnest and tenderest parts of our democratic anatomy pretend to be driven in all things by their faith. They pretend to be pious. They pretend to be pro-life, to be Christian, to be doing good for the people. And so, my friends, let us look at their work, let us see their devotions by their deeds. When they say, "Let us pray," let us know their real intent:

Let us PREY:

Let us not teach the children. Let us not ensure that all children are well educated and safe in their schools. Let us take away from them what has already been given and let us deprive them further at every turn.

Let us not feed the hungry—young, old, here, or anywhere in the world. Let them struggle to survive, suffer, and/or starve.

Let us not cure the sick; let them needlessly die. Let us not provide affordable medical care to keep ourselves healthy. Let us not arrest diseases that can spread, or save lives that can be saved. Let us not do medical research to cure disease. Let us not do preventive vaccination to intercept the spread of disease. Let disease, disinformation, and profiteering proliferate.

Let us not love one another—not our fellow Americans, nor those from other countries. Let us escalate hate.

Let us not show kindness, respect. Let us instead disparage one another, our neighbors, our fellow citizens, those who do not look or speak like us, those with disabilities, those from other countries, those who do not vote like us, those who do not think like us. Let us spit upon one another, enrage one another, and create division.

Let us not care for the elderly. Let us not honor our commitments to them, or return the investments they made in their future. Let them suffer and die.

Let us not share even a tiny fraction of our great wealth and well-being with the rest of the world. Let us not help our fellow nations prevent war, eradicate disease, or stop starvation. Let us not help other countries protect their citizens, and strengthen their democracies. Let us not protect our allies from authoritarian invaders. Let us turn our backs on every alliance we have previously made.

Let us not protect our wealth, our resources, our economy from corruption, cronyism, nepotism, and thievery so that our good, earned economy and reputation can benefit us further...and create great strength so we can do and be better as a nation. Let us not preserve and protect justice. Let us not protect the rights and freedoms on which our great nation was based, those enshrined in our constitution.

Let us connive through suborned judges and compromised courts to undermine and redraw the constitution so that it will best benefit only the richest and deny all justice to the least powerful.

Let us not keep the halls of congress as pillars of integrity and service to the nation. Let us not prevent duplicity from spreading and infecting our government. Let us not prosecute criminals, nor ensure justice for those wronged. Let us not choose well-qualified, devoted, and responsible people who demonstrate honor and integrity for every office in our government, ensuring that those who represent us are worthy of respect and the role of leadership. Let us not ensure that those holding office do not seek to gain profit through their position or become beholden to donors. Let us take over and tyrannize at every opportunity.

Let us not demonstrate civility and respect when we speak to one another, and expect that our leaders will do this, too. Let us not respect our military and our veterans and honor their service, and let us not provide care and benefits for them in return for their service. Let us not respect the press, but instead shout at them, call them names, deprive them of access, and create disreputable, lying media to keep the public misinformed so that they will not see the evil deeds we do or the failures we constantly create.

Let us not preserve, protect, and increase our nation's abundance of every kind. Let us not maintain the best educational and research institutions in the world. Let us not provide quality education to all citizens as they choose to pursue it to increase their knowledge, and to help them and the nation to grow. Let us not foster research and great thinkers, inventors, and scientists, so that we might grow in wisdom, and address the increasingly complex problems of the world with the best talent and knowledge. Let us not celebrate and foster the arts. Let us take away that which has already been endowed, and strip all support for the preservation of history, the arts, and civic enrichment institutions such as libraries, museums, zoos, observatories, monuments, and public radio and television. Let us take the most beautiful and unique parts of our geography away from the people and give them to the rich to develop, mine, frack, destroy, and/or build billionaire homes on so that only the rich and powerful can see the most magnificent views.

Let us not provide safety for our citizens. Let us not prevent gun massacre of our children in schools, of citizens at public gatherings, or the slaughter of anyone anywhere we can carry a gun. Let us not prioritize the sanctity of a human life. Let us keep the killing going so that the people will be afraid, and know that we hold the power to end their fear...but let us not end fear. Let us use it to control the masses. Let us worship with automatic rifles in our hands, and create the world we want with that fear.

Let us not provide the best prevention, intervention, and response to disasters for our citizenry. And when there is harm from disasters, let us not respond swiftly and effectively to help and to heal. Let us instead deprive the citizens of programs that would benefit them for which their taxes were intended. Let us not protect our air, our water, and our land from chemical and industrial pollution, greed grabbing, over-development, and destruction. Let us not protect our beautiful natural resources, our national treasures, our wildlife, our waterways, our skies. Let us rape and pillage the earth and deny climate change, because we only have our lifetimes to get all we can, and care nothing for our legacy thereafter.

Let us not lift all the nation up together. Let us create division at every turn.

Let us not be the beacon of hope and freedom that we once were, and instead be a festering heap of tyranny and hatred.

Let us be known by our supreme cruelty, ignorance, injustice, indignity, lies, greed, and rot.

And let us make war. Without provocation, reason, or justification. Because we can.

In the name of the Felon, the suckups, and the unholy ghouls, forever and ever, Amen.