Ye Mighty

Of course it wasn’t a Nazi salute. How could you think such a thing? I mean, the guy’s got Asperger’s. Everyone knows people with Asperger’s have no control over their independently-minded limbs, just as they have no control over their support for extreme right-wing political parties, or their deification of extreme right-wing thugs serving prison time in another country, or their periodic offers to impregnate women they have never met.

Even if he did have control over that arm, everyone knows it was a Roman salute. OK, so the Nazis may have had a thing for the imagery of the Roman empire, eagles and so forth, but saying it was a Nazi salute would be a bit like saying anyone who sports a swastika is a Nazi. They’re far more likely to be a student of Sanskrit who just got the symbol the wrong way round. And, you know, anyone wearing a white robe and pointy hat is probably just a film buff indulging in a bit of Birth of a Nation cosplay.

Of course, no-one associated with any recent event in the USA is connected with swastikas or pointy hats. Although they are quite keen on bald eagles, I’ve been told.

I was a bit puzzled as to why the richest man in the world would choose, as his avatar, an old paunchy guy with weird hair and orange skin, but maybe all the remotely normal-looking ones were taken. And I can kind of see the sense in it. You pick something that looks and sounds so ludicrous that no-one thinks it’s actually going to do all those stupid things, and then it’s too late to stop it and the game is yours, to rewrite and rearrange as you wish.

People will insist on misinterpreting things. Like thinking anything other than concern for the security of the free world would be a motive for purchasing or invading Greenland. That noble endeavour has got nothing, nothing, to do with the mineral wealth, oil and natural gas stored below the surface. As if a bunch of billionaire businessmen would have the slightest interest in getting their hands on somewhere that has, so far, resisted most attempts to mine it, drill it and completely annihilate its flora, fauna and indigenous way of life. Where’s the sense in that?

Of course, the sneaky British Empire got there first. I know the Empire is dead, but you have to admire the forensic precision with which it snaffled other people’s land and cultural artefacts, and apparently some agreement signed in 1917 gives the UK first refusal on Greenland. However, there may be ways round this as the UK hasn’t got sufficient cash to purchase a week’s Airbnb in Nuuk (which is the capital of Greenland, in case, like me, you didn’t know that until you looked it up). If there was any chance of Britain placing paws on a bit of Greenland, I’m sure it would’ve managed to finagle chunks of at least one ice sheet into a freezer at the British Museum.

I really don’t see, either, how you can accuse the richest man in the world and his avatar of being misogynistic shits. It makes no sense. The avatar has just signed a piece of paper stating that sex is determined and immutable from conception, and that has to be the greatest feminist act ever, because all babies are female at conception. America is now a nation of women! This may bring difficulties to a country being transformed into a homophobic theoligarchy, but I’m sure the richest man in the world can find a solution. Perhaps he can invent an electrically charged way of transferring bodily fluids from women with external genitalia over to women with internal genitalia, so that the American people can reproduce without any Sapphic undertones.

I don’t know quite what will happen about marriage, because same-sex marriage is not quite the ticket, is it? As for same-sex sexual congress outside the marriage that isn’t quite the ticket… well, I don’t know, but I’m sure the richest man in the world will sort it out. After all, his avatar never let any previous obstacle prevent him having sexual congress, ticketed or otherwise.

And I’m sure Canada will see sense, eventually. Why the hell do they need all that Arctic? They’re not doing anything useful with it.

I do wonder, sometimes, what will happen if at any point the richest man in the world ceases to be the richest man in the world. I know he’s way out in front at the moment, but lots of people have thought they were uncatchable, until someone caught them. I’m not suggesting we look to history or anything daft like that, because what can history tell us? But there is a poem I learned at school, years ago obviously, with some funny name I can’t remember now. Something about a statue in the desert. I can only recall one complete line, and a couple of fragments, and I’m not quite sure why I keep thinking of them because they’re nothing to do with what’s going on now. ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair’, and something about the decay of a colossal wreck. Perhaps it’s because the wokeocracy is now a colossal wreck and all the snowflakes are in despair. Yes, that’ll be it.

Thank goodness the world has been saved from having to think about despair, or anything else much, ever again. The world’s richest man is already working on something to do all our thinking for us, and the prototypes are doing very well, I hear. Very well indeed.

Picture by Paul Sableman, free to use at Wikimedia Commons: File:Bank of America GREED KILLS (4472130898).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Poem: Ozymandias | The Poetry Foundation