Welcome To Washington D.C. -- American History Part 27

Summer 2011

Yesterday I survived a near plane crash onto a runway at O'Hare Airport in Chicago thanks to the first two pilots I've ever seen in my life who were actually loose and giddy. Anyway, here I was at the end of my four day tour through the nucleus of the Liberty Cell, our nation's capital -- Washington D.C.

As we approached the East end of Lake Michigan, 36,000 feet up on a cloud-free 89 degree swamp stroke, these numbnutted jackrubbers announced that we were all about to go through a bit of...turbulence?!

One of the pilots was an older man, the other pilot was younger and...like I said...giddy and excited before what any veteran would have known was a string of jetlag, leg pain, and hotel shincockery unlike anything a working man should have to put up with. This is an old Joe Biden and a younger Barack Obama dealing with being, respectively, the vice-president and president of America. They were giddy that they were going to be in the trippiest position one can be in -- the first black presidential administration in American history. For goodness sakes the man came in all enthusiastic, ready to fly this plane out of the Maryland runway that the Bush Administration left it, and within three years he almost WIPED OUT POVERTY.

The more experienced pilot, the more experienced Democrats like Biden and Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi and Gabrielle Giffords and Dick Durbin had given Barack Obama the go-ahead to make health insurance free nationwide.

It didn't take of course, because Jewel-Osco and everybody wouldn't hire the employees of which to give said free health insurance to, but think about that. He allows a mosque to be built at Ground Zero, so imagine if you're a black dude who has converted to Islam, just getting out of prison, and you discover your point of view is actually understood by your new black president. This country was about to, though retaining its customarily ha-ha-tradition-exists traditions that the heartland loves so much, become cool again.

The government should pay for everything AFTER we pay all those taxes, don't you think? I mean we paid for the shit. Am I the only f-cking person who sees this? What the f-ck is wrong with people?

Anyway, the pilots on my trip at least began this trip in Washington, the old one, Joe, and the young giddy one, Mister Barack Tarantinobama and his wife Michelle Footsy Brown Obama (who by the way...you gotta see the bobbleheads I saw of this lady in Washington...)

They're dealing with a country, I mean flight, that is a little more then they anticipated.

The fact that they didn't anticipate this, would be a huge strike against them if I didn't love the "idea" of Barack Obama so god damn much.

OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And yet...

Call me crazy -- but was turbulence just code for "I'm about to let the novice try to land this plane?!"

And so that's what's happening with Obama. We love him, but businesses had watched the way Bush forced schools to teach creationism and house military recruiters and said...gee...I wonder what Obama's gonna do to us...

And thus is what illustrates the paranoia that would go on in America at the beginning of our summer '11 campaign on this planet called Earth. On August 2nd, the United States somehow, someway, has to deal with a 14.2 trillion dollar debt.

Maybe we'll get to pay part of it off, maybe we have to pay all of it.

Will there be an economic depression if we don't? Possibly not.

But the kind of stuff that will happen instead...is the exact same thing that has been happening to the city of Washington D.C. and it's beautiful residents within...for approximately 203 years.

I hate math, I hate spending caps, I hate limits, I hate rules, and the people who are allowed to walk around smirking because they make a living off math, spending caps, limits, rules...are less then two months away from having to justify why Wal-Mart and Exxon don't have to provide an extra cent to the cause. The good bohemians who get up every morning in our nation's capital to work in cafeterias, museums, museum tours, Capitol building tours, and even panhandling because we're all people and sh-t happens...have been living in a city with a bankrupt treasury.

They are not even a stone's throw from the area of the world where the most powerful diplomats in existence have a Pentagon, a Capitol Building, a Lincoln Memorial, a Washington Monument, a Supreme Court, a Capitol Building, a Capitol Building...and...oh yeah...the place where all our nation's congressmen handle budgetary matters.

This hub is dedicated to not only the other twenty-six American history hubs, but also you good readers. I visited numerous places that were described in length. I'm wrong about lots of things, but in this case, I can luckily say...there was no exaggeration. Things are a bit crackerish indeed.

Should we not effectively take care of this budget mess by August 2nd, here's what you awesome international readers will be seeing happen to your beloved American neighbors...

-------------------------------------------

George Washington.

The leader of the American Revolution, the Red Auerbach of colonial times, the undisputed grandfather of our beloved nation.

A man so so so so so so so superior to us in every way that he and his fat wife spoke of dignity and honor while in the possession of about forty slaves of both genders who he kept in wooden log cabins with barrack-like bunk-beds like in an 8-year old child's bedroom while routinely building more and more additions to his own mansion -- and he STILL gets our respect.

Maybe because...had it not been for the great and untouchable George Washington...we would have today been an even stranger breed of Englishman and Indian then we actually are.

White bohemians as always...sure...that's what you get when you put a peace pipe in the 18-year old versions of the brightest Caucasian minds as our parents send our preppy punk asses to Boston to find ourselves...but with the Stamp Act, Tea Act, Sugar Act and Quartering Act...a simple e-mail might cost as much as a long distance phone call. A stick of Juicyfruit would be as much as a Venti Iced Mocha...and my fat, writing, wannabe Larry Bird ass would be stuck listening to the tired wisdoms and light philosophies of some lazy fat British soldier who I have no choice but to keep fed and sheltered.

To think about what life without George Washington would mean to the safety and sanctity of this world.

We had many blowhards back in the 1770s. Many guys from privileged families who thought they knew better then the prevailing government and were also correct. Ben Franklin proved this with science. Thomas Paine proved this with salesmanship. Alexander Hamilton proved this with central banking. Thomas Jefferson dabbled in numerous subjects and -- though half-assed at everything -- still managed to prove he knew more then the prevailing government with a Declaration of Independence that is SO TEDIOUS AND CONFUSING AND RAMBLING it's like what Lindsay Weir had to say about "On the Road" by Jack Keroac on the show "Freaks and Geeks" -- the Declaration of Independence wasn't writing...it was typing. Each of these men were pioneers, mavericks, mathematicians, astrologists, socialists, boaters, planters, chemists, botanists, writers and philosophers...

Yet only George Washington...proved the prevailing government wrong...through Abraham Lincoln-like grasp of the art of battle.

George Washington in 1755 was the second bridgidair general in the British army. As he marched behind the top guy in a red coat just like everyone else on their way into a wilderness battle with the French and the Indians (waiting patiently in the trees with f-cking pick-axes and staring at them), Washington tried to tell his commanding leader that about 80 yards in the distance is an Indian with a pick-axe staring at us. That while trees grow lots of things, they don't grow blinking eyes, and that's what we've got on our hands about 80 yards to the southwest at this very moment...

The British general was like PWWWW. Whatever you f-cking assistant. I know what I'm doing.

Not even three seconds later, the general's head is almost blown off.

Washington desperately tries to save his life, screaming in all directions for a medic, placing him down gently and trying to comfort him...

When the medics come, Washington rises and passionately goes up and down the line and re-assembles this panicking, shitting British army so they have a chance at making this ambush a fair fight.

It is from that point on -- that George Washington has a reputation amongst American warlords.

Cut to 21 years later, and our man George Washington is leading the patriots fearlessly through a war where 60 percent of the American colonists were sympathetic to England.

Yet after 1783, George Washington retired from the military, leaving the hands of the develop of country...in Congress.

Sure enough, by 1787, he has to return and save the country ONCE FREAKING AGAIN. He becomes president of the Constitutional Congress and thus oversees the drafting of a document designed to take all 13 colonies into account at once.

He retires again.

Sure enough, by 1789, he's the President of this country.

He retires in 1797...telling people, essentially, leave me the freak alone. But he does it in a way that doesn't hurt anyone's feelings -- "No president should serve more then two terms".

George Washington's trend was kept up out of politeness and graciousness until the Republicans got jealous over Franklin Delano Roosevelt beating them four times in the 30s and 40s. And so they would take George's symbol of kindness and modesty and turn it into a FREAKING LAW!! WHAT CHEAP, SORE-LOSING PISSY HUFFY TOOLS, MAN!!!

And that is basically the path that every American is about to take.

He will continously have good ideas that will fall on deaf ears because he's just a peon.

Our greaters will make the worse decisions possible, leaving us to clean up the mess.

Then after we do so, there won't be a single contemporary that we can trust to keep things going. So whatever it is that we're engaged in, whether it's feeding our cities or defending our businesses -- we'll have to do it ourselves.

And thus giving birth to a city called Washington D.C. where, as late as the summer of 2011, you cannot get into any of their exhibits or food courts or stupid Capitol Steps show without going through courthouse-style security and spending 25 dollars on admission, 6 dollars on onion rings, 16 dollars on a burger very clearly made by Steak-N-Shake, 40 dollars for parking, and 30 dollars on a Barack Obama bobblehead.

They are broke due to their own betrayal of the very things that made their money in the first place.

They are left to cash in on the glorious relic that is our nation's less recent history due to what has happened in our more recent history.

They are beautiful women who have come to Washington D.C. to find a husband...but not a single solitary male who actually works there gets to ever come out and play.

During the summer, Washington D.C. is a motherf-cking steambath with streets as spread out from one light to the next as Los Angeles. There are no Burger Kings, no McDonalds, just expensive expensive...Steak N Shake burgers and 7-11 hot dogs.

They are a city that charged me 27 dollars for calling my colleague six floors above me in the hotel I was staying at...because I called his cell-phone with my hotel room land phone.

They are a city that lets you see everything except the White House. We were like raccoons trying to climb up a bunch of barracades and assemble behind a wrought iron fence behind their yard just to get a picture that didn't turn out right in 7 attempts.

They have a place called the Smithsonian where you can touch not only the Berlin Wall, but one of the World Trade Center support beams with a huge hole in the ankle from when it bent from the heat.

And they have Ford's Theatre...the place where Abraham Lincoln was shot while watching "Our American Cousin"...

For the rest of this hub, no political points will be made...just enjoy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The plot to kill the leader of the Union during the Civil War began as a kidnapping plot.

There were nine individuals, including John Wilkes Booth. Four would be gunned down, four sent off to prison, and one made it to Canada and France, essentially getting away with it but having to be in hiding for the rest of his life.

The Lincolns, as well as Secretary of State William Seward who two years later will buy Alaska from Russia, are in a presidential box sitting on right side of the stage (the actors' left), with a photo of George Washington in the center of the bunting that's hanging over the ledge.They have a perfect center-aisle view of everything, and what's better -- the general ticket-paying audience gets to see both the play...AND the Lincolns off the right.

John Wilkes Booth walks around all day with a piece of wood, and has a horse all ready to hop on out back. He waits patiently for Major Rathbone to leave the box, and then goes up, shoots Lincoln, gets in a wrestling match with Seward resulting in Seward getting stabbed over and over again, and then Booth almost fractures his leg because he gets his spur caught in the bunting trying to jump the eight feet down to stage right.

It was Good Friday, and the theatre operators had begun the day positive that there would be a crappy turnout for Our American Cousin that night. Upon hearing the President was coming, they were thrilled, and made sure the whole world knew what they'd get to stay for if they came for the play.

And so Booth and his conspirators had all day to gather things such as pieces of wood that could be used to lock doors behind them as they got away from dozens of zealous security officers.

Lincoln is taken DIRECTLY across the street to yet another building that is only three windows wide. They rush him up the stairs but his big body doesn't fit through the stairwell. His head -- containing a bullet -- is bleeding and THUMPING the sides of the walls as they rush him to his final hospice.

---------------------------------

http://hubpages.com/hub/Welcome-to-Washington-DC-American-History-Part-27