Greater America

Had dinner with my dear friend and librettist Jacobus Byssus Zanomensis and his lovely and talented wife V_M_ last night. As usual, talk turned to the German Question and how close our American Empire is keeling towards fascist imperialist disaster. On their last trip to the banks of the Meuse, one of his good German friends reminded him of the second stanza of the German National Hymn, which during the Great Hole of Modern Germany History was more or less the only stanza, topped off with a bit of this and that about shooting dead the enemies of the SA, but the section of interest runs as follows:

Von der Maas bis an die Memel,
Von der Etsch bis an den Belt.

meaning that the borders of the true Germany run from the Meuse River (more or less OK) to the Memel River (which, ahem, is way past Poland) to the Adige River (which would give Germany a nice warm water port in the Adriatic) to the strait of the Little Belt (which might require slaughtering a few troublesome people to the North who voted the wrong way in the Schleswig Plebiscites).

Of course, the concept of a border is a bit quaint in these days where the skies are filled with drones piloted by young brainwashed boys with close haircuts enforcing the limitless extent of the American Empire, part of a troubling stew into which we pour a bit of joblessness, hopelessness, rampant Fundamentalist and Patriotic pseudo religion, served up hot with Hellfire missiles, not to mention the heavy trod of the shock troops of the capitalist hordes, kevlar replaced by power tie.