I Pledge to...

Mack Hall

Sycophants in an Echo Chamber

A flock of the fashionable, like guinea-hens yakking in middle of the road, recently made public pledges to be the President’s servants in all things dim and dutiful. Naturally they made a MeMeMeTubeMyFace video, and appear to have employed an echo chamber ("I pledge…I pledge…I pledge…"), though perhaps that is merely an effect of vain repetition.

As a response to those craven obedientiaries I propose somewhat more meaningful pledges:

I pledge…pledge…pledge (ya like that echo effect?) to be no man’s servant and no man’s master.

I pledge…pledge…pledge to use real bulbs until Dear Leader’s Light Bulb Czar’s Special Incandescent Action Unit catches me and prosecutes me into oblivion.

I pledge…pledge…pledge to buy the biggest car I can afford and to make frequent and unnecessary trips.

I pledge…pledge…pledge to buy coffee without a Fair Trade label.

I pledge…pledge…pledge always to love America and to remain unsophisticated and non-Euro.

I pledge…pledge…pledge not to pay much attention to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. The best of folks suffer flaws, but I see no reason why any responsible, self-disciplined American should sacrifice a minute of God’s precious gift of life to a couple of impenitent, dysfunctional, draft-dodging, chemically-dependent, wholly self-centered, shrieking nutters. They seem so European.

I pledge…pledge…pledge to turn the thermostat in my house to where I want it, not to where The Thermostat Czar wants it.

I pledge…pledge…pledge to eat chunks of dead animals more often. Vegetarianism is for Manichaeans.

I pledge…pledge…pledge to employ chemical pesticides and fertilizers on my yard and garden.

I pledge…pledge…pledge never to drink coffee brewed from the excreta of cats. I love ya, Al, but not that much.

I pledge…pledge…pledge to repudiate and resist the edicts of any of Dear Leader’s thirty-three or so extra-Constitutional czars. We don’t need no stinking czars.

I pledge…pledge…pledge that when the grocery store asks me "Paper? Or plastic?" I will ask for both so that I won’t miss a chance to overheat the planet and stress the whales and polar bears.

I pledge…pledge…pledge to do my best to avoid companies who advertise that they are environmentally friendly. If they want me to pay them money for a product or service they’d darned well better be Mackly friendly.

Unlike the rich and slovenly, I pledge…pledge…pledge to dress in clothes that don’t look as if they have been stolen from a Salvation Army donation bin.

I pledge…pledge…pledge to vote, vote, vote. Always.