George Washington Is Cash Money

  It happens on a Tuesday

  and everybody calls it Black Tuesday

  and then it happens again on Black Thursday

  also Black Monday.

  Everyone is so poor

  they have even pawned their creativity.

  But it’s still not that bad

  banks are still in business and whatnot

  OH WAIT, I SPOKE TOO SOON

  because then some guy goes into a bank in NYC

  a bank that has made a foolish promise

  to buy back their own stock

  at the amount it was worth when they gave it away

  and the dude is like “Hey

  this stock is worth a quarter of what it used to be

  gimme all my money back.”

  And the bank is like “Uhh, are you suuure?

  That stock is a reeeeally good investment

  maybe you should keep it so we don’t hafta pay you.”

  And the dude is like “I SEE YOUR GAME.

  YOU’RE OUT OF MONEY.

  HEY, EVERYBODY:

  THIS BANK IS OUT OF MONEY

  COME GET YOUR MONEY OUTTA THIS BANK.”

  And everybody does.

  It turns out the bank has been being mega shady

  and doesn’t have nearly enough money to pay people

  so it closes down

  and seeing as it’s one of the biggest banks in NYC

  it’s sort of like knocking down a domino

  onto a series of other dominoes

  except the dominoes are the size of skyscrapers

  and are full of napalm and EVERYONE’S MONEY.

  So the Federal Reserve is watching this happen

  (the Federal Reserve is a bank

  whose main job

  is to lend money to the U.S. government

  except by lend money

  I mean print totally new money

  and then hope the government pays it back

  which it NEVER EVER DOES)

  and the Fed is like “All these banks are dying

  should we do something?

  Maybe print them out some money

  so they can pay all these people

  thus averting this crisis before it destroys America?

  . . . Meh.”

  So America gets destroyed

  also the rest of the world

  because remember, nobody has money.

  Everybody is very sad about this

  you might even call them

  . . . DEPRESSED?

  Seriously though, lots of people kill themselves

  and the rest of them move into big tent cities

  wearing patched-up clothes and eating canned beans.

  It’s a hipster’s paradise.

  But it’s okay

  because this is when Franklin Roosevelt shows up.

  He’s like “OKAY, GUYS

  I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ECONOMICS

  LET’S DO THIS.”

  And he manages to sort of fix the Depression

  basically by issuing a giant patch to capitalism:

  no more gold standard.

  So people read the patch notes on Capitalism 0.2

  and they’re all like “WTF, GOLD GOT NERFED”

  and Roosevelt is like “Haha, fuck you guys

  now I can make dollars as cheap as I want

  and tons of money will be available

  and everyone will start buying things again

  CAPITALISM IS SAVED.”

  This . . . actually works.

  In fact, everyone else in the world does it too

  and that is why

  to this day

  when a bunch of shitty banks get the world in trouble

  the Fed can just print enough money to save them

  which seems to piss everybody off

  but hey

  it’s better than eating your shoes.

  So I guess the moral of the story

  is that capitalism works

  it’s just super buggy.

  FDR DOESN’T LIKE ASIANS VERY MUCH

  So there’s this dude Hitler

  he does the world a tremendous public service

  by being basically the worst person ever

  thus giving us a way to calibrate our evilometers

  for all future bastards and despots.

  He does this by selecting a subset of German people

  (white dudes with blond hair and blue eyes)

  and then attempting to kill

  LITERALLY EVERY OTHER PERSON.

  Somehow, probably with hypnotism

  he is able to convince Japan to go with him on this

  AND SO BEGINS WORLD WAR TWO

  (man, wouldn’t it be hilarious

  if someone traveled back to the 1920s

  and accidentally referred to the Great War

  as World War One

  like ha ha!

  Spoilers!).

  But to start out, it’s not really a world war

  because you know who’s not involved?

  AMERICA, THAT’S WHO

  (by that measure, WWI wasn’t a world war either

  because Asia wasn’t really involved

  but everybody loves a sequel).

  Most people in America are happy to sit out

  and let the rest of the world blow itself up

  because America at this time has not yet discovered

  that it is actually the world’s police force.

  Luckily, America has a president who does know this

  FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT.

  Yes, the same FDR who killed the Depression

  and the same FDR who will STAY administratin’

  until his brain literally explodes

  and they change the constitution

  so no one can ever do that shit again.

  This dude serves as president for thirteen years

  and this is an example

  of the sort of behavior that let him set that record:

  So Japan is allied with Germany

  and they’re like “Sweet

  the rest of the world already hates us

  let’s take their land!”

  So they start invading China

  and Malaysia

  and the Philippines

  and just whatever else

  but then they’re like “Hmm

  what if America tries to stop us?

  Ooh! Let’s surprise attack Hawaii!”

  So that’s exactly what they do.

  The attack is very successful

  but only in a strictly technical sense.

  To put it in perspective, let’s try a metaphor.

  Let’s say you’re having a barbecue

  but you don’t want to get stung by any bees

  so you find your local beehive

  and just go crazy on it with a baseball bat.

  Make sense?

  THEN YOU MUST BE JAPAN IN THE ’40s.

  WHO ELSE WOULD EVER DO THIS?

  So the U.S. swarms on Japan, obviously

  but that’s where our bee metaphor breaks down

  because while bees can sting you

  they cannot put you in concentration camps

  (or at least, I haven’t met any bees that can do that).

  Yeah, after that surprise attack on Pearl Harbor

  everybody on the West Coast is like “OMG

  WE’RE AT WAR WITH JAPAN

  AND THERE ARE JAPANESE DUDES

  LIVING ALLLL AROUND US.”

  I mean, they already banned Japanese immigration
br />   like a decade before

  but there are still Japanese dudes all over the coast

  and what’s more

  those Japanese dudes are living right next door

  to all the important aircraft factories

  and landing strips

  and shipyards

  and farmland

  and forests

  and bridges

  almost as if those types of things are

  EVERYWHERE

  and thus impossible not to live next door to.

  Whatever, it’s pretty suspicious.

  Now, at this point, nothing has been sabotaged

  and some people think that means they’re safe.

  But not military geniuses like Earl Warren

  who points out

  that the only reason there’s been no sabotage

  is that the Japanese are waiting for their moment

  and the fact that there has been no sabotage yet

  is ALL THE PROOF WE NEED

  to determine that sabotage is being planned.

  Frank Roosevelt hears this

  and he’s like “That’s some pretty shaky logic

  but I really don’t like Japanese people.

  Okay, go ahead.”

  So he passes an executive order

  that just says “Any enemy ex-patriots

  can be kicked out of any war zone I designate.

  P.S.: California, Oregon, and Washington are war zones

  have fun with that.”

  So they kick all the Japanese off the coast

  forcing them to sell everything they own

  but people are still not satisfied.

  They’re like “Those guys look funny!

  We can’t have funny-looking dudes roaming around

  this is wartime!

  We gotta lock ’em up.”

  And FDR is like “Okay, sure.”

  So they herd all the Japanese into big camps

  where they are concentrated in large numbers

  like a hundred and ten thousand people total

  and then the military is like “Okay, guys

  we will let you go

  if you fill out this loyalty questionnaire

  that says you love the United States

  and are totally down to be in our army”

  and some dudes are like “Sweet, free release!”

  but some dudes are like “Seriously?

  You just put me in jail for being Asian.

  This country is just one giant asshole

  and it’s squatting directly over my head.”

  And the military is like “Ooh, sorry to hear that buddy

  looks like you’re gonna stay here for the whole war.

  Meanwhile your friends get to go fight and die

  FOR FREEDOM.”

  Some dudes go to court about this

  and the cases get all the way to the Supreme Court

  who are just like “Sorry guys, our hands are tied”

  and all the Japanese are like “Really?”

  and the Supreme Court is like “Really

  as in we are being denied crucial information

  that would prove that you guys aren’t a threat at all

  and make the military look hella foolish.

  This is what happens

  when you elect a general your first president

  and then constantly fight wars for 150 years:

  the army starts to get out of hand.”

  and the Japanese are like “Okay, I guess we understand

  NO, WAIT, FUCK YOU GUYS.”

  And the Supreme Court is like “HAHA

  FUCK YOU.

  JUSTICE, BITCHES.”

  Then they fly away with their magic robes.

  The good news is that the war ends pretty fast.

  It turns out that pissing off a huge neutral party

  that has been constantly fighting wars for 150 years

  is not a great way to win wars

  so the Japanese get to go home eventually

  but they’re none too happy about it

  until later, when Jimmy Carter becomes president

  and he decides that the whole thing was a mistake

  and gives $20,000 to every camp survivor!

  Sweet deal!

  Which brings us to our moral:

  If you’re down on your luck

  just have your entire race subjugated

  by a country that prides itself on equality.

  It’s a great way to get rich quick

  or, you know, eventually.

  SUPERMAN IS THE DEFINITION OF AN ILLEGAL ALIEN

  So while some people are busy making history

  which they hope will eventually become mythology

  a group of shrewd young entrepreneurs

  discover that it’s possible

  to skip straight to mythology

  through the simple expedient

  of drawing a bunch of very muscular people

  in very tight clothing.

  These muscular people are called “superheroes”

  and they are like ancient heroes in many ways:

  They are capable of incredible feats

  they have impossibly sexy bodies

  and they are born in nonstandard ways.

  EXAMPLE:

  SUPERMAN.

  So there’s this planet full of superheroes

  and it’s going to explode

  You’d think that if they were so great

  they would have figured out a way to not explode

  but you shouldn’t complain

  because their loss is our gain

  in the form of SUPERMAN.

  Okay, actually he’s not called Superman yet

  that would be silly on a planet full of super people

  except I don’t think they have powers there

  because their powers require Earth’s yellow sun

  and their sun is green or some other dumb color.

  But anyway I guess baby Superman is important

  (he’s named Kal-El though

  in honor of Nicolas Cage’s son)

  so his parents put him on a rocket ship

  and shoot him toward a planet

  because that’s what you do with babies?

  This planet they send him to

  has a pretty good track record

  of hating anyone even remotely different

  and expressing this hatred

  with stuff like witch trials.

  Yes, I’m talking about Earth

  specifically the America part of Earth

  and Superman arrives JUST IN TIME

  for the beginning of World War Two.

  It’s sort of a terrible introduction to Earth culture.

  So Superman crashes his space raft

  in the middle of the most xenophobic part of Kansas

  and he gets picked up by these two old people

  and they don’t want to piss off the freaky space baby

  so they make it their own

  and anyway I think they both have cancer now

  or are at least sterile from radiation poisoning

  because the spaceship Superman crashed in

  is like COVERED in kryptonite

  which Superman is totally allergic to

  so bad luck, huh?

  But anyway they raise him

  and teach him solid American values

  like honest sweat and war and heterosexuality

  and they eventually figure out shit is fucked up

  when he starts lifting tractors


  but by then it’s too late to do anything about it

  without getting hit with a flying tractor.

  So Supes gets bored of his shitty podunk parents

  kicks the shit out of his high school

  and flies to Mars or New York or something

  and gets a job as a dude who . . .

  writes newspaper articles?

  Because if you’re an invincible force for good

  with the capacity to save ANYONE at ANY TIME

  what you really need to be doing

  is wasting time writing about the Kardashians

  and hitting on your coworkers.

  But he still does save a lot of people /

  shoot a lot of people with laser vision

  also he can fly.

  The U.S. finally decides to enter World War Two

  and Superman takes some time off journalism

  to just punch Nazis for a decade

  but then he runs out of Nazis to punch

  and he uses his influence as Best Hero Ever

  to create a high council of more interesting heroes

  like Batman and the Flash and Wonder Woman.

  This council is not democratically elected

  admission is granted based solely on genetics

  (although to be fair, Batman doesn’t have powers

  he just buys his way in with his immense wealth)

  They are not accountable to any higher authority

  and most of the members are not even human.

  As a matter of fact

  when Superman’s arch-nemesis becomes president

  Superman goes to the oval office and KILLS HIM

  starting a worldwide nuclear catastrophe

  which his friends have to fix using time travel.

  God bless America.

  The moral of the story

  is that if you wear a lot of red and blue on your body

  people will just assume whatever you do is patriotic.

  ELVIS LIVES!

  Still not convinced that America has a mythology?

  EAT COUNTEREXAMPLE, DOUBTERS.

  This counterexample is from the 1950s

  and is named ELVIS PRESLEY.

  This guy is equal parts Orpheus

  Dionysus

  and Hercules.

  (Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense by the end.)

  Like all great heroes, his family is super poor

  but when he is still a wee lad

  his family somehow scrapes together enough cash

  to get him his first guitar

  which he is actually pretty disappointed about

  but only because what he really wanted was a GUN

  and how American is that?

  Still, he gets the guitar