This week, there’s been a lot of debate, angry pointing and people dribbling on about freedom of speech over crackpot Florida pastor Terry Jones (no, not that Terry Jones) who was threatening to burn copies of the Qur’an.
Even though this man is clearly a royal arsewipe, he’s seen enough sense to “suspend” the event. Must be something to do with Angelina Jolie sticking her tongue out at him.
Well, we say ‘sense’, Jones plans to continue with the holy book burning unless the US government can guarantee that (utterly fictional) Ground Zero mosque in New York won’t go ahead.
However, it is worth pointing out that Mr Mental Jones is continuing a great American tradition and that is the will to burn things. Americans love getting things and setting fire to them. Let us peer cautiously at the kindling of American culture.
Women
Yes indeed. Americans used to love burning women to death, famously in the witch trials of Salem. Mostly, the poor women got burned to death because they were randy. How America has changed its tune now. Now, Americans prefer to ogle them in Sports Illustrated or what-have-you.
Bras
Americans like burning things so much that they even started to attack bits of clothing. However, lefties aren’t quite as good as the right-wing at actually torching stuff. You see, at the 1968 Miss America beauty pageant, a load of women from the New York Radical Women were involved in a demonstration which saw them putting bras, high-heeled shoes, false eyelashes, girdles, curlers, hairspray, make-up, corsets, Playboy magazines and other items thought to be “instruments of torture” into a ‘Freedom Trash Can’. They wanted to set it on fire, but because the left are a bit wimpy, they didn’t because they didn’t have a permit. Still, they wanted to.
Books
Our American cousins love a good book-burning. This will to torch some Qu’rans is far from the first instance of it. As a side note, it’s funny to think of Pastor Dick Head buying loads of Qu’rans and not being able to burn them. He’s just sat staring at them, resenting the amount of money he’s paid for them. Anyway, this is a good ol’ American tradition which we’ve seen before when right wing America went completely mental about the threat of Communism. Senator McCarthy went really nuts and jabbered and pointed wildly at authors he thought might be Commie Bastards, and so, we saw loads of perfectly good books being burned and, presumably, years later bought again, ensuring that the accused became best-sellers. Lovely. More recently, weirdo Christians decided to burn a load of Harry Potter books. How very silly.
Draft Cards
Ah. This is when the lefties grew a pair. Facing 5 years in prison, loads of filthy hippies got their draft cards and set fire to them. They even wrote satirical songs about it all, with Phil Ochs’ ‘Draft Dodger Rag’. Of course, it’s all incredibly twee, but Americans who don’t like the idea of being shot to pieces and thank the stinky few who dodged draft.
Crucifixes
The KKK are a spectacularly dim bunch. They run around in outfits that make them look like erections under white bed sheets and, of course, there’s the whole hating black people thing. One of the things that is particularly stupid is their burning of their most religious symbol. Of course, they’ll spout some rubbish about how it is lighting a beacon to their faith or, even more ridiculous, that they are carrying on the traditions of ancient Scottish folk… but really, there’s only two things the KKK really like doing – burning stuff and lynching innocent humans. And to think, white people once ‘invaded’ America and took it from real NATIVE Americans. Shit-houses, the lot ’em.
Necks
The ultimate in all right wing American burnings.
Criminals
Yes indeed, there’s bits of America that just love a good criminal fry up. America has developed a system of barbecuing felons on a chair, which fries their insides with nearly 3000 voltz right up the arse. Sometimes, the criminal’s head sets on fire! They love a roast don’t they, the Americans?
Beatles LPs
Right wing America doesn’t like it when them brown folks start shoving their religion in people’s faces. Unless, of course, that brown fella is Jesus Christ Our Lord. It’s the ultimate “I don’t like Middle Eastern folks… but him who works in the factory with us is okay because he drinks beer.” And if we’ve learned anything from curiously watching America, it’s that you don’t fuck with Jesus. So when John Lennon said that The Beatles were more popular than God’s only son, they went about burning some of the most collectible LPs in history which could’ve been sold on eBay, right now, for hundreds of dollars. What stupid dicks.
harry says
By the way, both the witches and the incendiary, noose-happy colonists were imported here from England (most likely after having been invited to leave), so we can share the blame around equally. But before any of them even arrived here the native inhabitants had a number of inventive ways to roast and smoke people or string them up and hang them out to dry — so yes, we have generally had a good time with this sort of thing. On the other hand, we were over here just minding our own business when Hitler started his mass murder exhibitions, or when Robespierre took offense at the pompadours and savoir-faire of the upper classes. But it took Genghis Khan and the Roman Empire to really show us all how, so actually America is still a little backward in this respect.