As the First in a 3 Part series bemoaning the state of affairs in our country and celebrating the return of Futurama, I've found the perfect embodiment of our corporate military industrial complex- Captain Zapp Brannigan.
In less than a week, one of the funniest and most well written shows of recent years returns with new episodes. Futurama is back and the timing couldn't be more perfect. We stand helpless before a preventable oil spill that has made a mockery of our best attempts contain it. An overwhelming mandate for change failed to even dislodge a Defense secretary. And we are fixing to ignore lessons of 1937 and plunge a struggling recovering economy into a double dip recession. The personification of this arrogance and foolhardiness of our leadership is embodied in one of Futurama's main characters.
Of course I speak of 25 star General, Captain, Rear Brigadier, General Major Webelo Zapp Brannigan. What's more, not only are people who are his real life modern day equivalent leading us (in both major parties), but also most of policy inside Washington is geared towards guaranteeing that people like this are never held accountable for their actions or even mildly inconvenienced when it comes to the next bad idea.
Not to pick on one mere horrendous human being and CEO, but to pick out a recent example of said arrogance, do you remember when AIG had to be bailed out by the US taxpayer and they still managed to give bonuses to the staff that helped cause the financial meltdown and have that same staff take luxurious work vacations? I hope you haven't forgotten that, I mean we all paid for it. AIG CEO Robert Benmosche thanked the US taxpayer for bailing out his company by saying "my balls are bigger than the government". [link edited for length]
That's our country that he just said that about after we footed the bill to keep his company afloat. And that's just one quote that surfaced out of the entire culture that feels entitled to the taxpayer paying their bonuses. By the way, this is a man who couldn't even be bothered to leave his winery during his first two weeks as CEO.
Zapp Branigan himself couldn't have been any classier.
Some more relevant Zapp Brannigan quotes include:
1) "Wow, one day a man has everything, then the following day he blows up a $40 billion space station, and the next day he has nothing. It really makes you think." Brannigan Begin Again
That's similar to how one day you have everything, including an oil platform where you've been cutting corners on safety and environmental protections, the next day it blows up, and sixty days afterwards you should be in receivership because of the environmental disaster you've caused but you're not. Yes, it really makes you think.
So BP tried a literally Brannigan-like stategy the "Top Kill/Junk Shot" stage of the fiasco-
2) "On my command all ships will line up and file directly into the alien death cannons, clogging them with wreckage."-When Aliens Attack
3) "You know, boys, a good captain needs abilities like boldness, daring and a good velour uniform, and I'm not convinced Leela has ANY of those things" -Zapp while inciting a mutiny in Brannigan Begin Again
4) "Mutiny is it? I never thought I'd see the day"-Zapp when facing a mutiny in Brannigan Begin Again
Also "the Zapper" gleefully embraces a double standard. When we first meet him, he is forbidding Leela and the Planet Express crew to interfere with Vergon 6 by rescuing the animals from the doomed planet. It's a play on Star Trek's Prime Directive called "Brannigan's Law". But we learn in a latter movie, that the planet had been interfered with for years by Momcorp when they mined all the Dark Matter out of it.
5)"Stop exploding you cowards!"-When Aliens Attack
Washington's foreign policy thrives on similar double standards which we, the people, let slide year after year. For example, during the run up to the Iraq war, the only reason to justify an invasion left (since the WOMD and Al Qaeda connection was exposed as false) was Saddam Hussein's alleged violation of UN Resolution 687. But how do we respond when allies blatantly defy UN Resolution?
We had no problem when UN Resolution 425 was passed in 1978 and Israel ignored it and two subsequent UN Resolutions. The result was Lebanon invaded, Beruit bombed, 20K killed (80% of which were civilians).
This is one reason why the US State department would do well to use the arrogant airhead and hypocrite Zapp Brannigan as its mascot.
The problem is not one person nor is it one side of our Mixed Capitalist system over the other. There is an entire culture of arrogance and ignorance leading both the public and private sector. And we allow ourselves to be manipulated by them thanks to intense marketing campaigns that only Washington style bad ideas require.That's why Zapp belongs alongside other blowhards who have led us into fiasco after fiasco.
A small list of quotes from Branniganesque figures-
"Facts are stupid things."-Ronald Reagan
"The apparent froth in housing markets may have spilled over into mortgage markets."-Alan Greenspan
"Iraqis are not going to be bombed by the United States. The United States will use pinpoint accuracy, like we always do."-Sean Hannity
"There will be those who strongly disagree with this decision, (expanding oil drilling in March 2010) including those who say we should not open any new areas to drilling. But what I want to emphasize is that this announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil."-President Barack Obama(one month and a half prior to the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill disaster)
"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!"-Zapp Brannigan
It's also why we need to filter everything we hear from this subculture of Zapp Brannigans who lead us. The record of failure is impressive and continuing. And with factory-like efficiency the propaganda goes from think tanks in Washington, through pundits and their lawyerly research staff, and directly in the brains of the population who think in the focus group tested buzzwords and thus allow for the bad ideas to continue their course.
In Futurama, Zapp was actually punished in one episode. He blew up the new headquarters and actually was mildly inconvenienced for a short time. Granted, he was reinstated to his arrogant position at the end of the episode after temporarily losing his commission. But we can't even prosecute people for torture. We can't even bring arrogant executives to take less of our tax money after they screw up and cause our economy to implode. We can't even allow a negligent company to decrease its dividends or to go into receivership when it richly deserves it. At least for 15 minutes in Futurama, Zapp Brannigan can be mildly inconvenienced.
Sadly, We, the People are unable to do even that.
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