That’s pretty much it. Once you read this book, you will possess the mindset to participate in the vanguard of the coming revolution. Achieving a Chapo-run society will require revolutionary discipline, but make no mistake: the world will change when you’re ready to pronounce this oath:
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another political comedy podcast, nor another shitty, neoliberal Democratic Party candidate for fear of whatever right-wing ghoul they’re running against.
One last thing: If you’re a fan of sacred cows, prisoners being taken, and holds being barred, then stop reading immediately. This book is not for you. However, if you feel alienated, dispossessed, and disenfranchised from the political and cultural nightmare that is America, then . . .
Chapo, let’s go.
CHAPTER ONE
* * *
WORLD
I am a citizen of the world.
—DIOGENES
The world is a vampire.
—SMASHING PUMPKINS
* * *
You may find it odd that we’d start a book about the American nightmare with a chapter on the rest of the world. You reveal your own ignorance. The great thing about having an empire is that no matter where you are on earth, you’re home! And you can’t really understand America’s internal rot—its inflamed, wriggling bowels—unless you understand its role as a brutal, stupid, and self-owning empire.
But just how did America grow from a small-time, mom-and-pop plantation into a gigantic, ruthlessly efficient multinational? After some initial growing pains, the United States debuted some innovative imperial pilot programs like Cuba and Hawaii in the late nineteenth century. But it wasn’t until after World War II that we truly inherited Great Britain’s mantle as the international point man for capital. America would soon end up invading/sabotaging/destroying literally most of the countries in the world in pursuit of maximum synergy.
Hostile Makeover
* * *
The US emerged from World War II as the Chad of nations. (The Nation of Chad did not come into existence until 1960.) Our rival Nazi Germany had collapsed after it overleveraged risky investments in Eastern European “living space,” while Japan—once an aggressive competitor to America—was defeated due to a certain killer app developed in a cutting-edge incubator in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Not only were our enemies out of the game, but our British, French, and Dutch colleagues were all bankrupt, leaving America ready to expand our portfolio and pick up these assets from declining empires for pennies on the dollar.
To manage this sprawling enterprise, we reorganized our top talent into a streamlined corporate structure. The newly formed Defense Department was put in charge of human resources; the International Monetary Fund handled accounting, using the Bretton Woods bookkeeping system; the CIA headed up marketing, underwriting radio spots in Eastern Europe and some truly groundbreaking abstract advertisements by Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock; and for R & D, we poached a team of bright young go-getters from a foundering competitor via Operation Paper Clip, one of the most successful headhunting projects in the pre-LinkedIn era.
Just as the modern economy consolidates hundreds or thousands of diverse firms into a handful of huge, pulsating conglomerates, America rode a wave of mergers and acquisitions to global monopoly. We got serious about vertical integration and started using our newfound economic and military muscle to close some really impressive deals in markets like Britain, West Germany, Japan, and—after deleting about a million people from the budget—Korea.
Korea was the first serious PowerPoint presentation of the Cold War, a showdown between us and the oppressive regulatory apparatus known as the Soviet Union. It was where we first proved our commitment to the two principles of our company philosophy: a) Kill civilians to maintain US hegemony, and b) Prop up dictators to maintain control of valuable territory. It’s a simple process known as subcontracting, and it came in handy every time we needed to farm out the hard work of opening markets and killing Communists. During the Korean War, for example, Syngman Rhee was our guy; a dapper, well-dressed player who ordered thousands of extrajudicial killings and had a dick like a billy club. And long after him, people tend to forget, South Korea was governed by a series of alternating military and civilian dictators. Korea set the standard: we’ll do anything on behalf of anyone, especially on behalf of ourselves; that’s the American promise.
So straight out of the gate, the Cold War was emphatically not about democracy versus totalitarianism. In Korea and in every subsequent proxy war, it was about capitalism versus threat to capitalism.
For a while, things hummed along nicely: by 1953, after the stuffy, uncreative Mohammad Mosaddeq decided to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, we paid Iranian bodybuilders to help install the pro-American Shah; in 1954, we acquired Guatemala through some corporate espionage; in 1965, we handed over an electronic mailing list of known Communists to our business partner Indonesia, which resulted in some serious housecleaning; and also in 1965, we occupied the Dominican Republic to bail out its pro-American CEO. Inevitably, however, the day arrived when public relations took a serious hit. The problem was Vietnam, a once-promising leveraged buyout from our faltering competitor, France.
The whole thing started when the US decided to cancel a national Vietnamese election scheduled for 1956 and set up by the Geneva Accords. America saw this mess of red tape for what it was and had the South Vietnamese call it off. That, rather than whatever slogan John McCain has tattooed on his scaled thigh, is what started the entire war. At the time it seemed like a great investment. Even after assuming the previous company’s liabilities (by the end of its run, America was funding about 80 percent of the French war in Indochina), these assets were going at fire-sale prices! Much like in Korea, we ended up outsourcing the management to a series of dictators: Ngo Dinh Diem, Big Minh, Nguyễn Khánh, etc. But despite our best efforts, we failed; the attempted hostile takeover killed something in the neighborhood of 3–4 million Vietnamese, and that’s not even counting the spillover in Laos and Cambodia.
7 Habits of Highly Effective Empires
* * *
It was a lesson for some, but not all, of America’s board members: the ideal business relationship may not be direct, messy, bloody conflict but instead a tranquil affiliation between contractor and subcontractor, a junior who acts on the whim of the parent yet still serves its own interests in the region. Corporate should intervene only if a bigger problem arises, such as uppity trade unions demanding labor laws or casual Fridays getting out of hand. Other people drew a different lesson: every time a colonial overlord is forced by their declining economic standing to pull out of a country and leave a vacuum of power, that vacuum will almost certainly be filled by an anticapitalist, anti-imperialist movement.
You might be saying to yourself, Hey, Professor Atheist Jew Libtard, put down the birth control pills and burning flag for one second and take the patriotic view: we were fighting a war to the death against Communism. If we hadn’t propped up our dictators, wouldn’t they have propped up their dictators and won?
Here’s a two-tiered answer. First, who cares? Pick your dictatorship: Would you rather have lived in Fidel Castro’s Cuba or in any one of the US’s many military junta police states? Second, America was usually targeting not just strongman regimes but democratic mass movements. And there was never a situation in which any American gain in yardage was a clear win against hegemonic Communism, because the Communist Bloc was already fragmented by the mid 1960s (not to mention the added players in the Third Way/Non-Aligned Movement, a crunchy co-op founded by Nehru, Tito, Sukarno, Nasser, and Nkrumah).
How many times did we act not against Communism but against anything remotely subverting capitalism? United Fruit in Latin America? Iran? Democratically elected Chilean socialist Salvador Allende? In none of those cases were the Soviets to be seen. (In fact, Allende was a complete pushover who decided to ignore some choice advice Castro gave him right
before the coup: put guns in the hands of the workers, because they’re coming to kill you. Allende’s response—“No, democratic norms are important”—explains why his regime lasted a full fifteen minutes, while Fidel lived another nine hundred years.) In fact, America was so interested in fighting the evils of Communism that it propped up fucking Pol Pot—AFTER the Killing Fields! Yes, the genocide in Cambodia was stopped by the Communists running North Vietnam, who drove Pol Pot out of power. But because the North Vietnamese were card-carrying Reds, America backed a Khmer Rouge comeback tour and sent SAS guys to train them in the jungles and lay mines that are still around today and probably just atomized some poor soul as you read this paragraph. Yet Pol Pot ends up in the Black Book of Communism.
But such are the trade-offs inherent in running a business—and what a business we had. Funding wasn’t a problem, seeing as the US was a preeminent manufacturing base, the workhouse of the free world. With the Marshall Plan and a pivot toward Asia, we were throwing cash and goods everywhere, stabilizing our postwar partners in a new global order (and securing some profits for industry, if you want to be pedantic about it). Also, with the Bretton Woods system that established the US dollar as the reserve currency of world trade, America entered the postwar era as the ultimate arbiter and guarantor of global capitalism. This meant that the we could afford to spend billions rebuilding the European economy (and keeping the Communists from taking power) while brokering peace between labor and capital at home. In exchange for chilling out on the worker militancy and purging Communists from any leadership positions, organized labor was promised a bigger percentage of the profits generated by America’s unipolar industrial might.
CTH WORLD FACT BOOK
This quick reference guide provides all the information you need to know about global hot spots and allies, should you visit any of these countries for business, pleasure, espionage, or to spread the message about our podcast.
TURKEY
Population: 81.5 million subscribers to our show
Top-Rated TV Show: The Armenians’ Ingratitude, Comedy Mosque Network
Most Downloaded Apps: Angry Kurds, Erdogan GO, Dissident Crush
Cause of All Problems: Fethullah Gülen
US Stance: Willing to barter Gülen for national treasure Deniz, the Roundest Cat in Turkey
SAUDI ARABIA
Population: 268 billion barrels
Top-Rated TV Show: صيادو البنات
(Daughter Auction Hunters), Divine truTV
Political Up-and-Comers: Prince Sultan bin Faisal Abdulaziz al-Saud (age eighty-six), a bloody scimitar, a platinum-coated Lamborghini with a machine gun mounted on the hood
National Slogan: ohh lebanese sweetie i luv the feet come to riyadh i live in a castle
US Stance: Treasured ally
UNITED KINGDOM
Population: 65 million tossers
Still Has a Queen Who Rules from a Big Fancy Castle?: You bet your ass
Crime: A bloody gyppo nicked the crazy frog off me mobi whilst i was in the loo! cor blimey im joining UKIP innit
Top Exports: Buggery, High-Concept Television Programs, Pop Music Consumed by the Most Precious and Annoying Americans
US Stance: Special relationship
JAPAN
Population: 127 million tentacles
Working-Age Population: 12
Samurais: Zero since Tom Cruise
Top Exports: Girlfriend Simulators, One-Half of Comedian Dan Nainan
Top-Rated Anime: Hi Hi Z Komodo (small, weak teenagers must earn incredible power by fighting inside demon-powered robots), Mister Mister (a sickly teenager watches as superbeings of unimaginable strength face off against each other in staring contests to determine their power level), Iron Terror Vibration (in a postapocalyptic world, a meek but dedicated teenager must overcome his frailty to join a caste of warrior priests and fight a horde of androgynous ghosts)
US Stance: Confused, but strangely curious
BRAZIL
Population: 210 million landing strips
Economy: Kidnapping-based
Rain Forest: See it while you still can
Attitude Toward Public Toplessness: Progressive and brave
Isolated Rain Forest Tribes Who Have Still Never Heard Joe Rogan’s Voice: 3
US Stance: Reciprocal friendship with right-wing coup plotters
MEXICO
Population: 130 million Breitbart articles
Our Jobs: They’re takin’ ’em
Drunken College Students on Spring Break Kidnapped by Drug Cartels with One Rogue Special Agent Racing against the Clock to Save Them: 7
Further Research: Breaking Bad season 4, episode 10, “Salud”
US Stance: Stupid, incomprehensible screaming
GERMANY
Population: 82 million plump children
History: [Smiles politely, looks down at feet]
Fastest-Growing Economic Sectors: Information technology, scat pornography hygiene
National Style of Humor: Sausages in ears
Top-Rated TV Show: Stuttgart nach München: Eine Zugfahrt! (Stuttgart to Munich: A Train’s Journey!), Der Aktion! Network
US Stance: Allies, with 35,000 American soldiers stationed here to defend the Munich Oktoberfest & Nude Pride Week
GREECE
Population: 11 million
Unemployed Population: 78 million
Largest Economic Sector: Licensing fees from other countries using democracy
Nice Supranational Common Market It’s Got There: Be a real shame if something were to happen to it
History: The classiest of all, the progenitor of almost all the art and philosophy of the Western world, but seriously, folks, what’s up with all those tiny penises on the statues? Those dicks are small. (Editor’s note: Actually, according to every study, the penises are average- to above-average-sized.)
US Stance: Warm memories of the fascist coups we’ve supported
FRANCE
Population: 656 million anthropomorphic candlesticks
Most Popular Professions: Racist cartoonist, cigarette tester, blackface makeup technician
Top-Grossing Movie: L’Homme Gay Raciste (The Racist Gay Man, winner of France’s Jerry Lewis Award for Outstanding Satire)
Cultural Trademark: Cartoons of various local and world leaders eating poop and performing fellatio, captioned “Les Politiques”
US Stance: Frenemy
ISRAEL
Population: 8.5 million if you count the Arabs, but let’s not
Government: The Middle East’s only democracy, and working hard to keep it that way
Religion: Judaism and Other
History: Has existed for three thousand years in its current form
Occupied Territories: Oh my, no, you’ve been misinformed
Measurements: Working out every day and making gains every year
US Stance: The kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful ally we’ve ever had
INDIA
Population: Hoo boy
Government: Largest fascist movement on the planet, currently hosting US secretary of state
Top Export: Other half of comedian Dan Nainan
Religion/Relationship Status: Poly
Voiced by: Hank Azaria
US Stance: Valuable global partner with bonus anti-Muslim bigotry
RUSSIA
Population: 144 million bots
Chief Exports: Tracksuits, Misery, Important Novels
Leading Cause of Death: Everything
Top-Rated TV Show: Черт, я убил своих детей! (Damn, I Killed My Kids!), Cartoon Network
US Stance: Implacable enemy
IRAN
Population: 82 million as of now, but who can say what tomorrow will bring?
Exports: Terrorism; it cannot be said enough. Iran is the world’s greatest exporter of terrorism. Say it to yourself out loud right now, and say it any chance you get in the Washington Post, the Atlantic, or the Daily Beast, and a
nytime you appear on CNN.
Government: Constitutional republic subject to the veto of anyone looking stern in a framed poster
US Stance: Classic face-heel relationship
IRELAND
riverrun: past Eve and Adam’s
Population: 4.7 million descendants of slaves
Exports: Charm, wit, several of the greatest novelists, poets, and playwrights of the modern era
Irish-American Exports: Police brutality, sports brutality, Boston brutality, general oafishness, petty crime
Government: A tragicomedy in two acts
Unemployment rate for unwed mothers: 0 percent
US Stance: Storage locker for Apple to stack bundles
a way: a lone a last a loved a long the
ITALY
Population: 59 million legitimate businessmen
Government: Parliamentary republic that still lives with its mother
Culture: Timeless art, screaming at women in leather skirts, being too fat to go to prison
Economy: Street harassment
Top Export: Sports cars that allow men to catcall as efficiently as possible
Most Popular TV Shows: Bunga Bunga Party of Five (IT4), Hidden Camera in Senate Women’s Restroom (P-SPAN), Top 10 Most Racist Plays of the Week (Futbol Italia)
Top Social Media Star: Gianni Paulismo, the polite teenager who does outrageous YouTube pranks like being quiet in public, bathing, not smoking cigarettes, wearing shirts, respecting women
US Stance: Trying to correctly pronounce “prosciutto”
The Chapo Guide to Revolution Page 2
