The Emu War

During World War I, Australia shipped some 334,000 of its young men to Europe where nearly one in five died in the trenches and an additional one out of two were wounded.  So you know, not exactly all that fun of a time, probably because the British had the habit of utilizing the Aussies for suicidal attacks.  Anyways, as thanks for their sacrifice, the Australian government generously offered 1,000 acres of farmland to each veteran who might want it, of which some 24,000 accepted.  This of course was not good land, but rather shitty land on the edge of the god forsaken desert that is Australia’s interior, but governments fucking over veterans is fairly common, so there you go.

Now out of all of these new entrepreneurial farmers across the country, probably nobody was screwed over quite as much as those residing in Western Australia.  Not only did they have to make fertile the most god awful marginal land you can imagine, but they also had to deal with a ridiculous number of marauding rabbits, a non-native species which had aggressively proliferated to the point that at the start of the twentieth century the government built an 1,100 mile rabbit proof fence across the country to try and stop them from eating every field in Western Australia to nubbins.  However, having survived the war to end all wars, the veterans were nothing else if not resilient.  By digging wells and planting drought resistant crops like wheat, they managed to carve out a moderate amount of success, at least until the Great Depression began.  At which point crop prices collapsed and things just went completely to shit.

Now believe it or not, for some reason the powers that be in Australia have never really given two shits about the far off remotely populated western half of the country.  Though they made promises to provide some aid to the farmers, they kind of just forgot to do it, leading to many in Western Australia to start seriously considering secession as a viable option.  It was this point, in 1932, that a giant flock of some 20,000 emus showed up.  Driven from the interior by a drought and attracted by the abundance of food and water, the giant birds began eating the crops of the veterans and knocking big holes in the rabbit proof fence.  Deciding that enough was enough already, the former soldiers sent a delegation to the Australian government demanding something be done. Not really wanting to be bothered or spend a lot of money, the government announced they would send two heavy machine gun crews to deal with the emus.  The veterans, having seen many of their compatriots killed by machine guns, were fully onboard.

Of course, the entire thing was a complete cluster fuck.  For some reason, the emus weren’t really down with the idea of just standing around while a couple schmucks blasted hot lead at them.  The moment the shooting started they scattered every which way, making them very difficult to hit.  To make matters worse, these were old timey machine guns, meaning they were a real bitch to move around and setup.  Despite shooting thousands of rounds, the Australian army managed to kill only around 500 emus over the course of a month, which was less than a success considering thousands more emus were flocking into the area.  Though the military proudly, and falsely, claimed they killed thousands of emus, all while suffering no casualties of their own, the campaign against the emus was declared a failure and ended.

The government providing machine guns to shoot emus, you know, rather than actual financial aid for farmers, resulted in nearly two thirds of voters in Western Australia voting to secede from the country a few months later.  Like everything with Western Australia, this was completely ignored by the Australian government, though they did start providing funds to build emu proof fences and put a bounty on the bird that resulted in some 57,000 being killed by hunters over the next year.  Despite this, the farming veterans requested machine gunners be sent again in 1934, 1943, and 1948.  Probably because though it was less than effective, there is just something kind of bad ass about blasting at wildlife with rapid fire weapons.

George's Jackass

In 1781, George Washington led the Continental Army to victory at the Battle of Yorktown, effectively ending the Revolutionary War.  With the hard work of actually building a new country now beginning, good old George said screw off to helping and retired from public life to pursue his true passion, breeding mules.  Now a mule is of course the offspring of a male donkey and female horse, a hybrid prized for being as large as a horse, but tougher and needing less food and water.  However, though mules have been a thing since as early as ancient Egypt times, there were very few of them in the new United States at the end of the eighteenth century, and the ones that were there sucked balls due to the poor quality of the donkeys available.  This was something good old George wanted to rectify, both because he believed mules would be a great boon to the new country’s farmers and miners, and because he hoped it would make him a butt load of money.

Now at the time, the majority of donkey aficionados agreed that the best jackasses were in Spain.  However, being the miserly sort, the king of Spain had made a law where donkeys could only be exported with his express permission. However, this didn’t stop George from using the entirety of his notoriety to not only get a Spanish donkey, but also get one for free.  It’s worth noting that George was nearly broke at the time.  After several years of finagling, the king of Spain decided that helping George out would be good for diplomatic relations, and so dispatched an envoy with two of the country’s best donkeys across the Atlantic to the United States.  One of course died during the crossing because things just tended to die no matter what you did back then, but the survivor arrived at George’s plantation, Mount Vernon, in 1785.

Not being the most creative man, George named his new prized donkey Royal Gift, though considering he named his dogs Sweet Lips, Drunkard, and Madame Moose, this might have been the best option.  Excited to get his new donkey started making mules, George put Royal Gift right to work.  However, unfortunately Royal Gift did not seem all that interested in the American mares, which you can probably imagine was a bit of a problem.  George tried all sorts of different methods to get Royal Gift horned up enough to put his donkey bits just about anywhere, most of which it would probably be better not to describe given that many were undoubtedly fairly hands on approaches.  However, none of these worked until by some miracle it was discovered that what really got Royal Gift’s motor running was the sight of two female donkeys mounting each other.  Unfortunately, how this particular fetish was discovered has been lost to history.  Either way, Royal Gift did what he was supposed to do, and George started breeding him with every mare he had and the mare of any neighbor willing to pay for the service.

The following year, not wanting to be outdone on the diplomatic front, France sent George a jackass from the island of Malta, which apparently had the second best donkeys.  George named his new donkey Knight of Malta.  The French also sent him two fine female donkeys so that he could keep his donkey bloodlines as high quality as possible, because of course mules are sterile.  George also imported a jackass from South America, but apparently it was only average as far as donkeys go because it didn’t get a name.  Anyways, George’s plan worked like a charm, and growing demand for his high quality mules soon had him rolling in big piles of cash.  However, the fun came to an end in 1789 when he re-entered public life as the first president of the United States.  He served until 1797, and then died two years later.  As for Royal Gift, George eventually lent him to a cousin in South Carolina who mistreated him on the journey south, leading to the donkey’s early death in 1796.

Thanks to the efforts of George and Royal Gift, mules became much more popular in the United States.  Though people in the northern states continued to prefer horses and oxen, mules soon became the draft animal of choice across the southern half of the country, with wealthy landowners importing the best quality donkeys they could get their hands on from Europe.  By 1810, nearly a million mules were in the United States and by the end of the nineteenth century mules had almost completely replaced horses and oxen for farm work, remaining the primary source of horsepower in farming, mining, and construction until being replaced by the internal combustion engine in the twentieth century.

The Rotten Apple

Following the end of World War II, the United States emerged as the global economic powerhouse, largely thanks to selling weapons in return for the world’s gold reserve and being the only major industrialized nation to emerge unscathed.  As the largest city in the nation, New York City became the crown jewel of American success.  Thanks to just plain ridiculous levels of prosperity, the people of the Big Apple were more than happy to pay high taxes to fund all sorts of social programs; such as city run hospitals, free universities, and one of the most generous welfare systems in the country.  Thanks to these programs, the aspiring and poor flocked to the city, providing cheap labor for its factories and other such businesses.  The high taxes also paid for lavish wages and pensions for city employees, but after all, when you’re rich you can afford to be generous.

Unfortunately, this success was not to last forever.  As early as the 1950’s, manufacturers began to figure out that cheap labor was available in all sorts of places in the United States, many of which did not have high taxes.  As a result, factories began to close and the city began to lose some of its sweet sweet tax revenue.  To try and make up the difference, the city tried raising taxes further, but it only accelerated the problem.  To make matters worse, despite the lack of jobs, poor and aspiring people continued to flock to the city, attracted by the inertia of the Big Apple’s past reputation and the generous safety net available.  Unwilling to curb spending, city leaders instead began borrowing money from Wall Street bankers to keep the city afloat, confident they were facing a problem that would eventually right itself.  The only cost saving measure put into place was putting long-term infrastructure improvements and repairs on hold.

Unfortunately, instead of righting itself, the problem instead continued to grow.  By the start of the 1970’s, factories closed at such a rapid rate that some 15 percent of the city’s population was largely dependent on welfare.  Drug use and crime rates began to skyrocket, and those who were able began to leave the city, resulting in a 10 percent loss in population.  Formerly prosperous neighborhoods became abandoned.  By the mid-1970’s, the city began to resemble a dystopian hellscape of abandoned buildings and graffiti.  Arson was a daily occurrence, fueled by desperate attempts to collect insurance money and heroine addicts just liking to watch things burn.  Police were basically fighting a war with various street gangs, utilizing increasingly violent tactics in an attempt to maintain control.  Bridges and subway tunnels were at risk of collapsing.  City services were completely overwhelmed and about the only businesses that did well were porno theaters and drug dealers.

In 1975, the bankers of Wall Street announced that they had no interest in loaning the city any more money.  Facing bankruptcy, city leaders turned to the federal government for help, but President Ford, facing a primary challenge from the more fiscally conservative Ronald Reagan, announced he would veto any bailouts.  Faced with collapse, the city announced massive budget cuts, including laying off some 20% of city employees and cutting the wages of those who remained.  This rather pissed off the unions who represented these employees, who were already completely overwhelmed, and as a result a massive strike shutdown the city.  Trash began to buildup, fires went unfought, hospitals and schools closed, subways and buses stopped running, and bridges were closed.  Going a step further, the police not only stopped working, but their union created a pamphlet declaring the Big Apple to be Fear City, which they handed out to tourists at the airport.  However, rather than break the city, the resulting descent into anarchy broke the unions.  Not wishing to see their home collapse, the unions instead decided to utilize their pension funds to bail out the city.  Of the public service unions, only the teacher’s union balked at this, but their leader was convinced after the other union leaders threatened to throw him out an eighth story window.  By the end of the year, facing increasing political pressure both at home and abroad, President Ford also backed down, giving the city vital access to a federal credit line.

New York City avoided bankruptcy, but hard times were still ahead.  Austerity measures throughout the 1980’s resulted in the number of city employees being cut by over 35 percent.  Public services were slashed in order to allow taxes to be cut to attract in new businesses and draconian law enforcement measures were put in place to lower crime, falling largely on the city’s minority populations.  The city staggered on, not truly recovering until the tech boom of the 1990’s and the resulting gentrification in the early decades of the twenty-first century.