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Epitaphs The Favored Dead - Dragging My Feet Through the 5 Steps of Reconsciousness - |
The Favored Dead We, the honored dead (and our enlightened friends in the human and pre-reconscioused communities), face a decisive moment in history. The struggle for post-human rights has reached a turning point. As the 21st century opens before us, few seriously question the viability of the refurbished mind in a formerly-living body. Even the most prejudiced zombie-killer does not deny our abilities. What he seeks to deny is our post-humanity. It is no accident that I write these thoughts on Independence Day, 233 years after the liberation of our nation from unjust oppressors. However, Friends, our own worst enemy is not the zombie hater, but we reconscioused ourselves. Our highest question cannot merely be: Is it ethical to gorge on brains? Our most pressing concern cannot be whether 'tis nobler to remain unreconscioused or to acquire higher function? Rather we must put aside our differences, to unite as one common people, the Honored Dead, to join with our living brethren as novus homo or the New Mankind. And listen carefully, post-human brothers: Only in unity will we achieve a status equal to that of our cousins, who whether from arrogance or ignorance reserve for themselves the term "living." Why does the government reject the reconscioused? Can he not take up arms, pull a voting lever, love his country like any other? Is there the least reason to think a well-socialized Zombie could not contribute to society, or even hold high office? Just because we are the reanimated remains of the formerly "living" are we to be refused our share in the body politic? If persons so humble as we may write, assemble, even speak to the President of the United States should we not ask him (who has himself suffered under prejudiced minds) if this troubled hour of the nation's history is the time to resort to vulgar and unnatural prejudice? We should ask him if the national good were not a better guide than the pride and prejudices of these "patriots" who mindlessly seek and destroy our brothers of the living death. We would tell him that the reanimated heart still beats with love of country. That the enemies of freedom around the world are known to destroy our kind. And that your enemy's enemy, Mr. President, is your friend. Whatever the folly of certain retrogressive factions, at least the friends of NAZAL show wisdom. These enlightened persons and organizations no longer indulge in the offensive term "brain-biters." That class of bipeds are now called "reconscioused residents." Indeed, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has said: "The reconscioused residents of this city can be favorably compared to any other class or creed in their devotion to the American experiment. Many of them, individually and collectively, have been contributing to the social good. A well-attended meeting of reanimated citizens voted Wednesday night to support initiatives for animal rescue, new city parks, and ballot reform." It's now pretty well established that at present there are many reconscioused doing duty not only as laborers, servants and nannies but also as editors, public planners, security guards, fashion designers, and many other capacities the quote-unquote living once claimed as exclusively their own. Rising above vulgar prejudice and fear, the understaffed employer accepts the aid and expertise of the zombie as readily as that of any other. Why not the higher echelons of society and government? We insist that the efforts of the deathless would be worth the exertions of any two "living" in the bloody fight against terror, as just one example, and that while the governernment continues to refuse the aid of the reconscioused, thus alienating them from the national cause, it gives the terrorists the advantage. Men don't fight with one hand when they could use two. And a drowning man would not refuse to be saved even by a Zombie hand. Now is our moment. We, the post-human, must with one voice demand fair, reasonable and just treatment under law. Naturally, with rights come responsibilities. But we, as one, should rise to the challenge to shepherd our country into a new era of greatness. In the words of a great American, "I do not go back to America to sit still, remain quiet, and enjoy ease and comfort. . . . I glory in the conflict, that I may hereafter exult in the victory. I know that victory is certain. I go, turning my back upon the ease, comfort, and respectability which I might maintain even here. . . Still, I will go back, for the sake of my brethren. I go to suffer with them; to toil with them; to endure insult with them; to undergo outrage with them; to lift up my voice in their behalf; to speak and write in their vindication; and struggle in their ranks for the emancipation which shall yet be achieved." --Walton Zombie, III. July 4, 2009 |