Hey kids! Want a career with a dubious future?

A job where you get paid to play real life deadly games?

Then join the Canadian Armed Forces!

Kill innocent people!  People you’ll never know!  People just like you!

Kill them up close or far away – your choice!

Kill babies, moms with children, old geezers, wedding guests,

pet dogs, donkeys, nurses, doctors, teachers and more!

They don’t want you there anyway, so kill ‘em all!

Unlike civilians, you’ll be licensed to kill! How cool is that?

In war, everyone is fair game!

And blame-free, easily excused ‘accidents’ happen all the time.

You can bomb hospitals, nurseries, wedding tents, schools, universities,

family farms, convoys of refugees – just like on TV

- and no one will chew you out! You’ll be obeying orders ‘doing your job.’

It’s patriotic! Satisfying! You’ll score huge points. And get paid, too!

You can do all this killing with modern ‘smart’ bombs, ‘intelligent guns’

and ‘enemy-sensitive’ grenades. You don’t have to think!

These amazing weapons only kill the bad people,

their bad kids and bad pet rabbits.

When you fly our ultra-cool jet fighters,

you get free cases of Coke before every flight.

We even pipe your favorite heavy metal tunes into the cockpit

to help drown out a nagging conscience.

And we’ll fill you full of beer and drugs afterwards to help you unwind.

Flying killer bombing missions was never easier!

For every evil, freedom and democracy hating, anti-Canadian, anti-American,

anti-God, anti-Tim Horton’s, anti-Hockey Night in Canada

enemy person, family or pet you kill,

you’ll get bonus air miles points for gift purchases.

Compete with like-minded patriotic killers from the USA for rad prizes.

Make your folks proud! And if you capture any of the ‘enemy’ alive,

learn how to hand them over to the Americans to torture,

or learn how to torture them yourself! It’s easy! Everyone’s doing it!

We’ll even teach you how to spot anti-patriotic, evil, insurgent,

dissident, anarchist, environmentalist, homosexual, feminist, foreign trouble-making,

anti-war Canadians from miles away so you can spy on them

and round them up for us in your spare time.

And if anyone questions why you kill for a living,

tell them you also hand out blankets, shoes, candy and k-rations

to poor, starving, homeless people – after you bombed their homes

or wiped out their families. That will shut them up.

Then return to the field of battle as part of the ‘reconstruction team’

to show them what a good sport you are,

re-building their destroyed country in our own image!

Come home to get congratulated by the number-one-killer himself,

the man who condones, encourages and promotes our nation’s contribution

to worldwide war, mayhem and devastation – but who never dirties his hands

- the oh-so-Christian, God-fearing, fearless Mr. Prime Minister!

He’ll decorate you for re-decorating other people’s faces, bodies, families

and cities, or for rearranging your own. Because it sometimes happens.

Good, well-meaning, job-desperate folk like you

can get maimed, wounded, paralyzed, blinded, amputated,

hospitalized for life, or even killed.

But heck, whether you return home in a wheelchair, stretcher or body bag,

we guarantee you’ll be feted like a real hero! With the Canadian Armed Forces!

‘A Modest Proposal’ is from Norman Nawrocki’s anti-war, anti-Empire solo CD, ‘Duck Work’ released in 2004 on the Les Pages Noires label.