<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Shadow King</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 1.<br>What we say we want, we do not want.<br>What we say we do not want, we want.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 2.<br>Royalty was always in America’s shadow.<br>We fought with one hand to get out<br>from under a king while the other<br>hand, the one in darkness, kept a firm<br>grip on the scepter and crown.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 3.<br>Our resentment warehouses hundreds<br>of years of grievance. And those arms<br>manufacturers we kept suckling<br>after World War II — it was us<br>we secretly gave them permission to bomb.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 4.<br>Eradication of native people,<br>slavery, denial of climate change,<br>our great historical crimes.<br>Oh yes, and our little love affair with guns . . .<br>Consciousness too heavy to carry.<br>Its consumer showroom floor gives out,<br>we find ourselves thrown down<br>into the basement of our death wish.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 5.<br>How ghastly to discover that our whole<br>way of life is an idol, hollow<br>and airless inside its gilt members!</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 6.<br>We can put up with any amount of<br>cruelty so long as he takes<br>and breaks entertainingly. We fester<br>with resentment and are entertained.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 7. <br>What has caused his complete<br>identification with moral losers —<br>the grifters, liars, con men, abusers,<br>murderers, thieves, dictators <br>(did you hear him tell the German chancellor<br>that D-Day was “not a great day”)?</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 8.<br>Being shadow king, he must have<br>the greatest shadow anyone has ever had.<br>We handed it to him, sent our fawning<br>shadow ministers forth to anoint him,<br>threw our grinding grievances at his feet.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 9.<br>What he says he wants, he does not want.<br>What he says he does not want, he wants.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> 10.<br>I would say to him:<br>Come, be honest with us, if just this once —<br>isn’t it yourself you long to deport?</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Thomas R. Smith</p></div></body></html>