That was then.                                                This is now.

10 Tips on Empire-building:
Learning from the Brits

by The Staff of Magellan's Log

Now that all pretense has been dropped and the American Empire is well underway, our leaders appear to be extremely confident that they’re doing empire pretty much as God intends us to. This form of empire-building is of course known as "the American Way."

Ever mindful of history, the editors of Magellan’s Log modestly suggest that even our divinely ordained empire could do with a little fine-tuning here and there. And of course who should we turn to but the Brits, the managers of the last great empire. Remember: we’ve only been at the empire game for a couple of decades, while the Brits didn’t do badly for the better part of TWO HUNDRED YEARS!

Looking back at their imperial record, what can we find that might be of value to us now?

After a thorough examination of the British experience on the road to Mandalay, so to speak, we extracted ten tips relating to successful imperial behavior, which we believe the current neophyte imperialists at the helm in Washington would do well to heed.

Brit Empire-building Tip No. 1:
Have an easily admired figurehead leader.

Consider, please, Queen Victoria: this plump, unassuming little figure of a German-speaking woman running an empire? Skeptical you may be but there’s no denying the results. How beloved was she? Let’s see. There’s Lake Victoria (Africa), Victoria Peak (Hong Kong), Victoria, B.C. (Canada), etc.

Application to the American Empire:
Forget the Bushes. Can you imagine grateful puppet governments in Africa naming some pond "Lake George"?

No, next election we’ve got to get our own version of Queen Victoria into the White House. Our suggestion? Katherine Harris, of course (see photo above). With that doyenne of cosmetology swishing around D.C. in her stylish long-coats, in no time at all we’ll have citizenry all over the planet clamoring to rename cities, hotels, mountaintops, and probably even the occasional isthmus for Katherine the Haughty-But-Beloved.

Application to the American Empire:
Though we’ll be getting rid of the Bushes, no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. In Dubya’s days of highest dudgeon right after 9-11, if he used the phrase, "Make no mistake about it…" once he used it a hundred times. There’s no way we can improve on that admonitory, middle-school-principal tone. It’s a kind of one-size-fits all warning suitable for any uppity colonials who might be thinking of uprisings, rebellions, or even revolutions.

Possible Alternate Application to the American Empire:
If that motto strikes too many imperialists as a bit negative, a good fallback choice would be (with apologies and thanks to Allstate of course) the tried and true "You’re in good hands with America."

Application to the American Empire:
No shortage of possible candidates here. When it come time to choose one, all the committee in charge need do is let a copy of the National Review fall open at random and choose the writer whose work appears on that page.

Application to the American Empire:
Here our imperialist work is already done for us, since the entire world already plays soccer. The only tweak necessary would be to Americanize the game, which can be easily done by "suggesting" that the FIFA introduce a new rule requiring that action stop every 2 minutes to allow for 2 30-second commercials touting the wonders of this or that imperial corporation.

Application to the American Empire:
Again, much of the foundation has already been laid, following the invaluable groundwork done by the Brits themselves, thanks latterly to Microsoft, George Lucas, and Britney Spears. These days, give a bunch of Tierra del Fuegans a satellite dish and next thing you know they're singing along with MTV.

However, this is a behavioral area where natives are sometimes a bit resistant to giving up their own language and their own 5,000 years of hard-won cultural tradition. Thus further encouragements are always useful, such as a global program for awarding free lifetime subscriptions to Playboy to all rural valedictorians (where "rural" is defined as living in a village of fewer than 5,000), or offering the collected works of Tom Clancy in annual local essay contests on the topic, "Why English is the Best Language in the World." A bit of brain-storming on the part of Katherine the Harsh-But-Beneficent's ministers will no doubt produce other worthwhile linguistic enticements.

Application to the American Empire:
Simple, simple. Let Gap open outlets in the Pentagon and PX's, alongside Prada boutiques for the officers, and next they you know, we'll be out-swaggering the best of the Brits.

Brit Empire-building Tip No. 7:
Leave behind extensive, BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN letters, diaries, and reports from the furthermost reaches of the empire.
Only thus can imperialists hope to secure their proper place in history.

Application to the American Empire:
Here we're pretty much up against it, since the number of Americans who can write CORRECT English, to say nothing of beautiful English, has now dwindled almost to the vanishing point. Obviously, there's no fast or easy fix for this problem. But since we're building an empire for the ages, we have time on our side. All we need to do is require the study of Greek from first grade on in all American schools. Next thing you know--well, actually, more like a generation or two down the road--Kiplingesque memoirs will come rolling in from Nike factories in Sierra Leone, from Tasmanian Starbucks managers, from outlet malls on Pago Pago.

Application to the American Empire:
No prob. How many fire-and-brimstone Southern Baptist preachers does it take to put the fear of God into a room full of redneck rabble-rousers drunk out of their minds on rotgut moonshine? Only one of course. Can you imagine the effect of just one such divinely inspired orator on, say, Indonesia? Or even China? Since the liberal conspiracy to keep church and state separate is finally being revealed for the Satanic plot that it was, soon the government will be free to dispatch whole armies of evangelicals to cleanse EVERYBODY, from the fieriest of Muslims to the most pacifistic of Buddhists, through total immersion in the Blood of the Lamb.

Application to the American Empire:
Here, clearly, we have our work cut out for us. Given our recent record of flouting all those behaviors (think geopolitically Vietnam, Chile, Panama, etc. etc.; and geo-corporately Enron, Worldcom, Xerox, etc. etc.), this one is going to require some good old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity. Talk about a tough sell. But think how fortunate we are, as the home to an advertising industry that can sell 1) George W. Bush, 2) Diet Sprite, and 3) the Cadillac Escalade. We're sure the ad guys will have no problem convincing our eager colonials of our true-blue dedication to equality, justice, and the rule of law. In other words: watch what we SAY, not what we do.

Application to the American Empire:
Again, no prob. We already do. And the land. And the skies. Which leaves only space.