The Icarus Programme: Bearing Witness to the Glaringly Witless

The liberal agenda is of ubiquitous manifest in modern life. While scheming and conspiracy has long since found a home in the arts and what’s passing for education these days, such dangerous thinking has gained unprecedented influence in the sciences, engineering, and contemporary mechanics. There have always been fringe groups threatening the stability, structure, and stamina of these pursuits, but their exploits are foolishly disregarded and ignored as unthreatening. This negligent naivety not only allows for Lord-only-knows-what sorts of offenses and shenanigans to go about unchecked, but it practically welcomes the absurdities of talking monkeys and little green aliens into the realm of credible endeavor.

By far the most distressing of these studies is that of, as the United States Army has so over-dignified it, the Small Rocket Lift Device, or SRLD. Colloquially the “jetpack” or “rocket-belt,” the SRLD has been gradually gaining momentum in both fact and fairy-tale since its early introduction in 1920s and ‘30s pulp science-fiction. Frivolous stories, though plaguing in their own right, are one thing, but when both our government’s armed forces and aeronautics research and researchers are burning the American’s tax dollars in pursuing (and, in the case of aeronautics, actually utilizing) such obscene misappropriations of technology, it is the lackadaisical complacent who sits idly by, submissive to the stenched winds of change.

The most prevalent images of SRLDs are, as mentioned, rooted in indulgent, unrealistic fantasy worlds where, clearly, the Godfearing man is in dire minority. Not only are these preposterous universes wholly detrimental to our social attentiveness in their hedonist escapism, but their comprising characters and their milieux are given such a grandiose presentation in popular culture that what is or is not generally deemed socially acceptable is all but thrown out the window. Grown men floating around in any kind and color of form-fitting clothing with jet propulsion devices strapped to themselves, wielding fanciful retrofuturistic weaponry with one arm and clutching a helpless (hapless) young woman whose fallaciously buxom proportions are scarcely contained by mere wisps of silver space-fabric (likely a polyester) simply have no place in respectable mores. In this brand of storytelling, however, such perversions of idyllic humanity are heroic, even iconified.

Two such characters, though vastly different in their respective contexts (but, by no coincidence, similar in their cultural resonance), are Anthony “Buck” Rogers and Cliff Secord, or The Rocketeer.

Buck Rogers, though not always equipped with an SRLD, was first introduced to the American in 1928, behind the cover portrait of short-lived jetpacker, The Skylark of Space. So even when Rogers is more grounded in his transportation, the reader’s first impression of the flying man will linger. Immediately duping the dopes of opportunistic syndication, Rogers soon found himself illustrated in sequential narrative throughout the nation’s newspapers (also of no coincidence, the Tarzan comic strip debuted on the same day, revealing an obvious cooperation of both sci-fi and feral nudist radicals towards an anarchic world of levitating apemen). That the strip was so widely published alludes to the breadth of liberal power in mass-media at the time. That Rogers and his adventures in 25th Century heresy are still so widely published and admired alludes to the breadth of liberal power in mass-media now, not to mention its irrevocable influence on modern society. In fact, it is homage to Rogers and his ilk that spawned the hellion Rocketeer.

Unlike Rogers, whose use of SRLDs is inconsistent and situational, The Rocketeer is defined by his ability to jet through the sky, combating Nazis and mobsters under falsely American pretenses. While Secord’s antics may seem patriotic and just on the surface, a scrutinizing eye, well-founded in its American institutions of lawfulness and normalcy, sees the irresponsible acrobat for what he really is: an exhibitionist vigilante with no appreciation for the candor of identity our country was founded on. A flaunty golden helmet, red jacket, and heeled boots disguise the subversive, uneducated scofflaw as he leaches off the studied intellect of his supposed friend, Peabody. A deliberately unexplored personage, Peabody is the educated force of conservative reason, created solely for the writers to image as an uncool worrywart naysayer; reluctantly submitting and following, an undesirable contrast to the extravagant Rocketeer. It takes conspirators with the same reckless disregard for the American way of life as their “hero” to put forth such a publication into the hands of the American’s child.

Unfortunately, the liberal brainwash, though stymied by the enduring values of family, social responsibility, cultural integrity, and it-not-being-the-future, has had its successes. SRLDs are currently in various stages of production by companies the world over, the most notorious of which, Jet Pack International (Jet P.I.), is based in Denver, Colorado. Not surprisingly, Jet P.I. was founded by an avid skydiver who evidently did not think betting his God-given life against gravity alone was free-spirited enough. Why just fall in fluorescent colors when I could fall and possibly explode in fluorescent colors, he likely thought. In effort to conceal the shame that weights him for dismissing the gift (of life) he’s been given, Troy Widgery promotes his company with sports drinks (Jet P.I.’s sister company, Go Fast Sports & Beverage), the extreme sports buzz that dominates every caffeine-hyped early adolescent male, and the unfounded braggadocio so commonly displayed by the outlaws of recreational activity. Jet P.I. has begun marketing one of its models for sale in an obvious move against the lucrative bored-billionaire-playboy demographic. If left unchecked, broader assimilation will surely follow.

Perhaps even more terrifying than entire companies of subversives, however, is the isolationist personal pursuit of jetpackery. At present, one such citizen is known to’ve independently created a functioning SRLD. Gerard Martowlis is so thoroughly deceived by the likes of the aforementioned left propaganda that he’s dedicated vast sums of personal time and capital towards realizing the ridiculous flying contraption. Why he’s been so overthrown by this programmed compulsion is a sad and disgraceful psychology best left to its own speculative discourse, but its significance requires little explanation. The American’s integrity is taking a backseat to his fantasies, and the compromise of the individual’s contribution to productive and proper scientific advancement and development is no easy blow to withstand.

As the world’s most militaristically and aeronautically advanced nation, one would logically assume the United States of America would have developed a discerning eye for worthwhile expenditures of time and effort. And, oftentimes, one would be correct in this assumption. However, in this instance, we are again reminded of how deeply the liberal agenda permeates American soil, poisoning our empire at its very roots.

The United States Army has demonstrated an active interest in SRLDs since the late 1950s, over the years contracting several organizations to produce an actionable result to be used in the field by engineers and scouts. The obvious contradiction in intent being that the U.S. Army, the defenders of freedom, democracy, and capitalism, are devoting precious resources to devices that not only do not kill opponents of freedom, democracy, and capitalism, but in fact make its own ranks more vulnerable, elevated targets. Small ants on the horizon, huddled behind cover and blending in with the foliage, would be replaced by frolicking gnats, easily mapped in the enemy’s reticule by contrails and, soon after, entrails. It’s hard to say which would be more mutilated: the pilot or his dignity. Sources insist that funding these projects has ceased, but it is probable that these claims are merely disinformation.

While the long-term effects of this conniving impregnation of contemptible experimentation in playing God have yet to be seen, the damages done in these first eighty-some years do not bode well. Almost overnight the image of man has transformed from that of a contented, comfortable lot, pleased to spend his days at rest on the Lord’s grasses and knolls, to that of an insatiable and flamboyant purveyor of concepts so preternatural and perverse that the metallic fuchsias of his leotard practically prance their stain of skylust across the fibers of American morality. What remains are the smoldering ashes of a once-great nation, so thoroughly sapped by fantastical indulgences that its most brilliant minds and advancements, even its very culture and the arms that sheltered it, cannot extinguish the deceitful flames of a scoffed conspiracy.