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ATTENTION MARC DION EDITORS: THE FOLLOWING COLUMN WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THE LIVESTREAM WAS CANCELED. THANK YOU. -- CREATORS

Dreading What I've Got To Watch

Please note: This column was written before the cancellation of the livestream. But they're bound to try it again.

"'What makes you look so white, so white?' said Files-on-Parade.

"'I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch,' the Colour-Sergeant said."

Rudyard Kipling, the racist poet of the British Empire and the writer of the made-into-cartoons "Jungle Book," wrote those words in a poem called "Danny Deever," a poem about a British soldier being hung for murdering a fellow soldier in 1890, in India.

I call Kipling a racist because his work demonstrated it, but he was a hell of a writer in his own way and an even better reporter when it came to the lives and deaths of the working class and poor men who became British soldiers and killed and died for the Queen.

In the poem, Deever is being hung because he murdered another soldier and the regiment has been lined up to watch him die.

Files-on-parade are the ordinary soldiers. The color sergeant is the noncommissioned officer who will see to it that the men behave in a military manner during the execution. Backs straight. Eyes front.

It's the color sergeant who explains to the men that the soldier in the back row who is breathing hard is doing it because it's a cold day, while the soldier in the front rank who just toppled over has gone down because the sun's too hot. He also makes sure the men know that Deever is "the regiment's disgrace."

In America, where it's more like 1890 every day, we are preparing to livestream the execution of a former soldier who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in 2009.

The British soldiers in Kipling's poem were stuck with the whole mess. They couldn't say they refused to watch Deever's hanging. They were soldiers.

But this is America in the year 2026, and one of the core beliefs of fascism is that all of us are in the military one way or another, and all of us need to toughen up when it comes to seeing people shot by ICE agents in the street or executed by firing squad. Fascism isn't for pansies, something most fascists will tell you as quickly as they'll tell you not to disrespect the flag or the Bible.

In the poem, the British army makes one hell of a show of hanging Deever. The regimental band plays the "Dead March." Deever's coffin is on display next to the gallows, and the buttons and stripes are cut off his uniform.

"You must mark him to his place," the color sergeant tells the men, who are supposed to learn something from watching Deever die.

Americans are meant to learn something from the livestreamed execution. Former television personality and current United States Secretary of Testosterone Pete Hegseth wants Americans to know there are consequences to killing a whole bunch of people, just as there would be consequences if you bombed a girl's school.

The guys actually doing the shooting in America's Super Bowl of executions will, of course, be soldiers, and will be uniformed.

You and I are not soldiers. There is no color sergeant to tell us to look sharp or stand up straight. You can watch the execution in boxer shorts and a Los Angeles Lakers throwback jersey if you want.

You can have sex during the execution, and don't think that won't be popular. Even if you don't plan it, you'll be in boxer shorts, maybe a little drunk, and your wife will be wearing a Trump T-shirt and short-shorts and they'll just be getting ready to zotz the guy and you'll look at her and she'll look at you, and, c'mon, you know what's gonna happen.

You can smoke weed and eat pork rinds during the execution. In a lot of places, it's not even too cold to grill. What should you drink? Serve bloody marys and shots. By the time the guy they're shooting is shot, you'll be at least half-shot.

A lot of people on my end of the political spectrum have always been drawn to the comedic possibilities of the Trump administration. That was a mistake. The jokes write themselves, but they're not as funny as they were during the Trump's first term.

And I'm dreading what I've got to watch.

To find out more about Marc Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paper back from Anazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.