Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Note: We are sharing approximately every other story from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, and are now sampling Volume Three’s ninety chapters. In today’s episode from the first year of his regime, his soup aide talks to him about the historical significance of September 11.
Tragedy, Victory, and Viennese Potato Soup
Dateline: September 11. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Rocky, sir. Remember? Your new temp?”
“No, my temp is, that kid… umm… oh, what’s his name…”
“Russell Rhoades, sir?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“He got a full time job, sir. I’m his brother Rocky.”
“Oh. Well, I still want my soup.”
“Yes sir. That’s why I’m here, sir. I have your soup. It’s a good Austrian soup tonight, sir. Viennese Potato Soup. Made with bacon and mushrooms and various soup greens, sir.”
“Oh. Austrian, huh? That’s pretty far away.”
“Yes sir, it certainly is, sir.”
“I like the kangaroos. They have videos all over the internet where the kangaroos go boxing. Sometimes I just sit and watch them for hours…”
“I think you’re thinking of Australia, sir.”
“That’s what you said. You said it was Australian soup.”
“No, sir. Austria, sir. It’s an Austrian soup, sir. It’s named after Vienna, sir. Vienna is in Austria.”
“That’s confusing.”
“No, sir, it really isn’t, sir.”
“So where is this place if it’s not in Australia?”
“Austria is in Europe, sir. East of Switzerland, sir. South of Germany, sir.”
“Just serve the soup. I don’t need a geography lesson.”
“Well, sir, actually, it sounds like you do, but that’s not what I’m here for. So here’s your nice bowl of Viennese Potato Soup… and a big bowl of crackers… and a stack of napkins… and one, two, three soft plastic children’s soup spoons. Enjoy your soup, sir.”
“Wonder why she picked this one. Weird.”
“Well, sir, it’s September 11, sir.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Well, sir, on September 11, you can either think about the evil of 2001, or the victory of 1683, sir. Clearly, the cook chose to remember the victory, sir.”
“1683? Come on, man! What the heck are you talking about? We weren’t even a country in 1683! We couldn’t have had a victory before we even existed!”
“Ah. Well, you see sir… you have to think a bit bigger than that, sir. We’re talking about history, sir, and history didn’t begin with the birth of the United States, sir. There are thousands and thousands of years of history, after all, sir.”
“Oh. Well, of course. But that other stuff doesn’t matter to me. Look, here’s the thing, kid, I’m just gonna eat my soup, here.”
“Sir, how long would you say the islamists have been trying to take over the world, sir?”
“Huh? Don’t be silly. They aren’t trying to take over the world.”
“It’s part of their religion, sir. They think they have to. They think it’s their job. And they have always done so, sir.”
“You lying dogfaced pony soldier! Islam is the religion of peace!”
“Who told you that, sir?”
“Huh? Everybody knows that!”
“No, sir, actually that’s an incorrect translation, sir. The correct translation is ‘religion of submission,’ sir. They don’t have a word that really corresponds to our concept of peace, sir. The closest they come is the word ‘submission, sir. Their religion calls for total submission to their caliphate, sir.”
“Oh.”
“And it’s been that way for 1400 years, sir.”
“Look all we’re paying attention to today is the past twenty years. That’s enough.”
“I don’t think it is, sir. September 11, 2001 is a day of celebration for the bloodthirsty terrorists and other islamists, sir. It’s a day of sheer horror for us, since we were the victims that day, sir.”
“Look, kid, it’s late. I’m just going to eat my soup here. Why don’t you wait until tomorrow and tell this stuff to somebody else, okay?”
“The reason they chose September 11 for the 2001 attacks, sir, is that this date was previously remembered for a couple of the greatest moments in the history of Western Civilization, sir. In particular, sir, the 11th of September in 1683, sir.”
“I wasn’t around then. Don’t care about 1683. Silly to pay attention to it.”
“Is it, sir? Well, sir, in 1683, the Ottomans had been setting their sights on taking over the European continent… they’d been after Europe for a thousand years, sir. Defeated at the Battle of Tours, but never completely stopped, sir. Always hoping for a rematch, for a thousand years, sir.”
“Nobody holds a grudge that long.”
“I wouldn’t call it a grudge, sir. Let’s just call it a memory. In the 1670s, sir, the Ottomans thought they saw their chance. They pushed up to Venice and were surprised to see that the Europeans amassed a powerful force to face them down.”
“I’d really rather talk about crackers. These are good square crackers, but you know, round crackers can be good too…”
“The Siege of Vienna lasted about two months, in mid 1683. The Ottomans thought they’d found their breakthrough point to lay waste to all Europe… but they were wrong.”
“How’s that?”
“John III Sobieski, raised an army from Poland and Lithuania… joined up with Leopold of the Holy Roman Empire… and their 90,000 soldiers, known as The Holy League, repelled the 170,000 or so warriors of the Ottoman Empire, sir, at the Battle of Vienna, on September 11, 1683, sir.”
“Well, must not have been a big deal. They didn’t talk about it my class.”
“Did you ever think, sir, that perhaps you didn’t go to the best schools, sir? Or perhaps that they did cover the material, but you weren’t paying attention that day, sir?”
“Huh? I’m sorry, I lost you. I wasn’t paying attention there, kid…”
“I know, sir. We’ve all grown used to that, sir. So anyway, sir, John III Sobieski repelled the islamists on September 11, 1683. If it weren’t for him and his allies, sir, Europe would most likely have fallen to the caliphate 348 years ago today, sir.”
“Well, it’s just one battle. Big deal.”
“It was THE battle, sir. The battle of the century, sir. 90,000 Christians defeated an invading force almost twice as big. One of the greatest days of Western Civilization, sir. And the islamists have been burning up about it for over three centuries, sir.”
“Well, I can’t imagine any of them remember it. How would they remember it if I didn’t?”
“Well, sir, they might have paid attention in school, sir. The anger might have been passed down through the generations, sir. Remember, sir, they believe the whole world is theirs, and they have a right to take it from Christians, from Jews, from Hindus, from Buddhists, from anybody else, sir. They are taught that they have a right, even a duty, to take it. And so, sir, every so often, they rise up and try again, sir.”
“You must be exaggerating. I went to school in Scranton…. don’t know if you knew that, kid, but I went to school in Scranton, and I never heard of this stuff. And those were good schools.”
“Were they now, sir… well, far be it from me, sir, to cast aspersions on the schools of Scranton, sir… but the Holy League’s defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Vienna was indeed one of the greatest days in history, sir. Whether they talked about it with five year olds in Scranton or not, sir.”
“And you got all this from a bowl of soup, kid?”
“No, sir, I got it from history books, sir. And the name is Rocky, sir, not Kid.”
“Oh, right. Rocky. I’ll never remember that.”
“… or much else of anything, sir.”
“Huh?”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Three: How Is This Not Over Yet?”, available in paperback or eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. President of the Ethnic American Council in the 1980s and Chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party in the 1990s, his book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
His newest nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” was just released on July 1, and is also available, in both paperback and Kindle eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
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