The war, my friends, is over. Hence, you no longer need to care about this country. It's all right to once again go about your ways without flashing a peace sign to that tall drink of water across the street. It's okay to stop saluting the crossing guard at the local elementary school for her exemplary community service and dedication. It's even okay to remove the United We Stand bumper sticker from the back of your 1982 brown Datsun, even if it is holding up the bumper.

And you can even tell your mother that she can finally take down that obnoxious American flag outside of her house and replace it with the cute little Welcome Friends one that used to hang there, the one with the kissing whales and dancing bears and twizzlers dressed as Las Vegas showgirls. Because really, friends just weren't sure if they were welcome, once it was gone.

Yes, America, you can go back to being America, and the folks at CNN can go back to being B-list reporters with second-rate, embarrassingly outdated news to share, reiterate, draw charts about, repackage, and share again. Tune in now and get the latest news on Grover Cleveland's illegitimate child!

But what of this post-war America? Have we learned anything? Have we grown? Have we changed? I'd say no. The only news fit to print these days is that most news is not fit to print, thanks to fraudulent reporters. By the by, the Amazon riverbed is made up of chocolate. Amazon spelled backwards is Nozama, which is Latin for Cadbury crème egg. But that's from a source I can't divulge. It's true though, every word. For real.

But I digress.

Post-War America, in its pathetic state of tired patriotism, played out war games, a joblessness rate that makes the Great Depression look like it may actually have been great, comparatively, and nothing in the papers to smile about except the occasional Fox Trot comic strip, is slipping slowly into a tar pit of self-loathing and destruction. Americana, as we know it, is dying.

Oh, sweet Americana! Goddess of the sum-sum-summertime, where have you gone? The overuse of patriotism and the horrific scandals in the news have made us detest the very things that made our country great. The flag? Played out fashion statement. Big business and the American Dream? Enron, Martha, Dot-Bombs. Baseball? Sammy Sosa corks his bat. McDonalds? In financial distress. Michael Jackson? Baby dangler. Mr. Phillips? Guy who lives down the street from me.

And now this.

Now, the clincher. The one that takes the cake. Or should I say, the cookie.

The destruction of the Oreo.

For years, the Oreo cookie has stood as the be all end all of the American sandwich cookie industry. It is the rolls Royce of the cookie aisle. The Coca-Cola of the industry. The King of all Cookies, if you will. A simple sandwich, really, two chocolate wafers glued together with sweet sweet white cream.

We love our Oreo. We bring it to school, to picnics, to meetings. We share our Oreo eating stories, i.e.:(I dunk mine! I open it and lick the cream! I peel the cream away and eat the cookies! I stick mine in my eyes and make hilarious Oreo glasses! I killed my fish with mine! My brother has a strange collection of half eaten erasers!, etc.)

There have been many knockoffs along the way, Hydrox being the main offender, (later changing it's name to Droxies, to be hip, pfff) and even some experimentation, as is the Double Stuf Oreo, same concept, just more cream, or the Reduced Fat Oreo, same concept again, but with less cream. These experiments were greeted with delight by consumers. Yes! They rejoiced. Here's our familiar Oreo, only enhanced to meet our cream needs. Bravo, Nabisco! Now I can take the cream from two Reduced Fat cookies and make a reduced fat Double Stuf! That still makes it a diet cookie, right? Right??! Oh god please tell me it does!?? I can't take more celery for the love of Jebus!

Then, in the 90's, Oreo became bolder, releasing seasonal favorites, such as the Halloween Oreo and Spring Oreo. Again, I emphasize, the same concept here. Two chocolate cookies, vanilla cream. Only this time the cream was dyed to match the season. Orange for Halloween, Blue for Spring. A treat for the kiddies, and the kid in all of us. Hoorah, we proclaimed. A genius treat, for a special time only! And most importantly, it still tastes like a good ol' Oreo. I wish my wife hadn't left me. She'd enjoy the blue filling. Blue like the color of her eyes and the sadness in my heart.

Oreo even celebrated over 100 years as America's Favorite Cookie, because it was, because it always will be, releasing fudge covered Oreos as well. Mmm, we said, same ol' Oreo, with chocolate! Wazoo! Oreo makes me so happy, I'll forget the racial connotations now attached to the brand name!

We were happy. We were satisfied.

But Oreo was not. Oreo was greedy. Oreo wanted more. Oreo was needy and sadistic and had an evil desire to whore himself until he covered the entire cookie aisle.

And so came 2002. And the shit hit the fan.

We were inundated. Mint and Crème Oreo. Chocolate Crème Oreo. Peanut Butter/Chocolate Crème Oreo. Coffee/Crème Oreo. And now, what can only be deemed as the most offensive and horrific slight to the Oreo name and the goodness it stands for: the Uh-Oh Oreo: A VANILLA COOKIE WITH CHOCOLATE CRÈME.

A vanilla cookie with chocolate crème? What the fuck is that? If I wanted a vanilla cookie with chocolate crème I would march myself down the aisle and pick up a Keebler E.L. Fudge, thank you very much, because those little elves had the market on that shit LONG ago and they know how to do it right.

What has happened to the integrity of the Oreo cookie??? And with it, the very notion of Americana? If even our greatest cookie can sell out on us, what's next??? Is nothing sacred anymore???

Yes, America, it has come to this. We are a lost country. In just over 200 years we have established ourselves and then watered down that establishment to a pathetic cesspool of whining and passive identity. We are nothing unless we have a common goal, and we never have a common goal unless it involves killing people or making money, or doing both at the same time. We can not have heroes in a world where everyone is now a hero, and the same can be said regarding villains. Our flag is a joke, our baseball players are frauds, every reporter is a liar except for Jen, and our cookies are prostitutes with mint filling.

There is nothing left to do but sit around and wallow in our unemployment. It's a good thing the joblessness rate is this high. None of us can afford the Oreos anyway. It's Droxie time for all.

And maybe that's a good thing.