Cthulhu Congress

A prophet once called them by their true name (“Government is not the solutiion–government is the problem!”)

We once thought they were banished. (“The era of big government is over.”)

And yet, again, They come. Their hunger is stronger than ever. Indeed, their hunger can never fully be sated. They devour all before them. They demand obedience. They require worship. They brook no dissent.

Cthulhu Across America

Image via Ace of Spades HQ[*1] which got it from one of Ace’s readers via Moonbattery[*2] from whence The Corner[*3] picked it up.

It turns out that Cthulhu was never running for President (“why vote for the lesser evil?”)[*4] . He/She/It was running for Congress. And He/She/It won. We Were Warned.[*5]

The figure, which was finally passed slowly from man to man for close and careful study, was between seven and eight inches in height, and of exquisitely artistic workmanship. It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block, the seat occupied the centre, whilst the long, curved claws of the doubled-up, crouching hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way down towards the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, so that the ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge fore-paws which clasped the croucher’s elevated knees. The aspect of the whole was abnormally lifelike, and the more subtly fearful because its source was so totally unknown. Its vast, awesome, and incalculable age was unmistakable; yet not one link did it show with any known type of art belonging to civilization’s youth—or indeed to any other time.

. . . Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse’s men as they ploughed on through the black morass towards the red glare and the muffled tom-toms. There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other. Animal fury and orgiastic licence here whipped themselves to demoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstasies that tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organized ululations would cease, and from what seemed a well-drilled chorus of hoarse voices would rise in singsong chant that hideous phrase or ritual:

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

Then the men, having reached a spot where the trees were thinner, came suddenly in sight of the spectacle itself. Four of them reeled, one fainted, and two were shaken into a frantic cry which the mad cacophony of the orgy fortunately deadened. Legrasse dashed swamp water on the face of the fainting man, and all stood trembling and nearly hypnotized with horror.

From that swamp on the Potomac arose a tentacled, clawed, winged beast, horrible to behold, “with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy . . . bloated corpulence . . . and the more subtly fearful because its source was so totally unknown.

It’s name is Congress. It has come to devour you and all you hold dear. You have very little time left.

Very little time indeed.