“I fought them in life,” Geronimo said, adding a log to the heavenly campfire, “and now their warriors call my name as they jump through the air.”“Into the air?” Pontiac asked.
“From the air. They jump from something called an airplane. Sitting Bull heard it from a new guy.”
“Huhhm,” Pontiac grunted, unimpressed. “One of their war chiefs named something called a company after me. I never even fought this man. His name was General Motors.”
Their companion poked the fire, a sour look on his face. “And you, Montezuma,” Geronimo said gruffly. “What did they name after you?”
(This post is about just one of the numerous afterlives I've imagined, the next of which is here.)
Noam Chomsky wrote something similar in his reaction to the death of Osama in Laden: ". . . Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes ‘Jew’ and ‘Gypsy.’”
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