Since the dawn of time, men have dreamed of organizing vast armies of giant, super-intelligent, flying monkeys to carry out their will. Aristotle, in his Physics, argued that the fifth simple body or "element" was "innumerable hordes of bearded goat-people"[1]. This is deemed by scholars of ancient zoology to be a reference to monkey armies. John Stuart Mill, in Utilitarianism, claimed that the only ethical means to obtain maximum utility was through "the conscription and subjugation of an intelligent species, for whom moral concerns do not exist [monkeys]"[2]. Friedrich Nietzsche championed simian militias in his The Geneology of Morals, in which he claimed that "monkeys are the only primates to have escaped unscathed Western civilization's pathological guilt complex" [3]. More recently, John Searle has argued that monkey soldiers could actually understand Chinese better than humans if placed inside an appropriately furnished room [4], while Thomas Nagel has wondered "What is it like to be a giant, super-intelligent flying monkey?" [5].

Monkey armies became a practical necessity in the early eighties when broods of maniacal and ill-mannered serpents were elected to the legislatures of Guam and the Canary Islands, as well as to the Altoona, Pennsylvania School Board. This cross-level onslaught constituted an affront to primates of all sorts, particularly monkeys, because serpents are the natural enemy of monkeys. Disaster was narrowly averted when a ragtag band of monkey and mongoose radicals daringly launched a covert operation to overthrow the serpent leadership. Armed only with molotov coconuts and legal pads, the mammalian rebels successfully dispersed the serpent army and restored order to an otherwise peaceful world. Only one innocent bystander was injured by Operation Riki-tiki-monkey, then-President Ronald Reagan [6]. [Insert Bedtime for Bonzo joke here.]

The fall of the Berlin Wall, the Crisis in Kosovo, Apocalyptic cults, and Grumpier Old Men heralded the rebirth of Serpent influence. Although the location of its headquarters and membership are shrouded in mystery, SerpentArmy is known to have close ties with Esta Noche, a Cuban drag bar in Reykjavik. In the last few months alone, SerpentArmy has claimed responsability for a slew of power outages in Fletcher County, Missouri, a horrific tobaggoning accident involving a small clay pot and a lawnmower in Needles, Colorada, and the tragic combustion of the favorite doll of Mrs. Rhoda Davis of Mobile, Kentucky.

Now that SerpentArmy has reestablished its presence, the serpentine threat must once again be stopped before a reign of terror is imposed. But who could possibly do anything to stop this scourge?

As the ancients knew, such a vile menace can only be stopped by a protagonist up to the challenge. The writers of Mission Impossible 2 also knew this, and deemed it sufficiently crucial to be repeated a total of 43 times during the course of the movie. Composed of crack legions of monkeys of all varieties, and headed by the key leaders from operation Riki-tiki-monkey, MonkeyArmy is presently restructuring itself for all-out war, and also for eating termites on the end of a specially prepared stick. With the help of MongooseArmy, Monkeyarmy's sworn ally, MonkeyArmy plans to make SerpentArmy very sad and lose.

But MonkeyArmy needs your help.

[1] Aristotle. [1936] Aristotelous Fisike akroasis. Aristotle's Physics. Oxford, The Clarendon press.
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[2] Mill, John Stuart. 1863. Utilitarianism. London, Parker, Son and Bourn.
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[3] Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. [1923]. The geneology of morals; a polemic, translated by Horace B. Samuel. New York, Macmillan company.
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[4] Searle, John. 1994. Chimps in the Chinese room and other common sense ideas. Translated from the Chinese by Koko the Gorilla.
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[5] Nagel, T. 1974. What is it like to be a giant, super intelligent, flying monkey? Philosophical Review 4:435-50. Reprinted in Mortal Questions (Cambridge University Press, 1979).
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[6] Rosenjewsteinbaumovitz, Harold. 1996. Crucial Potato. London, Routledge.
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