CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — Lawmakers in Washington, D.C. were thrilled to hear that the bronze statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that once stood in a Charlottesville park had been melted down into scrap metal that would be used to build bombs for the Ukraine-Russia war.
"Yes! More bombs!" shouted South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham in celebration. "Making bombs to use in endless foreign wars is great, but defeating racism at the same time? Brilliant!"
Targeted as a source of racial division in the wake of a controversial public rally in 2017, the statue of General Lee was torn down in 2021 and melted down this week in a ceremonial gesture to bring about racial harmony. "Good riddance!" Graham said. "General Lee may have been a strong, muscular, handsome soldier man, but he was bad! Now we can use his statue to kill some Russians! Yeahhh, baby!"
Leaders within the U.S. Department of Defense welcomed the additional weapons. "Honestly, it happened just in time," one Pentagon official said under the condition of anonymity. "With all the stuff we've been sending to Ukraine, we're kind of running out of material to make bombs out of. Melting down that statue really helps. We'll take whatever we can get here."
At publishing time, Senator Graham was reportedly launching a crusade to tear down even more important historical monuments in order to keep making enough bombs for World War III.