let the dead bury the dead release date & other issues surrounding the text

This is still up in the air. I'll be prepping a standalone site for the book. It should have an excerpt, no you cannot quote from it or republish without permission, period. Written requests will be fine, and granting use will be completely at the author's discretion. There is no middleman here.

On the media, interviews, reviews copies, etc.: There will be no advance copies, period, and serious inquiries only. Not to be a dick (or to be one to the right people), but I'm not made of money. No free rides, I would if I could. Also, the idea of someone reviewing a book on something so personal seems pretty laughable to me outside of the technical side--style, format, depth, things that are logical and sincere rather than someone playing games. You'll be kicked to the curb immediately the moment I detect you're fucking me around, it's not going to play. That written, I expect the mainstream media to go out of their way to ignore this book because so much of it is about them and how disgusting they truly are, you have no idea.

Even in death, they keep killing her, mark this. CNN is one one of the major offenders: they will occasionally throw a blurb out there on the case either in a crappy documentary on prostitution (often upscale, with the rich & powerful), and the results speak for themselves: a willfully superficial misrepresentation of the case to protect what it was really about, their usual mercenary MO.  For this reason, even were they to somehow contact me, they'd have an uphill battle on their hands, and that's putting it mildly. I don't expect to hear from any of them no matter how well the books sells.

You didn't just walk into McDonald's, and no, you cannot have fries with that. I don't value most of your opinions, because you weren't involved. I don't even value those of many others who were, as the book will make plain as day. Yes, they're my opinions, and they're more educated than yours about the case. The only people who probably know more are the former prosecutors and judges, and they're compromised. Don't expect anything honest out of most of them, and many of them cannot tell you anyway thanks to confidentiality agreements. My role was far looser, so I can tell more, much more. But, you don't care about the truth anyway, my whole point here and in the book...

On the cult of personality & writers: When I was a kid, over a generation ago in the 1970s, there was no access to the Internet by the general public. You frequently didn't know what an author looked like, what their life was like or where they'd been, and so on, unless you did a lot of looking and research, and that was costly. Now, it isn't, it's all a few keystrokes away. What's the same between then and now is the cult of personality, which I hate and view as part of the disease of this dying culture and nation. People to others for answers are at the top of my shit-list, so, don't come looking to me for any, that's not my job, it's everyone's. The individual has to look within. Fools don't, cowards won't, and I don't have time either, not one moment, so save the effort. I know almost every trolling approach too, so again, don't bother, I will detect it and you will be removed or ignored. If you don't take a hint, if you harass me, for whatever reason is in your head, as compromised as some of them are, law enforcement and the courts will be brought into play. I'm not fucking around ask people who know me, they'll tell you. They'll also tell you that if you cross the line far enough that I'll be coming for you until I'm satisfied.

On Mark Capansky: I believe this little shithead has been harassing me. Any phony or actual cease and desists without a court order will be duly ignored. And, if I have to publish the book out of some Siberian shithole, I will, maybe even out of Iceland if necessary. I will not bow, because, unlike most of you out there, I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

However, if Mr. Capansky wants to explain why his number (or parents') was in the DC Madam's phone records, I'm all ears, and we can keep it off the record. On the other hand, if the dialog devolves into threats--if you even piss me off--it all goes online unredacted. I'm not fucking around here at all. If you want to fuck around, do it with the stupid women that are attracted to such a retard. By the way, I'm not jealous, as the book will make starkly clear. I don't share your hollow values and view America as a criminal, white supremacist nation, and hence, a large part of why it's crumbling, it's dysfunctional. This country sucks, you definitely suck, and go fuck yourself...

On writing a book that's non-fiction, true crime, & a historical document: I don't recommend it. There are no ground rules. Reconsider if it looks like it will take up a stage of your life. I was in my thirties when this began, now I'm rocketing towards the bad side of fifty, fuck you very much.

On literature: The book is very literary. For me, this isn't the usual approach. I do read a lot of fiction, but most of my reading is historical and non-fiction. I have been more of a student of history than anything else. A lot of reading in my life is packed into this book. The reader might find this not to their liking, or anything in-between--these are not my concerns, and unless it's constructive, I don't want hear your opinions beyond pointing-out factual errors, typos, and so on. The case, as the primary materials in the book will show, was riven through with literary references. I wasn't looking for them. They announced themselves. That brings me to...

Occult references & themes in the DC Madam case: These were also present and announced themselves. I wasn't looking for them. However, as Jesus said, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, and I do, and did. Most aren't attuned to this, I am, and once again, I'm not interested in the expressions of your egos, only in fact and truth, which the vast majority of you wouldn't know either were they to bite you in the ass extracting a pound of flesh. You couldn't miss this, especially considering the well-established fact that Jeane was fascinated by American Spiritualism (yes, seances, no, I am not a believer).

The case was archetypal on its own. I didn't see anything that wasn't there or implicit to it. Again, your opinions are irrelevant, and I don't care unless they augment and add something to the story, understanding, illuminate it more, whatever, but other than that, don't care.

On the former Pamela Martin escorts: I don't have a lot of respect for these women. Some wrong-headed types do for reasons that escape me, but I'm sure have to do more with gender and identity politics and wishful thinking. Once again, I don't care what you're opinions are unless you somehow had contact with them, know previously unknown aspects and facts about the case, or you have an angle on it I never considered for some of the aforementioned reasons. Beyond that, I don't care and don't want to hear your ego flexing, it won't play and I'll kick your ass to curb.

I'm sure most of my sources have withheld things from me--that's normal, human behavior. I'm not a believer in human nature or unicorns. We have tendencies. Those tendencies come out under certain circumstances and conditions. I'm intolerant of mythmakers and believers of myths. None of these women were saints. Yes, they were paid inadequately--welcome to the contemporary world, welcome to the United States and a world that's primarily ordered along patriarchal lines. I didn't make this world, you didn't, most of us didn't, and I'm not a supporter of it. In fact, I'm one of its victims, fuck you very much. You can beatify these ladies all you want, but when the truth came out, you'd look like the genuine fools with an opinion that you really are. Welcome to the human jungle, now think more often before you open your trap, or when you post something online. We all make mistakes. None of us is made of light, we all shit every morning, if we're lucky. That gut you have going is all the proof you should need that you're not a god. We're all imperfect, we all die one day, and the rest is games, lies, deceit, and horrendous, tragic, stupidity.

Insofar as I have been able to ascertain, no one, and I mean no one, has been able to find and interview these women and get some new relevant information from them, and to publish on it, nary a soul. Only one of them has come my way--allegedly, Andrea Detty who's alleged to be an alleged journalist now--and they may not even be one of them, perhaps a fake online identity, and of course, they weren't willing to convey anything of value whatsoever that I didn't already know. That's because, and this should be no surprise to anyone with their higher functions still intact, they were prostitutes and there's a reason why the term "lying whore" came into being, which I learned from direct experience in the case. Not one of them has had the courage and credibility to come forward and to follow through. One of them approached journalist Ken Silverstein during the proceedings, his moronic secretary lost the phone number they left (why not search of the phone calls that day at Harper's?), and they never reestablished contact. Thanks for fucking us, lady, but at least you tried. The rest stand as rats as far as I'm concerned, the real whores, not Palfrey, and they have earned this derision. Ever heard of confidentiality agreements with journalists, ladies? Quit kidding yourselves that you have credibility. Your silence speaks volumes.

On Jack Burkman of Focus on the Family & a lot more: There's an entire chapter devoted to dear Jack, as a template for the average Republican player in Palfrey's phone records. Expect fireworks. Expect what you suspected and knew--that he's a pathetic asshole, a scumbag, and a hypocrite.

On SAIC's presence in the phone bills and elsewhere: They're key to whatever was behind the case and the charges moving forward, not the actual solicitation by Jeane and the girls, which was what was really the incidental side of it. They're emblematic of the crisis in government today of runaway spending and war profiteering by contractors and politicians. They're connected to so many players in all this that it does have meaning to the case in ways that I never expected, not was looking for, but once again, there it was, winking at me over and over.

On the CIA's role in the case: This will get more of a factual airing than previously, although, regardless of what you might think of him, Montgomery Blair Sibley, Jeane's longest running counselor during the proceedings, has done a good job addressing in his own text, Why Just Her. I recommend it and consider both our accounts complimentary of each other. I'm not going to defend his public behavior. Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler granted wide-ranging subpoenaing power to the Palfrey defense that covered virtually the entire intelligence establishment. Ask yourself why the mainstream media never covered this, then go ask them, over and over again, until they cry uncle.

I'll have more to say later. Search the labels on this article for more. I cannot see a release date of later than late November, but no later than some time in December. That is all.

I really should post less since it gets more hits post number 1: Anderson Cooper to be joined soon in Cairo by comedienne Kathy Griffin

Testing, testing. Is this mic on? Yo, bitches, yo.

The time has come: erstwhile Cooper and his erstwhile career of erstwhile and ersatz reportage could really liven things up in Cairo and his own "undisclosed location" (either this was a sex joke by CNN or Andy's taken a shining to former VP Dick Cheney) by bringing in Kathy Griffin.

Griffin can pinch his ass, make jokes about what a bourgeois prig he really is, then do real reporting for him, hold his winkie for a little leakie, love.

Antijournalism has been born, that rough beast sloughing towards Bethlehem and Madison Avenue (though it's better to take the subway than cabs, gets you there faster, and be sure to avoid Broadway if you hate heavy traffic...).

Griffin loves to talk-talk-talk about Cooper and his mama--Gloria Vanderbilt--and really knows where to hit the Coop where he lives...the seat of his pants, naturally, and we know what's written on it, in blood.

My only request to Kathy: honey, we really don't want to see what's underneath those clothes, please! Cover! Happy New Year! And Cooper's looking eerily like Culkin-as-Alig these days. Just sayin'! Egypt?! Those cats love the military there! Democracy? They've probably killed it in the crib there already, like that assassination attempt on baby Moses, eh.

The next logical move: Rupert Murdoch pushes Cooper and Griffin into a pay-per-view live sex show at Times Square! Ok, bring in the Japanese pixilation, but who wouldn't want to see the look on his face? Or Kathy's? It would be worth another generation of traumatized children, admit it.

Aging Americans could relive their partying days: "Fuck him Kathy! Fuck him!!" while Cairo goes down in flames, sealing its own fate since the public there is also a Pentagon addict, but hey, they look photogenic, those crowd shots are going to determine fashion for the next ten years, face it.

Welcome to stand-up journalism.

CNN reports dumb-assed Al Qaeda salad bar/buffet plot after GOP stalls Food Safety Act for months

Is there not a better sign of the end of an Empire and a nation in serious trouble? Just don't tell the Obama-holdouts, they might get upset. Who on God's gray earth would believe this horseshit but a Republican or a Libertarian, all of them with serious emotional and intellectual issues regarding reality? "Al-Qaeda plot threatens America's salad bars and buffets." You gotta be kidding, right?

It beggars the imagination that someone without the ability to imagine would believe something a ten year old could see through or do a better job of concocting.

Just as they did under Bush II, being a venerable asset of Empire and the GOP, CNN is selling a very lame-assed scare story to boost another war criminal's sagging popularity ratings as well as providing some cover for corrupt food growers and processors who wanted the Food Modernization Act. Apparently, high school never ended and life has now become Facebook. How is this different from all the times that George W. Bush cried "WOLF!" (not CNN's Blitzer, or even Donner) with the terror alert warnings to save his own ass, for political ends? It's not at all and it's not the only example, Obama's just less obvious about it than the last clown.

Seriously: President Barack Obama is the same as George W. Bush, wake up assholes, pull your heads out of your collective-ass and stop having this.

CNN's talking-neck was barely able to read the salad bar/buffet headline it was so stupid, so nebbish, so moronic and transparently unimportant pap that was probably lifted from a surveillance log of someone simply toying with the idea of joining a terror cell...after a few bong-hits or a lift from some meth. Get real, quit insulting our intelligence with your counterintelligence, your disinformation predicated on scaring the dummies that over-populate every nation so that we hand over even more of our rights to a predatorial establishment.

Great, someone was going to "poison" salad bars and buffets across America...and somehow they weren't American food growers and producers who routinely employ illegal immigrants, who then lobby the GOP all of the time for fewer regulations on food safety. Yes, it was a smart timing to run the bogus Al-Qaeda story just hours after the GOP had stalled the Food Safety Act for months, very wise, well-timed. How long did they stall its passage? Since March of this year, nine whole months, which is roundly un-American.

Besides the GOP's tail-dragging on to poison the public, or not to poison it, these were some of the major opponents of the very reasonable bill--unless some of us prefer a little e-coli with our spinach, watermelons and potatoes (take that Dan Quayle!), and TEA:

Freedomworks

Competitive Enterprise Institute

American Mushroom Institute

National Potato Council

National Watermelon Association

Produce Marketing Association

United Fresh Produce Association

The John Birch Society

National Cattleman's Beef Association

Western Growers

American Academy of Microbiology

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund
(http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-510)

Any familiar names here? It passed the Senate on November 30th of this year anyway, but there was more stalling from the GOP.

And you Democratic incumbents: You can stop with the good cop, bad cop act. We're on to you. We know this is all just political theater and we're about to call bullshit on this whole clown show. We're not having it anymore, you're done. For a moment, I thought they were saying that Jimmy Buffett was being targeted by terrorists, which makes just as much sense and is just as credible...

Why do the Tea Baggers, militia nuts, and screechers get more coverage?

This seems to perplex a lot of people, and it's understandable: why would a truly lunatic fringe movement get this kind of airtime when the public opinion is almost completely against them on social issues like health care reform and all the others?

Why? The reasons are manifold and go back to that other period of near anarchy, the 1920s. But it took time after the Republicans handed the airwaves to business, though on a thin legal leash. There was that post-New Deal chipping away, but the big first was when we lost the Fairness Doctrine at the FCC in 1987 thanks to Republican President Ronald Reagan. The doctrine wasn't law, but it guided the broadcasting standards of the United States for decades and allowed for a more equitable access to the airwaves for differing opinions and viewpoints, and it worked. There was at least some variety, not that it was stellar or truly representative of the social/cultural landscape, but it was better.

It also worked because the structure it brought about would never have allowed for the existence of the current echo chamber of the right we now inhabit, and that's including CNN and the major networks that were already traditionally to the right thanks to ownership. This is why Republicans and enemies of free speech everywhere don't want anything approximating a return to something like the Fairness Doctrine. Never mind that the public technically owns the airwaves and has from the start, the interests of big business are more important. But day after day, we see the right-wing nuts on the idiot box. Why?

It's not that complicated, and there's another reason why all the useless flailing is all over the airwaves: it's because the Tea Baggers, the militia nuts, white hate groups, Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, lost white girls, the "birthers," the operatives like James O'Keefe (the "ACORN pimp"), and yes, the multimedia gaggle of mumbling, anti-abortion nuts, Libertarians, babbling morons like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, both of whom have resorted in recent weeks to all but advocating acts of violence against the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, aren't a genuine threat to the status quo in America.

In reality, these mutants and wackos are badly needed by a pro-big business and finance Republican Party that has nearly lost its entire base over the administration of George W. Bush. After that, all you have remaining are the wackos, the fringe, and crumbling establishments often reach for the closest set of cranks when the curtain's about to close on them (including within the political establishment). Some say this is "all part of the plan" (which one?), but I disagree. You couldn't make this shit up, and that's why even the GOP cannot control them. These babbling jackasses, these morons, these throwbacks to the time of the Frontier hick and the lynch mobs that once ran riot in America are, in fact, in many cases, their very descendants. Yes, there is an element of "astroturf" to a lot of it, but these goobers are here, now, and they've been with us, hobbling the rest of us, from the beginning of this nation and will for the foreseeable future.

The message? There is no message coming from these people except, "More of the same." That's pretty pathetic considering many of them are now or are going to be the victims of the very policies they're advocating. Some of us simply like to shit where we eat because it's easier in the beginning. Of course, there is the underlying racism in these protests and the movement, and for many of these lost fools, the biggest fools alive on this rock called earth, it's the only reason they're at a Tea Party rally or why they were at a health care protest against reform: they're angry that a "nigger" is president. The thread connecting the economic elites of America and the white underclass is that they're all Eurotrash and can never truly be "European," no matter how much they prattle on about their respective heritages. Why wouldn't we see them on television, print, and Internet media all of the time?

These idiots are really chasing after an America that never was, but everyone likes watching a spectacle, even me. That'll learn 'ya (or not, maybe ever)!

On this date: CNN's Rick Sanchez is spot-on truthful, unbiased, and accurate!

CNNiverse--Yes, on this day, this wonderous day, CNN talking neck Rick Sanchez stated emphatically: "I'm a pseudo-intellectual." The waters parted. The clouds lifted. The birds sang from the highest trees and the prophets-in-hiding cried out from the mountaintops that truth had been spoken. Then things went back to normal with the usual leading questions and ignoring all the elephants in the room...

Teabagger leader Mark Williams finally taken to task on CNN

WWW--Is he a racist? Are the Tea Baggers generally comprised of the ignorant, and are most of them racists? Absolutely. You think that if they yell "nigger" in coded-language they'll bring back white-skin privilege and get their jobs back? No, I didn't think so either, but apparently many of them think that racial solidarity means something to the rich, and they're mistaken. CNN has given this idiot and his gaggle of racists so much free advertising that it was becoming embarrassing, so they finally had to really be journalists for a few moments and ask honest questions. Williams didn't come off any better than he usually does.

Recently, Mark Williams, one of the founders and leaders of the Tea Bagger bowel movement has called President Obama the "racist-in-chief" (?!) and "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug." No, nothing in those statements would lead me to think that Williams is either a racist or a demagogue pandering to slack-jawed bigots and racists, not at all. Is this asshole Father Coughlin and Gerald L.K. Smith rolled-into-one or what? I'd say they should unfurl the swastikas at these events, but they already have...

Take the second statement: "...an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug." This statement is going to make more sense to people born before the 1980s when the GOP and even some Democrats like Patrick Moynihan were criticizing the welfare state and the recipients of welfare. Never mind that more whites in the Appalachians were on welfare, it was "single black mothers," the real threat to the (white) American family and our future. This is the same cultural matrix Williams is appealing to, besides the old tried-and-true nigger-baiting that's so popular with redneck racists, most of them in the South. You'd think George Wallace was alive and unrepentant again.

The "Indonesian Muslim" part is so obviously racist and xenophobic, pandering to bigoted evangelists, that it really deserves no further comment beyond its relation to the "birther," really part of the same excretion, from the ass of the American South. President Obama's fully-authenticated birth certificate has been online for over one year. It's irrefutable. At that point, you know what you're dealing with has nothing to do with logic or reason, and the needle points once again to racism and an inability to cope with the fact that we now have a sitting African American president. Why?

President Obama is hardly much better than George W. Bush. He's even protecting the last administration in numerous court filings. He's keeping us in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's doing everything humanly possible not to nationalize the major banks, protects their privilege, and is taking us in the same direction that the Bush II administration would have, namely, keeping the same rotten barrel. This will keep the economy crashing for years to come and we're not likely to see a real recovery anytime soon as a result of his corporatism, ultimately the same kind as that of the "Bushies." Let me state it again: he's hardly any different from the last president at all.

But that's not good enough, and to prove it, look at how little they yell about the wars (hey, they're killing infidels, darkies); the lies that got us into them; the use of torture on terror suspects (more fun with darkies); the U.S. Attorney firings and the politicization of the Department of Justice; all the scandals involving white Republican incumbents; the revelations of FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds; the warrantless wiretapping program; the atrocities at Abu Ghraib; the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004; the atrocities at Guantanamo; the clear unconstitutionality of the provisions of the Patriot Act; and on, and on, and on. And today, Obama's calling to keep most of the worst provisions of the Patriot Act. Will any of these morons speak out against it? Of course not, it has nothing to do with the fact that he's black.

That's because they don't have any problem with these moves towards authoritarianism, they just hate the "nigger" who had the temerity to win a democratic election. This is because they are anti-democratic, totally irrational, and criminally-minded, that rich soil for tyranny. Williams is standing behind these recent, racist comments. It's like Ma and Pa Kettle calling the pot black...and "nigger," "socialist," and "fascist" (they would know) for good measure. It's time to shut these bastards down, now. There are limits to freedom of speech and they've gone too far. But let law enforcement take care of them once they really start acting-out, because that's coming. As a matter of fact, it's already begun.

God Bless Kathy Griffin

tv--Yeah, I was watching this--because I'm aware that CNN producers have a sense of humor and touch of genius in pairing her with the annoying Anderson Cooper™, who referred charitably to an accurate statement someone made that he's "the Carrot top of news journalism." That he is.

But some assholes were heckling Kathy, and she let them have it as any self-respecting seasoned comedienne would have: "Shut up! ...You know what? Screw you! I'm working! Why don't you get a job, buddy? You know what? I don't go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth!" Amen.

You have to lover her irreverence, her brutal honesty, and her unwillingness to take any shit from anyone. Her comments on receiving awards and thanking Jesus are spot-on: "A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now."

So mote it be. I would marry a woman like this tomorrow, just without the plastic surgery scars. Kathy would agree, and violently.

But what's so enjoyable about the Griffin/Cooper dyad is that she knows what scares him, likely half the reason she made a comment about oral sex. Yet, he's starting to go along with her, he "gets" it, and I think they're both starting to enjoy the interplay. Yes, he reported rumors in New Orleans as truth--he's no journalist, which is OK--but he at least has a sense of humor about himself. Good show for both of them, and here's to a coming decade of Jacobean irreverence.

America could use more women like her, the kind who stir shit up for all the right reasons. Prudes and Puritans everywhere are running for cover, and you gotta love that.

http://www.kathygriffin.net/

Why should we trust former Salomon Brothers banking investor Michael Lewis?

"But what has been the experience of the Russian socialist movement up to now? The most important and most fruitful changes in its tactical policy… have not been the inventions of several leaders and even less so of any central organizational organs. They have always been the spontaneous product of the movement in ferment… In general, the tactical policy of the Social Democracy is not something that may be 'invented'. It is the product of a series of great creative acts of the often spontaneous class struggle seeking its way forward." --Rosa Luxembourg, "Leninism or Marxism," 1904.

New York City, New York--As you can imagine, this guy exists in a strange place as a former investment banker, now turned business journalist and author.

Lewis wrote Liar's Poker in 1988-89, a book that many are now going to say was very prescient upon its release just 19-years-ago. It isn't.

Time flies when you're having fun.

Just a few hours ago Lewis was hawking his newest book on CNN, those scions of bad taste and oversimplification and over-concision. CNN's talking necks were having their lovefest with Lewis over how credible and wise he is. Is he? I don't think so, and as low as my opinion of the public is, I believe we all knew the crisis was coming. That said, I think the feelings that mainstream journalists and writers harbor within their breasts eclipse my own intense misanthropy and ambivalence towards the average American, let alone humanity. These journalists and pundits believe that they have the answers and the rest of us are too stupid to understand things as well as they do because they were educated to think that way.

Their elitism comprises a truly delusional contention: "We have all of the answers, so shut-up and let us drive." Paradoxically, it's "ordinary" people who tend to save the day throughout human history when the politicians, the businessmen, and the intelligensia have failed everyone (as is their wont, they can't help themselves). We clean-up the mess, and we're doing it right now on Wall Street. Listening to the public on-occasion might help.

Those who could have prevented the current economic crisis were the root of the problem and still are, though their own collective fall is coming soon. Instead of just blaming borrowers who defaulted, we should also be asking, "Who allowed it?" and "How many of the loans were even legal?" We know the sales of the bundled securities were not, it was a matter of fraud and deserves further investigation. Some are occurring right now. Many of us raised the alarms, but we know oversight and the enforcement of key regulations over the financial sector weren't going to be expedited under the Bush II administration and GOP dominance.

The financial and business sectors were told that they could do whatever they wanted up-to-a-point and that nobody was going to be watching. Who told them that? The negligence in not enforcing these administrative laws is corruption, contrary to the comments of the apologists. Is Lewis one of them? Like CNN and the rest of the dying media, he won't discuss the corruption, and I'd like to know why.

So, what did Lewis have to say on CNN? That this economic crisis "wasn't the result of corruption" (what else?) or outright dishonesty, but that it was a result of delusional behavior predicated on--don't laugh--everyone "doing the right thing" on Wall Street. This is an incredible statement in the current context, but at least he sees the writing on the wall--things will never be the same and the old Wall Street is dead. However, as you can imagine, the assertion that "everyone did the right thing" made no sense to these eyes and ears, and I predict that these assumptions of his and the rest of them on Wall Street are headed rapidly towards the dustbin of human history.

No, according to Lewis, it was "conflicting interests" that caused the current financial crisis, which again, points to corruption. The banks and mortgage leders have been ripping each other off, and now they won't lend amongst themselves. Right, greed and dishonesty. Lewis seems to be arguing for transparency--granted--but he still clings-to the same old faux-values of Wall Street. Like a lot of people on television and politics, he said a lot without saying much at all, so I switched over to Anthony Bourdain, a man with an attitude I admire, then switched-back again to feel the numbing-pain of boredom for kicks, it's a real rush.

Lewis went on making some bizarre statements that "corruption wasn't a factor" in the crisis--it was generally that the system that ran the financial markets was predicated on illusions and mass-delusional psychology. No kidding? How did that happen? Who made them think they could keep doing the same wrong things without it coming-back to haunt them later? In many cases, themselves, silly. After all, the (wo)man who hears God is usually listening to their own voice.

Additionally, Lewis has written and spoken elsewhere that these financial institutions and their CEOs simply "didn't know what they were doing." Fancy that. No argument here, I don't think that they ever did know what they were doing or ever will. The past economic order and its faulty assumptions were systemically wrong, inefficient and top-heavy with that favorite word of Libertarians, conservatives, and the GOP: bureaucracy. Forget government, the corporate world has them beat on redundancy. The managerial class itself has amply displayed their greed and dishonesty over the last 30 years, therefore it shouldn't surprise anyone that we ended-up where we are today.

It took others to create this mess, there was a lot of enabling from every sector, such as investors who were clamoring for greater and greater dividends, irresponsible borrowers of every class, and so on. But the runaway borrowing was allowed. Like my former employers--a small retail outfit that's sure to close soon--the speculators and financial institutions only knew how to ride an economic boom that's part of the traditional boom-and-bust cycle of our flawed economy, much like a Gold Rush. Eventually, inevitably, the veins run out and the towns die. But a lot of the public was either apathetic from years of being beaten-down, or they bought into it (and boy, didn't they?). Not everyone got on-board, just enough to wreck things.

Let's be honest: this was also fostered by that "invisible hand" of pro-business legislation passed by politicians who know better, not just the misbehavior of Wall Street. This is also known as "deregulation," but far-be-it for anyone to criticize the sacred, the inviolable St. Ronald Reagan and his Maoist cult that hijacked traditional conservatism in the 1980s. That's over now, but this greed-based stupidity allowed the markets to run amok for over two decades because the folks in Washington know who's really boss, and it's not them, it's the business and financial community and ownership.

Like my former employers, these clowns got a taste of power and lost their minds thinking that they were untouchable, that they were God. Their bulging-guts and the fact that they defecate daily (phew! you don't wanna know) should have been all the reminder they needed that they weren't. Now they're all finding-out the hard way, which is where my well-earned schadenfreude comes in...

Beyond my own feelings of glee over the suffering of scoundrels, Lewis isn't saying anything new here at all (which he accuses others of doing in the Conde article). Writer Charles Mackay dedicated three of his sixteen chapters of "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" to financial-bubbles titled "The Mississippi Scheme," "The South-Sea Bubble," and "Tulipomania." Mackay's book was originally published in 1841, at a time when Karl Marx was an unknown doctoral student. What did Marx do when he couldn't find a job in academia because of his radicalism? He became a journalist. Life is like that sometimes, and he would be a part of the failed Revolution of 1848 that gripped Europe.

Sure, Lewis is making-the-rounds this week promoting his newest book, and one can assume the crisis will be a windfall for him as some kind of "prophet," but he's not one. Anyone paying attention could have seen this crisis coming, but like all bad relationships, we ignore the problems because we want something out of the deal. I'm no exception. Lewis might be totally sincere about all of this, but he still appears to have held the same assumptions until very recently that the now-fallen Wall Street order would keep going on, almost endlessly. Did he actually believe before October of last year that this could continue indefinitely?

At some point, I gave up waiting for the end. There was no scandal or reversal, I assumed, that could sink the system. Then came Meredith Whitney with news. Whitney was an obscure analyst of financial firms for Oppenheimer Securities who, on October 31, 2007, ceased to be obscure. On that day, she predicted that Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust. It’s never entirely clear on any given day what causes what in the stock market, but it was pretty obvious that on October 31, Meredith Whitney caused the market in financial stocks to crash. ...This woman wasn’t saying that Wall Street bankers were corrupt. She was saying they were stupid. ("The End," Conde Nast Portfolio, December 2008 issue)

The problem is that there is such a thing as insider trading and white collar crime. This sounds a lot like the reactions from mortgage institutions who blamed whistle-blowers and auditors for uncovering the losses they were hiding from the rest of the world. No, Lewis isn't "blaming" Whitney in some malicious way, I just think he still has the same viewpoints that he held (and are still held on Wall Street, even now) when he was an working for an investment bank from 1985-to-1988.

I don't doubt that the main-thrust here is generally correct, but Lewis makes his argument too narrow, and I suspect him of trying to divert attention away from the fact that corruption and the proverbial "cooking of the books" has also played a role in all of this. But there are worse sins that he barely touches-on: the role of authoritarianism within corporate American, never mind just the financial sector.

The real bottom-line that he does hint at in his article is that brings of bad news weren't going to be rewarded on Wall Street, he gets this right. This is authoritarianism-in-action. These private tyrannies are akin to fascism in their internal cultures, playing-off underlings against one another in what's euphemistically referred to as "competition," but what it really constitutes is the Roman practice of "divide-and-conquer." They hold our families hostage for their own ends. Their endless problem? Reality and the spontanaeity of average people, and the eternal desire for liberty and innovation.

While some have done the bidding of their bosses--even to the point of breaking-the-law--we've also had whistle-blowers of every stripe during the Bush II era, an unprecedented wave of them. That doesn't mean fighting these "masters" has or will be easy, nobody ever said it would be. Doing what's right doesn't have immediate gratification if it has any at all.

Who would broach the "conventional wisdom" of a financial boom by pointing-out the inconvenient fact that a company's assets were becoming rapidly-devalued when they're going to be punished for it? Again, while Lewis doesn't necessarily "blame" Ms. Whitney for simply telling the truth about Citibank, he does assign her with the strange credit of causing "the market in financial stocks to crash." That's blaming the messenger, the same argument proffered by the culpable on Wall Street. It's a bizarre viewpoint that probably underscores the general tendency among the "players" to stay as far away from the core realities as possible while pretending that they actually are brave enough to stare into the abyss. Is it conscious? Sometimes, but it's really about the limitations of their own worldview and the fact that they're unable to "step outside of the box."

Lewis was just a low-level drone at Salomon Brothers just 20-years-ago. The next year he was getting a lot of back-slapping over Liar's Poker. At the age of 28, Michael Lewis was a millionaire from his time at Salomon Brothers and a book that sold very well for a first-time author. He was riding a wave of his own, reaping from a post-crash boom. Strangely, he was viewed as a whistle-blower when he wasn't, which he admits in the new article.

His take on the crisis, and the market crash of 1987 is simultaneously right and wrong:

The public lynchings of Gutfreund and junk-bond king Michael Milken were excuses not to deal with the disturbing forces underpinning their rise. Ditto the cleaning up of Wall Street’s trading culture. The surface rippled, but down below, in the depths, the bonus pool remained undisturbed. Wall Street firms would soon be frowning upon profanity, firing traders for so much as glancing at a stripper, and forcing male employees to treat women almost as equals. Lehman Brothers circa 2008 more closely resembled a normal corporation with solid American values than did any Wall Street firm circa 1985. The changes were camouflage. They helped distract outsiders from the truly profane event: the growing misalignment of interests between the people who trafficked in financial risk and the wider culture. (ibid)

To be fair, Lewis doesn't think he was all that prescient back in 1989 and that all he was doing was reporting his firsthand account of his time on Wall Street and its culture. Fair enough. But he's also significantly more well-off than the average American and doesn't hold a lot of the same values as the rest of us because of this. He attended Princeton University before his brief tenure on Wall Street, so he wasn't ever hurting as most working-class Americans have. No, he came from privilege, he got rich in decadent 1980s, and still holds the view that "greed is good." How exactly is this any different from the core cultural problem not only on Wall Street, but one that has crawled its way to Main Street? He holds the same values as the crooks, he's hardly any different from them in his values and attitudes.

Sometimes, you can be so close to the fire, you can't see anything else beyond the leaping flames.

Holding the contention that there was no systemic corruption on Wall Street in the creation of this crisis isn't going to fix anything, and Lewis appears to be just as guilty as the individuals that stopped real reform after the market's crash in 1987, the very period that he came up in.

Is Lewis bullshitting us as he did all those investors he claims to have during his time at Salomon Brothers? No. He's been kidding himself and the rest of us as a result of his own delusions--delusions he still shares with the players on Wall Street. It took a Princeton education to accomplish that and a lot of rationalizing, something he still appears to excel at. Shudder that the new president-elect came to us from Harvard and taught Constitutional law there for a time. These people are simply wrong and don't really know what they're doing to the rest of us, and they don't tend to care either. What they care about is power.

I'm not a Marxist, but he was right that, inevitably, capitalism will fall. The fall might be here, but no man can say with any certainty what hour or what day it will come. The killer awoke before dawn, he put his suit on.

Charles Mackay's Extraordinary and Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1852 Ed.): http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=wEoPAAAAIAAJ&dq=Mackay+Extraordinary+Popular+Delusions&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=3IikCBls75&sig=C2_mOnrUQj4h80N38mZJ_4kl948&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=11&ct=result

Karl Marx's 1841 Doctoral Dissertation, "The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature": http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1841/dr-theses/index.htm

"This is the End, beautiful friend. This is the End, my only friend, the End": http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?tid=true#page1

On the partial nationalization of the American financial system, the rebounding of the DOW, and the return of the nebbish word "bolster"

WWW--The media's take on the past two-day rallying of stocks on Wall Street is presumptuous and smacking of an underlying desperation: high capital and finance still want to achieve a further scaling-back of wages and bargaining power (what's left of it) for the American worker and to keep playing the deregulation and unaccountability game in commerce and finance.

In other words, the big players are starting to act as though they might be able to continue "business as usual," though the message from Washington D.C. and from notable economists is the reverse. Events have a way of forcing the hand of fate and the marketplace, but most importantly, of the big players who have erroneously convinced themselves of their own invincibility. You aren't God. The choices are now fewer, and going down the same path as before will ensure an almost total economic collapse that could conceivably dwarf that other global crash, the Great Depression.

This has the potential of taking-down most of Western civilization with it, including the Persian Gulf States and their current authoritarian regimes. Change and reform will come no matter who gets elected on November 4th in the American presidential race. As in most times of rapid change, up-is-down, and down-is-up.

Who would have ever expected that one of the most laissez-faire administrations in American history could find itself forced into rescuing the banking and financial system through even a "partial nationalization"? Call it "Socialism," call it what you want, but regulation and a government (meaning we, the people) share in these institutions is going to be vital towards preventing such a widespread collapse.

After the purchase of preferred stock in nine large banks, the new program is expected to be expanded to many others. Among the initial banks participating will be all of the country's largest institutions, including Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley, said one official, with each institution expected to receive billions of dollars in return for the sale to the government of preferred shares.

The advantage to the taxpayer is that if the rescue plan works, then the shares can be sold for more than the government initially paid, providing a profit on the transaction. ("Government moves again to unclog credit lines, AP, 10.14.2008)

This goes much further than a simple "partial nationalization," considering that the stock being bought is "preferred," which offers greater advantages to holders--us--and is traditionally the first kind of share to receive payments of dividends, often higher than that of other shareholders.

Where's the missing-ingredient, accountability? With the Justice Department (hello Jeffrey A. Taylor) still under the control of the Bush II administration, and a bought Congress, we shouldn't expect much if we don't pressure them to mount massive investigations into Wall Street as former New York Governor and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer did several years ago.

Additionally, we should already be building third parties in the event that we get the usual response of inaction from the Democrats. We can bank on it.

As usual, the constructive contributions are coming from the public, and the most responsible citizens we have on-hand nowadays are people like Ralph Nader. The independent candidate was granted (since there's no other word for it) time on CNN just a few hours ago because there was no other choice. Major events have a way of bending a news giant like CNN into having the most viable third party candidate on to speak when it should be a matter of course.

Such are the vagaries of the Statist market economy--ratings and advertising dollars trump public responsibility when you the politicians of both major parties in your pockets. The "problem" now is that many of these very same pockets are emptying with the very economic decline they have caused. Sometimes one should be careful what one wishes for. The K Street lobbyists did their jobs too well.

There's no irony here since reality is outpacing satirical humor and the occasional literary and philosophical observation of the existential mess we've allowed to grow. Nader had some great observations of his own on the bailout, bouncing-off of viewer comments sent in to the cable news Shibboleth: at the very least, it's time to go after the culprits and widen criminal inquiries. If there are those who broke the law, they should be held-accountable. What average American could disagree with that? Nader also made a good point in his hand-delivered letter to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson who made $200 million at Goldman Sachs when he was their CEO, suggesting he kick-in some change to help. It's doubtful that he will, but it makes a good point of putting your money where your money is--or was. At least his life is hell right now.

Nader's time on CNN was an interesting few minutes that should be commonplace, but it should be remembered that the official line wouldn't be able to withstand it, and therefore, these kind of viewpoints must be marginalized. Yet Americans are on the same page when it comes to social policy, ranging from foreign aid (we all really want to spend more when the right questions are posed), our healthcare system (we want a single payer system), progressive taxation, military spending, and so on.

The public's opinions are decidedly progressive and Populist, which is why the mainstream narrative is being pushed so hard, and why culpability in business/finance fraud and criminality aren't topics for discussion. We don't have faith in the economic system because we smell a rat, hence Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments today:

As in all past crises, at the root of the problem is a loss of confidence by investors and the public in the strength of key financial institutions and markets, which has had cascading and unwelcome effects on the availability of credit and the value of savings. The actions today are aimed at restoring confidence in our institutions and markets and repairing their capacity to meet the credit needs of American households and businesses. The voluntary equity purchase program will strengthen financial institutions' capacity and willingness to lend. The guarantee of the senior debt of all FDIC-insured depository institutions and their holding companies will restore the confidence of these institutions' creditors and reinvigorate the crucial inter-bank lending markets. Additionally, the Federal Reserve is pressing forward with its facility to provide a broad backstop for the commercial paper market, so vital to the functioning of our businesses.

The general goal of various financial interests is to isolate and divide us and to make us believe that we're alone in our thinking, a patent falsehood. With the advent of the internet, this is becoming less-and-less tenable and stretches its credibility to the breaking-point. Remember that billions are spent keeping us in this dysfunctional state towards the maintenance of what is basically an unstable system model.

Make no mistake: the bailout is similar to the New Deal in one core respect, and that's to save American-style capitalism. It's not a worthwhile goal. We've already had a mixed-economy with elements of Socialism that stretch-back to FDR, though the examples of the subsidizing of the phone companies and the railroads in their development precede it by several decades. The EU is going significantly further with their nationalization plans, which will have a very real world effect on our own economy, possibly driving it closer to a continental European model by default. The time for a social dividend has come.

But don't hold your breath on Hank Paulson throwing-in to help with his own money. It doesn't matter--damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If the scions of commerce and finance get their way, they lose in the inevitable (and deeper) crash that will come sooner rather than later. The day of the giant firms and corporations is ending, just as the hunter-gather and feudal orders have before it. Time to finish the job.

The key is pushing for a better order and determining what comes next. The public holds this power more than elites do. Their hold on power is almost always weak-at-best. Once the average person realizes this fact and acts responsibly and accordingly, and understands that civic duty is a lifetime responsibility, things will stabilize and improve. Fine, the market's up...today. It won't last, because the underlying-causes (extralegal deregulation, white-collar crime, criminal speculation, etc.) are still going to be firmly in-place. This is because the current business and financial establishment aren't good at what they do.

When the rules and the "invisible-hand of the marketplace" attempt to correct them and their faulty-logic and criminal incompetence, they run to the government for help. That's Socialism for the few, and nothing new in America. Angry investors should take note of the fact that they've been ripped-off too and demand widespread accountability. That doesn't mean they should all be bailed-out, however. Like the Demiurge of the Gnostics, these fools have proclaimed themselves to be "God," but the universe answered back with bad news that this wasn't the reality of things. No simple or easy solutions here.

Postscript: Alright, so this is what George W. Bush meant by an "ownership society," gotcha. In retrospect, Aaron Burr's 1804 shooting of Alexander Hamilton in a duel seems to have been prudent but belated.

"Government moves again to unclog credit lines, AP, 10.14.2008: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081014/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown

"Financial Panics of the 19th century," Robert McNamara, About.com, "19th century": http://history1800s.about.com/od/thegildedage/a/financialpanics.htm

Exploiting our victims: CNN's "Youssef"

CNN--There are no words for how despicable and misguided all of the coverage surrounding this poor little Iraqi boy has been. It's just another humiliating illustration of how sick and indifferent our culture is at this particular historical moment. This is nothing new.

In 1906, we were finishing a similar act of aggression in the Philippines, murdering tens-of-thousands of human beings there so that the Navy could have a refueling station in the Pacific.

In a war of aggression, it's understood in the codes of the Geneva Conventions (beginning in 1928 with President Coolidge's and the Senate's ratification of the Kellogg-Briand Pact) and other areas of international law that an aggressor is responsible for children like Youssif. For some reason, Americans haven't been properly educated about the fact that any deaths or injuries following an illegal invasion are the fault and responsibility of the aggressor nation.

Regarding the invasion and occupation of Iraq (and Afghanistan), we are the aggressors with no legal merit to our reasoning for the attacks. We did this to little Youssef. It doesn't matter if a militia of Shia, Sunni, Syrians, Iranians, or even Bedouins, set-fire to him. It's nobody else's fault but America's. CNN and the rest of the mainstream media carried the water for the Bush administration and banged the drums of war loudly for the interests who wanted the invasion.

This is to their eternal shame, and they now appear to be showing signs of cracking-up from the guilt...in little Youssef. Notice that it's OK to show someone like Youssef and their scars if it has a propaganda value. If it was just framed as something we did to him--which it was patently not in the CNN story--it might be noble, but this is far from that. How many tens-of-thousands of "Youssefs" are there in Iraq and the region who bear scars from our aggressions? Surely, it's staggering and creating another generation of future "terrorists." An historical example is necessary.

Imagine Youssef that was a grocer's son in Chicago during the 1930s. Youssef's father is attacked and intimidated by a gang that has taken-over their neighborhood, and they want protection money or they're going to torch their home and their business. Youssef's father declines paying these extortionists and the gang eventually firebombs the grocery store, causing the same injuries to him that we see in our current real world example.

But the gang doesn't stop there--they're afraid of looking too bad, and too dangerous, so they pay for Youseff's hospital bills while the cameras are rolling, and while the press is swallowing the lie out of fear. The thugs never return to torment Youssef and his family, but the damage has already been done.

This is the essence of the term "corruption," the destruction and liquefaction of human bodies for the enrichment of criminals. Welcome to Iraq, welcome to hell, we are that gang. We learned the lessons of Vietnam alright: hide the victims, even if it's necessary to hide them in-plain-sight.

CNN on August 23rd: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/23/iraq.boyfolo/index.html

CNN: "KUM-BI-YAH" FACTOR

CNNOSPHERE--No, that image isn't Truman Capote, it's Anderson Cooper, and he's not a journalist, he is the moron-baby of Gloria Vanderbilt. Cooper is a joke, a male bimbo. Read this transcript excerpt to understand why. The event was the Nazi Pope's intrusion into-Turkey (a country with a 1% of 1% Christian-slice of a population of 70 million):

Cooper: For someone expecting sort of a -- a Pope John Paul II kind of visit, with -- with hundreds of thousands of people, this is not that kind of trip. It's almost more of a diplomatic trip.

Aslan: It's not really that -- this pope's M.O., really. Look, you know, yesterday, we were talking about the fact that, let's not -- let's not think that this pope's message is going to change, but perhaps what will change is the way he delivers that message. Today was a perfect example of that. I think that he's going to continue to push for a very robust dialogue with the Muslim world. He's going to continue to push for a resurgence and revival of -- of -- of Christianity throughout Europe. But I think, now that he recognizes how important it is for him to watch how he says things, you're going to see a much more conciliatory, much more measured response from him. [Ed.-Pope Benedict was the head of the Office of the Inquisition for over 20 years. It now has a friendlier-name.]

...Cooper: But, you know, I mean, dialogue, that's one of those diplomatic words. What does it actually mean? This pope has very strong beliefs about -- about Christianity, about Islam, about violence within Islam. What does a dialogue really look like?

Gallagher: It's a big point for the pope. In fact, he's talked about it before, that he thinks dialogue has to include straight talk, the hard questions.

Cooper: This is not everyone holding hands, singing kumbaya [my emphasis].

Gallagher: That's right. ...

Exactly what does any of this have to do with journalism? I don't care what they "think" or were handed by their boss, that isn't journalism. "Just the facts" is journalism, not this blurring of commentary and coverage pioneered by...CNN, not Fox News.

This is analysis, fine, but why go there at all? It's misleading, and suggests these talking-necks are actually doing investigative journalism. All a journalist is supposed to be doing is reporting the facts, not editorializing. But, far-worse than this, CNN took-up Cooper's "kumbiyah" aside--they're running-with-it as a catchphrase now!

Today, they were talking-about whether Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki was "singing Kumbiyah (the proper spelling)" with the Bush administration, or the "Kumbiyah factor." Right, is Al-Maliki singing the same song? Instead, we get these stupid catchphrases. CNN can shove it. And thanks-again, Anderson, for reporting rumors and hearsay amidst the misery of the people who were stuck at the Superdome in New Orleans. It helped the Bush administration demonize the victims of our neglect. Fuck you CNN, and fuck you Anderson Cooper.

While I'm at it: fuck you Ted Turner, you dumb asshole. You are Charles Foster Kane, you moron. Give one billion to the UN, goddammit, that's what you promised. Idiot.

The Original Irritant:http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0611/28/acd.01.html

Chimpy McFlightsuit (TM) almost speaks: "Iraq is straining the nation's psyche."

"These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country. I understand that. You know, nobody likes to see innocent people die. Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists," stated the Chimp in Chief to the White House Press Stenographers. Does he really understand?

Just a few years ago, we were all told Bush never reads-newspapers, never watches the news, and even recently has stated he isn't affected by the polls. YET, he makes comments like the above, so it's clear that he has recently taken these factors into account.

Right, we know Cheney never watches any other news except on Fox(http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0322061cheney1.html ). He's really the President, after all, and who wants to watch bad news that relates to oneself? Anyway, Bush keeps insisting that if we leave, then a disaster will become a "disaster" and it "would provide a safe haven for terrorists and extremists and give them revenue from oil sales."

Oh, instead of oil revenues to our own terrorists at the White House and the oil-sectors of the "global economy". And what happened to that $9 Billion that simply vanished when Paul Bremer left Iraq?( http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/ And funny, no accountability whatsoever. Did it happen under Bill Clinton's watch? Of course, the right wishes they could blame it on him, but no-dice. The whole thing is just another resource war, and 2/3rd's of the American public aren't going-along anymore. They're too lazy to do anything, including going-along. The Preznent's angry, which is tough-shit, the people have spoken: "We're too lazy, and besides, American Idol is on." Sometimes, apathy is a double-edged sword. Soon, they'll probably be speaking-loudly when gasoline is $5-6 dollars-a-gallon, and their atrophied-buttocks can get some circulation.

Like Joseph Goebbels during Stalingrad, the neocons and their supporters think if they keep spinning, lying and obfuscating the truth, that reality will conform to their propaganda on the ground. History has never worked this way, and it never will.

Before the invasion: Iraq was not a haven for terrorists, though it became one once we invaded. It's also becoming a combat training-ground for terrorist groups, where it had never been one before. Having been created by the British as an artificical nationstate with artificial borders, Iraq has been a hodge-podge of rival ethnic-groups, and it really isn't worth-saving. There have been many experts in geopolitics who have said splitting the "failed nation" into three-parts is likely the best route for Middle Eastern stability. Ah, and then there is the influence of Iran in Iraq nowadays, something that was impossible under Saddam Hussein. I think it's time--we need to invade our own country, but how will we justify it? Who knows, but we'll find one.

Speaking of justifications, the last pillar of "Why we went into Iraq" fell last week--with no reaction in the press whatsoever. The Bush administration, and the State Department are thinking seriously of "alternatives to democracy", because they have finally realized that the hodge-podge was only governable with an iron-fist (almost there!). We created this mess and we cannot avert a Civil War once it has begun, and it began long ago. The bill is coming due, much of it from People's Republic of China. We could build a bunch of escape pods and do a collective dine-n'-dash, but that would be communist.

Eventually, they're going to want Taiwan in the package too. Oil might not be based on the US dollar anymore. While morons talk about antiwar activists and the Left "appeasing" (who? North Korea?) "Islamofascists" (an oxymoron for oxymorons), the reality on the ground is going to make it clear what is really going on. We illegally invaded Iraq, and we are being repelled by attrition like any imperial power. Just like France in Indochina, just like Great Britain in North America and just like Spain and America from Cuba. Bye-bye empire, the gambit failed. We'll be better off for it in the end. But then, I believe everything I see on CNN and Fox. Oh, and I'll have fries with that too.