Calling the audience “my brothers and sisters,” he praised the troops for their courage, patriotism, and endurance in fighting the endless battle in Afghanistan, a nation with no air force, navy, or organized military. He pointed out what brave warriors this generation of Americans had turned out to be.

Seven of the members of the audience expressed some concern when Obama announced that he might carry out a series of midnight drone attacks on Paris, France, within the week, because of a series of concerns that had been brought to his attention. Several unnamed members of his National Security Legal Staff had informed him that a known socialist might actually win the upcoming French election. In addition, French authorities had announced that their NATO forces were threatening to withdraw from several of the war zones that Obama had in mind for them.

But the straw that broke the camel’s back was a report from Homeland Security that three known terrorists had slipped into Paris sometime during the previous four months. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta and Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, both strongly urged his quick response to these threats, and expressed their total support for the proposed action. Clinton pointed out that at her urging, his Cabinet was 100% behind the President.

“National Security” was the explanation given for the proposed bombing of Paris, and no further clarification was needed in light of that rationale. Department of Justice head, Eric Holder, reiterated that the President has the authority to bomb large cities regardless of public opinion, given that President Bush was allowed to level Fallujah during the Iraq War, and Obama already had received authority to destroy any city in Pakistan or Afghanistan, according to his mood at the time. Congress had shown that they were unwilling to prevent the bombing or destruction of any place on earth, other than the hidden locations of their family vacation homes on tropical islands throughout the globe.

Extrapolating from the legal memos produced by Professor Adolph Yoo, at Berkeley, and Justice Benito Bybee, appointed as a Federal Judge to the Court of Appeals, the President explained that since the torture of individuals had been approved by the Supreme Court and Congress, destroying entire cities was clearly authorized as well. The Federal Courts had consistently supported the use of extraterritorial extraditions (“renditions” in Pentagon parlance), for purposes of torturing enemies of the U.S. abroad, and had thereby given the green light for Obama to use whatever force was deemed in the national interest against any other terrorists worldwide.

The seven military personnel who balked at the announcement were immediately discharged from the service without benefits, and told that if they publicly discussed their reasons for questioning the President’s decision to destroy Paris, they would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Bradley Manning was used as an example of what they would have in store, if they so much as uttered a word about the propriety of the destruction of the French capital.

One of the embedded reporters at the news conference expressed some concern regarding the destruction of monuments such as the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Jeu de Paume, and some of the other well-known tourist destinations of Paris, but Obama assured the reporter that the action was necessary, if “Americans are to rid the world of terrorism.” He also hinted that the use of technologically advanced concussion bombs, which would kill all living creatures in the Paris area, might leave standing some of the buildings Americans had grown to love. With that assurance, 96% of the American people responded by signing petitions to “support our troops,” and promised to vote either Republican or Democratic in the upcoming election. Since both political parties had the same foreign policies, nobody in government was left to oppose the President.

“Dad, why is the government so upset about North Korea launching a rocket?”

“Well, son, our government says it threatens regional security and violates international law.”

“Why isn’t regional security threatened and international law violated when we launch a rocket? I mean how would we have gotten to the moon if we hadn’t launched rockets?”

“Why so many questions? Have you finished your homework already?”

“Finished Dad. Our teacher taught us that we should ask questions and develop our critical thinking ability. I’m trying to do that.”

“Didn’t your teacher teach you to respect your elders? We have to trust our leaders because we are the good guys. We are fighting for democracy, and the North Koreans are Commies.”

“So being a Commie means they are bad guys?”

“That’s right, son.”

“So we can launch rockets because we are good guys, and they can’t launch rockets because they are bad guys?”

“That’s right. Just think, the North Koreans are wasting money on weapons while their own people are starving.”

“But I heard that we are cancelling our food aid to those starving people. Is that what good guys do, Dad?”

“Look son, if we give food aid to the North Korean people, their dictators will use money to build rockets instead of feeding the people.”

“Have they ever used their rockets against us?”

“No, but they might.”

“I learned in social studies that we bombed them in the Korean War, but they’ve never come over here and bombed us, so I don’t understand why they are the threat and why we are not a threat. I guess it is just because we are the good guys. If we launch rockets, it must be okay because we are the good guys. If they launch rockets, it is a bad thing because they are the bad guys?”

“Now you are getting it.”

“That must be the same reason we can have nuclear weapons but the Iranians can’t: because they are the bad guys, and we are the good guys.”

“Now you are thinking critically, son.”

O yea, we grew restive and dissatisfied with the blessings — however meager — which thou had bestowed on our sorry, ungrateful selves.  We sowed discontent among the people, calling for a Living Wage and a union contract.  Yet, O wise and forgiving Job-Creator, we now beg your indulgence of our childish ingratitude!  Should you, in your magnificent Plan, choose to restore to us the bounty of our former Jobs, we shall strive most humbly to prove worthy, this time, of the infinite beneficence of our utmost, all-knowing Lord and Master.

In our deepest spirit of contrition and atonement, we therefore offer you these Sacrifices:

1.     We shall not stray from your dominion, looking to the false god called “Government” to deliver us from our sufferings and need.

2.     No: we shall hold steadfast, unwavering in our faith in your Banks and Corporations to relieve us of the miseries of debt and cursed usury.

3.     We shall further petition Caesar to relieve you of any remaining taxation or regulations which hath provoked your banishment of millions of our humble selves to the purgatory of Unemployment.

4.     We shall, moreover, praise the Bounty of your Market—rejecting all false prophets who would spread a contagion of doubt and rebellion.

O all-mighty Job-Creator, we kneel before thy throne of Wall Street.  Do not, we most humbly ask, forsake us!  It is in thy Power to give—under whatever terms you like!—what thou hast taken away.  If we covet the “Job,” however degrading and sinful it may be, it is only to serve our most reverend Lord and Master.  Harvesting the bounty of Profit to your utmost Glory, we shall glean that which remains for our unworthy yet devoted selves.

Oh merciful Job-Creator, thou hath taken away, yet thou canst give again!  Amen.

Bush Pick Hailed as “Pragmatic Master Stroke”

Outraged Biden Joins Tea Party, Threatens To Sue

Obama Lauds Bush Vow To “Follow the Cheney Tradition” as VP

Washington, January 27 — Barack Obama today named George W. Bush of Crawford, Texas as his running mate, the first ex-president selected to run for Vice President on a major party ticket. The president announced his historic step before an ebullient crowd of Blackwater mercenaries on the White House lawn. ”There’s an electricity in the air, an excitement, a sense of new possibilities and of pride,” Obama told a section of cheering snipers moments after disclosing the stunning development.

Calling for an end to partisan bitterness, Obama introduced Bush as “an exciting choice” and “clearly the best” for healing a divided nation. Bush thanked the president for continuing the family dynasty, and offered to formally adopt him into the Bush clan if he thought it would “help carry the South.”

Obama said the decision to choose the former president was a ”difficult” one, but explained: ”GW has excelled in being bailed out, and this country certainly needs more of that!” He added that GW’s political return was ”really the fulfillment of a classic American tradition: to fail continually at everything and emerge triumphant anyway.”

Harvard Lawyer Obama Cites Constitution

”History speaks to us today,” Obama told the Blackwater throng. ”Our founders said in the Constitution, ‘We the people’ – not just the identity politics focus groups, but all of us.”

”Our message,” the president went on, ”is that America is a country of diversity where the spirit of conciliation overcomes all philosophical differences. As President Bush has said many times: ‘ politics stops at the water’s edge.’”

Bush, who was anointed president in 2000, has received the endorsements for the Vice Presidency of numerous Democratic Party organizations, including, On Our Knees, Inertia Unlimited, and Strength Through Servility.

Increase in Pragmatic Energy Seen

”He loves Israel, he’s charismatic, he believes in God,” enthused one adviser to Obama. ”We have broken the barrier. He will energize, not just southerners, but a lot of Republicans, which will make the Democratic Party more inclusive.”

Another adviser to Obama said that although Bush had engendered “unfortunate” bad publicity around foreign policy issues, he nevertheless would bring “new chemistry, new passion, and new understanding” to the ticket, especially of an often overlooked minority group: the rich. “People never seem to realize that as wealth concentrates in fewer and fewer hands, the wealthy become a smaller and smaller minority group,” said Obama campaign manager Marshall Cash.

In the last three weeks Obama interviewed seven prospective candidates and made it plain that he was seriously considering a break in precedent and selecting a candidate who “reflects our values,” rather than just another identity politics token.

Ranking aides to Obama indicated last week that Bush had outdistanced Biden in his personal interview with Obama, as well as in his press comments afterward. Some aides said Biden had proved somewhat disappointing, a comment that angered the outgoing vice-president, who is threatening to sue.

Factors in Choice Listed

What apparently swayed Obama, Democratic officials said, was Bush’s experience in ramming through deeply unpopular policies, his considerable support among Blue Dog Democrats, and perhaps most important, his appeal to blue-collar superpatriots, coupled with his traditional “tough love” views, which seem to coincide with the president’s.

Bush had emerged in recent weeks as the strong favorite among pragmatic liberals, typified by the vastly influential NAACR, the National Association for the Advancement of Crackpot Realism. But Democratic advisers to Obama said the decision in favor of Bush was based heavily on the notion that his political strength would enhance Obama’s support among the super-rich and religious fanatics. “They vote,” explained Obama at the announcement ceremony.

At the conclusion of the day’s historic event, Obama and Bush clasped hands high overhead in the classic victory stance and called for world peace through the obliteration of Iran.

I pledge in the year 2012 to link the fight against war to the fight for justice and to do so without exception.  With equal vigor I pledge to fight for justice with total disregard for the fight against war whenever it suits me.  I pledge to follow the MoveOn segment of the Occupy Wall Street movement in so doing.  I pledge that this will be the cornerstone of my approach, to be known henceforth as Van Jones Logic.

I pledge to exclude potential allies who do not share my notions of justice from the antiwar movement.  After all the antiwar movement belongs to progressives.  I pledge to keep at bay libertarians, paleoconservatives and, above all, the average American Jane and Joe, with an unscalable Chinese Wall of political correctness.  Let’s keep out the riff-raff.  For this I pledge to look for leadership to “Progressive” Democrats of America, UFPJ, Peace Action and Juan Cole.

I pledge neither to sponsor nor to join any large antiwar marches or demonstrations this election year. For if there are antiwar marches, it is a sure sign that there are wars.   I pledge, if forced into such marches of folly in order to preserve my credibility or my donor base, to censor any mention of Obama.   I pledge to treat impeachment as a taboo subject.

I pledge until November 7, 2012 to keep far from my consciousness the unspeakable suffering being visited on the darker peoples of the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia by my president with his sanctions and bombs.  These sufferings are as nothing compared to the purity of my movement and the hollow promises of Obama for better social programs.

I pledge to avoid like the plague any consideration of Ron Paul.  I pledge to  tear him down with bogus charges of racism based on guilt by association.  I fully recognize that Ron Paul is especially dangerous, because every day he converts more to the antiwar cause and thereby threatens a breach in the wall that keeps antiwar barbarians out of the movement we own.  I thought libertarians respected property rights.  If pressed, I may whisper a word or two of praise for Ron Paul but never a full throated endorsement – and never, ever anything good without walling it off with airtight condemnation.   I pledge most of all never to aid Ron Paul by money or action.  After all, what would my friends say?

I pledge never to think tactically when it comes to Ron Paul, as many progressives do with their favorite candidates, forgiving piddling shortcomings – like voting for DoD funding.

I pledge to work with others to keep a serious challenge to Obama from emerging in the Democratic primaries.  I recognize that this work is largely done with the passing of the New Hampshire primary and Iowa Caucuses; and I find myself on occasion smiling with satisfaction at this feat.  I pledge to remain vigilant nonetheless.  If our man, Obama, becomes even more embarrassing to the antiwar movement, I pledge to support a candidate from the moribund Green Party or some other entity cobbled together quickly, with no extensive organization and no hope of winning.   If we cannot bring ourselves to vote for Obama, let’s get out there and waste our votes.

I pledge in the year 2012 to hold fast to wishful thinking – Obama is our man. I pledge to remind one and all that Obama is keeping secret his loyalty to the progressive cause to avoid criticism by Republicans.   And he is proving damned good at it.  I pledge to believe that combat troops left Iraq because Obama wanted it, not because Bush signed an agreement to do so (and to ignore the fact that Obama wanted to stay but Maliki refused).  I pledge to believe that those troops returned to the US (and ignore the fact that most of them were transferred to other countries). I pledge to believe that the NDAA is the Republican McCain’s idea (and ignore the fact that is was Obama’s baby according to Carl Levin). In general, I pledge to ignore reality, and to believe in the virtual world presented to me by the progressive authorities and gatekeepers.  It will be as easy as doing my yoga or meditation.  And besides Obama is sure to change course in his second term.

In sum, I pledge to ignore Obama’s Patriot act, his numerous wars, his bloated military budget, his deficit, his service to Wall Street and to the insurance industry.  This is his dazzling plan to protect us from Republicans by tricking them into thinking that he is their man, so they will vote for him – our man!  It is nothing less than brilliant.

“Yeah, I could use a decent vacation,” I replied, figuring he’d pay for both of us since he had just set the world record for the most nose jobs in a 24-hour period.

“What vacation?” he said. “I’m setting up practice.”

“And give up catering to rich people with inflated bank accounts and deflated ethics?”

“Don’t have a choice. I’m getting laid off.”

Comstock had been a rainmaker for the Megabucks Happy Health Care Medical Center for the past decade. There was only one reason I could think of why he’d be laid off.

“Megabucks tired of paying your malpractice insurance?” I asked.

“Not just me,” he said. “Hospital’s laying off most of the staff, making the rest work overtime, and hiring outside contractors. They said it was hard to survive when the profit was down to only 20 or so million a year.”

“I didn’t realize it was that serious,” I said. “You planning to set up private practice to help the poor in Mexico?” I asked admiringly.

“Not a chance! Gonna get rich working for Megabucks!”

“You just said you were laid off.”

“Been laid off in the U.S.,” said Comstock while putting a frozen burrito into the microwave.

“Megabucks/Mexico just hired me. There’s cheaper labor down there.”

“You crazy?” I asked. “You’re the cheaper labor.”

“Obviously you don’t know American business,” said Comstock haughtily.

“Megabucks/U.S. closes its auxiliary operations, and then contracts with Mexican companies for a fifth of the cost in the U.S. They do the work, ship it back to the U.S., and Megabucks bills Blue Cross the full rate as if it was done locally.”

“So where do you fit in?” I asked.

“Just as before. Nose jobs. Breast augmentations. Tummy tucks. All the important medical procedures. But this time, I do it in Cancun.”

“To rich Mexicans,” I said disgusted.

“To rich Americans!” said Comstock. “If they want the best care, they’ll take their private jets to Mexico and then deduct the trip as a necessary business expense.”

“And what about the impoverished and middle-class Americans?”

“If they can sneak across the border, they can also get medical care.”

“What about prescriptions?”

“Megabucks contracted with some of the best drug dealers—I mean pharmacists and chemists—in Mexico. Quality is just as good and it’ll only be four or five times production costs. Unlike the U.S. there’s no TV advertising and six-figure MBAs and lawyers that require drugs to be 30 or 40 times production costs.”

“With prices that low, how do you know there won’t be mass rushes by Americans to grab everything they can?”

“Because there’s security! Every hospital and pharmacy has armed guards with the best automatic weapons smuggled through the God-fearing 2nd Amendment patriotic Southern states.”

“Is Megabucks outsourcing all its operations?”

“Keeping the ER. After tummy tucks and butt lifts, that’s the hospital’s ‘cash cow.’”

“So, then, it’ll have to keep some services like X-Ray and the lab,” I said. “Maybe even a doctor or two.”

“Too expensive,” said Comstock. “Megabucks will hire more residents and foreign-educated doctors, and work them 18 hours a day. More work, less time to complain. Residents will do anything to get experience to pass their boards. May even hire a couple of hospitalists. You know, the ones who graduated at the bottom of their class and can’t even get work in a Free Clinic.”

“I suppose they’ll also do the lab work?” I asked.

“Do you know some of those lab techs are making as much as $30,000 a year! Made sense to lay them off, too.”

“So how will the ER know a victim’s blood chemistry, or if there’s internal injuries?”

“Technology,” said Comstock. “They scan the blood here, and send digital X-Rays to Mexico. Mexican lab technicians—you know, the ones that don’t know about unions and will work for only a few bucks a day—will analyze everything, then text the results back to the U.S.”

“This sounds like it’s not only a way to maximize profits, but also a way to avoid dealing with the President’s health care reform program.”

“Obamacare!” spit out Comstock. “Nothing but socialized medicine.”

“Most countries have forms of socialized medicine,” I countered, “and they not only have good health care but affordable prices to their citizens.”

Comstock put his hands to his ears and began chanting, “We’re Number 1, We’re Number 1.”

“Number 37,” I corrected him. “The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. just below Costa Rico.”

“They’re all Commies,” replied Comstock. “Besides, that study is a decade old.”

“Last year, the independent Commonwealth Fund compared the nations of the United Kingdom against the U.S., and the U.S. ranked seventh of the seven.”

“Yeah, like Americans will go to Canada? It’s covered by snow and run by a queen who can’t even speak English.”

“You and Megabucks are crazy!”

“Possibly,” said Comstock, “but outsourcing is the American way. By the way, do you put ketchup or mustard on a burrito?”

Of course, it would be nice to make $70,000+ a year like BC’s official, professional, organized, bureaucratic, charitable-status-guarding environmentalists. It sure would be fun to jet over to Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Durban and all over the world to chat about the climate disaster, become a go-to corporate-media darling, drive a Prius and hobknob with Paris Hilton. It might be pretty boring, hanging out in secret backrooms cutting deals with Gordon Campbell and ilk, but it would be worth it.

I’m starting to think that perhaps it would be nice to have a great big jiggling beer-and-beef fed belly, just like our Prime Minister and his media adviser, Ezra Levant, does. I think Ezra Levant is making a whole lot more money than I am, and just imagine all the fun he must be having, living there in Calgary. The only thing that’s holding Ezra Levant back from the really big bucks is that he can’t preface every single thing he says with “I was a co-founder of Greenpeace, but then I saw the light about corporate logging, the nuclear business, DDT and Big Oil.” Being able to say that at big corporate AGM events catapults a reformed tree-hugger into a world of glamour.

I’m just starting to see the light here about Enbridge. I mean, just look how well they are looking after former Prince George Mayor and Gordon Campbell shill, Colin Kinsley. And after a very long difficult search all across BC, Enbridge was finally able to find a single First Nation supporter, Mr Elmer Derrick. I believe that he got some $7 million for selling out the Gitxsan people to Enbridge.

And what about all those very comfortable regular Vancouver Sun Enbridge stumpers like Barbara Yaffe, Peter O’Neil and Gordon Hoekstra? All they have to do is write several columns a week extolling the virtues of Enbridge, the Tar Sands and gigantic Big Oil projects. And then, of course, there’s the ubiquitous Patrick Moore, who is right in there, cashing in. If Enbridge is so eager to hand out truckloads of cash to such uninspired lowlifes like these, why not me?

I’m starting to think about a whole new way of Green -– actually, Enbridge Pipelines really can guarantee the people of British Columbia that it will be impossible for them to ever have an accident with their pipelines. They can certainly safely transport a half million barrels of thick Alberta Tar Sands bitumen a day through a thousand kilometres of pipe, right through the Rocky Mountains and across more than 700 rivers all the way to the Pacific Coast so it can be shipped to China. It really isn’t a problem to coordinate hundreds of giga-tankers the size of the Empire State Building, loaded with 10 times the amount of oil spewed into Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdes wreck, weaving in and out of the rock-pile that is the BC Coast and Douglas Channel every year, dodging hundreds of LNG and Condensate tankers at the same time.

Even though Enbridge factotum Paul Stanway says on CBC Radio that Enbridge can’t keep on cleaning up their Kalamazoo River oil disaster “because we had to shut down because it is winter” we know that they can mitigate that winter issue in BC by continuing to exacerbate global heating. I’ll bet that Stanway is getting pretty rich saying what he says for a living. So obviously Enbridge and their spokesperson, Stephen Harper, are being completely honest when they say that there can never be an accident that will destroy Canada’s Pacific Coast. And our Prime Minister, Big Oil scion that he is, will happily retire with his legacy to Canada for which he will be eternally remembered, -”The Stephen Harper Pipeline.”

We all know that Canadians are too stupid and lazy to refine all that dirty-oil in Alberta, or invite all of the world’s energy-sucking manufacturing industry to come build their factories in Fort MacMurray. Canadians certainly are not interested in the thousands upon thousands of jobs that simple scenario would produce. Certainly that is outside Stephen Harper’s great vision for Canada. So I’m thinking the Prime Minister must be right. Canada’s economic future is absolutely dependent on shipping raw Tar Sands gunk to China so they can make all the stuff themselves. After all, in a world experiencing capitalist-caused bank-bailing economic catastrophe, somebody has to get rich. Those humungous ships all headed over to China wont be coming back empty. They’ll be coming back loaded up with stuff they made with our oil.

I wonder how much I’d be worth to Enbridge?? I could always preface my lectures with, “I used to be a raving tree-hugger, but…” That’s got to be worth more than a few bucks…

The arrest could not await an opportunity to persuade the FBI of the seriousness or sanity of the matter, Bloomberg said, as the evildoer had apparently packed a marijuana bong with Christmas lights and was prepared to attempt unspeakable acts imminently. Although the materials were intentionally defective, having been provided to the terrorist on Saturday by the NYPD, a careful analysis identified a greater than one percent likelihood of an attack on a local Home Depot store with which the terrorist had previously quarreled over malfunctioning plumbing materials and staff he accused of “not knowing their elbow pipes from their assigned aisles.”

Bloomberg revealed a plot that included packing Christmas Bombs with nails in hopes of nailing returning U.S. troops to crosses. The Mayor said he would be making public the records of attempted communications between the bomber and Muslim cleric Lex Luther, who may or may not have ever reciprocated the attempted communications. Asked what motivated the terrorist to act in this moment, Bloomberg indicated that a video may have been the catalyst. In what the Mayor referred to as a “super fast moving investigation” it was apparently not yet clear what this video consisted of. The District Attorney has subpoenaed Netflix records from October and all but promised an “October surprise”.

Bloomberg responded to a series of questions on the significance of the Lex Luther connection, explaining repeatedly that no fewer than 36 blogs have tied Luther to funding from George Soros, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and a plan to publicly ask His Royal Highness Prince Turki al-Faisal al-Sa’ud of Saudi Arabia his views on beheading hippies and Socialists. Furthermore, Bloomberg explained, one of the top Mercedes diesel mechanics in Tribeca, an expert who has also blown up automobiles for NYPD film productions in preparation for hastily thrown together press conferences, has agreed to testify that Iran could develop nuclear weapons if left no clear alternative for actual survival.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly interrupted the flow of the press conference on Sunday to switch on a live video of a hypersonic flying bomb cruising on its way to a predetermined target. Kelly said he believed the target was Diana L. Taylor, a close acquaintance of Mayor Bloomberg. Kelly announced that New York would immediately be declaring war on Iran, which — he pointed out — hates us all for our freedoms.

Bloomberg interjected that, “Without me you would all be dead by now.”

Kelly followed up with, “If I can’t save you, nobody can.”

The press conference was repeated in every detail in Pig Latin with Bloomberg donning a Guantanamo prisoner’s orange outfit out of what he said was “solidarity with my left-leaning constituents.”

The sorry History of five hundred years of capitalist ‘Progress’ points to the Conclusion that, by its very Nature, Capitalism cannot expand without devouring Workers’ Lives and chewing up the Natural World — no more than a Shark can survive without gorging on fresh Flesh and Blood.

The original Breeding Ground of Capitalist Sharks was Western Europe, where they set about devouring the Commons, knocking down the Peasants’ Cottages with the thrashing Tails, hanging the Homeless as ‘Vagabonds,’ driving free Yeomen Farmers off the Green Land into Dismal Factories, devaluing the Labor of Women, and persecuting them as Witches.

Capitalist Sharks were sighted off the American Shores as early as 1492, ravaging the Caribbean. In their savage Hunger for Silver and Gold, they nearly exterminated the Native Peoples. So the greedy Colonial sharks were obliged to replace dead Native Americans with ever fresh supplies of Black Africans, kidnapped and sold to be worked to Death as Slaves. In their Home Waters, the voracious European White Sharks grew larger and hungrier, battening on Generations of toiling Men, Women and Children, sucking in and chewing up their Substance through fourteen daily hours of Dreary Labor in soot-darkened Satanic Mills or under the Lash on their American Plantations.

Naturally, as the Capitalist Sharks grew their Appetites increased, and by the end of the 19th Century ravenous full-grown Imperial sharks were swarming in a Feeding Frenzy, driven by a desperate Urge to devour the teeming Populations and fabulous natural Wealth of Africa and Asia.

As the 20th Century dawned, the Imperial Sharks began attacking each other (as sharks in a Feeding Frenzy will). The larger Capitalist Sharks naturally overcame the smaller, and the surviving Giants continued slashing and biting each other around the Globe, thrashing up blood-tinged Foam across both Oceans. Soon the various National Species were forming into great Schools for the purpose of Mutual Aggression. Political Ichthyology distinguishes at least four such Schools: the Freemarketus omnovorus, the Fascii viciocii, the Stalinea rapacea, and the Theocraticus ferocius.

After each Orgy of Mutual Destruction, the surviving Species enjoyed a few prosperous Years of fat Feeding until leaner Years drove them to new Hecatombs.
But by the 21st Century, the older Species of European White Sharks were being challenged in their former Feeding Grounds by younger breeds of fast-growing Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Russian and Brazilian capitalist Sharks, better adapted for preying on the local varieties of Fish and increasingly more competitive. Soon new Oceans were churning with Blood, but with so many Sharks competing, the supply of big Game-Fish was soon depleted, and only the Masses of Little Fish were left to prey on.

The most successful Capitalist Sharks tempered their Ferocity with Guile. As the pickings got slimmer, these smarter Sharks adopted Protective Coloration to lurk in Shallow Shoals where they could sneak up on the Littler Fish (the only ones left) and devour them. Some clever Capitalist Sharks painted themselves Green. Others pretended to be Vegetarians the better to lull their Prey!

The Political Ichthyologist Doktor Bertolt Brecht of Berlin had predicted this phenonmenon as early as 1930: ‘If sharks were men there would be an end to all little fish being equal, as is the case now. Some would be given important offices and be placed above the others. Those who were a little bigger would even be allowed to eat up the smaller ones. That would be altogether agreeable for the sharks, since they themselves would more often get bigger bites to eat. And the bigger little fish, occupying their posts, would ensure order among the little fish, become teachers, officers, engineers in box construction, etc.’

Following in Herr Dr. Brecht’s august Footsteps, your Humble Author has spent the past fifty Years patiently collecting Specimens of ‘vegetarian’ Shark behavior among both Left-finned and Right-finned Species from every corner of the Globe.¹ These Anatomical Descriptions are designed to help the Reader recognize the different Species as they swim across the Aquarium of her TV Screen. This ‘Taxonomy of Capitalist Sharks’ is his modest scientific Contribution to the Cause of the Working People and other Small Fry in the Class Struggle (which the Rich have been waging against the Poor as a one-way affair for far too long!).

Recent studies in Political Ichthyology have identified seventeen new species of Vegetarian Sharks, including the Oxymoronic Clean-Coal Shark, the Great Green Oil-Derrick Shark, the Elusive Trickle-Down Economics Shark, the Philanthropic-Billionnaire Shark, the Humanitarian War Shark, The Compassionate Conservative Shark, the Safe Nuclear Power Shark, the Slippery Shared-Sacrifice Shark, and the Change-You-Can-Believe-In Shark.

These Corporate Sharks pretend to be Vegetarians, but never forget they really are Man-eating capitalist Sharks! No point in trying to get them to give up Human Flesh or even go on a Diet, as Liberal Reformers urge us to do. They can’t. It’s not in their Nature.

Today, these ‘Vegetarian’ Species are flourishing, despite the increasing Mistrust of the Little Fish, some of whom even want to ban Sharks of any kind from entering the Shoals (!) Indeed, through Natural Selection the surviving Little Fish have become smarter, and today Little-Fish Scientists and Whistle-Blowing Blowfish have been trying to understand why so many Little Fish continue to be fooled by their Predators’ apparently transparent ‘vegetarian’ Disguises. The reason is that the Corporate Sharks have evolved glowing, Multicolored Media Eyes with which they are able to hypnotize their Prey. Corporate Species also inject a poisonous green Substance called ‘Campaign Contributions’ into the Small Fish General Assembly — effectively paralyzing its Members.

These same Corporate Sharks also fatten different Species of Judas Goatfish, bred to mislead the other Fish. For example, the Demagogic Goat-Fish divide the Little Fish by tricking different the Species into fighting each other — Whitefish against Black Bass, Smoked Herring against Smoked Salmon — meanwhile blaming division on the crafty Hooked-Nose Gefiltefish. At the same time, VoteForMe Goatfish are bred to ‘represent’ the Little Fish by luring them into the waiting Jaws of Lurking Privatizer Sharks (who of course swallow up everything including the Schools where Fish Children learn to swim). There are also innocent-looking Do-Gooder Goatfish which lurk in NGOs, Think-Tanks, Universities, Trade-Union Bureaucracies and Left Parties as well.

The Irony of this situation is that the Billionaire Sharks and their pet Judas-Fish cry ‘Class War!’ every time some Liberal Little-Fish dares pronounce Forbidden Words like ‘Taxing’ and ‘Spending.’ Nonetheless, many Little Fish secretly suspect that the Billionnaire Sharks don’t want to see their bloated Corporate Profits spent on Fish-Nursuries, Fish-Schools, Fish-Nests, Fish-Food and Clean Water. Meanwhile, Neo-Liberal Privatiser Sharks have nearly devoured the Undersea Commons in the so-called ‘Developing Oceans’, and now their Gaping Jaws are taking great Bites out of the Public Goods of the ‘Advanced’ Oceans.

Today, Capitalist Sharks, first sighted off South America in 1492, continue devouring the Planet, penetrating every remote Corner of the Earth, privatizing the Water, fouling the Air, cutting the Trees, killing off the Creatures and enslaving the People in their ever-increasing Hunger for more Profits. These Profit are deposited by the Capitalist Sharks in Fish-Banks and inflatable Underwater Bubbles, and in 2008 one of them exploded, plunging the world’s Oceans into Dark Depression.

Meanwhile, the Waters were growing warmer as a result of years of Frenzied Thrashing by Capitalist Sharks, and the heat destroyed the Coral Reefs on which the Little Fish Feed. Soon there would be no more Little Fish for the Capitalist Sharks to feed on, but this did not stop their Frenzied Thrashing for Profits. From this Somber Observation, Political Ithyology draws that Inference that Capitalism is no more likely to reform itself than a Man-Eating Shark is likely to embrace Vegetarianism.

This Inference points to an unavidable Conclusion. The Billions of us Small-Fry need to to turn the tables by uniting globally and waging Class War on the Billionnaire Loan Sharks who rule the World. The name of the Game is ‘Billions vs. Billionaires.’ Numbers are the Small-Frys’ trump suit. “We are many, they are few” the Poet Shelley famously wrote (anticipating the ‘99 percent-ers’ by 200 years). As for Strategy, if there is one chance in a hundred of winning this Game, Planetary Self-Organization is the card for us to play. Not by fighting capitalist Terror with Terror, capitalist Violence with more Violence (in any case, they have all the guns) but through Solidarity and militant, united Resistance.²

Sound like a pipe-dream, Dear Reader? Just remember: Thanks to the Internet, mass global Civil Disobedience can be organized in Real Time. The Day when all us Little Creative-Working-Fish wake up and go on a Planetary General Strike will be the Day when the Power of the Bankers and Corporations dissolves into thin Air. That day could be Tomorrow.³)

1. Beware of ‘Vegetarian’ Sharks! Radical Rants and Internationalist Essays (Illustrated, Praxis, 2008. Free downloads here.
2. Interested in joining a multi-player, online videogame called Billions vs. Billionaires? B&B is a Wiki set up for people interested in translating ecotopian visions and revolutionary class struggle tactics into entertaining popular foms designed to go viral and help save the world. Become part of phase one: ‘Collective Creation.’
3. These lines were written in August 2010. Five months later, the ‘Arab Spring’ spread from Tunisia to Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Syria, and beyond — inspiring workers in Wisconsin (USA) to fight back against the Right-Wing capitalist offensive. Ironically, Arabs were ‘teaching democracy’ to Americans. The Fall brought Occupy Wall Street, which then went viral around the world. What will the next ‘tomorrow’ bring? (For a glimpse of a possible future.

Speaking to about 500 Mussolini Democrats and more than a dozen reporters at the tactically sophisticated Invertebrates For Obama think tank in Washington, Obama lashed out at “so-called progressives” clamoring for an expanded New Deal.

“Far too many Americans are looking for a hand-out, not a hand up,” he said, apparently targeting the growing Occupy Wall Street movement and its sympathizers. “The reason we must reject socialist economics is that it conflicts with our core political philosophy about the purpose of government.”

“We cannot preserve liberty for ourselves and our posterity if government fails to fulfill its obligation to sustain the free market system with trillions of dollars of bailout money for selfless Wall Street firms deemed ‘too big to fail.’” Therefore we must seek common ground with the GOP and renounce relics of the Communist era like Social Security and Medicare.” To sustained applause the president added, “I hereby do so.”

Obama called for a reform of his own health care law to include a “private option” that would allow HMOs to deport Americans without health insurance to Cuba, in hopes of bankrupting the free health care system available on the Communist-ruled island. “The cost of treating fifty million uninsured Americans should bring down the Castro brothers once and for all,” proclaimed Obama gleefully.

The president said he would grant federal aid to states expelling the medically needy to Cuba, adding that he would veto any attempt to have them treated in the U.S. “We’ve got to get beyond the idea that democratic government means doling out aid to irresponsible citizens who refuse to pull their own weight.” The president emphatically rejected appeals for government assistance from ordinary Americans. “As we all know from civics lessons the only legitimate function government has is performing those tasks that Americans cannot perform themselves – like carpet-bombing foreign nations and giving away the store to transnational corporations and international banks.”

The president went on to state that his reformed health care reform bill would prove itself a more efficient system than the universal care available through Medicare. “Obviously the market is more efficient than government,” said Obama. “I mean, how much equity is returned to stockholders under Medicare? Absolutely none! Whereas under HMOs investors are making a killing, if you’ll pardon the expression,” the president said. Asked about the much higher administrative costs under privatized care, Obama explained that those “don’t count,” because they are passed on to the public.

On issues like declaring the war in Iraq “over,” Obama portrayed himself as the candidate who goes the extra mile for peace. “George Bush declared ‘mission accomplished’ in Iraq only once, while I am now working on my second final withdrawal from that liberated country,” the president said with obvious pride.

Obama also called for “staking out the middle ground” by privatizing Social Security, outsourcing the public schools to China, and handing over municipal water systems to corporate polluters in need of infusions of public capital in order to pay off fines imposed for systematically polluting the environment.

“If they are not stopped from having babies on Jewish land,” said California’s other Senator Diane Feinstein, “Jews will soon be a minority in their own country. In other words, it will be the Holocaust all over again.”

“And that would undermine the free market,” added Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, “because God gave the land to the Jews, and no one has the right to tell a landlord what to do with his land.”

“It would also be a defeat for immigrants’ rights,” said Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) a leading spokesman for comprehensive immigration reform, “because Israel is a nation of immigrants continually made subject to terrorist attacks by Arab nativists refusing to recognize that unlimited immigration is good for everyone. They’ll find that out once we relocate them to Mongolia.”

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) agreed that violent expulsion was the best solution, but added that Fidel Castro should be included in the forced march to Mongolia. “The Arabs are radical Communists like Fidel. I mean, what’s more Communist than one person, one vote? They’re birds of a feather that should flock together.”

Michele Bachmann (D-Minn.) offered to switch her party affiliation to Likud ” if that would help God win in 2012.” President Obama praised her spirit of conciliation and said he would consider her as a running mate if she didn’t get the GOP nomination.

“She’s on my short list,” said Obama. “It’s either her or Palin or Joe Lieberman,” he added.” “Bibi has promised to let me know soon.”

The president pooh-poohed talk of Bachmann lacking qualifications to serve as president. “She loves God and Israel, and what other qualifications are there?”

This time we should reach for what’s best within ourselves. If we do, when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations — an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.

– Obama’s speech before the General Assembly, September 23, 2010

When Barack Obama uttered these lines, the assembled delegates rewarded him with a standing ovation. That was last year’s promise. This year, Obama is promising to veto a Palestinian state for reasons that he has yet to clearly articulate. The president could always come out and explain his dramatic change of heart in plain language – but that might prove a little embarrassing. When it comes to matters of state, plain language can have a disastrous impact on America’s standing in the world. In the midst of the great Arab awakening – this single veto will not be cost-free. Lest we forget, this is the same president who supported Mubarak before he supported the Egyptian revolution. So let it never be said that Obama is inconsistent. He’ll always do the right thing when it’s convenient.

But that’s neither here nor there. If Obama was to speak plainly, we know exactly what he’d say.

“I was for the Palestinian State before I was against it. What the world needs to understand is that I am not the president of AIPAC – I’m just POTUS and I want a second term. Before casting the first stone, compare my poll numbers to the reception Netanyahu got in Congress after he refused to halt the construction of illegal settlements.”

“Even after I cast my veto, I expect Republicans and members of my own party to accuse me of throwing Israel under the bus for not imposing sanctions on the 150 states that are likely to support the Palestinian state.”

“I’ve seen the BBC polls. I know that people around the world support the justice of the Palestinian cause. I’m also aware that most Americans favor universal recognition of an independent Palestinian state. To be honest, I share their sentiment. It’s a rational and sensible position to take – if it doesn’t affect your job security.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not a private citizen. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, acting on my conscience is not a privilege accorded the President of the United States. I share the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people and I yearn for their freedom but there is not a damn thing I can do about it. One way or the other, every president and every senator and every congressman has to answer to AIPAC.”

“As President of the United States of America, I have to do what I have to do which is pretty much what I’m told to do by the Israeli Lobby. I’ve got to parrot the line that direct negotiations must be given a chance knowing full well that after two decades of negotiations, Israel has done nothing but create obstacles to a two state solution. I’m obliged to feign Ignorance of the fact that the number of settlers in the West Bank have tripled since the Oslo agreement. My assigned duties require me to constantly raise a fuss about the illusionary security threats to an expansionist apartheid state that has a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the entire Middle East. Part of my job is to get along with psychotic dispensationalist congressmen and senators who believe that a ‘peace-loving’ Israel was doing God’s work when it murdered 1,500 Palestinians and demolished the entire infrastructure of Gaza in operation Cast Lead. And after doing the obligatory dog and pony routine, I’ve got to sign the annual three billion foreign aid check to a country that has a per capita income that earned it the right to join the Organization of Economically Developed Nations.”

“Seriously, what choice do I have in the matter? It’s part of my job description. If I don’t follow through with my marching orders, I won’t have to answer to the Republicans; my White House eviction orders will come from my own party.”

“Deep down, I’m hoping my veto will inspire responsible governments around the world to internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As long as America monopolizes and dominates the ‘peace process’ – there will be plenty of ‘process’ but there will never be peace. So to those of you who understand the dynamics of American domestic politics, I beg you – take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict off my plate before AIPAC sets the dogs on me. Call me a hypocrite if you must but don’t call on me to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; I’m not Jimmy Carter and I don’t want to change my address before 2016.”

Extending tax cuts for the rich while cutting Social Security and Medicare were also abiding “dreams” of Rosales, who seethed at the injustice of caring for the elderly while billionaires were left without the resources needed to become trillionaires. “What kind of society condemns its billionaires to lectures on civic duty, to an endless round of fair play and limits, to a life devoid of hope or meaning?” Thus spoke Rosales at the 2010 retreat of the National Association For the Advancement of Rich People. A man noted for his compassion, Obama wept.

A book to be both read and treasured, the chapter titles alone are worth the retail price ($599.95 from Predatory Books). For example:

Chapter One: The Virtue of Moral Collapse: Does a Castrated Man Really Need a Spine?

Chapter Two: Healthy Profits, Sick Patients: So What’s the Problem?

Chapter Three: Affirmative Action For Dummies: Why a Black President Had to Lead the Rape of Libya

Chapter Four: Jewish Apartheid in the Promised Land: Dr. King’s Dream Fulfilled

Chapter Five: Don’t Worry, Be Happy: How Killing With Pilotless Drones Insures a Great Future

Chapter Six: Protecting Against Terrorism: Why I Need To Assassinate Americans For Their Own Good

With the nation’s unemployment rate hovering about 10 percent, recent high school graduates are escaping reality by going to college, and college grads are avoiding reality by entering grad school. The result is that it now takes a M.A. to become a shift manager at a fast food restaurant.

Colleges have stayed ahead of the Recession by becoming business models, where students are “inventory units,” and success is based upon escalating profit. Increasing the number of incoming units, class size, and tuition, while not increasing teaching and support staff, leads some colleges to believe they are solvent in a leaking economy. Budgets for academics are decreasing; budgets for dorms are increasing. Enrollment in degree-granting institutions is expected to be about 19.1 million in 2012, an increase of about 25 percent from 2000, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

Desperate to destroy their image as places of scholarship, colleges are using the 98.6 admissions criteria—admit almost anyone with a body temperature. Colleges may claim they admit only students with at least a 3.0 grade point average, which at some high schools is about half the student body, but it’s likely that students with lower averages aren’t recruited because they’re already working as lab specimens.

Across the nation, Developmental Education classes are increasing, with some departments now within the Top 5 in the college. For those who don’t speak “academicese,” that means more students are in college who have basic readin’, ’riting, and ’rithmetic problems.

Nevertheless, there are still a few hold-outs among colleges where students actually go to study, develop their minds, and hope to make great contributions to society. This, of course, in a declining economy, is not acceptable.

At Neargreat Tech, when the Admissions department failed to increase enrollment because most high school grads didn’t want to be associated with geeks, the President convened a Judiciary Review Board to reduce the college’s academic reputation. First in was the class valedictorian.

“Bennish, this is the fifth time this semester you’ve been caught sneaking into the library. This administration just doesn’t know what to do with you.”

“Sir, maybe I could increase my community service and read books to the ill and illiterate.”

“Why can’t you just go to our football games Saturday afternoons, then party and get drunk like a normal college student?”

“Because, sir, we don’t have a football team.”

“Then start one! If it’s as bad as it could be, you’ll have an excuse to drink. Next!”

Next in was a student accused of disturbing the peace.

“Rachmaninoff, your advisor says you’re a pretty good musician, but you only want to play the classical stuff. We’re assigning you to the marching band.”

“But, Dean, I play the piano.”

“Great! The band needs a pianist.”

“Sir, it might be difficult to carry a piano along Broadway. Besides, there are only 20 members in the band anyhow.”

“Even better! Pick an instrument. Banjo. Double bass. Electric guitar. They need everything! Dismissed!”

Next to be called to face a disciplinary hearing was Schopenhauer. “You were seen lying on the grass beneath a tree in the quad,” said the president. “The campus police claim you were thinking. We should give you an opportunity to defend yourself against this egregious accusation. What exactly were you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“That’s outrageous! You know we don’t like our students to think. What’s your major?”

“Philosophy, sir.”

“That’s the problem,” the president declared. “Since you’re only a freshman, and probably don’t know better, I’ll be lenient. You are sentenced to a day of writing graffiti on the university’s bathroom walls.” He paused a moment, then snapped, “And don’t let me catch you writing anything intelligent on those walls!”

Later that afternoon, the president met with his staff.

“This isn’t going to work,” said the dejected president. “We can’t catch every practicing scholar on campus. They’re just snickering at our rules. If we can’t stop education, then we won’t be able to raise our enrollment and get performance bonuses.”

That’s when Winslow, a newly-appointed deputy assistant dean spoke up. “Perhaps we need to look elsewhere for our inspiration. What is it that almost every college but ours has?” He didn’t wait for a response when he declared the college needed fraternities and sororities.

“How do we know the students will even want to participate?” asked the president. “Most of our students have no desire to participate in a system that humiliates them, strips them of their individuality, and causes them to walk six abreast down a narrow street while singing off-key.”

Perhaps,” suggested the deputy assistant dean, “we can tap our reserve fund and build a couple of fraternity houses, maybe a sorority house or two.”

“Will that guarantee we’ll get more common students to raise the enrollment?”

“If you build it, they will party,” said the deputy assistant dean.

“Winslow may have a bright idea here,” said the president, who immediately promoted him to vice-president of academics and parties.

“I’m confident we can reach an agreement acceptable to all parties,” the president told reporters in the Rose Garden. He went on to say that while he was willing to bend over backwards to find common ground with the Panamanians, he was unwilling to consider a deal that did not include at least some parts of New Jersey.

Privately, the president acknowledged that the likelihood of significant resistance from firmly entrenched special interests (such as homeowners) could complicate or even potentially derail the delicate negotiations. But he hastened to remind disgruntled New Yorkers that failure to reach an agreement acceptable to all parties could result in a crippling domestic shortage of tapioca and cheap baby clothes.

“That’s not a risk our country can afford to take,” the president declared.

Seeking to quell rumors of widespread fear among the Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that an invasion of “Spaniards” was imminent, Obama offered some reassurances to that community, as well as to all Pennsylvanians.

“When it comes to drawing new territorial boundaries as part of a larger treaty of friendship with Panama, I can assure the American People that I have no plans to cross the Delaware, at least not in the foreseeable future.”

In a related story, curriculum advisors at Penn State campuses across the Keystone State report a sudden and substantial spike in late enrollment for the university’s 1st year Spanish Language courses.

Later in the day, President Obama visited the United States Mint in Philadelphia, where he reportedly cut a deal with a nine-year-old boy who showed up outside the building with nineteen dump trucks full of nickels. Pulling a roll of nickels from one of his pockets and a roll of dimes from the other, the president shared details of what he described as “an historic opportunity to set our country’s fiscal house in order.”

“This young man approached us and offered to trade 900 billion of these big shiny coins straight across for 900 billion of these little ones,” said the president. “But after several rounds of grueling negotiations, we were able to reach agreement on a far more comprehensive and equitable exchange – namely, three of our dimes for every two of his nickels. And while I’m sure that certain aspects of this agreement will set off a whole new round of grumbling and grousing on the part of our progressive friends on the Left, it is, nonetheless, the right thing to do.”

The president’s plans for the rest of the week reportedly include launching a nationwide search for a left-handed monkey wrench, writing blank checks to unidentified Nigerian diamond merchants, purchasing the Brooklyn Bridge from a homeless man in Times Square, and going on a snipe hunt in Outer Slobbovia with Billy Shears and D.B. Cooper.

The fact is, Congressman Walsh knows what it means to make hard choices. Like when he chose to make it possible for several struggling campaign staffers to keep their jobs by loaning his own re-election committee $35,000, instead of wasting three times that much on unproductive handouts to a bunch of unemployed kids who would undoubtedly do well to learn to stand on their own two feet.

Yes, Joe Walsh and his Tea Party friends believe that if we could just get the federal government to adopt old-fashioned common sense and family values, we could restore this country to its former greatness. Needless to say, it is a proposition with which I whole-heartedly agree. But I would go further. I would argue that if we are truly serious about taking on the challenges of the 21st century, we need to do something much more radical; we must identify and isolate the values that have proven so successful in the market place of unfettered capitalism, and incorporate them in the way we run our own families. If the Republican Party’s free-market business model works as flawlessly as it does in government (and I think we can all agree that it does), why wouldn’t it succeed even more dramatically in the home?

It was in search of an answer to this very question that I set out, forty years ago, to pioneer the concept of the “free-enterprise family.” As a second-year business major at my local state university, I had just read both of Ayn Rand’s novels. In short, I was primed and ready to go. I could hardly wait to get started on my “Great Experiment.”

On the day of my wedding, I named myself CEO of the newly formed “Me Corporation” (MeCorp) and immediately sold 49% of the stock to my wife. Throughout the following three decades, as each of my 27 children were born, they were automatically assigned by me to positions of responsibility within the business, based solely on my assessment of their potential abilities. And rather than have any of them do as I had done — that is, forfeit eighteen or more productive years of employment by foolishly attending school — I chose vocational home schooling for them all: plumbing, appliance repair, auto mechanics, roofing, you know, hands on kinda stuff. And so that each of them could learn the various ins and outs of their chosen trades (chosen by me, I mean), I worked out “special deals” with local contractors to take the kids on as unofficial trainees (at a fraction of minimum wage). These “stipends” were forwarded directly to me, of course, in order to defray the cost of the children’s vocational home school tuition.

Since none of my children ever actually learned to read, I made it a point of starting every morning (or should I say the beginning of each shift) with a “daily reading” or as we sometimes referred to it “the News.” These “News” stories were either fabricated by me the night before, or were based on lurid nightmares culled directly from my dream journal. Liberally laced with fear, shame, greed, and repressed sexuality, they were designed primarily to motivate the various members of my family/workforce to perform their assigned tasks.

Most everyone’s favorite story was one called The Jamestown Welfare State. It was about a disorganized bunch of 17th Century European socialists who crossed the Atlantic in search of an indolent life in a leftist commune, but instead ran out of food and were forced to resort to mayhem, murder, and cannibalism. Then the free-enterprising John Smith showed up and told them all that if they didn’t work, they wouldn’t eat. They straightened right up after that, at least until Smith got seriously burned in a munitions explosion and had to leave the colony on a stretcher. As soon as his boat sailed away, everybody pretty much went back to their old mayhem, murder, and cannibalism routine. A few years later, these lazy (but dangerous) cannibals began referring to themselves as “the Democratic Party.”

(OK, maybe I simplified American history a bit so that the kids would understand it, but I never actually lied to them.)

But enough of that. The question you’re really dying to ask is: how did the cash flow operate within the business of our family? First off, there was no such thing as a minimum wage. In exchange for the completion of a given task, each child earned a certain number of points, which could, in turn, be redeemed for food, firewood, and other luxuries available at a commissary operated by my wife out of our garage. Secondly, the children were invariably encouraged to compete against each other for available jobs around the house, thus ensuring that wages tended to stay conveniently low. Thirdly, when meals were brought to the table, each child was required to submit a sealed bid for it. The highest bidder then paid my wife and me for all the food, ate whatever portion he or she desired, then auctioned off the remaining food to the next highest bidder. This process was fairly efficient, although the price of food tended to rise even as its temperature plummeted. All in all, MeCorp continued to thrive. Why? What is it about unfettered free-market capitalism that makes it so much more efficient and profitable than dictatorship?

The answer, of course, is simple: In a dictatorship, people are brutally forced at gunpoint to do things they know they don’t want to do, whereas under free-market capitalism, people are painstakingly hoodwinked, tempted, and frightened into vociferously demanding whatever is manifestly against their own interests. Let me offer an example of how this remarkable phenomenon operated under my regime as CEO of MeCorp.

There once stood in our backyard a stately old elm tree, at least 100 years old. Yes, it provided a bit of beneficial shade for the children’s compound in summer, and it was green and pretty and all that, and it supported a tire-swing on which each of my 27 children loved to play for hours on end. But it blocked my view of the pool owned by the beautiful lesbians living in the house behind me, so I decided to have it cut down.

Now if I had been a third-world dictator, I might perhaps have horse-whipped a dozen or so of my grumbling children into the backyard armed with paring knives, and stood over them menacingly as they chipped and scraped away at the tree for weeks (or even months) on end, soaking the ground the whole time with their bitter, angry tears. And eventually I would have achieved my goal, albeit with an unreasonable expenditure of my own precious time and resources.

But being instead a resourceful free-market capitalist, I hit on a more subtle and infinitely more profitable solution to the problem.

The first step in my plan was to call the children together in the exercise yard and inform them of the alarming spread of a new and virulent form of Dutch Elm Disease, one that kills healthy trees within hours of their becoming infected. I cited hundreds of recent cases of such infected trees suddenly collapsing and crushing to death the innocent children who played beneath them. The death toll in our neighborhood alone was said to be in the hundreds of thousands. In order to prevent such a tragedy from befalling us, I told them, we had to work fast.

I further informed my children that the only known cure for Dutch Elm Disease was to drive copper nails through the bark and into the wood. Accordingly, I had them empty their piggy banks of all pre-1983 pennies, melt them down into liquid copper, and pour it into nail molds. They then began furiously pounding the nails into the doomed tree in an ironically futile effort to save it.

When the tree inevitably began to die some weeks later, I told my crestfallen kids that they were to blame; they should have started earlier and worked harder. Unfortunately, I now informed them, our only recourse was to completely remove the tree before it claimed one or more of their lives.

Scouring the neighborhood yard sales that weekend, I was able to pick up a half-dozen or so rusty and decrepit chainsaws with which to arm the children before sending them high up into the branches of the dead and rapidly decaying elm tree. I must say, it was gratifying indeed to witness the healthy competition that developed between the children as they worked to cut as much firewood as quickly as possible. In fact, some of the younger kids proved surprisingly adept at rapidly cutting off small limbs — the tree’s as well as their own. All in all, the loss of life was no more than you would have expected in an operation this size — one death from injuries sustained in a fall, two partial decapitations, and one fatal abdominal wound caused by flying copper nail fragments. On the positive side of the ledger, we ended up with over nine cords of wood, which the kids were able to sell for a grand total of $3,200 — enough to pay their room and board for the entire month! And since I generously allowed the surviving children to divvy up the unclaimed shares earned by their less fortunate siblings, they were able to cover the increased health insurance premium costs I was forced to pass along to them once they had been relegated to the “high-risk” pool common to all amateur lumberjacks.

Yet in spite of our family’s uniquely American success story, there remains, to this day, one glaring “fly in the ointment”; namely, my 87-year-old mother (whose Social Security check barely covers her grocery bill at Petco). Not only has she steadfastly refused to help her toddler grandchildren stack cordwood, she continues to insist on poisoning our domestic corporate culture with her own brand of FDR socialism, replete with cockamamie ideas about food inspections, occupational safety, and child labor. Well, frankly, I’m fed up with her relentless attempts to impose burdensome governmental regulations on this family. So I’ve decided to institute what I call the Grover Norquist Solution. My wife and I put a stop to her filching drinking water from the garden hose, made the tool shed where she sleeps a little less comfortable by taking away the smudge pot she uses to heat it, and even cut her feed corn rations in half. Eventually, once she becomes too feeble to resist, we plan to drag her into the bathroom and drown her in the bathtub.

After all, what’s good enough for my country is good enough for my family, right?

I walked straight ahead, looking neither right nor left in a darkened alley illuminated by a half-moon.

“Pssst.”

I quickened my pace, but there was no avoiding the shadowy figure.

“Ain’t gonna harm ya. Jus’ wanna sell ya somethin’.”

I hesitated, shaking. Stepping in front of me, he shoved a hotdog under my nose. “Ten bucks each,” he whispered ominously through his throat.

“Ten bucks?!” I asked, astonished at the cost.

“You want it or not?”

With Michele Obama (who chose to attack obesity rather than poverty, worker exploitation, or even hunger and malnutrition), supported by publicity-hungry legislators, hotdogs were the latest feel-good food to come under assault. A medical association whose members are vegans had spent $2,750 to place a billboard message near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The picture showed four grilled hot dogs sticking out of a cigarette box that had a skull and crossbones symbol on its face. An oversized label next to the box informed motorists and fans of the upcoming Brickyard 400, “Warning: Hot dogs can wreck your health.” The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine claimed that just one hot dog eaten daily increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent.

The Committee isn’t the only one destroying Americans’ rights to eat junk food. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which seems to come up with a new toxic food every year, once declared theatre popcorn unhealthy. Many schools banned soda machines. Back in 2011, McDonald’s reduced the number of french fries in its Happy Meal and substituted a half-order of some abomination known as apples. Even cigarette company executives, trying to look professorial at a Congressional hearing, once said that smoking cigarettes wasn’t any worse than eating Twinkies. However, smoking a Twinkie could cause heart and lung diseases, cancer, and diabetes.

Nevertheless, in Michele Obama’s second term as First Anti-Fat Lady, I was desperate for my daily fix of hot dogs, and my would-be supplier knew it. I leaped at my stalking shadowy figure with the miracle junk.

“Not so fast!” he growled, pulling the hotdog away. “Let’s see your bread.”

“I don’t have any bread,” I pleaded. “Not since a zoologist at Penn concluded that hummingbirds that ate two loaves of bread a day got constipation.”

“Not that bread, turkey! Bread! Lettuce!”

“I haven’t eaten lettuce in three years since the government banned it for having too many pesticides, and the heads that remained were eaten by pests.”

The man closed his trench coat and began to leave.

“Wait!” I pleaded, digging into my pockets. “I’ve got change.”

He laughed, contemptuously. “That’s not even coffee money.”

“I don’t drink coffee,” I mumbled. “Not since the government arrested Juan Valdez and his donkey for being unhealthy influences on impressionable minds.”

I grabbed for his supply of hotdogs, each disguised in a plain brown wrapper, each more valuable than a banned rap record. He again pulled them away.

“I ain’t no Salvation Army. You want ’dogs, you pay for ’dogs. I got thousands who will.”

“I need a fix. You can’t let me die out here on the streets.”

“If it was just me, I’d do it. But there’s the boys. They keep the records. If I give you a ’dog and bun, and don’t get no money, they’ll break two of my favorite fingers. I don’t cross nobody. And I don’t give it away.”

“Please,” I begged. “I need a ’dog. It’s all I have left to live for. I don’t care about colorectal cancer. Without hotdogs, my life is over. You can’t let me die out here on the streets.” He shrugged, and so I suddenly got bold. “Give me a ’dog,” I demanded, “or I’ll tell everyone you have the stuff. You won’t be able to meet the demand. The masses will tear you apart like a plump frank.”

“You wouldn’t do that to a guy just trying to make a buck, would you?”

“Two ’dogs with mustard and onions, and I keep my mouth shut. No ’dogs and I scream like a fire engine.” He had no choice.

Walking away, he stopped, turned back, and called after me—“Tomorrow. This corner. This time. Two ’dogs. Twenty bucks. I’ll see you every night.”

I didn’t reply. He knew he had me.

The first order of business after the passage of the CEA will be to close all of the existing “liberal arts” colleges in the country. As Senator Boner pointed out, the whole concept of “liberal” is passé, and “art” has nothing to do with good job performance. Instead, the CEA will ensure that all education is geared towards employment with America’s leading corporations, and graduates will have been properly trained and groomed to serve these corporate interests. He chuckled at the thought that “liberal arts” ever had the backing of any patriotic citizens.

The government is determined to set priorities for corporate involvement in educating America’s students: Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop and other major military contractors will, of course, have the first shot at the top students, teaching courses that will assist them in weapons development and military research. There will be a strong emphasis on science and mathematics, and courses of questionable utility, such as English, literature, history, philosophy and education, will be placed on a back burner.

The next range of businesses to receive students, after the military contractors, and their assistants at the Pentagon, will be the Wall Street financiers. Their particular expertise, at teaching students how to squeeze the maximum profits out of American citizens without actually producing anything of value, is seen as a specialized form of economics, and one necessitating Wall Street’s leadership. Of course, hedge fund brokers, mortgage speculators and other financial advisors will work closely with corporations such as Goldman Sachs to ensure that every aspect of U.S. business will receive their quota of graduating students.

After the corporations mentioned above, the next in line will be the insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies, and other institutions that have made a profit during the last 6 years in the face of America’s failing economy. It was felt that anyone who could make a profit in the current political environment deserved unlimited support.

The CEA was drafted so as to provide public funding for the education that students will receive in order to work for the corporations that will run the academic senates of the universities. After all, private corporations should not be burdened with the need to pay for the education of students who will work for them in later life. Since an educated work force is a prerequisite to the success of any corporation, it is obvious that the public should bear the burden of making sure the CEA functions efficiently.

Democratic leaders explained that several concerns will be met through passage of the CEA: It will get rid of those students who cannot compete in the corporate environment, and will therefore likely become a financial burden on the society. Scholarships will also be unnecessary, since students will be assured jobs at the corporations that sponsored and educated them, and the initial costs of their education will be borne by the public. Finally, by making sure that all future graduates will be assured employment with one of the corporations that run the system, the public will save billions of dollars by not having to educate worthless, stupid youth, who can’t compete in the corporate world.

Because most children don’t know what they want to be when they grow up, and certainly, under the older system, had no idea where they would find employment, the Congress determined that it was a waste of time and money to teach such children until they were older, and had a better sense of direction. By obviating the need for special education, scholarship programs, or “affirmative action,” the Congress was able to drastically lower the amount of funds and resources needed for what used to constitute widespread, wasteful education.

The teaching workforce will also be affected positively. Since the corporations and businesses who will train and educate the students are in the best position to know what courses and curriculum will best suit their needs, the kind of wasted efforts on language skills, history, philosophy and other abstract, impractical classes that characterized the old university systems, can be modified to delete such unwarranted “luxuries.”

Another positive impact that the CEA will have is to end those pesky teacher’s unions, and support systems that existed under the old educational system. Since the targeted corporations will determine teachers and curriculum, most teachers will already be covered by corporate employment contracts, and therefore no other superfluous union-type of structure will be necessary, or desirable.

When Hillary Clinton heard of the CEA, she was extremely pleased, and promised to bring the same formula to the State Department, as a means of streamlining the educational system, and getting rid of the “dead weight” that existed pre-Obama.

He begged the Republicans not to demand that he give up one of his daughters for adoption, because he recognized that he simply wouldn’t know which one to abandon, and which to keep within his family. He also knew that he wouldn’t be able to explain his choice to Michelle.

At first, Obama thought that his problem was a physical, rather than a psychological one, and sought the advice of the White House osteopath. But that expert opined that it was not a case of a weakened backbone, or spinal disintegration, but rather was more akin to an addiction or mental health issue. The White House psychiatrist explained that Obama did not have the willpower to say no to any neo-conservative Republican, and felt an overpowering need to please him/her regardless of the consequences.

Obama pointed to recent examples of other African-Americans who suffered from the same syndrome: Condoleeza Rice, Clarence Thomas, and Colin Powell immediately came to mind. He explained that he has such respect for these leaders that he felt an obligation to serve the same servile role as they had, and to follow in their obsequious footsteps.

When asked whether he felt that his premature abandonment of Shirley Sherrod or Van Jones was a manifestation of his inability to say no to right-wing demands, the President became a bit self-righteous and explained that firing these staff members was totally consistent with his sense of what White House aides should look like. He pointed out how different they were from the other White House advisors that Obama remained loyal to: Rahm Immanuel, Ben Bernanke, Hillary Clinton, to name just a few.

Having caved in to the Republicans on medicare, social security, public education, abortion, war, Wall Street, and health care, Obama felt the time had come for remedial action. He either wanted to get a better grasp on why he felt the need to compromise endlessly with the Tea Baggers, or alternatively to reconcile his feelings of guilt about it and simply join the other side.

When asked how it would take to treat his condition, he estimated that he would get a handle on it sometime after the 2012 Presidential election. He asked for understanding and patience from voting age Democrats, and urged the Republicans to support him as a result of his ongoing endorsement of everything they asked for.

But, now and then, it’s hard to find an assortment of adrenaline-enhanced stories. And so it was that WOW-TV’s panicked station manager met with his news director late one afternoon to go over the final line-up for the 6 O’clock news, which, with few variants would be the same news the station would run in its “expanded news coverage” shows over the next 24 hours. The station manager wasn’t happy.

“What do you mean leading off the news with a report that some jokers at the Public Health Service found the cure for AIDS? Weren’t there any accidents? Fires? Murders!”

“Sorry, Boss, there’s nothing out there.”

“NOTHING?! ‘Nothing’ as in ‘no accidents,’ or ‘nothing’ as in ‘You’re about to get a job at Kwik-E-Mart’?!”

“Boss, we really tried. I have five camera crews running around right now.”

“Think you can get two of them to run into each other? We’d pay the hospital bills.”

“Boss, don’t you remember? The union made us agree to a six-month moratorium on stories that involve us maiming our crews just for the sake of ratings?”

“Some union,” the station manager huffed. “Doesn’t even want its members to get more air time.”

“It’s only for six months,” said the news director. “After that, maybe we could cut the brake linings on Unit 3 and have Unit 4 cover it. But for right now, the news scanner is dead.”

“What happened to that fatality on Honeysuckle?”

“By the time we scrambled the chopper, the drivers had exchanged insurance numbers and left.”

“Left!?” thundered the station manager. “No one leaves when there’s a camera crew on the way!”

“Best we could figure out, it was just a few paint scratches.”

“Any of the cars red? If you got there faster, it might have looked like blood. Check the cops again. They might be covering up something.”

“Sorry, Boss. Even Philly’s not reporting any murders in the past 24 hours.”

“Then go out and shoot someone!” the station manager demanded.

“Sorry, Boss, I can’t do that.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said the station manager. “Tell Susie Sweetwater to do it. Her ratings are down. This should help.”

“Susie’s in the middle of her reading class right now, and you know how she hates to be disturbed when she’s learning new words.”

“Then Heartthrob! Audiences salivate whenever he’s on. The public would back him even if he had assault weapons and made welsh rarebit out of the Easter Bunny.”

“It’s an hour until air,” the news director reminded the station manager. “Hearthrob’s already in Makeup. They’re darkening his hair tonight.”

“Celebrities!” shouted the station manager. “Audiences love train wrecks, and celebrities do it better than anyone! Find me Lindsay Lohan!”

“We have two crews on her now,” said the news director, “but all she’s doing is drinking and partying. Besides, we’ve done that story five times this month.”

“What about the Jersey Shore morons.”

“They’re currently destroying what’s left of the Roman civilization, and we can’t afford to send a crew.”

“Get me a fire! Forest. Trailer. Stove. I don’t care!” the station manager demanded, smashing his coffee mug against his desk, and cutting his wrist. “BLOOD!” he shouted. “We have blood!”

“It’s only a scratch,” said the news director.

“It’s blood! And it’s good for a grabber. Grab a producer. Come in with an extreme close-up full-frame, and then pull back to a medium shot. Dissolve to some of the footage of the Vancouver fans rioting when their team lost the Stanley Cup. Here’s your lead: Violence in Canada leads to blood-letting in America.” He paused a moment. “Make sure you run teasers on this every five minutes.”