“I just hope each and every one of my loyal helpers manages to land on his or her financial feet,” offered the distraught and visibly shaken elder Claus, CEO and – until recently – managing stockholder of the firm. “I know this was as much a shock to them as it was to me.” Some three hundred elves are expected to lose their jobs as a result of the acquisition, which could send the unemployment rate in the sparsely-populated North Pole region soaring as high as 93%.

According to company executives, the future of CII’s charitable wing – The Claus Foundation – remains uncertain. When contacted by reporters following Tuesday’s announcement, X. Claus declined to specify what plans, if any, he had for the philanthropic enterprise. He was, however, willing to share a few tantalizing details in an exclusive interview granted to the Wall Street Journal’s Pamela Pabulum:

WSJ: Mr. Claus, thank you for agreeing to talk to us.

X. Claus: My pleasure.

WSJ: First of all, I’m sure our readers would love to hear your expert assessment regarding any fatal flaws in your uncle’s business model which may have led to the kind of long term stock devaluation the company has undergone in recent centuries. What can you tell us about that?

X. Claus: Well, it’s not really a mystery, is it? I mean, you run a giveaway program that rewards every kid in the world for simply being “good”, and what do you expect? I don’t even know how to quantify “good”, do you? It’s too vague a term to be of any use in business, and it’s certainly no basis for a corporate strategy. In my opinion it’s SOCIALISM writ large, pure and simple, and it has no place in a free country like ours.

WSJ: So it’s safe to say you’re not planning to continue producing toys?

X. Claus: Look, here’s the bottom line. We’ve issued urgent instructions to all middle management at Claus Industries to redirect the company’s resources away from the non-profit manufacture of toys and into the highly lucrative and growth-oriented health insurance and pharmaceutical sector of the economy. Accordingly, we’ve changed our name to “ClausCare Inc.”

WSJ: Sounds ambitious.

X. Claus: Pamela, we’re all about the future here at ClausCare.

WSJ: So I guess the children of the world won’t be getting any free goodies in their stockings this year.

X. Claus: Regrettably, no. But I am proud to announce that as an introductory promotion this coming Holiday Season, our marketing department plans to provide enough free lumps of coal to fill every child’s stocking up to the brim. Clean Coal. From the Cheney Family Strip mines in Hell Hole, Wyoming.

WSJ: I’m sure the children will be thrilled.

X. Claus: I hope so. We’re all really tickled about it here at ClausCare, I can tell you. And since it looks like Congress is going to pass a Health Care Reform Bill that requires some 40 million new customers to buy health insurance from private industry without recourse to some blood-thirsty totalitarian government plan involving Nazi “Death Canneries” that grind up old people and turn them into dog food, you can be sure we’ll be coming around to every house on Christmas Eve to sign up all 40 million of you new customers to vastly improved health care contracts. And don’t worry; You’ll be entitled to the sort of comprehensive coverage and up-to-date medical care envisioned by Our Founding Fathers back in 1776. That means free mercury-oxide for all, and no deductibles on leeches.

WSJ: Sounds great. By the way, what does the initial “X” in your name stand for?

X. Claus: It’s a nom de guerre, really. A nickname I picked up at Harvard Business School. It’s short for “Exclusionary.” You see, the guys in my fraternity just started calling me “Exclusionary Claus”, since my major in business school was insurance underwriting, and it just sort of stuck. In fact, my grad school professors got together and presented me with a special award for “Most Creative Writer of Exclusionary Clauses.”

WSJ: Can you give us some examples of your work in that department?

X. Claus: Sure. I was the driving creative force behind several industry favorites, including “Whereas the party of the first part, having failed to disclose his or her previously unforeseen medical condition…” And then of course there’s “In the event the insured fails to meet any of the extrinsic financial obligations imposed after the fact by the insurer in a timely manner…” And my personal favorite, “Under no circumstances shall a condition or complaint resulting from, or perceived as having resulted from, a nuclear conflict not directly attributable to the actions of the insurer result in…etc., etc.” That last one got me an honorable mention at the Health Care Expo in Las Vegas last year.

WSJ: Your Uncle Santa traditionally used helpers in his work, by which of course I mean his elves. I gather they’ll be considered redundant at ClausCare?

X. Claus: Unfortunately, yes.

WSJ: Will you be retraining any of those elves to perform jobs at ClausCare?

X. Claus: Well, there’s a bit of a problem there. You see, because Uncle Santa insisted on paying his employees a living wage for the past 1700 years or so, he had the luxury of skimming off the top of the elf gene pool. But because we here at ClausCare believe strongly that Freedom means “working for free”, we put a lot of advertising dollars into convincing working-class people to undermine their own best interests without expecting any compensation in return. This philosophy requires us, for obvious reasons, to dredge the bottom of that same gene pool as it were, to get at the deep sedimentary layer often referred to as “the salt of the earth.” What we recover by this process is a different class of helper: less mercurial and more leaden of mind; less cerebral, more visceral in nature. But suffice it to say these workers serve our purpose quite well. Because of their near total absence of annoying brain wave interference, the predigested talking points we provide them to recite at public meetings are retained in their pristine state, you know, right off the printed page, as it were…

WSJ: Are these creatures even elves?

X. Claus: Well, genetically speaking, we’re not exactly sure. We refer to them as “Oaves.”

WSJ: If I’m not mistaken, the Urban Dictionary defines “oaves” as the plural of “oaf.”

X. Claus: Hmmm…Interesting. That may be true, but for us it’s a useful acronym. It stands for “obtuse, agitated, vituperative, and educationally stunted.” But for all that, these oaves are worth their considerable weight in gold, and frankly, we couldn’t operate without them!

WSJ: Yeah, I’ve seen them on TV; they can suck the intellectual oxygen right out of a room.

X. Claus: Damn straight.

WSJ: So, everybody knows Santa used a magic sleigh pulled by flying reindeer to make his appointed rounds. How do you get your “oaves” from town hall to town hall?

X. Claus: Well, Pamela, now that, thankfully, we’re out of the toy business, we decided to scrap that old wreck of a sleigh and replace it with a fleet of brand new, state-of-the-art coal-burning buses.

WSJ: Your buses are powered by coal?

X. Claus: Not powered by coal, heated by coal. They’re actually pulled by invisible unicorns.

WSJ: Forgive me, but aren’t unicorns imaginary?

X. Claus: Of course, but our oaves don’t know that! One should never underestimate the power of credulity to change the world, let alone pull buses. Actually, we’ve told the oaves they can help the invisible unicorns by pushing with their feet, and we’ve cut holes in the floorboards to facilitate this. It’s sort of …ponderous I suppose, but trust me, if the buses moved any faster, the oaves would be confused by all the blurred scenery. This way they can all stick their heads out of the window, relax, and enjoy the ride.

WSJ: One last question, Mr. Claus. Will ClausCare’s corporate headquarters remain at their current location at the North Pole?

X. Claus: Well, the North Pole is, in some respects, an admirable location. It’s extremely remote and inaccessible by phone or even internet, which makes it ideal from the standpoint of avoiding inconvenient medical claims by our customers. But I’m afraid my doctor (and by my doctor I mean, of course, the entire Health Insurance Lobby) has expressed some concerns about the climate. He points out that the average daily high temperature there is a relatively balmy minus 30 degrees F. and growing warmer (not due to any man-made climate change, I should point out). His recommendation is that in order to avoid fatal cardiac thaw, I should move to the South Pole, where it is a full 20 degrees cooler on average.

And as retired Texas congressman Dick Armey likes to say, “The only heart-warming stories we in the insurance business enjoy telling involve hungry cannibals around a campfire.”

WSJ: Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Claus.

X. Claus: Not at all.

Abdominal bleeding, abdominal pain, abnormal or vivid dreams, abnormal thoughts, acne, aggressiveness, agitation, allergic reaction, altered taste, amnesia, anemia, anxiety, back pain, black stools, blindness, bloating and gas, blood clots, blood in urine, blurred vision, blushing, breast development in males, breast pain or enlargement, breast tenderness, breathing difficulties, bruise-like marks on the skin, cataracts, cerebral thrombosis, changeable emotions, changes in heartbeat, chest pain, chills, clammy skin, confusion, congestive heart failure, conjunctivitis (pinkeye), constipation, coughing, daytime drowsiness, decreased appetite, decreased inhibitions, decreased sex drive, depersonalization (unreal feeling), depressed mood, depression, diarrhea or loose stools, difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, difficulty with ejaculation, dizziness, double vision, dry eyes, dry mouth, emotional volatility (mood swings and/or extreme elation), exaggerated feeling of well-being, eye pain, fainting, fatigue, feeling “drugged” or light-headed, feeling faint upon arising from a sitting or lying position, feeling of illness, fever, flu symptoms, fluid retention, flushing, forgetfulness, frequent urination, gastrointestinal complaints, grandiose thoughts, hair loss, “hairy” tongue, hallucinations, hearing loss, hearing problems, heart attack, heartburn, hemorrhage or discharge, hemorrhoids, hepatitis, hiccups, high blood pressure, high pressure within the eye (glaucoma), hives, hot flushes, hypoglycemia, impaired concentration, impaired muscle formation, impotence, inability to sleep (insomnia), inability to stay seated, inappropriate and out-of-control behavior, increased appetite, increased salivation, increased sex drive, increased sweating, increased temperature, indigestion, inflamed nasal passages or nasal congestion, inflammation of the pancreas or stomach, inflammation of the penis, somnolence (sleepiness), intolerance to light, irregular heartbeat, itching, joint pains, kidney failure, lack of coordination, lack of need for sleep, lack of sensation, leg cramps, liver failure, liver or kidney inflammation, loss of appetite, loss of personality, low blood pressure, low blood pressure, male sexual dysfunction (primarily ejaculatory delay), manic or hippomanic states, memory loss, menstrual problems, migraine, movement problems, muscle cramps or weakness, muscle pain, muscle rigidity, nausea, need to urinate during the night, nervousness, no fear of danger, nose bleed, pain upon urination, pain, paranoia, peptic ulcers and bleeding peptic ulcers, prolonged bleeding time, prolonged erection, purplish spots on the skin, racing rapid mood shifts, rash, rectal hemorrhage, respiratory infection/lung problems, ringing ears (tinnitus), rolling eyes, seizure, sensations of high energy, sensitivity to light, sexual problems, shortness of breath, sinus inflammation, skin eruptions, skin peeling, sleep disruption sleepwalking, sore throat, sore tongue, speech problems, sputum increase, stiffness, stomach and intestinal inflammation, stomach or upper intestinal ulcer, swollen ankles, swollen eyelids, swollen face, swollen feet, swollen lymph nodes, swollen sex organs, swollen throat, swollen wrist, taste changes, thirst, thoughts of harming yourself, throbbing heartbeat, thrush, tingling or pins and needles, tooth grinding, tremor (shakiness), twitching, ulcer of gums, unusual risk-taking behavior, upper respiratory tract infection, urinary retention, vaginal inflammation, vertigo, voice loss (laryngitis), vision loss or changes, vomiting blood, vomiting, water retention, weakness, weight gain, weight loss, wheezing, yawning, yellow eyes and skin.

Should any or all of these side effects persist, or if some completely new ones show up, call your physician, your pharmaceutical company—and, in some cases, your plumber.

What they regard as Tao is not Tao, and what they consider as right is often wrong. [They] do not really understand Tao, but understand some of it. … They are able to worst others by argument, but do not convince people in their hearts, because they are just playing around with words. … [They get] lost in the bypaths.

– Chuang Tse

What’s all this nonsense about torture?

Now, I ain’t no Einstein, but it seems to me, if it makes us safer, it’s a no-brainer!

In fact, maybe what we gotta do is torture a whole lot more.

I’m not talkin’ about droppin’ bombs on people from Predator drones. That’s a kind of torture if you get your limbs blown off or a beam thru your skull. But, it ain’t personal enuf. It’s what you call “collateral damage.” What we gotta do is intentional damage—up close and personal.

And let’s not stop with the so-called “terr’ists.” Let’s not pussy-foot.

I think everyone can agree that child-molesters should be tortured, right? If they do that kind of stuff once, they’re probably gonna do it again. Just like the terr’ists! And it’s gotta be tortured outa them. We gotta be intentional. That also means we gotta figure out their intentions! So, if we water-board ‘em a coupla hundred times, maybe they’re gonna get the point, confess their sins—and tell us what they’re thinking, what they’re planning! We gotta clean out that hornet’s nest in their brains. Cut’em off at the pass. (Or before the pass, if you know what I mean.) Now if somebody’s contemplatin’ that kind of stuff, it’s too bad. I don’t care a rat’s ass if their daddy was mean to ‘em or their mama didn’t give them enuf cuddlin’. What’s right is right!

Then there’s the stem-cell research guys. (I’ll get to the abortion “doctors,” in a minute.) These research types (yeah, women, too!) don’t even give the little embryo a chance to grow, a chance to feel the warmth of mama’s womb. Suppose somebody had done that to them? Well, turnabout’s fair play I’m sayin’. I say we get into their bone marrow and do some jiggering. Inject them with something chemical that’s gonna make’em feel like jello on a hot griddle.

As for them “doctors” that do abortions—hell’s too good for ‘em. I say we put’em in a little crawl space, get these giant forceps–and we crush their skulls. Do unto others, and all that.

’N’other thing: crime’s gotten outa hand since 9/11. There was some break while the criminals was layin’ low, bein’ cowards and all, but they been comin’ back full force. So, let’s not shut down Guantanamo! Let’s build a whole shebang more all over the world, carve out niches of land in commie regimes like Castroland, send these misfit criminal types there and let the locals at’em. Send’em to central Asia. They know how to boil people in oil over there. They been doin’ it since Jesus was in Bethlehem.

“What else?” you ask. …You got all this garbage on TV now. You got “cartoons” with foul-mouthed characters. Whaddaya gonna do? You can’t whup Homer Simpson. You can’t get to’em cause they ain’t real, but you can get to the “creators”–if you know what I mean. You got this show called “American Idol,” too. They got this guy wearing black nail polish! What kinda message is that sendin’ to the kids? Well, I say we extract his fingernails one by one—just like the Nazis used to do! I say we learn’em good. And that Simon Cowl judge-guy is an arrogant S.O.B. We oughta put him on the rack, see how much “stretchin” his ego can take!

Let’s not forget our Congress, either. You got Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi. I hear there’s some stuff they do with electricity in sensitive parts (!) that oughta shut those traitors up. And as for that white-black, smiley guy who stole the election—I’d put him through some “changes” I would. If you know what I mean!

All those guys that sold this country down the drain—yeah, bankers and CEO’s. What are we bailin’ them out for? We oughta be bailin’ them in. Right in the sewer! Ain’t they done enuf already? Ain’t they hurt the people good enuf? I say we strapado them! Put’em in the Iron Maiden!

We gotta quit this pussy-footin’. We gotta make examples of these vermin. Give’em gladius and sword and trident and net and let’em fight to death in the football stadiums and on the baseball diamonds. And the ones that win—we’ll make them figh again until old age or disease or mortal wounds finish’em off. Then we’ll hang their corpses from the nearest bridge. We’ll pike their heads! And we’ll show the world: we mean business! We’ll show them how tough democracy can be!

I ain’t sayin’ it’s pleasant for the torturer, but there’s some people who don’t mind it so much. Good, salt-of-the-earth folks like Lindsay England, for example—gonna smile for the camera while they tie up the scumbags and put out their cigarettes in the scumbags’ flesh. And good, honest patriots like Mr. Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. They ain’t gonna flinch. They’re gonna do what they gotta do. (And if we gotta rape the bastards,humiliate them before their Muftis and Allah–there’s plenty of cops who know where to put their billy clubs!)

We gotta get less “sensitive” about these things if we’re gonna win this War on Terror! We can’t let these Mueslis win or we’re gonna be back in the Dark Ages! War is hell as General Sherman said–and he oughta know! We gotta get some kick-ass backbone if we’re gonna save our country from all the garbage out there. Cause some things are worth savin’ and doin’ everything you gotta do to save’em. Some things ya just gotta do whether you like it or not. But there’s some people don’t mind it so much and we oughta use their talents!

It has been especially difficult for Israel’s doves to reside in a state being accused by leftist fanatics and furtive anti-Semites of such a horrible thing. That’s why I always take a moment to keep the true victims of Israel’s aggression in my thoughts. It’s not only the right thing to do; it’s the civilized perspective, the type of moral reckoning that matters. Such a terrible fate as the liberal Israelis’ should be illegal. Yet so-called human rights groups, with their tendentious prejudices, continue to bombard them with facts implicating their supposedly ugly behavior.

The testimonials of my liberal protectors break my unevolved Palestinian heart. In The Nation, always impressive for its proper sensitivity, Naomi Chazan declares, “These are bleak days for progressive Israelis.” And no wonder: the horrors in Gaza are clear in Israel “where bravado and intolerance threaten to eat away at the country’s democratic core and consume its internal moral compass.” Chazan is a woman who knows not to let silly things like ethnic cleansing detract from the need to save Israel from its occasional failure to light up other nations with inspiration instead of bombs and white phosphorous.

David Grossman is even more eloquent. He points out, “We cannot pardon the Palestinians or treat them forgivingly, as if it were obvious that whenever they feel put upon, violence will always be their sole response, the one they embrace almost automatically.” It’s clear why Grossman is a leading novelist and heir to Amos Oz’s dovish brilliance: he reminds us that we cannot forget that the Palestinians merely feel put upon (it’s not only the Crescent that’s fertile). His readers will understand that surely the Palestinians are mistaken, given as we are to uncouth hyperbole and fits of irrational violence. I must admit that Grossman is correct: I frequently complain, feel angry even, when I see Israel doing something loathsome. I remind myself that I shouldn’t merely focus on images of dead Palestinian babies—their skin peeled back from petrified faces, their organs spattered onto bloody asphalt—but I should also spare sympathy for my troubled Israeli friends.

I know it must be terribly difficult supporting an ethnonationalist state that wantonly slaughters little brown civilians. I know that it is excruciating to have democratic ideals disrupted by ungrateful natives. And I know how tough it must be to witness the death of other people’s children.

In respect for troubled Israeli liberals, then, I would like to forget about the Palestinians and focus on them instead. I may be able to help them solve their dreadful quandary. I would suggest—humbly and respectfully, of course—that they emulate American liberals, who have perfected the art of dispossessing indigenous peoples while pretending to love them. There’s no need to antagonize the savages so crudely when you can displace them quietly and simultaneously appropriate all they hold sacred. Hummus was a good start. And tabbouli was a bold move, one that has been improbably successful. I know this is difficult for you to hear, but now you must quit emphasizing your own feelings and say that everything Israel does actually helps the Palestinians. It’s a great way to enhance your humanitarian credentials, without—get this—having to give up any of your entrenched authority.

In the meantime, I will continue to urge my Palestinian compatriots to do the right thing. We are not merely Israel’s enemies; we are in the way of progress, stubborn impediments to the dream of modernity. So let’s go ahead and drop this irrational emphasis of ours on freedom, dignity, self-determination, and survival, and instead start praying that Israel’s true peacemakers finally learn how to overcome the travails of their colonial privilege.

The fear is so great that state authorities estimate that last month 120,000 Arkansas churchgoers purchased handguns, rifles, automatic rifles and even used Soviet tanks and an aircraft carrier to protect themselves from crazed worshipers, who take the Bible injunction, “an eye for an eye,” literally. The FBI expects shootings in churches to rise 800 percent this year as unemployed executives fight for control of church coffers.

Currently Arkansas only excludes concealed weapons from churches and bars. Common wisdom in the state is: “Beware a man who owns one gun-he probably knows how to use it.” The average man in Arkansas owns 35 guns, a requirement of citizenship.

The National Center for Disease Control estimates that 30,000 deaths a year result from disputes over religious superiority. Under former President George Bush, Justice Department officials estimated that allowing concealed weapons in bars under a new Drunks Can’t Shoot Straight program, could cut yearly deaths from firearms in half.

Urged on by the Southern Baptist Church, Witness for the Dead Christ, the NRA and a plethora of Pentecostal denominations, voters flooded the state capital in Little Rock with petitions to allow concealed weapons during worship services. A political battle ensued-many legislators carry concealed weapons during debates in the state legislature, but no gunfire erupted during the session-and the Senate rejected imposing state authority over churches.

“Let’em make up their own minds if’en they want to carry guns in church,” said Robert E. Lee XIV, director of the Concealed Big Bore Association. Lee pointed out that 42 states in the U.S. allow churches to decide whether worshipers should carry firearms. “Churches don’t no longer cotton to none a them idears of layin’ down with no lambs,” Lee said. “Today we’re all preachin’ musclear Christianity. Member the Crusades!”

After defeating the bill by asserting freedom of churches to decide whether to arm worshipers, the National Rifle Association pledged support for church members who feel naked in church without their handguns. The NRA’s “Never Enough Guns” program, in conjunction with the Charlton Heston Dead White Guys Rule Foundation, provided free gift certificates for “a gun of your choice” to “white males over the age of 50.”

“People like them big guns and thar takin’em off the shelves fastern I can put’em up,” said Joe Joe Wiggins, owner of Joe’s Pool Hall, Beer Joint, Dance Hall and Used Gun Emporium in Mayhem, Arkansas. “They’re coming from all around here. We even fixed up the basement to look like a church so they can get’em some target practice.”

While there are almost no restrictions on firearms in Arkansas, ex-Nazis, skinheads, KKK-members and other Aryans with arrest records will receive “get out of jail free” cards provided by the NRA and the Pacific Foundation for Legal Fabrication. “We are honored that Mr. Heston can still fight for our freedom from the grave,” said Ray Gun Young, president.

The opposition defeated the measure because Southerners traditionally object to government forcing moral decisions on religious institutions. “Sometimes shootin’ someone is okay accordin’ to the church,” said Billy Wing Wright III, president of Southerners for the Old Rugged Cross.” The state cannot take away church control.”

Nevertheless, security remains an issue. Some churches are resorting to placing machine guns in strategic locations in case church members become unruly during services.

“A lot of them teenagers ain’t recognizin’ the authority of their church elders no more,” said Reverend Yahoo Johnny Johnson, minister of McDonald’s Airport Salvation Church in Halfwitt, Arkansas. “Why my flock is supportin’ the deacons, vice ministers and other faithful carrin’ guns to keep’em in line.”

The first decade of this new century has been a period of disaster, a time set for killing.

Tonight, with a smug shirk, I have asked for a final opportunity to share some indignities on the journey I have traveled as imperial president and the bleak future of our nation.

Five days from now, the world will witness the vitality of my departure. In a tradition dating back to our founding, the presidency will pass to a successor chosen by the rigged two-party system, the Corporate duopoly. Standing on the steps of the Capitol will be a man whose history reflects the depressing promise of Capitalism and my failed legacy.

This is a moment of declining employment and home evictions for our whole nation. And I join all neo-cons and neo-liberals in offering best wishes to President-elect Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their two beautiful girls. They will surely need it.

Tonight, I am filled with sadistic allegiance to Dick Cheney who stole the vice presidency and to members of the junta; to Laura, who brought joy to this house and love to my life; to our wonderful daughters, Barbara and Jenna; to my parents, whose examples have made me what I am over my lifetime.

And above all, I thank the U.S. sucker voters for the deluded trust you have given me. I thank you for the pretzels and shoes that have altered my spirits. And I thank you for the countless acts of sacrificing your loved ones, pensions, jobs and health care that I have witnessed these past eight years.

This evening, my thoughts return to the first night I addressed you from this house, September 11, 2001. That morning, terrorists which my incompetence allowed, took nearly 3,000 lives in the worst attack on U.S. soil since fellow citizen and well-trained veteran Timothy McVeigh blew up the Omaha federal building.

I remember standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center three days later, surrounded by rescuers who had been working around the clock. I remember talking to brave souls who charged through smoke-filled corridors at the Pentagon and to husbands and wives whose loved ones became heroes aboard Flight 93. These actions took the attention, responsibility and culpability away from me and my failed administration.

I remember Valerie Lucznikowska, the executive director of the Congress of International Modern Architects, whose nephew died in the Twin Towers collapse. Valerie said, “I believe that NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command] knew that the South Tower was going to be attacked before it went down…There were lots and lots of clues about the fact that the government had prior knowledge.” Oh, Valerie.

As the years passed, most propagandized U.S. television consuming addicts were able to return to their shopping life much as it had been before 9/11. But I never did. Every morning, I received a briefing on how to take away Constitutional rights, pass the PATRIOT Act, end the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, do away with civil liberties, and spy on you. And I vowed to do everything in my God-given authoritarian powers to undermine the Bill of Rights.

Over the past seven years, a new Department of Homeland Security has been created to protect the Father Land. The military, the intelligence community and the FBI have been transformed into agencies that the people fear. Our nation is equipped with new tools to monitor everybody’s movements, monitor your bathroom breaks, break up peace group meetings and their pesky demonstrations.

And with strong warmongers at our side, we have taken war to foreign lands where our natural resources reside under their grounds. Afghanistan has gone from a nation, where the Taliban whom we armed and supported threw out the Soviets, to being a young Capitalism that is the world’s largest opium producing nation.

Iraq has gone from a brutal dictatorship that we supported and supplied military weapons to, with a dictator we supported, to a crony democracy at the heart of oil country and a friend of me and my friends, the oil magnates.

There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions, but there can be little debate about the lies, deceit, death and destruction.

The United States has gone more than seven years without a false-flag attack on our soil. This is a tribute to those who toil day and night to stop me — people who watch me closely, law enforcement advocates who say I am not above the law, intelligence analysts I have exposed, Bill of Rights advocates and opposition personnel, and the men and women of the United States Veterans For Peace.

Our nation is blessed to have citizens who volunteer to defend the United States Constitution in this time of danger. I have cherished fighting these selfless patriots and their families. And the substantially diminished United States Constitution owes you a debt of gratitude.

And to all our men and women in uniform listening tonight, there has been no higher honor than not attending any funeral for your fallen comrades.

The battles waged by our troops are part of a broader struggle of two dramatically, but necessary, different systems. Under one, an empire spurred on by a rich and powerful band of fanatics demands total world hegemony, condemns women and children to be collateral damage and marks non-hegemonists for murder.

The other system is based on the conviction that United States’ exceptionalism is the universal gift of Almighty God and that free markets and Capitalism light the path to wealth accumulation.

This is the belief that gave birth to our nation. And in the long run, advancing this belief is the only practical way to make the rich richer and the powerful more powerful.

When people live in neo-liberalism, they do not willingly choose leaders who pursue wars. The Supreme Court does. When people have less citizen power, they will cede their lives to the non-compassion of the market place.

So around the world, the United States is promoting free markets, worker exploitation, structural adjustment, greed Capitalism and the indignity of stolen natural resources. We are standing with lackeys and young Capitalistocracies, providing aid and medicine to bring dying neo-liberal societies back to life, and sparing the owning class from further wealth deterioration and loss of profits. And this great republic, born alone in wiping out an indigenous population, embracing slavery and denying women the rights of citizenship, is leading the world toward a Nuage where the free market belongs to all nations.

For eight years, we have also strived to expand unemployment and home foreclosures here at home. Across our country, students are rising to meet corporate imposed testing standards in public schools and are being left behind. A new Medicare prescription drug benefit is bringing less peace of mind to seniors and the disabled. Every taxpayer pays lower income taxes as we print more paper money that is worth less and less.

The addicted and suffering are finding new hope through cults and other faith-based programs. Vulnerable human life is better bombed. Funding for our veterans has nearly doubled as the number of veterans has increased ten times. The country’s air, water and lands are being measurably drilled and exploited. And the federal bench includes crony neo-con members, like Justice Sam Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

When challenges to our prosperity emerged, we rose to reject free market principles. Facing the prospect of a financial collapse, we took socialism and socialist measures to safeguard our economy. These are very tough times for hardworking families, but the toll would be far worse if we had not acted. Unfortunately, socialism saves Capitalism.

All of us are in this together. And together, with sadness and much of your pain, we will attempt to reinstate our free market economy at all costs. We will show the world once again that the inherent self-contradictions of the “free enterprise” system that Karl Marx wrote about will always lead to its collapse. We have proved that.

Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks and there are things I would do differently, if given the chance. But to hell with that.

Yet, I’ve always acted with the best interests of Capitalism in mind. I have followed my Savior and done what I thought He told me. You may not agree with some tough decisions Jesus and I have made, but I hope you can agree that I was willing to do what He told me.

The decades ahead will bring more hard choices for our country, and there are many guiding authoritarian neo-liberal principles that should shape our course.

While our nation is not safer than it was before I stole the presidency, the gravest threat to our people remains in not having another illegitimate and war mongering administration. Our enemies are our inability to resolve conflicts without projecting power and we will be patient and determined to strike again, anywhere, anytime.

America did nothing to seek to prevent this conflict. But we have conjured up solemn responsibilities, and we must meet them. We must resist peace-making. We must keep our resolve. And we must never let down on our war making.

At the same time, we just continue to engage the world with failing confidence and a Geneva Convention-ignoring purpose. In the face of threats from our citizens, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning to the Bill of Rights. But we must reject criticism and its companion, dissent.

Retreating behind our Constitution would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on further eroding Constitutional rights. If the United States does not lead the cause of Capitalism, that cause will not be led.

As we address these challenges, and others we cannot foresee tonight, the United States must maintain its torture making capabilities and practice.

I have often spoken to you about good and evil, and this has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world and between the two, there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere, except when we do it.

Freeing people from oppression and despair by bombing them away is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for Capitalism and the free market. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of neo-liberalism.

President Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” As I leave the house he occupied two centuries ago, I share that optimism. I want you to forget about the crimes I have committed.

America is a young continent, actually two continents, full of vitality, constantly growing and renewing itself. And even in these tough times, much of its eyes move away from the United States to a broader horizon ahead.

I have confidence in the promise of America because I know the character of all its dozens of nations. And, they have black people there also. This is a continent that inspires immigrants to risk everything for the dream of escaping the grip of the North.

Ours is a nation where citizens show calm in times of my oppression and compassion in the face of the suffering I have caused. We see examples of the United States character all around us, and Laura and I have ignored protestors never allowing them to join us in the White House, not for a single evening.

We see the U.S. character in Bernard Madoff, a ponzi scheme principle, who opened a new charter program to wealth from the ruins of Hurricane Recession. We see it in Richard Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, a former profit-making company, as he made $14,415,914 in total compensation in 2007 according to the SEC. This is possible only in God’s country. We see it in the 1.8 million veterans and 50-million people who have no health care.

We see the U.S. character in our elderly who have to chose between paying for medicine and paying for heat. Their children delivered some surprising news. They cannot afford college, nor can they find a job. These brave souls now live with their parents.

These good old people are 60 years old, 18 years above the age limit for military service. But their petition for a waiver was granted because they had no other way to make ends meet. They enlisted in God’s army. Their children enlisted also. God bless them.

These people could not be here tonight, because they will soon deploy to Iraq, where they will help save Capitalism and uphold the legacy of my failed policies.

In citizens like these, we see the best of our country, resilient and hopeful, caring and strong. Semper fi! Boo-yah!. These virtues give me an unshakable faith in blind patriotism. You have faced my disasters and trials, and there is more ahead.

But with the courage of our people and confidence in our Constitution, defense of my diminishing this great document will never tire, never falter and never fail. You will never arrest and prosecute me and Dick Cheney as the Constitution demands.

It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve as misguided and un-elected president. There have been good jogging days and tough jogging days. But there have always been jogging (and chain saw brush-clearing) days. But every day, I have been inspired by my own greatness and been uplifted by the inaction of our people against me.

I have been installed to represent this nation we love. And I will always be honored to carry a title that means more to me than it ever will to any of you — CEO of the United States of America, Inc.

And so, my fellow citizens, for the final time, good night. May God continue His blessings on this house and our next president. He is going to need it following in my footsteps. And may the ultimate Poohbah In The Sky bless you and our wonderful country.

*G.W. Bush’s actual speech can be found here.

Although his image is well known, there is no official photograph on file with American border control, and he has never been fingerprinted or body-searched. Most disconcerting of all, he delivers parcels to children all over the world, including the children living in the Axis of Evil. His intentions with this activity are not understood beyond some fuzzy generalization about kindness and generosity to all. Clearly, here was the world’s largest unplugged pipeline to potential terrorists.

It was only after receiving no response to several urgent letters from the State Department requesting an immediate meeting in Washington that a decision was made to approach Santa’s North Pole solitude. As usual in such matters with the people now running America , a wing of America ’s most lethal killing machines was employed for the purpose. You never know what you might encounter in such a forbidding place.

As the planes first zoomed over the icy silence of the North Pole workshop, one of the pilots decided to swoop down for a closer look. He was one of those daring fly-boys, and his tail struck the only wire for thousands of miles around, the North Pole Telegraph, sending his plane hurling into the workshop in a ball of flames with tons of ammunition and missiles exploding.

Santa and Mrs. Claus rushed out of their snow-blanketed gingerbread house to see what was happening, trying to calm the terrified reindeer running from their stable at one end of the house. The elves, too, scurried towards the stable, trying to stop the reindeer from running or flying off.

Above, in the dark vault of sky, the other pilots observed the explosion and saw missile trails smoking into the air. They also saw the frantic activity below and quickly concluded their comrade had come under anti-aircraft attack. So they swooped down in attack formation, rapid-fire canon tearing into everything ahead of them.

Most of the reindeer fell in the snow, spurting warm blood across the bluish-white surface. Most of the elves, too, fell gasping for life. Mrs. Claus received a wound in the head and instantly fell limp. Santa tried heroically to reach his wife but realized the situation was hopeless and turned, running into the darkness accompanied by Prancer, the only surviving reindeer.

The only witness to the massacre is one surviving elf now living somewhere in Canada under an assumed identity, fearful for his life. It is only from his testimony that we know anything about Santa’s fate.

Realizing the horrific mistake they had made, the pilots dropped white phosphorus bombs with the intention of incinerating all evidence. The entire North Pole lit up and Santa and Prancer could be seen in the distance on a huge block of ice drifting off into the dark sea, the ice everywhere cracked and weakened by the combined effects of white phosphorus and years of global warming.

Within in a few hours, the beating sound of a black helicopter approached Santa and Prancer. The elf, from his hiding place in a snowdrift, could only make out intermittent sounds across the howling coldness, but it seems armed men emerged from the helicopter, shot Prancer and shackled Santa, shoving him into the dark, beating machine. The elf heard a word that sounded like Guantanamo and Santa has not been heard from since. Reports of his fate reached the International Red Cross and organizations like Amnesty International, leading to inquiries, but these have been met only with silence from American authorities.

Okay, so maybe St. Barack is a tad less progressive than we imagined but you have to admit he’s brilliant and eloquent and half-black. And c’mon, folks, he’s not even in office yet. Give the poor guy a chance. Once he’s in, we’ll hold his feet to the fire and make real progress. We’ll get permits to hold weekend protests (with none of those nasty anarchists invited) and we’ll give voice to the voiceless…in our designated free speech zones, of course. President Obama will hear us, I’m sure. He’ll prove there is a difference between the two parties. After all, you can’t tell me you didn’t shed a tear when you saw all those young people celebrating in the streets. The youth have spoken! The future has arrived! Bushism is dead!!! Let’s rejoice!!! Let’s sing along with Ani DiFranco’s amazing new song, “Yes We Can”!!!

In fact, I’m willing to go out on a limb right now and boldly predict that by the year 2011, the number of US combat troops in Iraq will have decreased by at least 10-15%. To those who want more, I ask: We can’t expect Obama to simply withdraw those brave, heroic, gallant, valiant, superhuman men and women in one shot, can we? No way, there’s no cut and run for America. (And remember: we wouldn’t be in this mess if that damn egotistical Ralph Nader hadn’t ruined everything in 2000. He shouldn’t be allowed to run. Make it illegal, I say.)

At least Obama is forming a strong centrist coalition. “A team of rivals,” they say. Some may nitpick and point out that every single appointee is a Washington retread who supported the war and could’ve just as easily been chosen by John McCain had he won, but Obama is clearly in charge and he’s brilliant. He makes the decisions, and he’s so articulate. He promised hope and change and, being that he’s so eloquent, I’m positive he will deliver. It would be negative, bitter, and cynical to think otherwise. In fact, anyone not thrilled with the historic election of a half-black man should not be allowed to breathe our precious oxygen. (Ain’t that right, Tim Wise?)

Looking ahead, we’ll have bumps in the road (like many years of recession, escalation of the war on Afghanistan and subsequent blowback, reinstitution of the military draft, drastic cuts in social programs, an ongoing policy of torture and extra-judicial trials, the use of US troops to quell dissent by US citizens on US soil, to name but a few) but I’m confident we’ll have the brilliant, inspirational Obama in office until 2016…followed by America’s first female president—Hillary Clinton—until 2024. Hooray!!!!! What a proud moment for the world’s greatest nation. Gender equality is ours!!! No more patriarchy!!!

Sure, those mean Republicans may steal an election or two. They may even stage one of those infamous false flag operations that a Democrat would never participate in. But we’ll prevail. We will prevail. Progressive values will never die and no slimy Republican or more-radical-than-thou nihilist can tell me different. I have faith. I have hope. I believe. I read The Nation and Z Magazine. I watch Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow. I leave comments at Daily Kos. I’m part of the solution, pal. If you’re not with me, you’re against me!!! This is change I can believe in!!! How about you?

As this century progresses, we’re bound to see the first Hispanic-American president, the first Asian-American president, the first indigenous-disabled-transgender-atheist-undocumented-communist president and who knows what other proud breakthroughs lie ahead for the land of the free and home of the brave? Maybe we’ll cut emissions by 2-3%, the minimum wage will rise by at least 25 cents, and being a loyal American consumer will be so much easier when that national ID card becomes mandatory.

What’s that you say? 10,000 gallons of gasoline are burned in the US every second? We’re losing 200,000 acres of rain forest every 24 hours? 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides are used by Americans each year? 100 plant or animal species go extinct each day? 81 tons of mercury are emitted into the atmosphere each year as a result of electric power generation? Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic? 13 million tons of toxic chemicals released across the globe each and every day? 70,000 new chemical compounds have been invented and dispersed into our environment since 1950? There will be no glaciers left in Glacier National Park by 2030? The Arctic region expected to have its first completely ice-free summer in 2040? Coastal glaciers in Greenland thinning by 3 feet per year? 90% of the large fish in the ocean are already gone? 80% of the world’s forest are already gone? Every two seconds, a human being starves to death and 29,158 children under the age of five die from preventable causes every single day?

Slow down, Mr. Negative. Don’t bum me out with your pessimistic stats and unconstructive attitude. You’re full of bad news but you never offer a solution. You have no plan. We have a plan—a plan that comes equipped with its own soaring oratory, a plan named Barack Obama. Besides, it’s always best to focus on the positive and not dwell in gloom and doom. How else can we maintain the hope we need to make a difference? How else can we each become the change we wish to see in the world? How else can we justify our Obama worship?

Sure, some things are a little messed up but I deeply sense in my heart of hearts that change will come. It will come slowly, but it will come!!! By the time we get to that all-important 2076 election, true radicals will finally be able to vote their conscious. At long last, we’ll have a president that the people (well, the few people that are still alive) can support without compromise. No more lesser evil. No more hold your nose and vote. Nope, stay tuned for 2076, folks. Democracy, peace, justice, and solidarity will be ours on America’s 300th birthday…and it all begins on January 20, 2009 with our very own brilliant, eloquent, half-black Pope of Hope!!!

I’ll see you in the future…

“We will try to convince Pakistan…to respect [the] sovereignty of the United States — and God willing, we will convince,” State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.¹

The controversy stems from the Pakistan Army’s recent decision, leaked in a prominent Pakistani newspaper, to mount intensifying air attacks and new ground assaults against extremists hiding in American safe havens across the ocean.

American papers reported that under the new policy, the Pakistani military will no longer seek America’s permission in killing Americans, but will inform American diplomats about these killings as a friendly gesture between close allies.²

Pakistan Army General Ashfaq Kayani told reporters outside Islamabad late last night that the new strategy was justified. “We are working to prevent more attacks on the Pakistani people,” he said.³

The general’s stance signified strong Pakistani dissatisfaction with America’s reluctance to crack down on religious fundamentalists and neoconservatives, who, experts note, have deep ties to American intelligence services and military leaders. The largely unchecked extremists, experts observe, have used America to bolster the agenda of their ideological counterparts across the ocean in Israel, and to strike directly against Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world.

“We have to strike them over there so that they cannot order strikes against us here at home,” General Kayani said, referring to American firepower that has terrorized hundreds of thousands of civilians on either side of the Pak-Afghan border and in the Middle East.

As Kayani spoke, new precision attacks and commando raids were being conducted against ranches in Texas, small towns in Alaska, the offices of AIPAC and energy-related lobbying firms in Washington, D.C. Commandos were also dispatched to America’s unruly federally-administered Bible Belt, where resentment of government authority runs high.

Several high-value targets were killed in the attacks. Local media outlets claimed 50 civilians were also killed, but these assertions could not be independently verified. Pakistani officials said they would send in their own team to investigate the claims, time permitting.

Seeking to assuage domestic concerns, American officials downplayed the actions of their staunch ally. “The nation should not be upset by the statement of Pakistani General Kayani,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in an official statement.⁴ “Pakistan respect U.S. sovereignty and looks at us as partners,” she added.⁵

Regimes allied to Pakistan, including those in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Palestine, expressed support for the new Pakistani strategy, citing the need to “remove and destroy” strongholds where key militants have masterminded attacks against their countries.⁶

Informed of this, Ambassador Patterson appeared unfazed, saying, “Pakistan respects American sovereignty.” She insisted that Pakistani officials provided her with assurances that “no such order had been given” for new rules of engagement.⁷ Finally, the ambassador explained, America had already carried out its own recent military offensive that left hundreds of rural Americans dead, relieving the need for further Pakistani intervention.

But in Islamabad, Pakistani corps commanders said their new strategy would see continued implementation in the coming weeks. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one commander said that as far as Pakistan was concerned, “most things have been settled in terms of how we’re going to proceed.”⁸

1. Quote actually taken from Pakistani PM Yousaf Gilani. Reuters, Sept. 12, 2008.
2. It was actually the Pakistan daily, Dawn, which reported on the U.S. policy shift as follows: “Under this new policy, the US military will notify Pakistan’s government when it conducts raids, but will not seek its permission.” Sept. 12, 2008. Except for note 2, all the quoted statements are real quotes; only the roles have been switched.
3. Quote actually taken from US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. Dawn (Pakistan Daily), Sept. 12, 2008.
4. Quote actually taken from PM Gilani. (Source: note 3)
5. Quote actually taken from Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani. (Source: note 3)/footnote>

   U.S. officials also insisted no secret deal had been reached beforehand allowing Pakistanis to strike inside American territory. “Media reports about authorization for Pakistani raids into the U.S. are incorrect,” the American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, told Fox News last night. She added that the South Asian country had “no aggressive designs or postures” toward America.Quotes actually taken from Ambassador Haqqani. (Source: note 3)

6. Quote actually taken from U.S. ally and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Washington Post, Sept. 12, 2008.
7. Quotes actually taken from Ambassador Haqqani. (Source: note 7)
8. Quote actually taken from anonymous U.S. official. (Source: note 7)

Clearly, socialistic schemes like this are a direct threat to the American way of life, for who else but an anti-democratic, manipulative low-life like Chávez would give people something for nothing just because it’s, like, the right thing to do? Please! Everyone in a free country, or America even, knows people improve their lousy little lives only when they start taking personal responsibility seriously. If Costa Ricans want better eyesight, then instead of lazin’ around under pineapple trees all day long they oughtta go to medical school and learn how to operate on their own damn selves. When I get a splinter you think I whine and say: “Oh, please, please, please, Mr. Dictator, fly me to your decrepit little country and take my sliver out, free of charge?” NO! I go to the country club and ask one of my doctor friends there to remove it, just like everyone else.

The article again: “Under (the program), Venezuelan doctors travel to Costa Rica to examine (Costa Ricans) with eye trouble. Patients with cataracts or pterygium — a benign growth on the eye — qualify for a trip to Venezuela.” An opthamologist explains that “cataracts and pterygium are common in Costa Rica, in part because of the strong sun.”

This is exactly my point about taking charge of one’s own life. Hey, Einstein-itos, here’s a thought: Stay outta el sol! Didja ever think about only going out at night? Or working graveyard? Or working period? Just like I would do if, you know, mummy hadn’t left me that sizeable trust fund.

There’s more: “The Venezuelan government pays for the charter airplane, the surgery and housing and food during the patients’ 10-day stay in Venezuela. (Costa Ricans) need only pay the $26 Costa Rican airport tax.”

Hmph. If Helpin’ Hugo were really sincere, he’d eat that departure tax, too. Whassa matter, Huey, keepin’ some el dough-o for yourself-o for a bunch o’ new red camisos, or maybe more copies of that Venezuelan constitution your nannified citizens just love to sit around and read? You’d never catch industrious Americans doing that, no sir-ree, not even back when we had a constitution.

My favorite: “Each patient also receives a goodie bag with pajamas, underwear, slippers, deodorant, soap, shampoo and talcum powder.”

Goodie bag?? How low can Chávez go? Even lower, apparently, than last winter’s tawdry little stunt, when, according to former Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy* whose non-profit corporation provides energy assistance to 250,000 poor people in fifteen U.S. states and the District of Columbia, Chávez was the only one among every “oil company…, OPEC nation and…major crude oil exporter in the world” contacted by Kennedy to respond — by discounting $100 million worth of heating oil.*

So, what do we get this year? That’s right, the oldest trick of the tyrant trade: free toiletries.

Monster!

Poorly-sighted Costa Ricans benefiting from Chávez’ largesse may be blind to his true commie colors, but not so Venezuela’s neighbor. Seems a laptop found in the jungle last March proved irrefutably Chávez had given FARC revolutionaries, I mean, terrorists, $300 million to fight the death squad-supporting, check it, American-friendly government of Colombia. Sure, it turned out later the story was utterly fabricated but, still, it doesn’t diminish how damning it would’ve been if it had been true.

Doe-eyed Chávez supporters even unbelievably paint the silver-tongued despot as some sort of peacemaker, citing his indispensable assistance last January in getting FARC to release two long-held hostages. Well, if Hugo’s such a miracle worker let’s see him mediate my divorce. Which, come to think of it, reminds me of at least one person FARC can keep in the jungle for several years, or until the statue of limitations on spousal abuse expires, whichever comes last. (My attorney tells me that was a joke. OK.)

Chavez is shameless when it comes to advancing his subversive agenda of compassion and fair play. Articulate, funny, charismatic, innovative, popular, intelligent — hell, if we’d wanted someone like that directing our policies, you think we’d have elected George W. Bush, even though we didn’t?

Twice?

And let’s not forget impressionable American kids who might read about Chávez’ “good” deeds — that is, if they could read. Do you want them thinking it’s acceptable for the leader of a nation with eleven percent of our oil to squander revenues from same on wild extravagances like, say, free education and universal health care, as if people are actually entitled to those things? Remember: Dealings, not “feelings” (yecch!), make America the great corporation, er, country it is today.

Free eye care for Costa Ricans, cheap heating oil for Americans, peacemaking efforts in Colombia — unchecked, Chávez’ leftist namby-pambyism squarely targets that greatest of American values, the profit motive. Kill that and you’ve killed profit — and that, people, is as un-American as it gets.

Copyright © 2008 Mark Drolette. All rights reserved.

* As reported by Maria Bartiromo.

* * This article was published originally in the free weekly Because People Matter, Sacramento, CA

While a debate raged between school board members to offer classes during summer Bible School or to make it part of the regular school curriculum, the board decided that “kids need straighten’ out,” and courses would be offered year around. The rules are the latest in a drama that began when the Texas State Legislature passed a law authorizing Bible classes “as long as there’s hain’t too much arm wavin’, dancin’ around and carryin’ on.”

Claiming that Texas is tired of “takin’ the back seat” to states like Georgia and Tennessee, Johnny Boy Snozbob of the Alamo Conservative Market Foundation in Bumfalk, Texas said, “Our students need the Bible more than most and we ain’t no longer playin’ second fiddle to no one. Our football team has got God on our side and Arkansas will never beat us again.” (A rivalry, which according to Texas Biblical scholars, goes back to the Garden of Eden and is, perhaps, the most important political issue in Texas.)

While some states raise the issue of the separation of church and state, Texas meshes the two on the local level. Many school districts already teach the Bible, adding their own interpretation to read, “God created Texas, and then Heaven.” Most small towns require school administrators to serve as Sunday School Superintendents, to pray before daily classes begin, and to lead cross-burnings.

“If our dumbass kids are goner win them games, they better know the Bible,” said State Attorney General Georgie-Bob Addict. “As long as we ain’t allowin’ no women preachin’, gays marryin’ or aliens practicin’ other ridiculous religions, thars nothin’ in the Texas Constitution to prevent it from happenin’.”

Leaders in the Double Fundamentalist Baptist Church oppose teaching the Bible in public schools due to a general suspicion of education. Terry Sue Brownnose, a leading Republican on the State Board of Education, noted that when she was a girl, people didn’t need no education. “We got along just fine without all them high flutin’ ideas,” she said. “Things is simpler in Bible pitcher books. We know we’re bettern’ any other’n, whoever you may be, that evolution is flat out evil, and we vote for God’s party. We don’t need no forein’ ideas!”

Many share Brownnose’s sentiments. Southern Baptists, Church of Baptists, Assembly of Baptists, Conservative Baptists, American Baptists and other Texas Baptists, complain that evolution will undermine moral standards and “brainwash” children with science. Science might lead children to no longer obey their parents and the church, and to begin to think for themselves. Other religious devotees claim teaching Bible classes will give students a firm foundation to reject “foreign” ideas such as Judaism, global warming, and mixed marriage. A few worry about Bible classes leading to a revival of long-time religious rivalries in the state, which have, in the past, led to slander, adultery and murder.

Afraid of being branded disloyal, few Texans objected to teaching the Bible in public schools. And most Texans agree that teenagers are so undisciplined that teaching it in school must reinforce studying the Bible in church. Rep. Emily Lou Switchbottom, 79, from Shady Past, Texas, proposed a law requiring Bible reading on public transportation, at banks and in grocery store lines. Opponents pointed out that Shady Past already has three-dozen round-the-clock Christian radio stations for a population of 176, but Switchbottom remained unrelenting, almost killing the legislation.

“There’s more and more ways to sin these days,” she said, “and you cain’t get too much religion.”

Democratic Sen. Bobby Ray Hairball, 97, the bill’s sponsor, argued that the Bible retarded every area of human development, which was good for social conformity. “Otherwise,” Hairball told the Legislature, “we would have all that socialist free medical care, high wages, and time off. Work is the only true salvation for idle minds that make more sin.”

“Our tax spoungin’ government teachers may not know how to preach the Bible, but they can learn,” said Hairball as he posed to have his photograph taken with Karate action doll hero Chuckie Nogood, leader of the Kill for Christ Bible Teaching Materials, Ltd. Nogood’s company stands to make $986 million by placing Bibles in every schoolroom in Texas.

Several organizations protested the lack of standards but proponents of the bill contended they couldn’t find experts to explain important Biblical issues such as immersion baptism, the Holy Ghost and the virgin birth. A simplified version for teaching the Bible, one that’s not too rigorous and will include comic books, films and peep shows, was finally agreed upon by the Legislature. Nogood’s Christian company is slated to win the $24 billion no-bid contract for such materials.

“Texas ain’t never been keen on academic rigore,” said Texas governor Jimmy Dick Parry. “But as good Texans we remain open to all faiths, as long as they’re Christian.”

Strangely, there was nothing in McConnell’s script about the time Jesse Helms, in an elevator with fellow senators — including Carole Moseley-Braun just after she’d spoken in the Senate, denouncing slavery and the Confederate flag — turned to his friend Orin Hatch and said, “I’m going to sing ‘Dixie’ until she cries.” Or the times he called civil rights activists “Communists and sex perverts,” and accused “Negroes and whites” on a march from Selma to Montgomery of participating in “sex orgies of the rawest sort.” Or when he described gay men and lesbians as “weak, morally sick wretches” who engage in “offensive and revolting conduct.”

Then there is Jesse’s deeply kind Senate record. FOR: tobacco companies. AGAINST: the Civil Rights Act; school desegregation; affirmative action; sanctions against Apartheid South Africa; commemorating the birthday of Martin Luther King; HIV-positive people entering the country; funding for “indecent” art; funding for AIDS research…

Verily, Jesse Helms’s brand of kindness makes Jesus look like a commie fag. That is why we — the Theater of Morally Sick Negro and White Wretched Communist Perverts — wish to salute Jesse Helms in a powerful piece of government-funded, rightwing performance art! Since most of us can’t remember our lines, we’ve decided to rip off Marcel Marceau’s loveable little character, “Bip,” and present this play in pantomime. Observe.

A lonely horizon in liberal America. Bleak. Desolate. Depraved. Enter Bleep, the sad, heterosexual mime. A teardrop glistens on Bleep’s whitened face; the ends of Bleep’s mouth dip downward; even the stripes on Bleep’s little shirt droop dejectedly. Bleep suffers because the world is full of MORALLY SICK NEGRO AND WHITE WRETCHED COMMUNIST PERVERTS. (Since this is one of those cutting-edge, didactic opuses, disgusting slides of lunch-counter sit-ins, ACT-UP demonstrations, women’s peace groups, Nelson Mandela walking out of prison, etc., are flashed onto a scrim, so we can see what the real problem is.)

Bleep dejectedly whistles “Dixie” as he mimes packing his wee lunch, picking up his briefcase, and setting off for work. Pressing a make-believe button, he steps unsuspectingly into an invisible elevator. Suddenly, horrible rap music blares, as Satan — played by Carol Moseley-Braun — enters and pantomimes slapping Bleep silly. She tries to strangle Bleep with a kente cloth, then dances luridly away, inadvertently dropping her handbag.

Alone in the elevator, Bleep kneels in prayer. He vows to lead a more decent life and fight MORALLY SICK NEGRO AND WHITE WRETCHED COMMUNIST PERVERTS. Then, from Above, a spotlight falls and caves in Bleep’s head. We laugh until our sides ache, in keeping with government standards of decency.

Bleep, now wearing a neck brace and a cross, is ready to fight the good fight! He picks up Satan’s handbag and begins walking with it through a park, toward FBI headquarters, where he plans to become an agent. As Bleep walks, he tips his hat in a wholesome way to unseen nannies pushing strollers. He pauses to pet imaginary kitties and sniff phantom daisies. Naturally, you can tell exactly what is happening because Mime is the universal language!

Suddenly from nowhere, a gang of MORALLY SICK NEGRO AND WHITE WRETCHED COMMUNIST PERVERTS sees Bleep’s purse and decides he is “coming on” to them. Overcome with sexual lust they cannot control, due to their inferior genomes, they pile on top of Bleep and participate in a sex orgy of the rawest sort!

Boxer shorts, bras, condoms fly tragically across a maroon-tinted backdrop. A witch cackles. Somebody gets an abortion. A couple of extras, dressed as the HIV virus, recite marriage vows. But because only criminals have rights in this society, Bleep is the one who ends up in the police station.

A farmhouse. Bleak. Desolate. Foreclosed. Because of his whiteface privilege, the cops have released Bleep with a warning. Enter Bleep, distraught and bitter. Big Government has failed him. Bleep has decided to “Kill them all and let God sort them out.” As he waits for his sheets to come out of the dryer, Bleep smears his body with Semtex and sprinkles dynamite on the floor. Then he rolls around in an arty, yet Pro-Life, fashion.

A knock at the door. Pete Seeger has just wrecked his boat, the Clearwater, about a mile downstream. Will Bleep let him use the phone so Pete can continue to clean up the Hudson? Covered in explosives, Bleep seethes with rage at this final communist insult. Opting to become the first ever right-wing Christian suicide bomber, Bleep hurls his little body at the interloper, blowing up the entire theater and everyone in it.

Which only goes to show how evil MORALLY SICK NEGRO AND WHITE WRETCHED COMMUNIST PERVERTS really are.

The End. Maybe.

At the same time, Obama took another swipe at Black men for being the source of problems of Black youth. Drugs were not mentioned nor the grinding poverty of the urban ghetto nor the run down schools nor the high incarceration rate. For this Obama received some especially sharp criticism. But he quickly went on to support the death penalty for “heinous crimes,” supported the Supreme Court decision against gun control, voted to fund the Iraq war (again) and supported FISA-sanctioned.

Then one Saturday he abruptly cancelled an event, and emerged the next day to explain. That was the first time he wore the yarmulke. With Joe Lieberman at his side, he announced that he had converted to Judaism, because he said his father, whom he thought was Muslim, was actually Jewish. The last few days, he said, had brought him still farther on his voyage of self-discovery. He took the opportunity to repeat the position he had taken earlier that Jerusalem would be the undivided capital of Israel on which the Palestinians should have no claim. A reporter asked timidly, to a few hisses of “racism” from other reporters, whether that wouldn’t make any peace arrangement between the Israelis and Palestinians impossible. Obama said he had thought about that, and he and that he and his rabbi had in fact prayed over it. Obama said that on such an important question he had to defer to a “higher father,” as he put it. Lieberman beamed.

In response to this, there was stirring in many quarters. Many radical Black commentators expressed disgust with Obama, but Maureen Dowd, Tom Friedman and Bob Herbert quickly denounced them as “self-loathing Blacks.” They were not heard from much after that.

There was also movement on the other side. McCain soon stepped forward to announce that some old rumors were true and he had fathered a Black child. Thereupon, he apologized to his wife of many years and also announced he would divorce her. He would marry the mother who, it turned out, was Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey appeared at his side the next day on her show and switched her endorsement. From then on McCain began to denounce any disagreement with him as racist.

Both campaigns were now thrown into turmoil. It appeared that Obama’s rush to the center had been outdone by McCain. Obama quickly announced his own divorce and his plans to marry the love of his life, his e-mail pal, Scarlett Johansson. He said that although it might hurt his campaign, he had to follow his heart, which is one of his principles, and he was sure that America was adult enough to understand. The next day, Oprah, with Michelle at her side quickly denounced Obama who lost over 50% of the Black vote in polling that very day.

Then came the evening that Bush, accompanied by McCain holding Oprah’s hand and by Obama holding Lieberman’s, announced the bombing of Iran. All were wearing sunglasses because the klieg lights were more blinding than ever. Even the dark suits looked almost white. McCain said he backed the president as did Obama, but Obama went on to declare that the mission would be more quickly accomplished with tactical nuclear weapons. That would make it a “smarter war,” Obama declared and reminded everyone that since 2002 he had proclaimed his dedication to “smart wars.” Bill Kristol announced that McCain had no spine and threw his support to Obama. In a triumph of identity politics, everyone had arrived at the imperial “center.” The pundits were heartened, the war began and the election approached.

Why does Jeremiah have to go around talking like that, they asked? And what sorts of characters would dare to be moved by his words? Outside the gates at Bethany a mute refugee from Benjamin was pointing to a book that the guards had been trained not to read.

“Sound the alarm in Judah, broadcast the news in Jerusalem” said the book. “Shout out — a bullhorn bellow! Not a minute to lose! Don’t sit on your hands!”

Coming back from commercial break, the keepers of state doctrine examined up to three or four words a time, shaking their heads. They had no time to read the whole book, especially not on Palm Sunday.

“Jerusalem! Scrub the evil from your lives so you’ll be fit for salvation,” said Jeremiah.

“He’s calling us evil!” shot back the Pharisees. “How hateful is that!”

“Listen to this, you scatterbrains, airheads,” called a voice from within the studio. “With eyes that see, but don’t really look, and ears that hear, but don’t really listen. Why don’t you honor me? Why aren’t you in awe before me?”

“Who’s talking?” queried the moderator. He turned to the flag, standing in the corner of the room. “Is that the flag talking? But we do honor you! How dare you say we don’t.”

It looked like an interesting debate was shaping up, but it was time to sell a retirement plan, so the flag, or whoever it was, never got a chance to reply.

Back at Bethany Gate, the mute refugee was pointing to something, but it was never located at You Tube, therefore, this is the part that nobody heard:

“My people are infiltrated by wicked men, unscrupulous men on the hunt. They set traps for the unsuspecting. Their victims are innocent men and women. Their houses are stuffed with ill-gotten gain, like a hunter’s bag full of birds. Pretentious and powerful and rich, hugely obese, oily with rolls of fat. Worse, they have no conscience. …

“Unspeakable! Sickening! What’s happening in this country?”

By noontime the buffets had been well stocked and everyone broke for lunch. A luxury automobile sped past the mute refugee. As dust fell down on his pages, heavy, dark windows blocked his curiosity about what might be going on inside.

(Translations by Eugene H. Peterson.)

The Spitzer Press Conference

SPITZER’S ACTUAL WORDS [Not reported by the media]

[Responding to the first question]

Well … my wife whom I love has been hurt by this, and I am very sorry for that. Very. I never intended to hurt her …

[The Governor, struggling to gather himself for nearly a minute, then continued.]

… But now I have to ask why a man’s or a woman’s sexual peccadilloes have to be splashed all over the media in this country. As though private sexual relations between men and women are news.

You know … the religious NAZIs in this country …. the so-called religious leaders … and the completely corrupt media that are always going on about this sort of thing … maybe it’s time for people to grow up.

See, I’ve got news for you. All humans are sexually active. And most of of us do have sexual relations outside our main family relationships. That may uncomfortable to hear but its true.

So-called “religious leaders,” most of whom are certainly “getting a little” on the side — sometimes with men, sometimes with women (and a LOT of politicians too); even some media moguls know this. Everybody knows this. So why is it NEWS?

I’ll tell you why: Because SEX is used to blackmail and control people by all these so-called “leaders”. They control politics with it. They use SEX for power, the same way rapists do. And that, I grant you, is a slimeball thing to do.

First they lie to convince you that sex outside marriage is always bad. Then they lie again, pretending that they themselves and other so-called “good” people never do such things. Finally, they lie when they tell you all it’s NEWS … that a political figure sought and found a bit of sexual comfort, in privacy.

Humans seek and need a lot of sexual comfort in this screwed up world that these so-called leaders have foisted on us all — every one of you does and every damned one of you knows this.

So if you want to understand our so-called religious leadership in America today … and our so-called political and MEDIA leadership. There is a WORD you should keep in mind … more clearly even than these words: MONEY and BRIBE. The word you should keep in mind is BLACKMAIL.

An awful lot of politics is controlled by blackmail.

Think Bush. Think NSA spying. That’s how they’re running the country.

[Spitzer then abruptly left the briefing room.]

* Editor: The above is, of course, a satire.

The Rapture is the name given to a future event in which Jesus descends from heaven and gathers up all Christian fundamentalists [a.k.a. Christian Right] and swooshes them up bodily to heaven, but not before they’ve jettisoned their clothes and jewelry and all forms of prostheses, including pompadour hairpieces and inflatable bouffant support bladders.

Before I get too far into this, I want it understood that I’m not wishing these folks ill. On the contrary, I’m wishing them what they’ve always wanted — an eternity of enjoying the unchallenged moral certitude they were never quite able to fully enjoy here on Earth, but which nonetheless caused the rest of us no end of misery.

The signs for finally seeing the backside of the Christian Right are encouraging. According to raptureready.com, the Rapture Index (omens portending the Rapture) stands at 163, the highest it’s been since September 11, 2001 when it peaked at its all-time high of 182. I don’t know what the numbers mean either. But I’m not making this up.

It appears Jesus is getting his transition team in place, what with the recent raptures — albeit by conventional means — of the Rev. D. James Kennedy, godfather of the American Dominionist [a.k.a. theofascist] movement and hater of our secular constitution, and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority and hater of all people he could think of to hate.

I do wish the Lord would get his jesters assembled and move on this. Think what the Rapture will mean to those of us left behind.

Twenty-three percent of the 208 million adults in America identify themselves as either Pentecostal or Charismatic Christians [a.k.a. Rapture-ready]. In the event of the Rapture up to 50 million workers will be leaving their jobs without clocking out. The number of positions vacated will be five times as many needed to wipe out the country’s unemployment, leaving the rest of us in a workers’ paradise. Affirmative action be damned! It’s “trickle up” economics at work here.

Not only will our career paths be enhanced, but we’ll have a chance at longer, healthier lives by taking the untold billons of dollars President Bush is currently funneling into the Christian Right’s faith-based coffers to save “Americans one soul at a time” and reallocating them to stem cell research and universal health care, which will save considerably more of an American than just his or her ethereal soul.

Along with vocational upgrades and improved health, we’ll no longer have to wonder, “is our kids learning?” High school grads having trouble gaining admission to one of our over-crowded universities will have immediate access to the vacant desks — and possibly iPods — left by the tens of thousands of Rapture-ready students attending America’s 102 “Christ-centered” colleges, which will be under new management and begging for warm bodies.

And guys, speaking of warm bodies, the universities will be flush with coeds since far fewer teenage girls will be home taking care of their babies — there were 435,000 teen mothers last year. The hundreds of millions of federal dollars spent annually on abstinence-only sex education [a.k.a. religious dogma] in our public high schools will now fund comprehensive sex education programs that promote safe and effective birth control methods. Let’s face it. It was only the Christian Right who thought hormone-pumped primates would ever stop “doing it.”

By the way, do I even need to mention that with the Rapture-ready blissfully ensconced behind the pearly gates the rest of us will be left in peace to enjoy our bedrooms and our most personal intimate relationships on our own terms?

Unarguably though, the highlight of the Rapture will be finding out which of the “born-again” politicians are left on the ground. Unless someone has been lying to the American people — perish the thought — we stand to lose 48 Senators, 186 Representatives, four Supreme Court justices, seven presidential hopefuls, and one hopeless president.

If it turns out — highly unlikely though it is — that the 2008 presidential frontrunners of both parties are missing on Rapture-plus-one, we’ll enjoy the remaining election season with candidates who’ve always been willing to talk about more substantive issues than their most recent meet and greet with the Lord. The God-talk will be in heaven where it belongs.

Consider this . . . with a smile. If the Democrats with Dennis Kucinich and Al Gore — we can talk him into it — or the Greens with Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader can’t defeat the unraptured and unrepentant Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani on their own merits, we’ll now own the Supreme Court.

There is a downside. We know damn-good-and-well who’ll be sitting at his Oval Office desk with a “fooled you again” smirk on his mug on Rapture-plus-one. But keep in mind, we’ll still have Section 4 of Article II of the Constitution and we’ll have the votes and we’ll have the prison. Keep in mind also, gods mostly help those who help themselves.

Having imagined all the above, my thinking is not so magical as to believe there won’t be a few post-Rapture problems. After all, according to Revelations this will be the time of the Great Tribulation and we’ll still have Satan [a.k.a. your choice] to wrestle with. But with the Christian Right enjoying eternity . . . well . . . who cares where, we’ll have only one Devil in the ring at a time. And he’ll be the one carrying a pitchfork not a Bible.

Author’s note: Hopefully Jesus is a not a strict sectarian and swooshes up Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists as well. WHAT? I have the right to hope.

Throughout history, the inclination of all leaders everywhere is not to tell you the bad news. You know how it is: the folks who guaranteed you of a chicken in every pot, a war to end all wars, a land of plenty, a war to make democracy safe, a global war on terror, a thousand points of light, no child left behind, a kinder gentler nation, family values, compassionate conservatism, a new prosperity, a new American Empire, or an old stinky empire… these gentlemen do not like it when the facts fail to line up with the rhetoric. Or, to be more accurate, they do not like it when, due to the importune intrusion of reality, those who rent life by their labor start to notice the difference between promise and propaganda.

Bad news leads to bad views, and bad views lead to a surliness in the general population that eventually undermines the legitimacy of the status quo. Leaders do not like that.

So whether it’s global climate chaos, peak oil, the meltdown of a nuclear power reactor core, currency collapse or the fact that the Titanic Ship of State has struck an iceberg and is sinking, the economy and steerage class passengers will always be the last to be told. This, then, is your guidebook to the Signs and Wonders that will confirm what you suspect when everyone denies it.

Diving for Euros. Remember those old Hollywood films that showed Pacific Islanders diving for coins tossed by American tourists from their tour ships? Now that the US dollar has swooned, look for kids in New York, San Diego and Boston diving in their underwear for euros thrown into the harbor by wealthy Europeans enjoying a cheap holiday cruise to the United States. Got Loonies? No longer will shops refuse to take Canadian money when you buy something; in fact, you might get a discount. Better look inside that coin jar you were going to break open to buy groceries; there might be some very valuable Canadian pennies inside!

A Glut of Used Ferraris. When the “good times” rolled it was not uncommon for Wall Streeters to award themselves humongous cash bonuses that, in turn, were converted into modest transportation conveyances like Maseratis, Lamborghinis and Ferraris. You know that something is up (or, rather, down) when you start to see large numbers of these pricey gas-guzzlers listed for sale, cheap, at Joe’s “Qaulity” Used Car Lot (Bad Credit? No Credit? Like Sub-prime Mortgages, We Finance Everyone!). Check out the sticker prices; it is a portent of bad times when a used six-speed Ferrari costs less than a used single-speed “fixie” bicycle.

Nose Prints on Office Windows. It might be an urban legend that during the 1929 Stock Market Crash investors committed suicide by throwing themselves out their office windows. Whether it happened that way or not, stock market investors will definitely NOT be jumping out the windows these days. That is because most office windows in the 21st Century do not open. Instead of stock brokers falling from the sky, look for nose prints on high rise office windows as financially ruined investors throw themselves at the non-opening, shatterproof glass and bounce off leaving the mark of their proboscises posted like no-slip bathtub appliques.

First Class Postage Rises. The Federal Reserve Bank, the Departments of Labor, Commerce and the Treasury repeatedly tell us that “core inflation” is practically non-existent. “Core inflation,” of course, excludes everything absolutely necessary for living, like housing, food and energy. “Core inflation” does take into account the falling cost of computer peripherals manufactured abroad as well as the “hedonic” value of, say, automobiles, that have more gadgets and luxury features than did a Model T Ford. Therefore, according to the economists’ scam, retirees’ Social Security payments that are indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) can be kept low commensurate with the “core inflation” rate. Economists assume that even if seniors cannot afford to eat, have a roof over their heads or pay for heat or electricity, they can always eat their computer digits and sleep in their cars.

On the other hand, we are simultaneously told that rising oil prices are not that serious because (in a classic case of “double think”) when oil is adjusted for inflation (which we were just told is practically non-existent), the price of gasoline is actually less than it was thirty years ago. Therefore, when you pay US$50 for a tankful of gasoline, you are really paying only US$20 in inflation-adjusted dollars; but when you pay US$50 for a bag of groceries that cost US$35 the year before, that is merely an illusion because, according to economists, you could have substituted dog food for hamburger and substituted lawn clippings for lettuce, thereby keeping the cost of groceries the same as in 1987.

Could we be heading for stagflation — an economy where growth stagnates but prices rise? Or, put in more realistic terms, are we in for a “stagflated” economy where everything like apartment rent, medical insurance, national park user fees, gasoline, electricity, bread, clothing, bicycle tires, a cup of coffee and shoes cost a whole lot more, but your salary stays the same?

One of the better indicators of inflation is the ordinary first class postage stamp. As any philatelist knows, in 2002 the cost to mail a one ounce letter was 37¢. In 2006, 39¢. 2007, 41¢. That is a more than 5% increase just between 2006 and 2007, far higher than the official “core inflation” rate described by “economists”.

Watch the postage stamps for signs of where your world is headed. When, for example, the price of first class postage increases exponentially, then we are in a hyper-inflationary period such as existed during the early years of the Weimar Republic in post-World War I Germany.

No One Wants To Be President. What would it mean if no one wanted to be President? No one, not even Michael Bloomberg. I mean, what normal, non-psychopath actually wants to inherit today’s mess? Al Gore, his Nobel Prize money in pocket, has just joined a major venture capital company, Kleiner Perkins, to help greenwash its business enterprises. What if Hilary just chucks it all to re-join the Board of Directors of Walmart? What if Rudy Giuliani’s endless campaign dissimulations cause him to grow such a huge Pinocchio nose that he drops out of the race to work for TSA as a drug sniffer at the airport? What if Obama, packing his bag for Sweden, says that Kucinich and Edwards really are the better candidates… but both of them have abandoned their campaigns so they can emigrate to Cuba for the sake of a half-way intelligent health care system? What if Ron Paul figures out that he doesn’t belong in the Republican Party and moves to China to experience a real laissez faire economy? What if Mitt Romney decides that celibacy is the ticket, drops out of the race and becomes a Catholic Trappist monk? What if Ralph Nader, Elaine Brown and Al Sharpton just throw up their hands and admit that even with a Congress packed with Socialists, Black Panthers, Anarchists and (twinkling) Greens they could not straighten things out? Would it be time to pack your own suitcase if the only candidates who would be nominated for President by Democratic and Republican power brokers are … Pat Robertson or Blackwater’s CEO Erik Prince? Come to think of it, are we — virtually — already there?

The Price of Oil Plunges to More Than $100 a Barrel. When the price of oil rises, it rarely makes the headline news. After rising to a new high, however, the media are quick to proclaim that petroleum has “plunged” to a few cents lower than the record high it set earlier in the day. In 2003, a barrel of the benchmark light sweet crude cost US$25. By 2005, it had it “plunged” to US$60. The price has been “plunging” higher ever since. When petroleum “plunges” to over US$100/barrel, it could be time to be on the look-out for desperate SUV owners prowling the parked cars in your neighborhood with v e r y l o n g soda straws and plastic bottles.

People Give “Practical” Gifts for Xmas. What people give one another for the holidays can be a leading indicator of what is to come. For example, if there is a rise in the sale of flint and steel, bows and arrows, it could mean that a lot of people are anticipating a return to significantly more basic life styles. It means something if people get potatoes in their Xmas stockings this year and are truly grateful because they can plant them to grow their own food. Look for increased seasonal sales of practical gifts like rain barrels in the Southeast, fire extinguishers in California, cans of rust inhibitor in the Mid-West’s “rust belt”, perfume-sized bottles of water in the South-West and coconut tree seedlings in Alaska.

Productivity Increases. The surface media always trumpets the latest increases in worker productivity, as though this is good news for anyone other than big business. For most ordinary people, increased productivity simply means that they have been working harder and longer for the same amount of money. Looking at it another way, increased productivity means that your real wages are dropping.

Proof of the negative in “productivity increases” is that it is usually accompanied by increases in the number of homeless people and people without health care. Obviously, more people would be employed if the other workers were not so damn “productive” by doing the jobs of two people for the price of one! Thus, until and unless the United States ever provides for adequate affordable housing and adopts socialized health care (rather than just “affordable health insurance”) increases in “productivity” can only mean that workers’ real wages have dropped.

Mexico Builds A Wall. As US public schools are privatized, as K-12 curricula are turned into blueprints for the manufacture of sheep and consumers, and as a college education is priced out of the reach of most citizens, Mexico builds a wall along its border to keep out poor Blancos illegally sneaking in from the United States to find unskilled assembly line, construction, garden and domestic work. Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo’s anti-immigration campaign falls apart because no one from any economic class chooses to move to the emerging third world that now is the United States. Could it mean that the US economy is in trouble when Canada passes “Canadian English Only” laws to bar US citizens from seeking employment north of the 48th parallel, eh?

China Moves Its Factories to the United States. If current trends continue, China could soon move its manufacturing plants to the United States to take advantage of the cheap, non-union labor and large reserves of unemployed workers. Take special notice if North American labor unions like the UAW (as contrasted with French and Italian unions that will stage powerful national strikes to preserve their rights) begin to lacerate themselves by cutting their own salaries and benefits and absorbing their own health care costs – all in the name of preserving profits for the owners and maintaining a ‘collaborative’ relationship between labor and capital.

Everyday Is A ‘Buying Opportunity!’ The world’s stock markets are now totally interlocked and the major players are not individuals, but hedge funds loaded up with ethereal assets compromised of collateralized debt obligations of dubious value. The markets rise and fall precipitously as computer programs of one player trigger instantaneous responses by another’s computer program, until the markets lurch and heave like drunkards. Furthermore, a behind-the-scenes “plunge protection team“, aka the “President’s Working Group on Financial Markets”, has artificially managed many late afternoon “rallies” that prop up the illusion of prosperity in a time of collapse. Smarmy stock brokers touting easy roads to riches are a sign of imminent decay. Is it a ‘buying opportunity’ when the markets drop, or a ’selling opportunity’ when the markets rise? For most hedge funds, the President’s Working Group’s engineered rallies serve to pump up equity prices so the Big Boys can quickly dump them, thus effectively bailing out the private financial sector with public money.

Profusion of End Times Societies. Societies tend to polarize when they are stressed. When people feel less financially secure, their cultural moorings become unmoored. They tend to gravitate toward extreme forms of “community” like race supremacy, religious supremacy or patriotism. Some people yearn for the mythical simplicity of a Stone Age Garden of Eden. Some wait to be raptured bodily into heaven like dust bunnies sucked up by a celestial vacuum cleaner. Many simply go into “shock.” In Germany in the late 1930s, as democracy was undermined by world wide economic depression, the nation spiraled rapidly down into totalitarianism. In the United States, economic desperation launched the populist demagoguery of Huey Long and the hate-spewing ministry of the “family values”, anti-communist, Christian Front radio host, Father Charles Coughlin. The Dust Bowl of 1933-1939 decimated the American heartland as global warming might do again in spades. The Nazis prophesied a thousand year Reich at the end of the Second World War. Neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the End of History at the end the Cold War.

Of course, in our own time there are absolutely no populist demagogue wannabes, and no bloviating “family values,” anti-communist, Christian Front radio hosts spewing hatred on the air. Therefore, any resemblance between the early 21st Century and the 1930s surely must be coincidental.

New Reality TV Shows. During the Great Depression, people did funny things to make a buck or to distract themselves from the meaninglessness of their lives. They joined dance marathons. Just before the Great Depression, they sat on flag poles for weeks on end. It was a time when people would undertake extremes of physical endurance for the sake of filling the emptiness within. Today, we have “reality TV,” which is, more or less, the same idea. Instead of dance marathons, we have Dancing With The Stars, American Idol, Donald Trump, torture festivals like 24, and various mind-numbing “survival” telecasts. In our own day, as contrasted with the days of the Great Depression, the acts of extreme physical endurance are not the shows themselves, but watching them. The fact that many people actually do watch them is another “wonder” and a sign of impending collapse.

Iguanas at Iditarod. You should take note when the annual Iditarod sled race is canceled for lack of snow and the new motive power in the Yukon is not mushing Siberian Huskies, but teams of iguanas. Are crocodiles sunning themselves in the St. Lawrence Seaway? Are piranha fish swimming in Lake Superior? Pink flamingos taking up residence in the Pribilof Islands? Saguaro cactus growing in the dessicated corn belt of Middle America? Do bananas grow in Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula? Is all of Manhattan submerged under two feet of salt water? All of these are very subtle indicators that the unrelenting use of hydro-carbon fuels may have caused irreversible climate change and it’s time to think about… to think about …. uh, to think about… hmmmmm.

Come to think about it, there really is no life raft to get off the sinking ship once it has begun to list, especially when it lists sharply to starboard. Were there a way off the sinking ship, where would you go, anyway? Where would you emigrate to… and do they want you there? Maybe you could try Mars or Venus or the Moon, but not now, and never in your lifetime. And if we could not solve the problems on this planet, what would give any earthling the right to plop down and redo the same old mistakes in an extraterrestrial environment any more than a Conquistador or a Pilgrim or a colonial land grabber had the right to re-pot Europe into Africa, Asia or the Americas?

There are a lot of people sailing blind in the economy and steerage class bowels of the ship of state. Some wring their hands waiting for the inevitable catastrophe. Most sail on without a clue; some blissfully, most not.

There are only a few people running things on the bridge. Those in the bowels can, and ought to take control before the signs of a shipwreck. The wonder is that they have not yet done so.

“We hope this will once and for all lay to rest all the untoward claims made by the ignorant that sexism still exists in the United States,” said the group’s statement. “It is quite clear to us, as learned and well-educated specialists, that all remaining differences between men and women are due totally, completely, and utterly to the unalterable influence of man’s genetic material.”

The report was hailed across all sectors of society for the definitiveness of its conclusions and the rigorousness of its approach.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “The sky is blue, the grass is green, the Earth is round, two plus two equals four, the Sun rises in the East, sugar and spice, snips and snails, men are from Mars and women are from Venus.”

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, “Giving my daughter away will be the greatest honor my life.” When it was pointed out to Romney that he does not have a daughter, he said without blinking, “I’ll adopt one.”

First Lady Laura Bush said, “While the Taliban’s methods are extreme, we certainly understand and appreciate the good place they’re coming from.”

Democratic presidential candidate and current front-runner Hillary Clinton vowed, “I will defend the right to abortion up to the point that it starts costing me votes.”

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said, “Women, the working class, children — what’s the difference?”

In their findings, the panel of distinguished experts noted that research like the Human Genome Project had proved conclusively that male and female behavioral differences were hard-wired into our DNA.

“For example,” said the report, “we have unassailable and iron-clad proof that women change their names upon marriage — and men like it that way — because of genetic compulsions. It turns out that Genesis 3:16 isn’t that far off after all!

“But the important thing to note,” the report said, “is that this is all genetic. The role of socialization plays absolutely no part here. Peer pressure does not exist — certainly not for adults — and society never rewards or punishes people based on their behavioral conformity or lack thereof. We have proved all this just like a mathematician proves a theorem.”

It was difficult to find any one who disagreed with the report’s findings. Even liberal anti-war activists conceded privately that they liked women better who were “pretty, young, thin, and white.”

One notable exception was the well-known and highly-respected thinker and scholar Ann Coulter. Coulter blasted the report for what she called its “excessive liberal bias.”

“This report is a sham,” she said. “It did not call for foot-binding. It did not call for the repeal of the viciously man-hating ‘rule of thumb’ — Crissake, a man has the God-given right to use a Louisville Slugger on his old lady if he wants! And it totally ignored the strong arguments in favor of bringing back the dowry.

“This report was obviously written by a bunch of soy-eating vegans who comb burrs out of their fourteen-inch beards while walking barefoot through flower gardens, picking azaleas to sell at airports for cash to buy pot with.”

A spokesman for the panel responded to Coulter’s comments by saying, “While we don’t disagree with the thrust of Miss Coulter’s sentiments, we must point out that until a new Innocent III ascends to the papacy we will, sadly, be somewhat constrained.”

Leading Democratic defenders of women’s rights have already moved to codify at least some of the report’s findings. The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced the senator was going to introduce legislation offering tax breaks to women who purchase burkas.

President Bush has threatened to veto Reid’s legislation, however, unless it includes a provision to repeal the capital gains tax for husbands whose wives don’t work. Reid is expected to accede to the White House’s request.

In addition, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has suggested a unique new way to bolster a U.S. economy currently threatened by a bursting housing bubble he helped create: “If beer companies were allowed to run ads with naked girls wrestling in an inflatable pool filled with baby oil, with the winner getting the right to use a beer-bottle dildo on the loser, then beer sales would increase one thousand percent, thus saving the US economy forever and all-time!”

Liberal anti-war activists pledged to include Greenspan’s idea as part of their platform since, “What we’re doing now’s not working too well.”

The panel’s findings are expected to provide a major boost to gender relations, increasing the already high level of security and self-worth felt by the majority of American women.

“Some small minds might think we’re rolling back the clock,” said the report. “But time is a circle, and by moving backward we move forward. It’s so obvious, even a little girl can understand it.”

Herman Conrad, Emeritus Professor of Political Activism and Radical Social Change at Princeton University, said, “The mere suggestion that money should even be any sort of issue for rank-and-file street activists to consider is just so much balderdash.”

Conrad, holder of the eminently prestigious Thomas Woodrow Wilson Liberally Enlightened Endowed Chair in the Humanities, was responding to claims made yesterday by a long-time activist, who had suggested that monetary issues might occasionally affect an organization’s politics.

“That’s just so much bunk,” said Conrad. “Mature political organizations know how to raise money from available sources and put it to the best possible use, irrespective of whatever their donors’ wishes might be.”

Pip Kurtz, who has been an anti-war activist since the 60s, said yesterday that, “I think sometimes we on the left pay insufficient attention to money — who controls it once we get it, and perhaps even more importantly who we get it from in the first place.”

“That is absolutely the stupidest, most ridiculous, asinine thing I have ever heard,” said Conrad. “I’ve been a tenured professor at this distinguished university for 37 years. I’m authored 17 books, written hundreds of articles, and given thousands of talks across this great land of ours. And I have never seen even a modicum of evidence to suggest that where the left gets its money from plays even the slightest role in anything it does.”

Other activists weighed in. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a high-level national coordinator with the anti-war group United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) said, “Kurtz is entitled to his opinion, but he’s simply wrong. Where we get our money from has never impacted a single decision that we’ve made.” AEP’s conversation with this coordinator was cut short due to an incoming phone call to UFPJ from Nancy Pelosi.

Also speaking on condition of anonymity, a high-level editor & publisher at the periodical The Nation said, “It’s frankly inconceivable to me how any one could think issues related to funding are even worth discussing. The topic isn’t taboo — it’s childish bordering on embryonic.” This editor & publisher assured AEP that The Nation’s rejection of Participatory Economics-themed articles was completely incidental.

Conrad suggested that “money-obsessed” activists should instead “take a look in the mirror.”

“We need to do a better job reaching out,” said Conrad. “We need to reach potential supporters in their homes and in their workplaces. It doesn’t matter which — whether they’re at home on their tennis court or playing their grand piano, or at work in their medical offices and law offices. Over a martini, over cognac — it doesn’t matter. We must reach these people!”

In his original statement, Kurtz said that perhaps a better strategy would be to craft a movement more congenial to working-class people and more reliant on funding from working people. “My experiences tell me working people are completely ready for radical change. But that’s just it — it has to be radical change. Working people have zero interest in whether or not a Democrat wins the White House in 2008. They know full well that whether the next president is Hillary, Rudy, or whoever, their lives won’t change. And as long as they know their lives won’t change, they won’t really give a damn what we do, much less contribute their time or money to it.”

“Obviously, Kurtz rode the short bus to school,” Conrad retorted. “The people we need to reach drive Acuras and Beemers — not pickup trucks with Dale Jr. stickers on them.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Communist Party said, “We agree with Kurtz, and we’re trying to reach working people. The key to victory lies in Lenin’s concept of ‘one-man management.’ The working class must submit itself to the iron-fisted discipline of a tiny group of visionary leaders. Only a hierarchical Leninist structure can win anything in the United States.”

Hearing of this in a follow-up interview, Kurtz shook his head: “No, no, no. That’s totally wrong. Working people already deal with that for 40 hours a week — more with compulsory overtime. Vertical decision-making structures and classist job definitions are the last thing we need. Anything remotely like Marxism-Leninism is doomed to failure.”

Professor Conrad was incredulous: “Does Kurtz not realize that the working class watches auto racing, football, baseball, and professional wrestling? Is he not aware of the fact that they eat at McDonalds? Does he not know they like cars and guns? I tell you, we can’t work with these people!”

“Well, ignoring the fact that not ALL working people are in to cars and guns,” Pip Kurtz said, “maybe Herman Conrad should swim up out of his darkness, take a breath of salty air, and open his heart to diversity. What a boring world it would be if we all ate at Panera Bread.”

Regardless of the immediate future of the U.S. left, it seems clear that a change is brewing on the horizon.

“This Canine Sports Spectacular Presentation is brought to you this evening by AIPAC-brand ‘Kibitz and Blitz’, the official dog food of the Lakud Party and the Unites States Government. Like all AIPAC-brand products, ‘Kibitz and Blitz’ is made from 100% genuine negotiating table scraps ‘too good to waste on Palestinians.’ Every ‘bunker-busting’ bite is chockfull of bellicose goodness, guaranteed to make your saber-rattling, subservient solon sit up on his hind quarters and shamelessly beg for another heaping helping. And ‘Kibitz and Blitz’ now comes in two pooch-pleasing flavors: Rump Republican Red Meat Chunks (in the shiny crimson can featuring Mitch ‘Mad Dog’ McConnell gnawing on a half-eaten Persian kitty), and Lukewarm Liberal Lymph Node Pate (look for the grainy, black-and-white surveillance photo of Harry ‘Hangdog’ Reid furtively squatting in a doggie diaper). But no matter which flavor your Senator prefers, when you feed him ‘Kibitz and Blitz’, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing he’ll never again be tempted to tip over and rummage through your garbage can (unless, of course, his trainers at the NSA order him to sniff-out and retrieve your carelessly discarded cell phone bill). So do yourself a favor, and pick up a corporate contribution-size bag of ‘Kibitz and Blitz.’ After all, we’re not just providing food for Straussian thought here, we’re feeding ‘AIPAC’ of dogs. And now, here’s your FOX-news anchor, Frank Mutz.”

“Hello, and welcome. I’m pollster Frank Mutz and I’ll be bringing you all the leg-humping excitement here at the Bob Ney Convention Center. I’m pleased to be joined tonight by the Democratic Party’s chief leash-yanker and butt-sniffer, Rahm Emasculator…”

“Great to be here, Frank. This year’s top contenders will be vying for the coveted Triple Crown of Congressional Canines, the prestigious ‘Bark, Rollover and Play Dead’ triathlon. Many of these constitutionally-challenged curs have been in training for this event since their ‘hind tit sucking’ days back in the Doghouse of Representatives. I think it’s safe to say that quite a few of them are literally chasing their own tails, hoping to make a favorable impression on their owners here tonight. But before the actual competition gets underway, let’s get to know some of these Furry Federalist Fleabags, shall we? For that we send you down to everyone’s favorite newspuppy, Nora O’Doggerel, who’s been panting patiently around on the Soiled Carpet to present us with a special segment she calls ‘Up-close and Doggerel.’ Nora?”

“Thanks, Rahm. I’m here with two former Congressional dog trainers, Neuter Gingrich and Tom DeSpay. Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us.”

“Thanks for having us, Nora.”

“Mr. DeSpay, let’s get your thoughts first. What’s going to be the key to victory in this competition?”

“Well, Nora, what makes this event so unique is that it requires an extraordinary array of rare talents. Take the barking competition, for example. Any dog can bark, but it takes years of practice for a dog to learn to bark out of both sides of his mouth and still keep from dropping his chew stick. In that regard, Senator Arlen ‘Fetch’ Specter has a distinct advantage. He’s a rare breed — a Wire-haired Water Retriever — and he’s been the Republican Party’s designated barker on the Senate Judiciary Committee for nearly 200 dog years. His bark is among the best in the business — ferocious, indignant, convincing. And that’s precisely what makes it such a great setup for his spontaneous rollover. It’s so spontaneous, you don’t even see it coming! One minute he’s growling away for hours at some Attorney General nominee or other on your TV set, so you get up to grab another bag of chicken bones and when you return, ‘presto’, his confirmation vote has been recorded and he’s down on all fours licking his bowl clean like nothing happened…”

“Tom’s definitely got a point there, Nora. Senator Specter’s bark-to-rollover time may be the quickest in the history of the sport. The problem is, he’s pulled it off so many times, I’m afraid he’s starting to lose the element of surprise. That’s why I’m gonna have to go with Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat “Trick Dog” Leahy on this one. Whereas Specter’s strength is his speed, Senator Leahy relies on a subtle combination of strident sincerity and quiet capitulation. His Herculean pronouncements (like the one threatening to hold up the Mukasey nomination), invariably lead to Lilliputian results. Like most purebred Hibernian Horehounds, his pugnacious growl belies a docile and compliant nature, which makes him the perfect watchdog to guard a booby-trapped room.”

“Gentlemen, you’ve identified two of the alpha males among the contenders. But who do you see as the alpha females in this competition? Neut?”

“Clearly the most formidable challenger is Hillary ‘Pharm Dog’ Clinton. Being a golden lab retriever (Pfizer Labs, Wyeth Labs, Amgen Labs), Hillary has a leg-up on the competition, so to speak. First of all, her bark is (strictly speaking) not a bark at all, but more akin to the blood-curdling howl of a hyena. Her bite, on the other hand, is quite harmless, especially when deployed against her erstwhile ‘enemies’ in the ranks of the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy.’ In fact, she appears to have mastered the difficult art of snargling (snarling and wagging her tail and the same time). But her rollover is truly a thing of beauty. More a slow-motion pirouette than a rollover per se, it occurs over a span of time tending toward the geologic, and is as subtly incremental as the blooming of a corpse flower.”

“Neut, pardon the expression, but I’m afraid ‘that dog won’t hunt.’ The ‘bitch’ to watch here (and I mean that with all due respect) is the Italian Lapdog Nancy ‘Nolo Contendere’ Pelosi. From 2001 to 2007 she howled, yelped, and barked incessantly about the crimes of the Bush Administration, but now that she finds herself in a position to do something about them, she’s become one mute mutt. I mean, her discipline is truly remarkable. Her one and only weakness is that she has a habit of passing directly from ‘barking’ to ‘playing dead’ without even a passing glance at a ‘rollover.’ One suspects she may be frozen in the supine position.”

“Which reminds me, gentlemen, you two have been uncharacteristically mute when it comes to making predictions about the ‘play dead’ phase of the competition.”

“Nora, I believe my colleague Neut will readily agree with me that Senator John ‘O’ Possum’ Kerry has a pit bull’s mandibular lock on that category. Not to say he is a pit-bull. In fact, I have no idea what he is, and I’m not sure he does either. While many professional breeders who’ve seen Kerry’s papers report him to be a purebred Standard Poodle, others contend he is nothing but a well-coiffed dingo. Rumors abound that Kerry is actually a ‘Heinz 57’, but I find this notion preposterous. Only sustained inbreeding could have produced a dog so utterly useless for any purpose beyond inducing sleep in himself and others. He is the very nonpareil of ‘playing dead’”

“I’ll grant you that, Tom, but since his bark is indecipherable and his rollover appears to be as continuous as an electric spit, I question whether his ability to ‘play dead’ will be sufficient to allow him to catch the competition. Besides, ‘dead dogs’ are a dime a dozen. The real question is: can he come back to life?”

“That’s an excellent question, Mr. Gingrich. What do you think, Tom?”

“I suppose what Neut is referring to here is what we in the ‘dog eat dog’ political world call ‘canine resurrection’ (and we’re not talking about ‘doggie heaven’ here). Let me give you three examples of this phenomenon. First, there’s the story of Trent ‘Cracker Barrel’ Lott, a rare White-hooded Bloodhound once named ‘Dog of the Year’ by the Kaucasian Kennel Klub. Need I say more? And then of course we have the strange case of Senator David ‘Bird Dog’ Vitter, who is, I believe, a cross between a Ponchartrainian Poontang Pointer and a Bayou Beaver Retriever. (This hybrid, if left to its own devices, prefers to make its home in out-of-the-way cat houses.) ‘Nuff said about that, I suppose…”

“Excuse me Nora, but Tom failed to mention the most remarkable story of ‘canine resurrection’ on record, that being the case of Senator Larry ‘Dancing Paws’ Craig, the Snake River Canyon Cockapoo. Now the Snake River Canyon Cockapoo isn’t considered much of a breeding dog, as it is suffers from a congenital olfactory malformation that renders it unable to detect the smell of canine estrogen. It does, however, make a useful pet in many South Asian countries, where it is more aggressive than a mongoose at hunting wild snakes in a confined space. But what makes Larry ‘Dancing Paws’ Craig truly remarkable (even for a Snake River Canyon Cockapoo) is his extraordinary homing powers. No matter how far from home he gets dumped by his owners (and he has been dumped several times) Larry always manages to find his way back safely to the Senate Cloakroom…”

“Thank you, Neut, for that heartwarming story. Well, folks, we’ll be back in a moment to bring you more exciting coverage of the ‘Bark, Rollover, and Play Dead’ competition. But first a word about AIPAC-brand ‘Porkless Pork-Barrel Treats.’ They’re kosher, and they’re guaranteed to keep your Doghouse Member comin’ back for more! Most important of all, ‘Porkless Pork-Barrel Treats’ help keep your House pet in the peak of health by promoting strong teeth and gums (or, in the case of a Democratic House pet, just his gums). That’s AIPAC-brand, for Congressional canines who answer to a higher authority…”