Author: Dave Lippman

Dr. Shrub went into deep cover at this juncture. Some said that there was an uncanny resemblance between him and Wild BIll Bailout, the Bard of the Bankers, who appeared on the scene around this time. You can learn of his exploits at bit.ly/WildBIllBailout

I know it’s been hard on you all during the Enemies Gap, what with me not knowing who to tell you to hate. Normally, I can get you used to hating the new Enemy Designate in about six months—eight or ten if you don’t have cable. But times are hard, and we’ve been forced to recycle some old enemies—Saddam, for example.

About the homeless: why dwell on people who don’t even dwell? 

Meanwhile, we’ve still got the old domestic standby, PC, which trickles down from the higher education levels—and I do know what they’re high on— into the lower grades. I know about this, because I do a little pro bono work at my presentations. I have them bring the children backstage, and I share my point of view with them, so they won’t need their own. Well, one evening last week I was talking to this little girl—no, can’t say that, differently-heighted pre-woman—about these problems, and in came this representative from the deconstructionist mafia, made me an offer I couldn’t understand. So we fled out the back way, tripped over this homeless—sorry, residentially challenged fellow and—you see? It’s getting so you can’t say anything anymore without being challenged, which is all right for you, but I’ve got a job to do!

And about the homeless: why dwell on people who don’t even dwell?

We’ve got people with lots of experience in civil rights.
Mostly against it.

How could a patriotic American call America the greatest purveyor of violence in the world? OK, that was MLK, but then he was more of a civil rights advocate than an American. Unless they changed the rule while I was dissembling. But in his honor, we have been putting people into the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, people with lots of experience in civil rights. Mostly against it. But that’s diversity! We’re determined to prosecute the discrimination against threatened groups like white Christians.

Climate v. Freedom
Climate change is real. And not just a problem only for our planet, which is ours, but for our very nation. The climate never ceases to invent ways to attack our freedom. Rest assured, neither do we.

Global warming is a serious, long-term problem, we’ll see to that.

To stop global warming you have to go off oil. But without oil, how do you have oil wars? If you can find me a way to stop global warming without having to stop global warring, I’m there. I’m on it. White on rice. Global warming is a serious, long-term problem, we’ll see to that.

In the plus column, the Northwest Passage has melted. You can get from Europe to Asia and get those spices. All we need is to find oil there, then we won’t need Suez.

IRAN? IRAQ?
We got it! The oil! Sorry, I mean, we’re helping Iraq re-build its oil industry. We got the contracts because we’d been advising the ministry for free for two years. Iraq helps those who help them. Selves.

W really impressed his father: Look, I took Baghdad, Dad!

The people of Iraq want democracy, and we’re bringin’ it on. Therefore, the people want us there. And those fighting us are fighting Iraqis. When they stop attacking us, we’ll leave.  Actually, they’re attacking us and the government, so we are the government, so we can’t leave.

We have an enduring relationship with Iraq. A close familial relationship like a father has with his daughter locked in the basement.

People say we’ve achieved chaos there, but we have an Exit Strategy: Iran. We fixed their wagon in ‘53, but it broke in ‘79.  I’m not saying Iran causes global warming, I’m just saying they support Osama—no, he’s a Sunni—they support Obama, that’s it. And Chavez. The Irano-fascite bomb-makers want to drive Israel into the sea in a hybrid.

But there are no plans to attack Iran, and the plans are justified. There is a rumor that Israel might do it, and I have warned them in the strongest terms that that’s ok.

Zarqawi was the link between Osama and Saddam. Well, they didn’t know that, since he didn’t get along with one and was out to destroy the other.

The Democratic Congress has voted no on a blank check to continue the war. They actually filled in the $100 billion. This $100 billion attack on the troops is an act of political theater, an attempt to undermine our war theater. They’re trying to substitute their judgment for that of the commanders on the ground, which is to say the President’s, or more precisely, Cheney’s.

There are so many restrictions on us in this bill it would take an army of lawyers. And we need all the lawyers in the army.  Clearly many of these Dems went to the terrorist madrassa in Berkeley. In response, we’ve decided to stop funding the war. From now on, only funds for troops. The Dems of course refuse to fund troops. They hate the troops.

We influence other countries with our military might
—what our military might do to them.

We’re building a wall in Baghdad. Well, not a wall, a barrier. Not to separate people, but to protect them from each other. It worked so well in Palestine. Not that Israel is occupying Palestine. They’re liberating them. Not that there’s anyone there.

We don’t always have to go to war to get what we want. We influence other countries with our military might—what our military might do to them.

In our think tanks, we think a lot about tanks.

Our office of think tank drumbeats, an independent branch of government headed by Dick Cheney, has set the doomsday clock for Irano-fascism at—well, that’s for me to know. Not to worry, the mad mullahs are no match for our wild and crazy but measured and pragmatic think tanks, where we think a lot about tanks.

There’s been a lot of talk about peace. Peace is a problem. Not as bad as talk, though. As for your “anti-” “war” demonstrations: we’re over there fighting for your freedom of speech, so shut up.

We’re over there fighting for your freedom of speech, so shut up.

Sharia law, as it turns out, does not hold companies responsible for the actions of their employees. That could be a medium-sized reason that Blackwater, a noted social service organization, is asking a federal court to apply sharia law to decide a suit against them by three widows of soldiers who died on one of their planes in Afghanistan.

Some would compare the non-treaty—in which we would politely encourage Iraq to sign over their country to us—to Britain’s actual treaty in 1930: bases, impunity, the works. Some have said this would make us sort of permanent custodians of Iraq. Those who say this are in custody.

Health Care
$26 billion is being cut from Medicare. Look, seniors should have the freedom to choose between Medicare and prescription drugs.

Why would we need a health care system? We have a health care industry. Systems are socialist.

War on Terra
On 9-11  they used $3 tools to take us down, so we had to spend $3 trill to fight them. We spent the Russkies into submission and now they’re doing it to us, which is a copyright violation. But we spend more than all others combined, because what if the whole world turns against us? More. All the way. At once. All week.

We gave enriched uranium to the Saudis, but need to bomb Iran for making it. Why? It’s a war on DIY. Home Depot, you’re next on the list of…terrorist stores.

To keep labor costs down, you have to keep labor down. 

Labor rates (or doesn’t): China
Labor costs are rising in China, so companies are moving a lot of jobs to Vietnam. That’s not right. They owe us—let’s see, three MIAs. Those MIA flags? Made in China. Where’s the loyalty? China is our BFF, for now. We should stick with them, or stick it to them, whatever it is. Help them combat inflation, by keeping labor costs down. To keep labor costs down, you have to keep labor down. And we’re there to help. (The Walmart security team, by the way, a subsidiary of Blackwater called Walwater, has opened its own chain of stores called Blackmart. They sell, you know, waterboards.)

But the other problem with China is that they’re now legislating worker benefits, almost like they were Communists.

Britain is not what it was. We are. 

So we’re moving jobs to the Philippines, and India—we haven’t been there since we were British. You know, Britain is not what it was. We are.  And from Vietnam we’re expanding into Cambodia—riot about that, kids.

We get a lot of flak for investing in dictatorships, but they’re stable. It’s risky to invest in a democracy, where there could be a coup, resulting in a dictatorship.  I never thought I’d say this, but communism is ideal, because the workers can’t strike—that would be striking yourself. They do, though. They want Communism Plus.

2011

Obama and other Immigrants
Obama is an immigrant, so he hates Arizona, because it’s in the US. So he’s trying to fill it up with Mexicans, from New Mexico and other foreign—you know, New Mexicans are just thinly-disguised Old Mexicans.

We can’t solve all these problems.
We have our hands full creating them. 

So now you can be stopped for walking while Hispanic. Which is a problem: Sotomayor was down there visiting and she got stopped and asked for her papers. She didn’t have anything on her except the constitution.

The cops are against it too: too much work. Gonna have to get harder-working cops. Maybe immigrants. They always take the dirty jobs no one else wants.

Honduras
It’s not a coup. OK, it’s a coup, but not a military coup. OK, it’s a military coup, but with pajamas. And in defense of the constitution, which was written democratically by consensus among the dictators. But as Obama said, after all your whining about the US intervening in Latin America, now you want us to intervene in Honduras by not funding the not-coup? You can’t have it both ways.

OK, I lie. But Zelaya has to stop doing reckless things, like entering Honduras. We want a reckful solution. One more reckless act from him and we will convene a commission. It’s so irresponsible of him to return just because he’s President. What if we all did that? By we of course I mean Aristide.

Hillary pointed out that we should no longer be in the position of solving these problems. We have our hands full creating them.

Guatemala
Now in Guatemala, we are still looking for evidence that the somewhat conservative government there still supports death squads. And if we find any evidence that they do support the leader of their army, we’re going to commission a study, because 100,000 people have died down there—mostly victims of the terrorists and the crossfire, with some 246 possibly killed by the death squads also—and if the toll tops 150,000, then we are going to cut the aid—the civilian aid. Because there will be fewer civilians.

Civil Liberties
Sorry about the upcoming 800th anniversary of habeas corpus. So close. The new habeas law makes the Alien and Sedition Act look like the bill of rights. Well, at least it finally properly regulates torture. Torture should be regular.

Environment
Polar bears are denning on land, not ice. Trading land-denning credits for enviro-conscious den mother bears. Adapting, though not as advanced as their cousins in the polar diaspora. Pregnant bears dig dens—beatnik bears. Single mothers. Where’s the deadbeat dad bear?

Granted, greenhouse gases are compounded by hot air from the White House. Glaciers are melting, and we’ll meet that challenge, we’ll match their onslaught, we’ll also move at a glacial pace.

Bush brought you clear skies, healthy forests, and versatile oceans. We have democracy and justice, except for New Orleans., women, people that are stuck on the bill of rights, and voters. There are a lot fewer mega-media corporations telling you what to think. Down to five, I think.  And just because we have a permanent underclass that drags down wages for the others, well, we’re working to make all American workers, regardless of race, unnecessary. But we’ve created jobs, almost as many as we’ve eliminated. Some people have three jobs. That’s fantastic. Uniquely American. Jobs are on the rise. They are going up and up, into the air, and heading out for greener pastures.

The purpose of government is to collect taxes from you to give to companies that run private armies to fight wars to keep those companies in power.

Many of you want change. Obama will bring that. A war in Pakistan, perhaps.  But McCain is for change too—changed his mind on tax cuts. He’s against the troops being in Iraq alone, wants someone to keep them company. Several companies. Let me just clear one thing up: the purpose of government is to collect taxes from you to give to companies that run private armies to fight wars to keep those companies in power.

Let’s not get into that whole guilt by assassination thing.

McCain opposes the rights of stem cells and is soft on gays. He’s light in the loafers on gay marriage. On the other hand, he understands that in a Christian nation you must not tax success or coddle jobs or the unemployed, or allow the elderly to become dependent on big government. He learns from his mistakes. In 2000 he condemned Pat Robertson, now he embraces John Hagee, who disagrees with some things he’s said in the past. That’s why he’s called a pastor.

McCain says get ready for 100 years in Iraq, 100 nuclear plants—does this guy do Costco or what!

His top adviser is Charlie Black, who was a lobbyist for Marcos, Mobuto, and Savimbi. But let’s not get into that whole guilt by assassination thing.

The GOP wants to finish the war. The Dems want to fund social services. And the war.

Obama will bring you peace and justice, except in Pakistan, Palestine, Afghanistan, Cuba, and Colombia. No universal health care, though: to do that you’d have to eliminate the health care industry, which was God’s gift to health care, or anyway to industry. And then everyone would be healthy and that would be socialism, which is boring. Nothing to struggle against. But still I imagine you find Obama a breath of fresh air. A—how do you call it—change. From the era of regime change. So you want regime change change, right?

He doesn’t want to use strong and creative interrogation of terrorists, he wants to dialogue—if not to please, to appease. That’s why you in the appease movement like him. You wouldn’t like him if he wasn’t black, you know. Which is racist.

Opponents of war hate the troops and want to endanger them, and that’s the President’s job.

Opponents of war hate the troops and want to endanger them, and that’s the President’s job. But I’m confident the Dems will do the right thing and express their opposition to the war by funding it.

Obama will stand in front of flags but won’t wear one. He would bowl a lot better if he had his flag pin on.  It might even help him become bitter enough to get a gun and go to church.

He promises to stop the rise of the oceans. Anyone who’s willing to put nature in its place has something going for him.

Obama is clearly anti-Israel. Not only is his middle name Hussein, he also opposes cluster bombs, which are Semitic.

Now about Michelle—Mrs. Grievance, Mrs. Still Mad About Racism—she could influence Barry, who isn’t mad. That’s one of the great things about him is that after all they’ve suffered, he’s not half mad. And he could be, being half-suffering and half-white.  But Michelle, I like her, she gives me another chance at sexism. But you know, she helped a Mexican kid open a high school for Latinos—so she’s a segregationist, ok. It’s basically a Mexican Madrassa where they plot job-taking. And once educated, they’ll take our CEO jobs.

At the Chicago Medical Center, she gave building contracts to women and other minorities. Building secret Madrassa alcoves. Where they learn to do the terrorist fist-dap.

Michelle is “a little too authentic” (NY Times). Her anger at whites, groundless though it is, I can understand. But the terrorist fist dap—unforgiveable. We can’t have authentic terrorist dapping in the white house.

A historic failure of voter suppression 
Obama, the chosen candidate of Hamas and the Weathermen, has taken the White House that slaves built. Talk about not knowing one’s place!

This could bring a host of problems to our nation. First, it threatens to bring back the Vision Thing, never a long suit among the Bushes. The President-elect thinks we should be part of the world. I’m not saying he’s a gay crackhead murderer and probable Islamic Socialist, but George Soros did engineer the economic meltdown to get him into the half-White House. If he decides to ally with Nouveau Communist leaders like Alan Greenspan, we could see a backlash, according to US law.

Obama has a lot in his plus column, though: he’s pro-nuke, pro-death penalty, wants to enlarge the army, and can’t do health care because we’re broke. To his credit, he wants to send more troops to Afghanistan, to finish the job the Soviets started. Many nations have sent armies to Afghanistan, and all have succeeded in failing. Obama, however, brings Hope. So we’ll see. “Al Qaeda is in 80 countries, so you can’t defeat them in Iraq,” says O. True that: You have to fight them all over Afghanistan.

And Hillary’s health plan—we can’t afford that. Well, you could, if you’re willing to drop the body armor for the troops, I say the troops, the troops, you know. Hillary hates the troops. Not the war of course.  Still, she did say we’ve given Iraq freedom. Technically we’ve given it to Exxon. I guess that’s the same thing.

On the personal side, having two little black girls in the White House proves to millions of their young brethren and sistren that they have achieved complete racial equality, if not a bit more. So rock on, America, we’re the best—if not only—nation. We can expect to endure a period of kinder, gentler wars, nukes, and climate change before getting back on track as the world’s benevolent dominatrix.

We don’t so much give you information as get you in
formation.

Meanwhile, the only question—besides where to drill—is whether the Obama administration will constitute a third Clinton term, with lots of saxophones and welfare reform, or will spiral downward into some kind of perverse experiment in diminished corporate power and increased single-payer-ness. Stay tuned to this site, where we don’t so much give you information as get you in formation.

2008

One reason I’m known as the World’s Only Known Singing CIA Agent is that agents are, in general, not prone to singing. This brings us to the case of the infamous Philip Agee, who made his name singing the names of his erstwhile colleagues in the agency charged with keeping our world our world.

Entrepreneurs of Size v. vengeful peasant neighborhood associations

Much digital ink has and will be spilt over the passing of this Agency Apostate. I choose the label carefully to focus on the real problem in this talented man’s life: his failure of religious nerve. For the task of an intelligence functionary, hindsight makes clear, is a faith-based one. We cannot know for certain that the overthrow of democratic governments throughout our world is guaranteed to produce long-term stability for Entrepreneurs of Size.

We do know, however, that if we don’t do it, someone else will. And the prospect of a world dominated by vengeful peasant neighborhood associations is enough to drive any God-fearing congressman to fund pre-emptive, defensive torture (I prefer “alternative procedures” or “strong interrogation.”)

Agee entered the secret side of public service in that vibrant interregnum between America’s ascendancy as a non-empire and the complete privatization of the defense of our borders (especially our borders in the southern hemisphere, Middle East, and anything named Stan). In this connection, those who feel queasy about the innovative role of Blackwater should recall the truly horrifying scandal of the previous era, Whitewater. Feel better?

In our early ascendancy we were able to help so many people, so that they would not help themselves. That is, to their resources. People are far too resourceful for their own good.

Our helping began in Greece, which we cleansed of Communists. Unfortunately or otherwise, our helpfulness budget had run out by the time their colonels became differently helpful.

Friends don’t let friends make friends. 

We helped Iran, finding them their Shah, who had been missing. This was the first time we were really in a position to help a nation in the Middle East—or anyway, British Petroleum. And we had to help: Mossadegh had nationalized the oil fields. Which is fine, except it was by the wrong nation.  So we found their Shah.  And then for some reason 25 years later they had a fundamentalist revolution. Go figure. Luckily, we’ve been able to play the fundamentalist card against communists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia. Now we can afford to use the fundies as enemies. Old dictum: Friends don’t let friends make friends.

We helped France, at least in Vietnam. We helped Vietnam, at least the South, which is to say, Marshall Ky.

We helped Guatemala, or, one might say more precisely, United Fruit.

Thinking causes a surplus of information;  
feeling causes  an overdose of compassion. 

The list goes on, but the point is clear: Agee was fortunate to have a place at the center of the helping professions. So why did he lose faith? Many things can contribute to a fall from grace. Some feel that thinking causes a surplus of information; others think that feeling is the cause of an overdose of compassion. Either way, wavering of faith in the gospel of trickle- down, vague feelings of unease with the triumph of middle class consumerism as the inevitable product of the ascent of generalized greed—these are ditherings hard to fathom in a scion of privilege.

Some have said that Phil must have been working for the KGB. If his desertion of duty had come later, he would have been clearly in the thrall of al Qaeda. But Phil preferred to look for flaws in his own house, describing the activities of the CIA and the governments it supported as “the worst imaginable horrors.”  He was called by some a traitor; I think he was something more serious: a whistle-blower. Nobody likes a tattle tale.  He shall be long remembered as a tall tattle tale teller, endangering the pre-emptive horrors we have been forced, with a heavy heart, to perpetrate in defense of Western Values.

Those who do not know their history will have the opportunity to repeat it.

If the general public has grown suspicious, even weary, of our pre-emptivity in defense of that most fundamental human right, the right to profit from resources we find on or under other people’s lands, then they have Phil Agee to blame for their weary suspicion. May the next person to name names be indicted and imprisoned for life. (Offer not valid for Vice Presidents or their aides.) Philip Agee, rest in peace. You taught the American people a bit of their history. Which is a shame, because those who do not know their history will have the opportunity to repeat it.

Principles of Protest
Here’s the principle: If protests are outrageous, that’s good for Bush. If not, the press won’t  cover them, so they’re no good to anybody. The police keep order, the press keeps quiet, the system works. But there have been problems. A man was arrested in a business suit, going home from work. That should never happen. Obviously he should have stayed at work. Koppel explained the lack of coverage: it’s not 1968.  By the way, 1968 only happened because it was covered.

People were arrested for intending to have a die-in. You don’t like preemptive arrests? Do you expect us to wait until they’re dead to arrest them?

Such a Trill
As you’ve  noticed, we’re raising the debt limit by $800 billion to allow 8.1 trillion in borrowing. It’s legal. You’re allowed to do that, as long as it’s after an election.  Of course, 8 trill here, 8 trill there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money. Anyway, if the Dem’s were in power, boy, then you’d see some real fiscal irresponsibility.

Socialism for Seniors
Social security is going to run a deficit in 40 years. We’re running one now, but the present now will later be past, and we need to privatize the future before it gets here. It’ll work. It worked in Chile, where people’s retirement has been secured, after 20% commissions and the government guaranteeing to make up any shortfall from the money gambled.  Invested. Which of course is socialism. In America, we don’t do guarantees. We do casinos.

I always said we should privatize war. Military is now called “security.” When it’s not coming from your tax dollars, we won’t need taxes anymore. Or government. Just the military. I mean, security. Whoever wants to invest in war, can.  The rest prefer to talk about peace, and we know what they want. They want a piece of our piece.

But people are now suing the security companies that are patriotically taking on our privatized wars. Suing because their relatives died for lack of armor. Fortunately, W has put a cap on awards from frivolous lawsuits. Granted, that was about doctors. But saving life, taking life, it’s all life. If the awards were too high, the security companies would go somewhere where they could do their business. Go work for some other rogue state.

We do have to protect doctors from lawsuits. We have some doctors working in the public sector side of the war—army doctors—and they’re not involved in torture of course, but they’re giving advice about torture. Without them, we’d have to torture without any medical advice.

Indians are Communists
Guatemala is made up of two basic groups: Indians and Generals. There’s a third group, the Communists. They were masquerading as peasants. So there are no more Communists.

I don’t like to use the word diversity, but we have collected people from all the different countries that we, well, that we have. That’s why we’ve been hybridizing, not to say cloning, all these different cultures, and we are going to patent, actually, all these different cultures that we, well, that we have. We have family values here, we invented the family, and we value that. We know that they have families in other places, but they’re experimental. Sort of a beta version of the family. And as you know, gay marriage threatens that patented family.

In Rwanda they had a genocide; I’m not afraid to use the word. I am afraid to have done anything about it, so I didn’t.

Jefferson warned against the Haitian revolution. He said it might seem all right to kick out the French, but that would give ideas to the slaves in the U.S., and there weren’t any French left here, nobody to kick out but, well, him.

I don’t mean to demean the women by calling them ladies.  I mean no disrespect—it just comes naturally, I guess.

Nature is the greatest threat to the economy. The ecology actually grows right into the economy. Or vice versa, I forget. Obviously, you can’t have both.

We’ve replaced the tyranny of pensions with the fun of the senior scavenger hunt lifestyle.

We helped form a coalition to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. This coalition stretches from Pakistan to the Philippines, and still exists, and is still fighting, only now they’re fighting us.

Labor Rites (Last?)
We’ve created almost as many jobs as we’ve eliminated. Lots of jobs for Mexicans, right here in the US. They were coming over, taking our Mexicans jobs. We’ve replaced boring factory jobs with the excitement of Hamburger Engineering. Replaced the tyranny of pensions with the fun of the senior scavenger hunt lifestyle.

GM had to cut health care for their employees because foreign countries are underselling them, due to their unfair advantage of having national health care. Japan, Germany: Communist. As opposed to free enterprise, which is freedom.

This Week’s Enemies
Afghanistan was the Soviet Union’s Vietnam. And Iraq is apparently our Afghanistan.  But there’s a big difference: they were the evil empire. We’re the world’s first non-imperialist empire. Also, ours is permanent.  But getting back to Afghanistan, which we have: we strongly supported forces fighting against fundamentalism, like Saddam Hussein, and also worked very closely with elements fighting Soviet totalitarianism, like Osama Bin Laden.

Today our current friends in Saudi are helping to defend that country against future threats from, you know, women.

They’ve opened a new pipeline in the Caspian area—Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey. You know what that means. That means they’ve banned opposition parties.

The White House removed the climate-related language, as practice for removing the climate.

The Cold war was ended through global warming—that is, SUVs.  In a recent EPA report, the White House removed the climate-related language, as practice for removing the climate. We’ll burn that bridge right before we come to it. The US is the world leader in research on climate change. We haven’t been able to properly discredit it, but we keep at it.

People think we should plan ahead on decisions that affect the planet—plan for how it will affect the people seven shareholder meetings from now.

Bush has begun meeting prominent dissidents to highlight human rights abuses. Dissidents from Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, Belarus. Why no such meetings with dissidents from Uzbek, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi? See, Russia’s our enemy this week, but we need them for our friend next week, in case China dumps their textiles on our market, making them part of the axis of textile-dumping nations. So the abuses that don’t exist in those other countries are being saved for next week.

Of course I study the trends in human rights carefully. I watch them 24/7, or anyway, I watch 24. Yeah, I think outside the box, but I watch the box. I think of myself as a maverick, an outsider—Geneva, feh, that’s so conventional.

Who needs people when you have money?

Bolivia
The Indians are revolting. Formerly known as Bechtelia—They don’t just want to nationalize the oil, they want to nationalize the government!

Malls Over Walls
Noted: a new Supreme Court decision that cities can tear down any dwelling to make way for something that makes more money. The Malls over walls decision. Really, who needs people when you have money?

Iraq
W held a scripted impromptu chat with soldiers. Some are  saying the soldiers didn’t say what they felt. Of course they did. We told them what they felt and they said it. Scripting an impromptu chat with soldiers is not a war crime. This is not rocket surgery, people.

I just figured out today where those WMDs are. It’s been staring me in the face the whole time. They are hidden in the Gulf of Tonkin. 

You’re either with us or you’re with the Red Cross.

OK, so we kept a high-value prisoner without telling the Red Cross. Rummy has clarified that there’s no rule you have to tell them in 15 minutes. Granted, it might be a lot less than seven months. Probably between 15 minutes and seven months. That’s an unknown known. Friends, we can’t have the Red Cross looking at CIA jails. You’re either with us or you’re with the Red Cross.

Basically we have a choice. We could stop torturing and humiliating people, abusing their religion, and so forth. Or we just stop people from talking about it. This is not rocket surgery, folks.

Katrina
Anyone saying that we didn’t prepare for Katrina is harboring her.

The rules mandating 5% of contracts to minorities have been waived for the rebuilding, and presently it stands at 2%. This is because of W’s approval rating among blacks being down to 2%. Now about this, it’s down from 19%, since Katrina.  And about that looting down there, you have to be understanding of the situation. Hey, let Halliburton be Halliburton. Those contracts are big and easy. And as for those violent gangs, it’s understandable. They were paid to do that in Iraq, now they’re home. Well, not the Israelis, they’re not home. Although, like Americans, they make themselves at home wherever they go.

We have a zero tolerance policy on looting. If you’re hungry, taking food is not the way to go. This is a civilized country. You will wait until it’s time to wait some more.

Zaire used to be the Congo, but they turned out to be Communist,
so their President died.

Pakistan
The earthquake in Pakistan, terrible thing. We gave $50 million. We care millions. For their lives. For their arms? Billions.

Zaire
Zaire used to be the Congo, but they turned out to be Communist, so their President died.

Venezuela/Cuba
As you may or may not know, there either was or was not a military coup there.

Venezuela and Cuba are now involved in a mutual program called Oil for Doctors. It’s thoroughly corrupt. They say they’re just trading oil for doctors, but I happen to know there are dentists getting through a loophole, Venezuela is getting dentists at a cut rate—they’re being economical with the tooth.  We can see that Venezuela is a Cuban pawn: they have Cuban-style health in the barrios. That’s Spanish for ghetto, which shows how anti-semitic they are. Not to mention medico-imperialist.

Meanwhile, Cuba is now a Venezuelan pawn, a colony of Venezuelan oil imperialism, just as dependent as they were on Soviet Union. In other words Venezuela is the new Soviet Union, the evil oil empire. They’ve tried to escape this criticism by saying they’re merely in the axis of pretty bad. We have satellite photos of Cuban-style health clinics. A surplus of doctors dumped on the market, working cheap, undercutting American doctors.

They’re giving free medical care to the children. That undercuts the prices for medical care throughout the hemisphere, so in essence they are scab doctors. These scabs are festering and will be picked off. Chavez is trying to distribute the oil wealth among the people. That’s class war. Venezuela used to have a free enterprise system. Chavez is destroying that: he wants foreign oil companies to pay money for the oil. It’s like bribery. He calls it taxes. “Pay” “taxes.”

Venezuela is threatening America with eye exams and cheap oil. Cuba is threatening us with free medical care and weapons of mass dentition.

These Nuevo-Coms think the state should control corporations instead of vice versa as God intended.

If the  people of Venezuela cannot solve their own problems, and Colombia won’t rescue them, we might have to invade ourselves. That would certainly get to the root of the problem.

You should all boycott Verizon: they pulled their ads from Ann Coulter’s site, just because she called John Edwards a—you know, he’s married, but gays do marry these days, not usually women, but sometimes. But he’s, you know, opposed to cluster bombs. That’s pretty faggistic.

Chiquita and the Terrorists
I know you’re all gloating about Chiquita getting caught cozying up to right-wing terrorists in Colombia—and not just their own board of directors. But what would you do? Let’s say you’re running a banana industry, overthrowing governments and so forth. Granted, when Chiquita was United Fruit, they organized a massacre in Colombia, in 1927, with hundreds killed. They also overthrew the government of Guatemala in 1954. But to be fair, Chiquita had to pay paramilitaries, in the interest of protecting their workers from terrorists. You know, unions.

It’s true the indigenous (a word meaning poor) people don’t benefit from oil wealth. But they do get something from the gas. Well, the tear gas.

Escorts
As for D.C. Madam Debbie Palfrey’s escort list, Defense consultant Harlan Ullman, who coined the phrase shock and awe, was caught up in this—imagine his surprise and dismay. It’s  not prostitution of course, its high-end erotic fantasy. Still, I am shocked and find it odd that sex would occur in, you know, Washington. Also implicated was the State Department’s Randy Tobias, a noted anti-prostitution crusader. Less well known is his fervent promotion of the international importance of massage.

Don Imus has again been victimized by the liberal press. He was just trying to give people who don’t have a life a chance to be mean.

Pray, Stay Away Gay
Our next Surgeon General, Dr. James Holsinger, a co-founder of Hope Springs Community Church, has already put forth some miracles, or anyway, cures: Pray away the gay. In a 1991 paper he disclosed that homosexuality is unnatural because pipe fittings are called male and female. Attacks on him are bigoted and anti-Christian. Christianity was invented in the US.

Other administration figures want to ban public licking of ice cream cones, and throw people in prison for masturbation—well, that should solve it.

Burma
Burma has to stop these violations of human rights. They must cease these violent acts in the prisons, the use of dogs and deprivations. We’re willing to be flexible. If they will stop them, then we will.

He oppresses his own people, he’s a brutal dictator, but no, we’re not having regime change in Burma. It’s been done. It’s not Burma anyhow, it’s called Myanmar now, which shows their commitment to change.

Chevron employs the Myanmar military to guard their oil pipeline. In order to influence them toward human rights. They have more plans for that, in the pipeline. Condi was on the board of Chevron, now she’s criticizing their guards. Don’t take it seriously. What’s she going to do, jump on the Condoleezza Rice and ride in there with a mission accomplished banner?

Turks Are Us
In the Rwanda genocide exhibit they made a mistake and referred to Turkish “genocide” of Armenians. They didn’t realize that Turkey is a US ally and therefore doesn’t do genocide Didn’t do it—before, when they were our adversary, they used to did do that. Now they didn’t. So that was corrected to “mass killings.”

The tragedy of the Armenians and the Turks was mutual, as Jimmy Carter said when rejecting reparations for Vietnam: The destruction was mutual. Now we can have a fair debate: Turkey should be able to stop our Congress from talking about the tragedization of the Armenians AND the Turks, vs. oh no they can’t.

Attorney General Gates explained that Turkey is sensitive about the late regrettableness.  They have laws there against insulting Turkishness, and we will not rule out rendering unto Turkey that which we don’t want here anyway. Basically, you’re either with us or against Turkey.

You know, people are kvetching about Armenians to draw attention away from Burma, which we’re kvetching about to draw attention away from Blackwater. So the Armenian regretableness has been downclassed to tragic suffering, or at most, regreticide,  and the Blackwater randomness to bad aim.

If you think there’s a problem with that, then we’ve got to do something about that thinking problem you’ve got.

In the movie that we’re currently in, Mr. Bush plays the straight-talking Texas Christian whose theme is “Bring ‘em on.” Powell plays the moderate team player who never covered up My Lai. Rummy plays Hitler. Cheney plays Hide and Seek. One of the great things about this movie is that you don’t have to watch ads before it – it has the advertising right in it.

The Saddamites were threatening to deploy these WMDs on the thin pretext that we were about to attack them. 69 percent of Americans believe that Hussein probably had a part in attacking the United States. Therefore it’s fine for Cheney to repeat it. After all, he repeated it first.  And W can speak with authority on Saddam having those weapons. His father gave them to him. It’s just basic Bowling for Dollars. The father sets up the pins for the son to knock down.

We’ll be establishing a democracy there, soon as we’ve sold off everything worth voting about.

It’s true we used epidemic and famine to induce a rebellion that never happened. But it might have. The U.S. government—by which I mean Halliburton—has its eye on the ball. Which reminds me, what’s the score? Never mind. I hate it when somebody scores and I don’t.

We’re going to hunt down all of Saddam’s top supporters who supported him through all his atrocities. Unless they’re in the White House. We already know where the White House is.

The reasons for the two Gulf wars were very, very different. The first one, we had to go in because of the S&L scandals. Now, there’s no scandal. Unless you count the economy. Enron. Halliburton, Harkin. Also the effort to someday get W elected President.

Marginal sectors of U.S. society have opposed the Iraq rescue. People like the army, George Bush senior and other nonentities.

At the time we thought that Saddam might attack us. He did not, goddamn him. So we had to straighten that out. we thought sure he would attack us after we bombed. He did not. This was a clear provocation.

We’re making 180 raids a week, making approximately 1000 new enemies to replace Saddam.

Saddam had links to al Qaeda: WMD program-related activity preparation committee planning sessions are known to have been contemplated.

You’re either with Bechtel, or you’re with the UN.

Now, the Export-Import Bank didn’t want to sell weapons to Saddam, on principle. A very lofty principle, which was that they might not get paid. But this attitude was overruled by a mid-level official of the United States—a Vice President, actually. A Herbert Walker something.

Bechtel has a $680 million deal to rebuild Iraq.  With closed bidding, or no bidding, contracts to United States corporations instead of to the UN.  Which goes to show what I’ve always said:  you’re either with Bechtel, or you’re with the UN.

They say we’re going in there to get resources, to pillage and rape. No. As Bush Daddy said, we’re going to go in hard, do our business, and pull out.

We were very close to finding al Qaeda in Iraq. We were only off by one letter. They’re in Iran.  Of course the Wahhabi’s and the Shia hate each other. That makes it a perfect hiding place.

Support the troops now, not when they come home.

Some have questioned the toppling of the Saddam statue, saying it may have been stage managed. Well, look, all the world’s a stage, and where there’s a stage, we must act. It’s not important that we act well, but we must act. This tear-down was exactly like the tear-down of the Berlin Wall. We just shot this one more as a closeup, to show the crowd off to best .No, it wasn’t stage-managed. It was choreographed. It was rehearsed. It was well-cast. But not stage-managed. And the press rose to the occasion, of course. Got right up there where they needed to be to get the right picture of the whole crowd. It was very exciting for them.

We are called upon to defend the hope of all mankind. But we’d rather bomb Iraq.

Polls show that 54% of Americans think we should never have gone in, but 57% think it’s going well.

We need to support our troops. Not when they come back, of course. Even if there is such a thing as Gulf War Syndrome, there’s certainly no evidence of any Gulf War II syndrome.

Iraq is not Arabic for Vietnam.  
However, Iran is Farsi for Cambodia.

Some have demonstrated against patriotism, in good numbers. Many tens of people.  There were even 200 in Vegas—what are the odds?

We lost over 100 personnel; we casualized them all by ourselves. Saddam tried to get them, but we got there first.  Some were collateral of unplanned air-earth interfaces.

$325 billion to the military, nothing for housing or education—so what? You can get those in the military.

Some of you Arabic and Vietnamese language scholars have claimed that Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam. T’aint so. However, Iran is Farsi for Cambodia. I have this info from a high official who declined to state what he was high on.

The terrorist insurgents are trying to thwart democracy, or anyway, us. The Iraqi people will have freedom, and independence from foreign domination by—well, something will pop into my head.

Meanwhile we pursue our policy of no child left behind. The army will take anyone now. Better to have our homicidal 43 year old’s over there than here, am I right?

In the disputed territories, the dispute of course is over whether they really belong to Israel or whether Israel is just occupying them until they do belong to them.

Israel is the only democratic colonizing country in the region.

See, if the Syrians would get Hezbollah to stop having an army, and if Iran would get Gaza to stop pretending to have one, and Saddam—I mean Osama—would get—no, if Gaza would get the West Bank to stop, then we would get Israel to give back 78% of the 12% of the West Bank—they must of course keep the water, mountains and fields, for security.

Israel as you may know is the only democratic colonizing country in the region. The Palestinians haven’t recognized Israel—nor vice versa, for that matter. But how can you have peace negotiations when one side is terrorist? Not to mention Hamas. Listen, everyone has a right to their gated communities.

Israel knows exactly what it’s doing. They went into Lebanon in ’82 and created something lasting: Hezbollah.

We gave the Palestinians—well, not them, but Israel, which is right next door, or over them, or around them—anyway, we gave them  $135 billion since 1948, and still there’s no peace. What went wrong?

The central question in peacifying the Meddle East is the Palestinian refugee question: can they come back, should they be paid off? Now how did that get to be the central question? By the fact that the Palestinians, not having been sure whether or not they existed, left. Now they’ve decided they exist, and they want to come back. And have a state. They want to have their state and eat it too.  Plus, a state without Israeli settlements. Well, they never understood what the settle meant, which is this: Israel is just minding their own business in, you know, someone’s country. And these Christian Peacemaker Teams over there, they’re not helping. Their motto is “get in the way.” That’s not necessary. The Palestinians are already in the way. I say, let their people go—away.

SUVs
Why do people fly so many flags on their car? Perhaps to make themselves a target for terrorists in order to draw fire away from other targets. That’s nice. Or perhaps they have no other way of saying “I’m proud, I’m an American, I will survive, these colors don’t run.” Etc. etc. But they could say all that by shopping. No. It’s really about the improved aerodynamics for the vehicle. The stripes do it.

The original SUV’s were not called that. Some call them axles of evil.  They weren’t sporty, unless running other vehicles off the road and then flipping over is a sport. No, they were called FUV’s, Fuck You Vehicles—not necessarily meaning you, you know, but just, shall we say, your planet.

Media
The FCC recently abolished its ownership caps, so that media ownership could be streamlined down to six guys owning your mind. There was a long series of hearings about this that weren’t reported in the media, even though it’s owned by at least seven guys.  If you do know about the hearings, you obviously are listening to some other media, owned by some eighth woman or some damn thing.

It’s true that only five companies own all the patents on GMOs. But they have every right to that pentopoly, just like Clear Channel has the right to program your local radio station from Houston. Why are you complaining? They put local ads in for you, after all.

You can’t win a nuclear war.
If you don’t fight a nuclear war.

The “terminator technology” causes seeds to die so you can’t hoard them illegally for another year just because “farmers” have “always” done “that.” Clear Channel, by the way, when they get done clearcutting the airwaves of grain—that is, culture—will be using only terminator songs. You won’t be able to hum them without paying a fee. This will finally resolve the earworm issue. It wouldn’t have been an issue except they were considered an endangered species.

Korea
You can’t win a nuclear war. If you don’t fight a nuclear war. North Korea wants to have nuclear weapons and ignore treaties. And that’s our job.

We’re currently looking into what we can do to avoid a nuclear war with North Korea, which they badly want to have because we added them to the axis of evil, since we needed a non-Muslim country in there. But let’s face it, you can’t win a nuclear war. If you don’t fight a nuclear war.

The North Koreaks are a threat to the South Koreanese. They accuse us of not taking an interest in liberating Korea. We were actually on our way to do that, but look at the map. Iraq is on the way.

We had a little police action there, where we were obliged to destroy the industrialized part, which was the North. And then we built it in the South, to set an example.

As for this allegation that we’re out to overthrow governments one after the other, what do you want, all at once? You can’t afford that.

I do want to clarify this overthrowing governments thing. We have a schedule for admitting. We just admitted Iran, ’53. We’re scheduled to admit Guatemala—the ’54 one, not the later death squad stuff—and by the time we admit the Contras—your kids’ll be dead, or at least disinterested.

Suppose the U.S. was occupied by a military power that forced up military expenditures while letting the country’s public sector die. Of course, it is. But not so’s you’d notice.

Some have suggested we move to try the supporters of Saddam for war crimes.  You can’t expect us to do that. Not while they’re still working in the White House.

In Defense of Policy
The Defense Policy Board, an appointed body with secret meetings, no information available to the public, has appropriated $100 billion for Defense. Yes, it meets in secret, but when they awarded the contracts, they went not to Halliburton and Bechtel alone but to nine different companies.  Because there are nine companies represented on the board. Democracy! Some say the Carlyle Group, Harkin, Halliburton, Chevron and BP Amoco run the government, just because Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Gale Norton work for them. But it’s nothing personal. As a result of the economic structures in the world, sometimes it just happens that every day people are casualized, collaterally, through poverty and such.

Pakistan
Bush said Musharraf believes in democracy. He certainly believes it exists, and is trying to do something about it. True, Musharraf got in by a coup, and that’s wrong. The one we did in ’58 should’ve been enough. We had the same problem in Indonesia, where they had the biggest Communist party not in power in the world, and that’s ok, but they were in danger of getting into power, so we had to save them from that. So a coup happened there as well, or even better. Suharto was forced to casualize half a million people. We made a list of those who were killed. Granted, we made the list before they were killed. That’s American know-how.

The Anti-imperialist League
This gang was created in Chicago in 1899 by the Communists. Well, it wasn’t exactly the Communists. It was Mark Twain. I find it very strange that a man who wrote of the common people’s culture tried to kill our effort to go out and provide that culture to other people.

Old Joe Camel
We have a war on drugs and terrorism and terrorists who sell drugs (except in Afghanistan where we got rid of that, for a week).  Drug dealers are a terrible role model for the kids, trying to supplant traditional figures like Old Joe Camel.

You could argue that drugs are terrorism. I personally terrorize the American people with both drugs and anti-drugs. As well as anti-terrorism.

The President said it would be an endless war. That’s because somehow, every time we do anything against terrorists, more of them pop up. We could be doing something wrong, but the American people don’t believe that. They better not.

I’ll hear no more about this.
More will be said, but I will not hear it.

GODS
Some people say we’ve extended foot fetishes to shoe fetishes. That’s demeaning. Our fetishes are significant. They’re like gods. Like Nike. Like Pepsi, the god of not Coke. Pepsi’s also the god of Tacos. No, that’s DysPepsi.

We’ve made a lot of progress in religion. We have competing gods, as befits a free market. The god of speed, Starbuck. The god of labor exploitation, Gap. The god of marketing, god of walls, the great god Mart. And the god of slightly better stuff, Tarjé. And over them all rule Chevron, Standard and Exxon-Mobil, the quadumvirate.

I’ll hear no more about this. More will be said, but I will not hear it.

A Rumor
I know that Lippman and I are often confused—well, he’s confused—but yeah, with each other. To be honest, just this once, we do kind of look alike, but the difference is obvious: he’s Jewish, and I’m not, see?

We get accused of governing  by fear. Well, people should stick to what they’re good at. So, you know, the red states fear the blue states, the Midwest fears the Mideast, etc.

Dubya Dynasty?
It’s not some kind of hereditary dynasty.  W wasn’t appointed by his dad. He was appointed by the Supreme Court, which was appointed by his dad.

As Prez Dub explained in his state of the union speech, throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. He says 20th century—I would include the 21st, because I think that November 2000 was in the 21st. He doesn’t, but anyway, he’s talking mainly not about himself but about Saddam. Who of course was exactly like Hitler and Stalin except for the part about having an army.

Gay Syndicates
Senator Rick Santorum has made it clear that homosexuality is kin to incest. Also bigamy and polygamy. No one knows the  number of gays who have affairs with their dogs while married to more than one of their siblings. He will introduce a bill to rename the species Heterosapiens.

I’m against all unions, of course, but especially gay ones. I know you’re all excited because sodomy is legal in Texas now. But don’t forget: You’re either with us or you’re with the Sodomists.

They were practicing democracy, and they got it wrong,
so we had to help out.

Haiti
On the one hand, they kicked out the French, so two points. But they were practicing democracy, and they got it wrong, so we had to help out.

Our government stenographers—sorry, the free press—dutifully reported on p. 89 that Undersecretary of State Roger Noriega is a former Jesse Helms aide and backer of Duvalier, therefore of Guy Pierre, the brilliant organizer of the non-coup.

How can we tell they’re freedom fighters? Because Guy Phillippe’s heroes are Pinochet and Reagan? Well, partly.  But it’s not true that he’s a Ton Ton Macoute. Not anymore.  Louis Chamblain, #2 in the Fraph, came with ATV’s he had to work hard all his life for. Emmanuel Constant, he was just trying to set up a group to provide some balance for Aristide. Well, it wasn’t his idea, it was mine; I don’t like to boast, so you didn’t hear it here. Anyway back to Philippe: he was putting together some balance in 2000, you know, a democratic coup, with some other freedom fighters trained not at SOA—I know you think that. No, trained in Ecuador. By a completely different group of army personnel.

Bush explained: it’s a break with the past. He knows that the U.S. broke the past and will broker the future.

Was it a coup? We funded and armed the opposition, helped Aristide out of his office, we provided a pen to sign the paper we provided. Gave him a free ride. You don’t like it when I overthrow dictators, you don’t like it when I overthrow democracies—what do you want?

The people there were fed up with poverty, and we helped out, did what we could, you know, cut off aid. That sort of thing.