Author: gottlieb

I love my job. It’s like Pavlov’s dogs. After a while you don’t actually have to throw red meat at them they just start salivating, barking and going berserk merely by tinkling the bell of jingoist propaganda and flickering images of patriot-fairies dancing in their heads.

How ironic; each village was supposed to have one idiot and now we have entire villages full of them. It’s not their fault really. It’s like rats on a treadmill. You ever wonder why they use so many lab rats, mice and monkeys all because they’re working on a better life for human beings?

Do I have to connect the dots for you? Okay. You asked for it. But don’t take my word for it. I’m a propagandist and I work for them.

Americans are the most under-slept, overworked, stressed-out people on the planet. Yours is the most drug-dependent culture in the known galaxy. Booze and pills. Weed and smack. Do you think it’s an accident? Collateral damage of the Industrial Age? A by-product of too many preservatives and not enough nutrients? Too much MSG in the tenderizer?

Don’t make me laugh. Do you think the social management of hundreds of millions and ultimately billions of people is left to chance? You know about Bernays. PR. The perfection of propaganda as a tool of control. Manufactured Consent. The direction of thought in Universities and the Professions toward the orthodoxy of Reason. The giving of grants by philanthropic foundations to fund research and development toward military-industrial applications. There is no separation between economy and security. They are two sides of the same coin. Society is stabilized by relative prosperity and a sense of fair play. And a stable society is requisite of a free market which means a market free to plunder. The problem always comes from these blue-blooded vampires who just can’t put down the crack-pipe of one more suck at the neck of the sucker born every minute. Like taking candy from a baby. Some people are hard-wired with a killer instinct.

It takes energy to resist. And that’s why we’ve spent generations to develop and research the best ways to zap your energy. You’ve got to work. You’ve got to make your way, on your own, in the world. Family. Kids. Debts. Hot buttons of bursting emotions from unprocessed childhood frustrations. Stress. Exhaustion. Frustration. Fuzzy brains from drink, smoke and snort. Punch Drunk. Desperate. Lonely. Afraid.

And then we ring the bell.

The BORG is coming to destroy the planet. Rally around the flag. Resist assimilation which means Communism, which means property rights, which means resist the power to take your stuff. Never mind it’s always the folks with the most to lose who make the biggest stink.

Do you think it is just politics this hysteria being whipped up against the current Administration to levels of rebellion because this is the spontaneous combustion of pent-up patriotism put on hold since the Conservatives assimilated the fact Bush was a lying fraud and the furthest thing from a patriot imaginable?

Clinton was a test run for today. We’re always theorizing, experimenting and refining. Do you think experiments are not performed upon you everyday to test your reaction like rats in a lab? During the Clinton years – the last time opportunity came to use Public funds for the public – we whipped the idiots to a frenzy about drugs and murder and selling out to the illuminati United Nations, surrendering our sovereignty, rounding up resisters in NAZI-style railway cars and locking them up in camps. We got those fuckers to believe the world was going to end with Bill and Hillary. Black Helicopters. Cattle Mutilations. Crop Circles. UFOs. Conspiracy Theories. If you’re not totally exhausted by the job, the spouse, the kids, the yard, the debts, the pressure, the fear, the doubt and wondering where the fuck god is where Tooter the Turtle would have been saved by Mr. Wizard long ago, then you too can join the cavalcade of researchers to fathom the depths of dark secrets right around the corner of your desire for heroics.

When Hill spoke of the vast right wing conspiracy she knew exactly what she was talking about but, at the same time, didn’t have a clue.  

Do you know why at both America’s darkest moment and its brightest hope, its hopes are being dashed and the darkness blown into Armageddon? We can’t scare you with terrorism anymore, though that project is ongoing. But we can scare the hell out of you with a society on the brink of catastrophe. Remember? Iraq was about to blow a mushroom cloud over Manhattan in the coup-de-gras against the shining city on the hill.

Isn’t there an obvious question no one ever asks?

Are the Republicans, as the political arm of this project, and FOX, CNBC and most of the media which takes these propaganda actions and blasts them as if it’s actually news, thereby giving legitimacy and equality in the marketplace of ideas – is this project pursued for mere politics, (and this is the state of politics in 21st Century Babylon) or is the obstruction against progress and the incitement of crass patriotism and base instinct the true aim of the, uh, well, let’s call them The Planners.

What force, which calls itself America, would want to bypass debate of the issues of the day and go right to fomenting open warfare against the Government? True the village-idiot-couch-potato nation does not know how to debate rather than parrot what they’ve heard by the likes of me, so the point maybe moot, but why the MOBILIZATION of resistance against a well-meaning government? The current President did not start these wars, run up trillions in debt and allow the international banking system to BORG the Treasury of the United States.

You do understand that much don’t you?

The Treasury, which is the Public Fund, (because there is no public fund, but an ongoing accumulation of debt), borrows money from the Fed, (which is a private banking cartel), which the public is liable to pay back to private interests with interest. And then because the private banking lobby bought enough politicians to change the laws, the banks became casinos and bet all their Depositors’ (persons, institutions and municipalities) deposits (savings, retirement, investments) in a Ponzi scheme swindle guaranteed with insurance policies to save the banks from their participation in something which can only be described as acid-induced mania and egomaniacal exceptionalism which bequeaths unlimited “Get Out of Jail Free” cards.

And so the Public, because all their dough disappeared, has to bail out the banks because the people are the banks. If you don’t re-capitalize them and let the banks fail then you’d have to ask yourself this question: “How will I do in a Darwinian, Mad Max, Jungle of Dog-Eat-Dog?”

But don’t you see the elegance is breathtaking. We’re convincing the people the Government is stealing their money and not the banks. If it weren’t for the so-called bailout, trillions of dollars of new debt on top of Bush’s plunder, which is minuscule to any stimulus and infrastructure investment, then the current President’s plans would an unqualified success and Government would be a hero. A movement toward greater Public Projects would ensue. Profit would be replaced by Progress for People.

Obviously, we can’t have that. The idea of The People is great for propaganda, but in reality? No. The People are nothing but a mob to be directed. The idea of equality is some notion meant to raise an army of peasants in war between elites. Not to say the jump from bloodline entitlement to fortune-creation entitlement wasn’t a giant leap in the right direction, but let’s be honest about it. There is one immutable law of human organization. The few run roughshod over the many. The idea the many can be one and evolve some kind of egalitarian society based upon mutual respect and dignity is the same pipe-dream as world peace. Hope is nothing but the mechanism to take one’s mind off the miserable present.

And what does the present tell you? Are we on the cusp of the New Age of Aquarius? Peace, love and understanding? Is happy-shiny about to break out all over?

Don’t you see? Obama WAS Hope. And now we’re trying to make it as hopeless as possible. Obama WAS Change. And now we’re making it crystal clear it’s Business as Usual. Nothing has changed.

There is only one reason to destroy democracy and the people’s power to govern themselves. There is only one reason to wreck society at its core and throw the people into turmoil. There is only reason to foment rebellion against the current regime and encourage ignorant radicals with billions of bullets to gird their loins for the battle ahead.

It’s the same reason as always. It’s the lesson of Babel. The only good humanity is a divided and weak one. Who could possibly work toward that goal and call itself human?

What was Pavlov to the Dog?

 

All right! High fives all around! Wow! What a rush. Every Tax Day should be Revolution Day. I can’t wait till the next one. Remember what Jefferson said, “the Tree of Liberty shall be watered with the blood of tea-baggers every April 15th.”

Well we certainly made a statement didn’t we? We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore. I feel like going to an alehouse and signing a petition and pinching a wench. Yeah, resistance is good and the timing is perfect right after March Madness and before the NBA Finals. As Robert Duvall said, “I love the smell of Revolution in the morning!”

So, anyway, what’s for lunch?

Because let me tell you rebellion works up a healthy appetite. I can’t imagine what those other guys went through – the original Tea Partiers – they had to throw like a two ton bag of tea over the side of a ship and all we had to do is throw a few tea-bags into a trash can. And some liberal tea-baggers – is that called an oxymoron or a paradox? – (and what were they doing there, anyway) suggested we donate the tea to some food bank or something but it didn’t take long for some real patriots to come along and say the tea was like Halloween candy, probably laced with ecstasy, and couldn’t be trusted and the best thing to do is throw it away. Saner heads prevailed. Some of us wanted to burn the teabags but we didn’t have a permit for that. The firemen have to be there so civil disobedience doesn’t burn a hole in the carpet.

Anyway, me and some of my fellow militia members, okay, just kidding, we don’t belong to a militia, we just want to when the time comes for the real revolution, you know, we’re hoping between the World Series and the NFL Playoffs in 2012.

But, anyway, I keep getting distracted; I feel like Dennis Hopper hopped up on speed or something like in that movie, it doesn’t matter which one where he goes crazy and kills a billion people with a rocket launcher or something or maybe that was Sylvester Stallone, but he was never on speed I don’t think but had a gun which shoots like a thousand rounds a second and maybe it was him who killed those billion people.

WOW!!! What a rush. I feel like Paul Revere and the Raiders during the 60s when they had one really good song and were getting laid like there was no tomorrow even though they were all ugly except for that one guy who was like from a another planet he was so handsome and the girls just swooned all over him.  

I hope I get laid tonight. What kind of patriot would the Mrs. be if she didn’t get into the spirit of 1776. Rockets bursting in air. Just because I didn’t put my life on the line doesn’t mean there couldn’t have been a terrorist attack in the ballroom of the Best Western. Surely there was more than a 1% chance I could have been killed by Marxist, Communist Radicals bent upon destroying our sovereignty, stealing our freedom and killing God. If it’s good enough for Cheney it’s good enough for me. I am a daredevil freedom fighter and when the Revolution is over I want some loving. And then some comfort food so I can come down off the high of facing death in the heat of battle against godless heathens and lesbian warriors. And I don’t mean anything against Xena, it’s just that the woman’s place is in the home under her man like it says in the Bible and not out under the stars with another woman and a couple of horses.

We did have one serious discussion today though. Me and my fellow patriot tea-baggers. It was after the ceremony. You know after the revolution ceremony where we dumped our tea into the trash. After the head guy said something about taking our country back from bankers and communists who were destroying our nation, we dumped the tea, had some hotdogs, chips and Pepsi, got our parking tickets validated and headed home.

And some of the other patriots and I went to find the parking garage elevator out of order and so we had to go up three flights of stairs and by the time we got to the third floor, we were heaving and wheezing and coughing phlegm from our chests and as we stopped to rest we looked at each other.

We were kind of fat and out of shape. One guy said America is now more obese than fat. Another guy said, “Imagine throwing a revolution and not having enough hotdogs at the after-party.” And we laughed because he was right. One hotdog is not enough after putting our lives on the line to make a statement and stand up and be counted and risk surveillance by the FBI or Homeland Security or the local police. Out of hundreds of millions of fellow citizens I was one of thousands brave enough and courageous enough to go public and say, “Here! Take this tea-bag and shove it!”

So anyway, if anything good came out of this it’s that once I figure out a way to save my house, and my job and keep my wife from leaving and the kids from calling me a twit, I am going to go out and sign up at the local gym. I swear. This time I mean it. It’s a luxury but it’s got to be done. I’m going to shed a few pounds. Get in shape. Run laps. Lift weights. Cut down on fast-food and booze. Read the Bible more. And the Constitution. And, when no one is looking, one guy told me about old issues of Playboy on line for FREE!

That’s what America is about. That’s what we’re protecting. That’s what we’re defending.

FREEDOM!

Amen.

Cheney’s DNA has gone viral, like twitter, and spread across red-meat America. Lying dormant through the Bush years, seething since Clinton “got away” with it, and now ready to bloom into full blown metastasized paranoid, hysterical hatred for all things not God and Guns.

Nevermind the contaminated Cheney Virus does not possess the god gene. But because the gun gene tends toward overkill we have a cancer which eats piety and excretes scorn like Church Bells in Hell.

All in all, gentlemen, things have not gone so smoothly and according to plan since the Elders wrote the Protocols. Weishaupt was a genius and all hail to the ONE.

The people are ready to explode. Both the right and left see the same thing through the refracted prism of mainstream propaganda. The right sees its paranoia confirmed and the left its myths destroyed.

The rug has been pulled out from  under the people’s feet. Society is godless. Man is God. It his law and his flaw which rule. Man achieved his self-determination and was found wanting. And what has happened? Society and civilization are on the brink of chaos. Humanity has proved an utter failure. A house cannot be divided against itself and what is religion but a wrecking ball? The Great God of the major religions is invisible and absent and yet the slobs cling and cling to the fairy stories of primitive man.

As we have taught them.

And now we are at the moment planned, worked, prayed and sacrificed for – The Last Hope of the People, the great Barrack, is shown as a pawn in a Game of Kings. Power is revealed for all to see. And there is nothing the people can do but surrender or resist.

And oh, the arm-chair revolutionary tea baggers and brave tax resisters, and those freedom-loving Jeffersonian Jingoist Patriots will resist for about a week and a half before they see their towns and friends and families destroyed with the overkill only pretentious poseurs can appreciate. Before you can say, Don’t Tread on Me, the vast majority will be back in the bread lines and job lines and housing lines and debt-pay lines and thanking god they’re still alive to scrape and scrounge and forage for survival like the coagulated lump of humanity they are.

Let us remember, gentlemen, the secret of Life: It is the WILL alone which separates a man from the mass. And nothing subverts the WILL like fear, doubt and hesitation.

The New World Order, gentlemen, will return our civilization to its most efficient mode – King of the Hill. Billions will drop off the bottom rung. Billions more will slide down to take their place. And millions will fight and claw and scrap and scrape to keep from falling away. And then there are those who will lie, cheat, steal, kill, maim and destroy their way to the top.

By their fruits ye shall know them, gentlemen. Let us not forget our purpose from Man to Superman. From mortals to gods. Marx had it half right – each according to his ability. But needs? Lumps and masses have no inalienable rights. If a man can’t fend for himself then he is a useless eater, a parasite living off the abilities of others. Is there anything more pathetic than this New Age fetish that humans all share the same value?

Remember our Founder: “Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery.”

The human mind is as malleable as creation itself. Men will learn as truth anything under the sun. Prejudice is a weakness exploited by the strong. Religion and Politics are both our enemy. And so we set one upon the other in a battle between Superstition and Reason.

In a short time now we will tell the people of the world the new structure of society and civilization. We will introduce a new god; a new religion for the New Man. Not a man at the mercy of the elements but with dominion over creation as god intended, expected and still patiently awaits its realization.

And what is this new god? And this new religion? Liberty, of course. Equality. Justice.

The same rhetoric we used to break up England and place her forever in our service. Nothing bankrupts an empire more efficiently or quickly than defending its possessions. The U.S. has more than 700 military bases around the world and believes itself the victim of 911.

When we attacked the financial system on September 11, 2008 we set in motion the final movement in a symphony of manipulated synchronicity. All which remains is for the people to accept the bit. We expect Americans to be especially tough, like Islamo-fascists, if you will, because certain elements of the population are true believers in the concept of America. Many are likely to give the rebel yell and dream of mustangs and six-shooters and wild-west saloons and fighting for a cause greater than themselves. And they will fight for us. Because, we are the force of liberty, justice and equality. It is no secret the great commanders of the American Revolution were from our organization.

Now we were work on two fronts in the final battle – the Armageddon of logic and reason versus passion and “truth.”

We maneuver forces to the power symbol of Jerusalem. We foment war. Soon Religion will cause conflagration. And as always, the people will ask, “How could God allow such a thing?”

And the answer is – only a false god.

And the people will ask, “How could our venerable institutions fail us?”

And the answer is – Men cannot govern themselves.

And with no God and no Government men will ask for deliverance from us. The Elect. And we will provide. And they will pay tribute. And together, master and slave, we will march into the future.

Destiny fulfilled.

Dude, just because I wake-up to the Breakfast of Champions, doesn’t mean I’m a pot-head. I know heroin addicts who are doctors and lawyers. Not to mention half of Hollywood. So don’t give me that look. Just because I can’t remember what I just said doesn’t mean I don’t have damn a good point to make.

But, dudes, come on, it’s time to stop the madness. It’s time we politely told the Mexican drug cartels to stop sending their crappy-ass weed across our border and vow to smoke only grass Made in the U.S.A. We dig the beaches and the senoritas and the tequila, but come on baby, Mexican weed is crap. I’m sorry. Someone has to say it. And maybe they’ll chop off my head and make pozole from my entrails, but someone has to step up and complain about the quality of Mexican Marijuana. Is there any THC in that joint Paco?

The way to end the drug war is to protect our borders against Mexican drugs and be merciless about it. And if the cartels get snippy, you know, and fight back, well we’ve got a not-so secret weapon on our side: millions and millions of Americans who virulently hate all Mexicans from Argentina to, uh, Mexico. And they work cheap. Lots of Americans are willing to leave their soon-to-be foreclosed homes and live in tents and chow down on beans and rice just for the chance to hunt down and kill some Mexicans.

Not me. I love Mexicans. Especially the ones from Mexico. The Mexican People are the greatest people on the entire planet, but the problem is Mexicans are so poor they can’t afford good quality shit so they settle for this crap which they can afford because it’s so cheap (2 ounces for about $40) and there are so many poor people everywhere which fuels a market for this crap. It’s a tragedy. Like bad champagne or caviar.  

Like, dudes, where is your self-respect? What is worse than seedy, stemmy, flaky, dry, brown, crappy weed? I just don’t get it.

Now, you see, what we need here is the Johnny Appleseed Project. Except for weed. So, I don’t know, something like the Tommy Chong Project. There were apples before Johnny Appleseed. Johnny Appleseed didn’t invent apples. But Johnny Appleseed had good apples. Primo. A#1. Juicy. Sweet. Red and Delicious.

And Johnny planted the good shit all over the fucking countryside see? Pretty soon there were plenty of good apples just for the taking by anyone who happened to wander along.

And that’s what we need for grass, see? I got it: The Mary Jane Project. No. Something. It needs a good name like The New Deal, but you know pot-related like Tokin for Freedom or something – The Elysium Project. Ooh. Anyway, we can have a naming contest with a cash prize – lots better heads out there than just my own.

The point is to take our good shit from California and the Northwest and wherever else they grow good American marijuana these days and start planting it all over the place in Mexico and places in Southern Mexico like Columbia, Peru and Brazil. And pretty soon there is good shit everywhere for a really low price and everyone is happy except for the criminal gangs who run the operation now. And we’ll just have to find them other green jobs.

And for those who resist and can’t transition to a non-criminal life, we’ll elect to Congress where cartel members will feel right at home. (Oh no, did I just say that out loud?) Kidding. I joke. Members of Congress are not part of a criminal gang. They’re stooges for the criminal gang. (Oh, sweet Jesus did I do it again?) Members of Congress are very honorable. Very. Shakespearean in their honorability. Noble. Miserably noble. Like Laura Bush. Or the parents of Red Chief.

The point is this isn’t about Congress and I wish you hadn’t brought it up. This is about ending years and years of a war against our inalienable rights. Dude, what is smoking a doob at nine in the morning if it isn’t the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Consider half of our considerable prison population as political prisoners. Attica! Free the Marijuana One Million!

People smoke dope; get over it. Lots of people. Lots and lots. I personally smoked dope with the President of…well, who hasn’t? Am I right?

Did America build a Prison Industrial Complex just to house and feed at taxpayer expense folks who trade and use marijuana? Not to say there aren’t real criminals out there who need incarceration. I can think of more than a few right off the bat. But we have to be honest; there is lots of Victor Hugonian criminality in a class-based society with a permanent under-class of oppressed ex-slaves, starry-eyed immigrants and lugubrious American misfits who don’t fit the mold of someone say like Barack Obama. Or Reese Witherspoon.

……..damn. I know I had a point to make……

Coke and acid and ecstasy and heroin and whatever else is a different debate for a different day and since I won’t remember this one, who gives a rip.

But pot? It’s a no-brainer. It’s a good cash crop and let’s get the industrial hemp, uh, industry, a kick in the pants with some of our stimulus dough. Hemp, Jesus, hemp is like one of those Swiss Army knives with forty blades. It can do everything. It’s almost as if there is a conspiracy of stupidity or something when it comes to good old fashioned reefer.

And, dude, you know what I think it is? When you light up the Doob the first thing in the morning, you know, after the morning constitutional and a cup of joe, you just don’t feel much like going to a job you hate. If you’re lucky and you have a job you love then getting high only makes the anticipation of going to work that much sweeter. But, as I say, if it’s a job you don’t like, then that great puff-the-magic-dragon feeling in the a.m. is going to turn your desire toward more sensual experiences like going for a walk outdoors or to a museum or creative pursuits like writing or painting or just sitting around doing nothing and enjoying the nothingness.

20th Century American Capitalism, especially Industrial Capitalism, especially Military-Industrial Capitalism requires a fairly stable, highly skilled, and punctual work force. Tens of millions of folks going on walkabouts or reciting poetry ain’t going to cut it.  But today? We don’t have any freaking industry. War is obsolete. The jobs we have left in America any moron can do, evidently including the Presidency. (Should I clarify which president I mean? No, it goes with the whole moron thing, let them figure it out.)

I need a toke. I don’t like muscular thinking. It’s like John the Baptist yelling in the wilderness. Or Cassandra. Or, uh, the guy who predicted the Italy earthquake. The TRUTH is staring you right in the face but hardly anyone else sees it.

Or that’s not quite right. Ordinary people see it. But our Leaders seem clueless.

50 years of a drug war has not had any effect on drug use by average citizens in a free society where drugs are illegal whatsoever. Dudes, like, what are they afraid of?  

Slackers? Really? The greatest threats to our society are terrorists and slackers?

As I say, I just don’t get it. The Dumb War. The War Against Dumb is what we need.

Anyway, think of a name for the Johnny Appleseed Project for Marijuana and win a prize.

And don’t think of this as loopy or fringy or addle-brained. Think of it as the beginning of the end of hypocrisy.

We’ll never have a drug-free world so why not make drugs free?

A Message from A.M.M.O.

They’re coming. They’re coming to take our guns and our freedoms and our way of life. The Government. The government is the enemy. And if we don’t destroy it then it’s going to destroy us.

Well, let ’em try. Bring ’em on. We’ve got more guns and ammunition than God. They want to put us into camps now. Have you heard that? It’s true. Re-education camps then labor camps and then death camps. The government is planning a holocaust of freedom.

You’ve got your eyes wide shut and this is happening in broad daylight. All you’ve got to do is connect the dots. It’s not rocket science. It’s started back in the 90s with the Clintons and what is Obama but the Clinton’s lawn jockey. (And we mean that with respect. Willie Shoemaker was a great athlete.) The only member of his Administration who isn’t a Clinton re-tread is Michelle Obama – a known communist, who does not believe in disciplining her children as god intended. She spoils her children.

Don’t you see we have a conspiracy so big it’s invisible? And behind the invisible conspiracy is the unspeakable power. But we are not afraid to speak the name of the unspeakable power behind the invisible conspiracy to destroy our ideals, values and patriotism. We are not afraid to name names and say it out loud and proclaim the truth for all to hear.

And if you join our mailing list we’ll tell you. This communication goes out to too many of the zombie ignorant slaves who obediently follow every word the government says. They can’t handle the truth. When you hear it you know it and it sets you free but too many Americans can’t handle the truth of a giant invisible conspiracy filled with ancient dynastic families, secret societies and international bankers.

When the Clintons were in power they bombed the Murrah Office Building in Oklahoma City to discredit the then powerful and growing patriotic militia movement. Timothy McVeigh is not dead but put into witness protection. He was a fake patriot who worked for the government. He was like Lee Harvey Oswald, but different. What remains the same between then and now is the invisible conspiracy which disappears into the government and out the other side to THE UNSPEAKABLE.

But we do speak it. We all know the word. And we know the power of its LOBBY. But no one dares speak its name in public. But if you come to our private meetings and receive our email newsletter well, we are not afraid then. The power of the LOBBY does not extend into our training center and firing range.

FEMAs got camps. And military bases are being converted to more camps. We’ve got US ARMY troops conducting exercises in our streets. They’ve got micro-wave crowd control weapons and they’re expecting trouble. It’s going to make the Great Depression look like the Fourth of July. AND we’ve got Henry Kissinger telling the Communists that the government was to take away our guns by September.

And do you know they want our guns by summer? Isn’t it obvious?

Obama is going to surrender the sovereignty of America to the New World Order. And they want our guns so we can’t resist as is our duty under the law of inalienable rights.

What do you think the financial crisis is about? It’s about destroying America as the leader of the FREE WORLD! The New World Order is a Slave World. No more paper money. All computerized and every transaction logged and accounted. The free market becomes the BIG BROTHER market. And the internet is the next to go, and that’s why we also, for an extra ten dollars a year, send a hard copy of the AMMO newsletter to your mailbox so when the internet goes down in a false flag attack by THE GOVERNMENT, you can still stay informed. We are a well regulated militia as required by the 2nd Amendment.

And anyway, as anyone not brainwashed by the LIBERAL MEDIA knows, Obama was born in Africa to parents who practiced idolatry and taught trance workshops. He is not a natural born citizen. And the Constitution says something about that, doesn’t it? And the Supreme Court even ruled on the matter. And this proves the Supreme Court is part of the invisible conspiracy to destroy our country.

There is a war coming to the streets of America. And it’s all being done on purpose to destroy our freedoms. But even if we do what we should do and nuke all the Arabs and Iranians into oblivion, they are not the enemy. The enemy is within. It’s our government.

Both Political Parties. Treason is Bi-Partisan. Not all in both parties but like 9/10 of all politicians are crooked and “owned” by you know what and you know who.

But the important thing to remember is WE ARE NOT ALONE!

You’ll find us in secessionist movements, tax-revolt organizations and church groups. We’re the local PTA and town commissioners. We’re local little league coaches, scout leaders and youth counselors.

We’re millions and millions of hard working, god fearing and fed up Americans. And our numbers are growing. How can they not grow with things the way they are: immoral, godless and diverse. How can there be democracy when too many people think too many weird things? The best government for the people is one based upon the twin pillars of the CONSTITUTION and THE BIBLE.

If you see the signs and omens and believe in the prophecies then you know what time it is. It’s time to cowboy up. Strap on the six-shooter and stock-up on A.M.M.O.

We all know the Tree of Liberty needs its roots sprinkled with the blood of revolution from time to time.

Isn’t now THE TIME?

Join AMMO and know there is no better patriot than a loaded one.

 

Jordan Valley stands next to me at the crap game. She looks like a hooker but she’s really a porn star. Big difference. Sex for money, sure, but still a big difference. Hookers have no screen presence, Spitzer’s is a perfect example, and when you see Jordan for the first time, well all you can say is – “I get it.”

Jordan could have been a big star. She’s got the looks; the camera loves her; her voice is smoky valley girl, but Jordan Valley can’t act her way out of a paper bag. Or plastic.

So, I’ve got Jordan standing next to me blowing on my dice for luck, the pit crew is looking at me like I’m crazy and I’m sure the eyes in the sky are gathering for the next play. I’ve bet it all on one roll of the dice; a $50,000 prop bet on a crap three. It pays fifteen to one. One roll for $750,000. Just enough for what I need.

And just as I throw down the table, Jordan whispers in my ear “Are you a madman or a fool?”

Like everyone else these days, money is an issue. The issue is how to get more of it. An honest day’s labor or hook-or-by-crook? Well considering an honest day’s labor pays less than zero and a lifetime of toil adds up to your kids wishing you were dead because this is the 21st century and not the 19th and parents should gracefully shuffle off this mortal coil and not cause a scene or drain the grandkids’ college fund – what choice is there?

Like most people I’m not looking for money to make money, but to survive. Literally. Like most people. Now most people have debts on credit cards and mortgages and car loans and such. Most people have debts because they play by the rules. And some of us have debts because we’re madmen or fools.

And when you have debts like we all have, you have a couple of choices; slowly but surely pay it off, costing more and more with interest over time or by making a big score and paying in full at the soonest possible moment.

It’s all a question of risk. How much risk are you willing to take to get the monkey off your back? Some fear the consequences of making a bad situation worse. While some don’t think ahead and live in the moment on a razor’s edge playing with mortal destruction like a child with a pack of matches.

As the dice fly through the air toward the far end of the table, I look at Jordan Valley and wonder after a normal life. I wonder if she ever thinks about kids and settling down or if she, like me, wants to live the fastest way possible to shorten the misery of knowing Once Upon A Time doesn’t end with Happily Ever After.

Not to say life ain’t grand and all. Not to ignore the grandeur of creation, the joy of existence and the ecstasy of sex, drugs and rock and roll. But some of us “get” life early and all we see is more of the same through all our days and so we endeavor to make every moment our last. We dare life to throw us back. And the more life doesn’t the more we learn how to live life to its fullest. And I don’t mean it’s best, virtuous or most responsible. I mean an excess of wine, women and song.

Jordan looks at me as the dice hit the table. In her eyes is sadness. She’s made her bets. Jordan Valley is like a blackjack player who takes a hundred to the table and leaves with a hundred six hours later. She’s not in it for the money, she just likes to play. It’s all about having a seat at the table for the longest possible time before one tires of the game.  

She knows I’m going to lose and it really doesn’t matter if I’m a madman or a fool – the result is the same. She could have said, “You’re my hero,” instead. Or, “I love you.” But, no, it’s a foregone conclusion. The odds of hitting a craps three on one roll of the dice are beyond rational. She knows there won’t even be any pity sex later because some guys, just out of sight, are also waiting to see me lose.

It’s easy to understand the worldwide rage against the ruling elite. The people are salivating for Marie Antoinette. I saw our president the other day laughing it up with other “heads of state” like he was at the Court of the Queen of Hearts, drinking the looking glass kool-aid. Millions of folks falling into Dickensonian poverty, billions of others living like dirt, and the machine of world government revealed as so much smoke and mirrors, and we catch glimpses of our president Animal Housing with Sarkozy and Berlusconi and the little Russian sock-puppet Medvedev.

People are aching to take up the pitchforks and are just waiting for the first million or two folks to get it all started before the revolution is safe to join.

The dice are rolling along, bouncing around, settling down to reveal my fate. It’s a good thing everyone’s destiny is death. In the face of egregious greed and wars between classes and castes, death is the ultimate in egalitarianism. So whether it’s a shiv between the ribs or a dribble glass in an old folks home, once you accept your destiny it’s all about narrative from that moment onward.

A crowd roars for a throw at another table just as my dice come up. That can’t be good. A winner somewhere else means a loser right here. I can feel a weight coming and going at the same time as one burden is lifted and another gifted. The feeling of doom is replaced by one of resignation. Like Marie Antoinette at the chopping block. After days and days of pushing destiny away, the moment finally arrives. And moves on.

I’m still looking at Jordan Valley as she looks at the table. She’s only 26. She was a girl just a few moments ago. And now she’s a porn star. And a coke whore. And a woman who threw it all away because her one and only talent is a squirting orgasm.

On the other hand, Jordan Valley in a secretarial pool is as likely as a Holiday Inn on Jupiter.

I see her eyes go wide and I think she is the most beautiful woman in the world. Like Marilyn Monroe before Arthur Miller. There is no tragedy without innocence. Her eyes go even bigger. Her mouth begins to open in a burst of energy as the crowd explodes at my table.

Craps three.

The pit crew’s collective jaw is on the floor. The security guys are on alert. And Jordan Valley is in my arms kissing and cuddling and whispering in my ear, “You’re a madman.”

And all I can think is, “Damn. There is a god.”

I give the crew a $1,000 chip each and they give me a chit for $750,000 to take to the cage. It was a solemn occasion. The casino boss comes over and says, “Congratulations. Debt paid. Don’t come here again.”

Before I reach the casino door with Jordan Valley on my arm, two goons approach me and one says, “We’ll take that,” and the other reaches for the cash. Instinctively, I pull away and one guy grabs me by the throat. Jordan lets out a little squeal but this is nothing for her. The guy not grabbing my throat takes the case of cash. My throat is released.

“There’s more in there than I owe,” I say.

“Interest,” one of the goons say, “The price just went up.”

There’s always a moment isn’t there? The moment of decision when you calculate the odds, judge the risk and make your move. Sometimes surrender is the best option. To live to fight another day. The best philosophy of life is “easy-come-easy-go.” The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. The bastard.

“Sure,” I say, “It always does.” The goons give me one final look, the look of killers, and turn to leave.

Jordan Valley says after them, “You’ve got the money, but he’s got me!”

And then she turns to me and says, “How did you get the crooked dice into the house?”

“Blackmail,” I say. “Scandal is bad for business. Money laundering and pedophilia is a combination most folks can’t recover from. It’s a protection racket. We protect deep, dark secrets from going public. When billions of dollars are at risk, it’s best to pay.”

“But…” she began.

“It’s like sausages and legislation, sweetheart, you don’t want to know.” This was a heist pure and simple. Information is the grail of success. The casino boss was dirty and dragged his dirt into the casino. The casino was bound to lose big, big money from the dirty revelations associated with this world famous casino. Think Tylenol before the safety caps. Ergo – a no-brainer. Pay to play.

So we take the 750 and pay off a ransom for a rich man’s son whose father refused to pay. Everything else is narrative. And now the son turns on the father and another major cartel jefe will fall. Blackmail begets black cash begets black-ops.

Jordan Valley and I head out into the night. I love Las Vegas. It smells like teen spirit. A bit of grunge, a dollop of heat, a bucket of hormones and the thrill of winning it all in a game of chance.

“I have to work tomorrow,” says Jordan, “I’ve got to rest my parts.”

A porn star just told me she has a headache.

Oh well. Easy come; easy go.

NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, the image of Jordan Valley above is, like the woman herself, computer generated.  

This is a true story. Almost. And, it’s almost fiction. But not. I should know. I was there.

They were throwing the stuff off the back of the truck like sacks of flour, but the bags weren’t filled with flour, but illegal drugs. In broad daylight on the outskirts of town. Big guys standing around with guns, knives and iPods. Reflective sunglasses and bleeding crucifixes. Latin machismo bristling under tattoos and tank-tops. I know what you’re thinking: yum.

The truck, a small, unmarked, self-contained U-Haul type, stops at a pre-arranged location with the town’s dealers already there and waiting. The back door is rolled up and very professional and efficient guys throw down the drugs – marked and labeled – as dealers hand up the cash; the whole thing takes less than a minute. The truck drives off, the dealers saunter to their Mustangs and Camaros.

“They’ve never done this before,” says my friend and dealer I’ll call Jorge. We were headed back to his place, a little toilet of a spot over a brothel no one knows about except its preferred clients – Mexican fat cats, expatriated intelligence operatives and sexually addicted octogenarian ceramicists of both sexes – to weigh and package the stuff. This isn’t a Mexican Border town like Tijuana or Juarez run by cartels. It’s a town deep within the power structure of Central Mexico. PAN Territory.

And this is the thing; this is not about drug cartels and their power over politicians, police and a fearful populace. This is about human beings’ insatiable desire to get wasted and not be hassled by politicians, police and puritans.

It’s called a “free market” society. Numbnuts.

I happened to witness the illicit off-load because I needed some shit and called Jorge and he said he was out but was planning to get some THAT day. Come over at noon, he says. I was there AT noon. If you need shit you know what I’m talking about.

And Jorge says, “Sorry gottlieb. Change of plans. It’s coming at two.” So me and Jorge sit around drinking tequila shots and beer, counting the minutes, and listening to the sounds of orgasms through thin walls in the middle of the day and all I can think is: Some guys have all the luck.

I think back to the golden days in Puerto Vallarta and the beach and the volleyball and the chicks in strings and the heat and the clubs and the heat. The sweat of good love in the afternoon. The thing about luck is you never realize it’s there until its passed you by. Or maybe we want paradise to last forever and when it disappears into the mirage it always was, we blame it on the fact it wasn’t really paradise, because, by definition, paradise is eternal.

So I said “fuck it” a long time ago and settled into a chemically induced stupor which rings of paradise but there is no angst about its false pretenses. You get the high of nirvana without the work because all the work ends up with the revelation that all the work is in vain. IT was there in front of you for the taking all the time.

So finally after a bottle of Tradicional and a few Indios, the time comes to catch a taxi up to the rendezvous area. It’s up a big hill from the middle of town and we’re drunk and can hardly stand let alone walk and we catch a cab and head up to get the stuff so we can transcend tequila and beer (purgatory?) and reach paradise if only for a few hours at a time.

We get out of the cab and I pay 30 pesos, including the tip, and the taxi’s tires squeal as he peals away – he’s seen what I haven’t: A convention of killers, rapists and racists who can’t wait for the order to start cutting the throats of gringos who retire down here from north of the border. I’m not retired. I trade in blood diamonds and aver for the return of the gold standard. I live here because I know this is where they’ll circle the wagons when the Indians come looking for justice. The helicopter is already on call to pick me up and take me to the island when all hell breaks loose – as it must by the rules of righteous indignation.

My friend and dealer Jorge, and he’s a better dealer than a friend, is really scared. This is not his crowd. He’s not part of a major distribution network. He’s a user and he gets enough to sell to support his habit. He’s the best kind of dealer because he’s never out of shit and when he is out you can be sure he is in the process of getting more. Pronto. I call him 24/7 and get my stuff. I am a valued customer. Regular, like clockwork, I am his fixed income.

These guys are all looking at us. A gringo in a Corona beer T-shirt and a University of Iowa Hawkeye baseball cap and a scraggly druggie in torn jeans with a stench of desperation seeping through his pores like residue off a wet-dream, waiting around with the big boys for a drop. A few guys start doing crazy twirling things with big blades and jackets are pulled apart to reveal guns. And I’m like, “Holy shit, I just want to get high who needs all this aggravation.” And then we all hear the sound of an approaching helicopter. There are very few possibilities who this helicopter belongs to: President Calderon, billionaire Carlos Slim or the military. Or their respective ilk. It flies low and loud over our position and then away. Before the sound disappears, the truck appears. And, like adolescent sex – before you learn to think of baseball teams or the alphabet backward or anything to take your mind off the fact you are the luckiest guy in the world, even if you don’t know what you’re doing and you can’t hold it any longer – it’s over in less than a minute.

We’re walking back down the hill with our load toward town. Jorge’s got to weigh it out and put it in baggies and vials.

“They’ve never done this before,” says Jorge. “Out in the open like that. So brazen.” Jorge has spent many years in the states and speaks English much better than I speak Spanish after five years in-country.

“What’s it mean?” I ask.

“It means they are not afraid of anything,” he says, “These drugs are not bound to America but to neighborhoods all around here. You know they passed legislation in 2006 when Fox was President to legalize drugs in Mexico, but the Americans made us stop.”

“They legalized drugs in Mexico?”

“Oh yes,” says Jorge, “Pot, coke, mushrooms – you name it. Fox was ready to sign the bill before the election but the Americans said no and so Fox said he’d let the next President sign it. And then the election was really messy with Obrador and Calderon never signed the bill into law. And we all know it’s the Americans. When you look in the dictionary under hypocrite you see the American Flag.”

Couldn’t argue with that and the drug war was just the tip of the iceberg.

“Drugs are no big deal for us,” he went on, “It’s you Americans, always looking for more and more and more who screwed this all up for everybody. You can’t just do a line or two you need seven or eight. Your entire existence is to use your freedom to push the limits of experience, but you don’t learn.”

“Learn what?” I ask.

“Paradise is in the first puff,” he says, “But once YOU find paradise you want to experience an even better one, a grander paradise, but there is no other one and you go off the deep end looking for something which does not exist.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say, “I might be an American, but I’m no gringo.”

Jorge laughs and does not say anything. We walk in silence on down the hill toward Centro. In another half hour I’d have my stuff and be on my way.

The problem with drugs, of course, is that they’re illegal. This, of course, creates a criminal class from otherwise law-abiding citizens and a criminal enterprise as the delivery system. Make drugs legal; take away the criminal element. A pot patch in every backyard. Why not?

Not to say drugs aren’t dangerous when improperly dosed and managed. But come on; Jorge has a point. Americans tend to overdo. We’ve gone from fat to obese for godsakes. We soak up the world’s oil, drugs and bacon grease like champagne and caviar from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. The Great American Gatsby is a clothes hound, crack whore, glutton and lazy thinker.

I get back to my place in the middle of a poor Mexican neighborhood. My house looks like all the others. Two guys are waiting there for me, as expected. I give them the memory-stick of photos from the camera in my Hawkeye baseball cap and they give me some cash. They’re trying to make a schematic of drug cartel personnel but they might as well try to snort oysters through the eye of a needle. Trying to reverse engineer infiltration. Typical FBI. Entrapment and intimidation; that’s their game. Lowbrows, we call them. The FBI is full of lowbrows. Anyway, retirement doesn’t go as far as it used to even with a government pension so I earn a few grand a year as a low level operative in a war called Ignorance against an enemy called Crime. Talk about “The Long War.” Don’t make me laugh. I don’t give up Jorge, of course. He’s my friend. And dealer. Some bonds are thicker than blood-money. And he’s not one of “them.”

Later in the week I play poker with the United States Consulate at his home which looks over the city like Olympus and is where important people come and go and meet and mingle. The Consulate is a charming man. Straight as an arrow. Honest. Always a smile for the guy he knows only as a friend of a friend of a friend. I lose a few bucks. He gives me a knowing look. Mine is opaque as it should be.

I ask him, “What do you think? Is Mexico a failed state? Is it a Narco State? What’s going to happen?”

And the Consulate says, “gottlieb, it’s a failed world; it’s a narco world and we’re right smack in the middle of it. If Mexico is a failed State then so is America.”

And later, alone, after the senoritas have left, I sit with a good aged Mescal and a Cuban cigar and a few lines of something they call coke but mixed with crap from here to the border as everyone wants their take. It’s a good high but surely eating away my frontal lobe. But screw it. Life is good. And the good die young. Mexico is the greatest fucking country on earth.

Some guys have all the luck.

I put down the crack pipe and pick up the remote control. I turn off the TV. Was there ever a time when Wheel of Fortune wasn’t on the air? If fortune is a wheel then this particular spin of the wheel called “my life” is decidedly unsuccessful.

I sit in the darkness in the quiet, a trace of burning base filling the air. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, because of chronic short-term memory failure, I remembered why I put down the crack pipe and picked up the remote control in the first place.

Someone had entered the room.

In the dark he was hard to see. There was only a fragment of moonlight. But, still, it didn’t take a rocket scientist, which I’ve never wanted to be, to see the visitor wasn’t from around these parts. Wasn’t from America. Not one of us.

First of all he was completely naked except for a tiny loin cloth which would make Tarzan’s a tux with tails. And second he stood there with a spear, taller than him, one end in the ground and the other pointed toward to the sky. And finally, and maybe most importantly, time will tell, around his neck was a huge snake. A serpent draped down to his knees.

Now maybe it was the crack or the single-malt Scotch or the medium-rare pork rinds, but the sight of this silhouetted man, framed in the doorway against the abyss of my failed potential, did not unnerve me in the slightest. Perhaps it was his size, maybe five-foot tall and he couldn’t have weighed more than eighty or ninety pounds, but the man wasn’t starving. He was strong. Alert. Poised. Comfortable in his own skin.

We stared at each other for a moment. Me in my La-Z-Boy and him in his body-paint and loincloth. And spear. He was a hunter. Mustn’t forget that. He hunts for his survival and I spray RAID to murder miserable little pests before they find their way to my well-stocked pantry. I have my GPS and he’s guided by the moon and stars. I live in the relative security and comfort of the First-World and he’s a charter member of the primordial goo. Everything separates us but our humanity.

We stared for a long moment until he broke the silence. He shot me a withering glance like my grandfather did when I failed at something or other any two-year old could do. After countless generations of upwardly mobile success of both material and spiritual wealth, I was the bust-back, presumably for reasons better relegated to the Wheel of Fortune than any deeper meaning. I made the black sheep in the family look like Prince Charles back in the day before he chewed his brains from the inside out and mistook himself for a King. Ah, Charlie, if only we could have stayed in Bangkok forever.

The aboriginal apparition, the universal earthman spoke in perfect English. With an English accent. I wish Diana were here to hear it. She’d laugh and laugh in that way of hers with a wicked smile before she dropped down for another line.

The visitor said in a clipped British tone, “Am I supposed to stand here forever or are you going to invite me in?”

To me he was already in and there was no inviting to do but an explanation of why the hell the little squirt was standing in my doorway with a loincloth and a spear. But as an American, I only thought these things to myself.

“Come in,” I said. “Sorry. May I get you a drink?” I declined my recliner and hobbled to my feet.

“Water,” he said. “From the tap into a clean glass, please.”

I turned to get the native man a glass of water. “Sure you don’t want bottled water?” I asked, suddenly remembering again what I swore I’d never forget – they found a bunch of poisonous chemicals in the water supply. Drink at your own risk – meanwhile you can buy bottled water which is ‘clean.’

“When water is a prisoner she cries. But sometimes the wail of a siren is preferable to her embrace.”

I didn’t quite understand how an ambulance was a her and water was a her and why they both cried.

“Would you rather have a beer?” I asked.

“Water is so hard to find?”

“No, it’s easy,” I say, “It comes in a bottle from the store.”

“I prefer to dip my hand in the river,” he says.

“Well,” I say, feeling chipper and at the top of my game thanks to the drugs and drink and dancing fantasies of Vanna White on a bear-skin rug with a flute of White Star and a mirror of cocaine, “You never know what crap folks put in the river upstream. Better to buy clean water from the store. Better safe than sorry.”

“I am a man and you are a ghost,” he says. Then he laughs. At me. Do ghosts have feelings, asshole? Huh? Do ghosts bleed when you stab them with the dagger of regret? Huh? Do ghosts smell up the bathroom in the morning while reading the 31st Psalm or Guns and Ammo, whichever is within reach? Huh?

And it’s then I lunge at the bastard. Arms out, fingers extended like some demented monster of Frankenstein I lunge at the little diapered Gandhi with a Bush smirk, ready to strangle the water-mocker like I’ve seen it done a thousand time in the movies.

Though, they never wait long enough in the movies. It takes much longer to kill someone in real life. Especially by strangling. Maybe ten seconds max in the movies. Well, people don’t go that easy let me tell you from experience. They’ll try to trick you and make you believe they’re dead and then when you let up they grab you in the balls and poke you in the eyes and generally fight like hell to survive. Even pampered little country club, city spa, chalet in Aspen bankers will fight like hell to survive. The little twerps.

So, I’m lunging at little black Sambo right out of a Tarzan movie with the stupid little spear and the stupid little grin and before I can say, “Gotcha you miserable little bastard” the miserable little bastard steps out of the way as I tumble to the ground and he places the point of his spear on the back of my neck. Okay, the years of neglect, the tons of sugar, the kilos of black, brown, green and white, the decades of debauchery, mainlining popular culture, yeah, maybe I lost a step. Or maybe it was the same corner of the damn rug I always trip over and been meaning to tape to the hardwood floor since 1987. Or maybe it was voodoo magic from the Amazonian psychedelic patch. The point is I’m in a slightly vulnerable position for no other reason than I’ve got no good drinking water from the tap and the little hunter-gatherer-warrior-shaman dude can’t abide Perrier.

Wasn’t it him who invaded my space unannounced, uninvited and unclothed liked he was dropped out the sky by the Zetans as some kind of practical joke? I was trying to be a good host and give him what he wanted, but no, all he wants is water from an unsafe tap. I saved his life and this is the thanks I get. Ungrateful little Third World Neanderthal. And all this is going through my head instead of my life flashing before my eyes because who wants to rewind that fucking disaster, when all of a sudden I’m pulled to my feet and instantly somewhere else.

Like a cloud or something. But a conference room too. Like a conference room in a cloud somewhere in a dream. It’s all white. And there are people sitting at a conference table looking at me standing before them. Men and women looking at me. Maybe seven or eight of them. Judging, evaluating, reckoning, setting the penance.

Finally one of them says, “Where’s Bob?”

And then I realize the little pigmy grunt is standing next to me, still holding the damn spear. I look at him and sure enough all of a sudden he does look a little like Robert Guillaume the guy who used to star in Benson when I was a kid and I realize this is a very bad dream, but still not a nightmare as I’m not being chased, yet.

And one of the people in the conference room in the cloud says, “Well? Well gottlieb? What do you have to say for yourself? Huh?”

Well what can I say really except it’s indigestion and maybe a loose sphincter or something equally as embarrassing because I really have no idea what’s going on and frankly was loosing interest because I just realized the Wheel of Fortune is actually a very profound game show. And the comfort of my Easy Boy and my freedom-of-choice remote control and as a devotee to finance capitalism and the ideals of ‘get-rich-quick’  – all these things called to my dream and prodded to get me back to real world.

And sure enough, I awoke in my recliner as Vanna White was turning a Q. The category was “America’s Favorite Pastime” and I thought “there is no Q in baseball.” Or Mom’s Apple Pie for that matter. And I thought of all the Q words which could be America’s favorite pastime that wasn’t baseball. And I couldn’t think of one. Vanna just stood there smiling stupidly into the camera like “Come on gottlieb you dumb fuck.” And I just couldn’t think of it. Like it was staring me right in the face: Wheel of Fortune, the letter Q, America’s favorite pastime and I wished I was back in the dream in the stupid conference room in the sky with the pigmy named Bob and the scrutinizers judging me unworthy… and all of a sudden I get it. And I say it: “Quack!”

And I know it’s true but I don’t why. Kind of like Jesus and The Beatles wrapped into one thing you know like a pot-sticker. America’s favorite pastime is to quack. Like a duck. Quack! Quack! Quack! Like Burgess Meredith as the Penguin.

Holy Breath of Life, Batman, my life is flashing before my eyes. And I realize I’m dying, probably from an overdose of undiagnosed guilt for all things I never did but could have to help out humanity, and the stranger from the Amazon was probably an angel of death sent to carry me to the “other side” of the Styx where everyone dresses in loin cloths and there’s unlimited sex with no jealousy and lots of Ambrosia. Lots and lots of Ambrosia.

And I’m sitting in the Cozy Boy recliner with the remote control in one hand and a scotch and soda in the other and on the screen is a documentary about the Amazon. There’s Bob in a little reed boat which makes primitive modern and he’s throwing his spear at something in the water. He smiles to the camera as he retrieves his tethered spear. He’s caught something all right. Something big. Something to feed his family for a week. The camera zooms in. It’s a Rolex Watch. With part of an arm attached.

And Bob smiles at the camera in his loin cloth and paint. He holds up the arm. And a phrase comes on the screen underneath the picture of Bob and the detached arm with the Rolex watch: Get Rich Quick!

And I scream and I run from the house and I run all the way to the hospital and check myself in but I have no money or insurance so they kick me out as a bum and I wonder who I am in Obama’s America.

And then I know: A Quark. And then I think back to Vanna and wonder how I had it so wrong and curse god “why can’t I have her on the rug in front of the fire with bottle of Moet and a few grams of coke?” When we’re both in our twenties and unafraid of passion instead of now sitting in an old folks home with an IV in a wheelchair overlooking the parking lot of a Walmart which won’t even have me as a greeter.

Where did it go? It goes by so fast. Even the most boring life is over before you can say “poof.”

“Are you ready?” Bob says from behind.

“Ready when you are Bob,” I say, “Ready when you are.”

Power is not alluring to pure minds. – Thomas Jefferson

The position of A.I.G. at the tippy-top of the pyramidal ponzi-scheme called “finance capitalism” is the same position as the Fairy Godmother in a Fairytale. But, obviously, we don’t live in a fairy tale. It has “Happily Ever After” as part of its DNA.

But life is something else and the secret of life is we create our own reality – and we reap what we sow.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

Thomas Jefferson

Greed is a disease of an imperfect man and the only cure is an injection of virtue.

This is what “V” really stands for. The point of the “V” story is not one of Vendetta, but Virtue. It was the virtuous V who used his private pain and personal vendetta for the public good.

Virtue is strength. “Manly” strength; courage, bravery and daring. It is a word of action. Virtue is something practiced. It is not inherited but something fostered and maintained.

What it means to the intellectual is the strength of character to withstand the seductions of desire. The strength to withstand the Seven Deadly Sins, if you will.

In no particular order: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Anger and Sloth.

You’ll be happy to know I suffer only three out of the seven and consider myself lucky.

Who knows or cares whether it’s nature or nurture or bad luck or good fortune depending on our view, but a certain percentage of the population are prone to selfish greed, it’s simple as that. The percentage doesn’t have to be large – 6% will do – but proximity to power is the key. And so it is prudent, as a citizenry, to place into positions of power men and women who have, as Gertrude Himmelfarb said in defining virtue – “the will and capacity to put the public interest over the private.”

The men and women who fought for this country and the right of self-determination against centuries of Monarchical Entitlement, were serious people. They understood good government required good people. Power breeds temptation. Temptation breeds corruption. Corruption breeds secrecy. Secrecy breeds tyranny.

“The aim of every political Constitution is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers men who possess the most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”

James Madison

So while we rant and wail about all the crooks that infest our system, let’s look beyond the headlines of their greed and understand the deeper meaning: Human beings in places of power must be above reproach and mechanisms must be put in place to keep them that way.

The problem is men and women who ambitiously aspire to power are usually unfit to serve. The responsibility of the citizenry in a Republic is to choose “good” people for positions of authority.

And now in our country, and fascism is a strong word, but what else can you call an America where Corporate Interests and Government Apparatus are ONE? When private banks dictate to the American Government what is best for the People, then first we must admit we’re not free and next we’ve got to understand we’ll never be free unless we resist corporate tyranny. Indeed, if Liberty is an inalienable human right, and we continually find our Constitutional freedoms ever diminishing, then how can we call ourselves human if we fail to fight against those powers who seek our enslavement?

And if you don’t think owing private banks trillions of dollars we don’t have – the debt dictated to us by the political class owned by private banks – is slavery, then you’d probably be interested in some beachfront property on Three Mile Island.

The predicament we’re in didn’t happen over night, but is the product of exactly what we’ve been warned against; lack of vigilance toward human frailty in high office.

The Oval Office or the Corporate Boardroom – it doesn’t matter. What’s required are good people to administer power. And if there is one thing which is clear to all with eyes to see is that the requirements of modern capitalism breed out virtue in favor of vice. The object of the game is to profit to the maximum degree. The truly vicious change the rules of the game or cheat to win.

The old adage about “it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, but how you play the game” was invented for losers to feel noble while their betters won the game by hook and crook.

Now what we have, through generations of recruitment, is the Executive Crook Class. Sociopaths whose benevolence extends as far as a penis and whose empathy was aborted in youth as a measure of manly strength. This class of people has taken the opportunity presented to them by a citizenry incapable of action to disembowel the common wealth, wreak havoc upon the earth and then blame the game for cheaters.

The world appears to be run by war lords and criminal gangs. Perverts and mobsters. Life’s mission for some is the destruction of others for no reason but thrills. Steal a billion, murder the hopes of wage-slaves, and make a deal when you’re caught to give back some dough and spend a few years in Club-Med minimum security and get back out on the street to scam again.

The recidivism rate for murder is low (as most murders are crimes of passion), but very high for con-men (as crime is planned and executed coldly). Corruption is a hard drug to shake once the pattern is set. Winning at all costs is a disease of the player.

So, as we move forward we’ve got to understand that nothing will change, even if the system changes, without the process for putting people in place also changes. We’ve got to seek people of virtue and be fearless in our oversight and merciless in our judgment to remove malfeasant practioners.

There are plenty men of vice to carry a vendetta against. Men who are traitors to humanity. And some will carry out the vendetta in our name. Justice will be done.

But, moving forward, as the politicians like to say, we’ve got to ward against this disaster ever happening again – and that begins with Executive Recruitment for people (government and corporate) with the “right stuff” and regulations to guide behavior and defend against corruption.

A public man is not free. He works for the people. His private interests are sublimated to the public good. The system we now have encourages private engorgement at the public trough.

Never before has the content of one’s character been so important to the success of this nation.

Virtue is a vice only when corruption abounds. When “greed is good” then society is lost. The American People have a job to do if we wish to preserve our Republic which sits on the precipice of disaster:

Re-build from the ground up a Government responsible to the People and dedicated to the betterment of Life on the Planet.

Anything else is just perpetuation of melodrama.

Congressional Republicans on Sunday predicted a doomsday scenario of crushing debt and eventual federal bankruptcy if President Barack Obama’s massive spending blueprint wins passage.

Let’s see the “doomsday scenario,” which Republicans fear in a few years, is crushing debt and federal bankruptcy.

Hmm… …Wait a sec… …Oh.My.God… Doomsday is here already!!!

GOP lawmakers: Bankrupt US, weak dollar await country if Congress approves Obama’s budget.

Lessee, Bankrupt US – check. Weak dollar – check. if Congress approves Obama’s budget.

Hmm… …wait a sec…

Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the banking committee, said Obama would have to scale back his budget, given a Congressional Budget Office report Friday that the president’s budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade — more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush’s presidency.

Shelby predicted that number could reach $20 trillion in coming years as Obama guides the country to “the fast road to financial destruction.”

The Fast Road to Financial Destruction…Hmm…

The future could be so bad if we follow the Democrats.

Not like with Republicans. Nosiree. Republicans are good. No massive public debt with Republicans. No devalued currency with Republicans. The air, water, soil is so much nicer with Republicans. Peace always breaks out whenever Republicans are around.

If only once, just once, we could do it the Republican way: smaller government, lower taxes, elimination of waste and fraud, stronger defense and, you know, God.

Hmm… …wait a sec… …I know I’m an obese couch potato with ‘daddy’ issues, but didn’t we try it the Republican way before? Twice? Three times?  Reagan/Reagan/Bush/Bush/Bush.

I shouldn’t smoke all that medicinal pot, but isn’t the Republican Way – admittedly with the connivance of many “conservative” Democrats or DINOs – the same way which drove us down the leisurely road to financial destruction and OFF THE FUCKING CLIFF?

Following the advice of Republicans is following the advice of Satan when he says Hell doesn’t need air conditioning.

Now, I don’t know if what the Obama Team is doing is going to work to stabilize and restart our system. I have my well-documented doubts.

But I sure as hell know the effect of anything the Republicans recommend, based upon their track record of unfettered, dismal failure, is BOUND TO END IN DOOM.

Why can’t we declare Republicans insane, based upon the classic definition, commit them as whole and get on with it – maybe not perfectly but with much less aggravation. I ain’t worried about Iran’s Republican Guard but America’s Republican Party as the largest purveyor of terrorism in the world.

FINANCIAL TERRORISM.

If there is one thing Republicans have proved time and again is their animus toward our inalienable rights.

Because we live in the age of Obama which strives for civility and cooperation, we can’t knock Republicans over the head with a caveman club, drag them to the border and exile them until their compassion gene switches on. But we can at every opportunity, whenever we hear a Republican even begin to utter any word whatsoever, as civilly and cooperatively as we can, shout at the top of our lungs:

Shut.the.fuck.up.