Unwashed Brain

2009-11-01T07:27:00.001-08:00

2008-03-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

TENC Syndrome: the repetition of an idea or view as though it's true, despite obvious evidence to the contrary, derived from Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale, The Emperor's New Clothes. (An emperor who cares too much about clothes hires two swindlers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they tell him, is invisible to anyone who was either stupid or not fit for his position. The Emperor is nervous about being able to see the cloth himself so he sends his ministers to view it. They see nothing yet praise the cloth. --Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes)

• "Barack Obama is a great orator!" say so many pundits and "folks."

Well, if you like smug, nasal, sentimental, platitudinous, punchy headline-copy delivered with a persisssstent, eardrum-piercing sibilant "s", then, yessssss, he'ssss your man. Having suffered what will be 8 years of GW Bush's verbal illiteracy, the thought of having another President who is unbearable to hear what with his hissing and whistling enunciation of profundity-lite leaves me hopeless.

• This race isn't about race. Hillary and Bill are playing the race card.

After Bill Clinton, smug, slime-bucket that he is in general, "reduced" Obama to Jesse Jackson status (i.e., winner in the S. Carolina primary in '84 and '88, who went on to drop out), the Black vote for Hillary has nearly disappeared. Who played the race card?

Essence.com: In South Carolina, the Democratic campaign took a negative turn with charges and countercharges of injecting race, yet the numbers are indicating that there was a record turnout. Clearly, South Carolina voters weren't completely turned off by the tone of the race in the final days.

Reverend Jesse Jackson: They were inspired by it.
http://www.essence.com/essence/lifestyle/voices/0,16109,1706948,00.html

• Obama can bring us together.

What is he waiting for? If he can't bring his own Party together, why would we think he can unite Republicans & Democrats, young and old, Left and Right, races, genders, whomever?

• Gender isn't an issue in this race.

"Earlier this [February], speaking at Tulane University, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said this about the attacks coming his way from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY:

'You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out,' Obama said.

The CLAWS come out? Really?

...'I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal.'"

-- Jake Tapper, ABC News Blog, Feb. 16, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/is-obama-using.html

Frank Rich, an unabashed Hillary-hater, announced in his March 23rd New York Times opinion piece that, "Race has been America’s transcendent issue...." In its editorial of March 19, 2008, concerning Obama's Race Speech, the New York Times declared "race and religion[,] the two most toxic subjects in politics."

What could be more sexist and toxic than to ignore the toxicity of sexism in politics and every other realm of life in this world? Don't forget, All men are created equal...! Women didn't get to vote until 1920, 50 years after Black men. Sexism applies to 51% of the people in this country; Black or African Americans comprise 12.4% of the population (U.S. Census, 2006)--about half of whom are women. Sexism is the dirty huge secret of the United States. And clearly the "folks" are not ready to transcend it.

• "Barack Obama is a great orator!" say so many pundits and "folks."
• This race isn't about race. Hillary and Bill are playing the race card.
• Obama can bring us together.
• Gender isn't an issue in this race.

These are just a very few examples of the TENC Syndrome, spread and sustained by the major news media. Like the frightened tailors of the Emperor in Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale, the pundits of the nonstop news cycle have fervently and uncritically spread the Obama campaign's claims; Black and white, male and female media monopolizers leap to his defense whenever his fallibility rears up. MSNBC, in particular, hates Hillary Clinton. Chris Mathews can hardly contain his revulsion of her, with his lip-curling, nose-scrunching expression as though he is smelling something fetid whenever he has to mention her.

Obama may be the better Democrat to placate the billion Muslims who rightly fear and loathe the U.S. for our destruction of Iraq, among other grievances. But he's winning on wishful thinking and the fear and loathing of strong, tenacious, outspoken women which lives on in this nation.

2008-03-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

Repetition Compulsion as High Risk Behavior

Why the majority of the people permitted George W. Bush, a novice in national and international politics, to take power is why they will again vote for The Attractive Man to lead them, and qualifications be damned. Again.

When we recover from our swoon, we shall see that our Dreamboat, Barack Obama, is a highly skilled, business-as-usual politician of centrist commitment— much like our former Dreamboat, Bill Clinton, who served in somewhat less volatile times.

2006-11-30T20:35:00.000-08:00

WHAT THE NEWS MEDIA HAS TOLD US TODAY, 11/29/06

IRAQ TO US: GO HOME.

Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has just shown George he's not a top priority.

Dr. Ahmadinejad thinks he's dancing on our graves.

They're working things out among themselves.

A high cost in martyrs, willing and unwilling, a brutish contest in the high heat
is no overstatement. Poor testosterone poisoned boys, band of brother beasts.

Watching the global humiliation of George W. Bush, the Pretender and Failed Son,
isn't as satisfying as I might have imagined.

Baker had to release his report quickly to counter frat-boy-fuck-up going around the Middle East talking about staying as long as it takes.

This public denuding is embarrasing—watching someone being abandoned by his nation, the loss of control of the Congress emboldens involved nations to assert their own interests over "ours" as Bush wanders ever more lost and alone.

AHA! Herr Karl has forgotten to teach George the new talking points (he makes do with only "foment" and "secular violence" to incant), or Karl has forgotten to write them.

2006-11-22T23:46:00.000-08:00

How Republican is the Media?

NOW the news media—mainstream and alternative mainstream—become super critical about ethics. The hatchett job on Nancy Pelosi has begun and promises to be in full swing by the time the new Congressional session begins.

In the short year we've nationally known John Murtha, we see that he's a blunt, bold, realist. Just after the Dems big win, we see him on a 27-year old video of the Abscam sting, turning down a bribe but keeping the door open for another day. Which never came.

Why is this even in the news?

The Press, spinning her smart action supporting Murtha's obviously doomed chance of becoming Majority Leader (she can certainly count) in order to send a clear signal that her top priority is getting the US out of Iraq quickly, has unanimously concluded that she blundered, miscalculated the always-unruly Dems, and is weakened in presiding over a split Party.

Not over her 100-hour agenda they're not. And why isn't the media covering the myriad aspects of that agenda? Let's have a daily discussion (not derision) of the issues and implications of raising the minimum wage, making college tuition tax deductible (unbelievable that it isn't already!), cutting student loan interest rates in half (they went up 50% last year under Republican supervision), stripping the mask off the insurance company robbers wreaking such havoc on the health of US citizens to begin the complete overhaul of our thinking about healthcare.

----------------------------------------
Next post will discuss our troops, as part of the ongoing mission of rethinking to which the unbrainwashed are committed.

2004-11-12T22:36:00.000-08:00

DEFEND THE UNITED STATES AGAINST TRAITORS TO THE CONSTITUTION.
...........................................................................................................

The basis for the ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
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Constitution of the United States of America

"Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Notice any mention of insuring Biblical norms as one of the purposes of the Constitution? In fact, such an act is explicitly disallowed:

"Amendment I

Ratified on 12/15/1791

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Yet, President G. W. Bush has given his support to establishing his and his supporters' religious beliefs as the law of the land by legislating a Constitutional Amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The Miami Herald, Posted on Fri, Nov. 12, 2004
Associated Press

"GREENVILLE, S.C. - Bob Jones III, president of the fundamentalist college that bears his name, has told President Bush he should use his electoral mandate to appoint conservative judges and approve legislation 'defined by biblical norm.'...

Jones wrote that Bush will 'have the opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech and limited government.'

In February 2000, Bush spoke at Bob Jones University when he was running for his first term in the White House. At the time, the school banned interracial dating and included anti-Roman Catholic material on its Web site."
(http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/10158683.htm?1c)

Christians, like Muslims, Jews, Jains, Wiccans, atheists, and agnostics, are protected from the legal imposition of another's "biblical norms."

Thus, the basis for the ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
Millions of U. S. citizens do not want to be governed by fundamentalist Christian biblical norms.

Elected officials are required to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Failure to do so is in violation of the law and any such official who defies the Constitution must be impeached.

DEFEND THE UNITED STATES AGAINST TRAITORS TO THE CONSTITUTION.
...........................................................................................................

The basis for the ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
...........................................................................................................

2004-11-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

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A Decent Society

Evangelical Republicans say a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage is necessary to ensure a decent society.

Christianity is undone by those who in its name bomb noncombatants killing and making homeless thousands of human beings.

Freedom is undone by denying it to homosexuals.

Freedom is undone when the beliefs of one group are forced onto the whole.

Enforced evangelicism is indecent.

The denial of equal rights is indecent.

Both are illegal.

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2004-07-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

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Who Exactly Is Redefining Marriage?

Republican Senators have a mantra——they are so much better than Democrats at boiling hatred into simple-minded sound bites for the cognitively shrunken (i.e., vast majority of Americans):

"A small group of UNELECTED ACTIVIST JUDGES are REDEFINING MARRIAGE against the will of the American people" [referring to the Massachusetts high court which on February 3, 2004 found that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violates the Massachusetts state constitution].

Of course ACTIVISM of any sort is bad in the view of power-crazed patriarchal crooked control freaks, which pretty well describes most Republicans. Passivism is the desired role we the people (especially women people) must take. And given the barely 50% of the eligible voters who take that little action every few years, we the people have complied well with the passivity preferred of us by the party in power.

Language is a constantly and, usually, gradually evolving function of human social interaction. But is it these ACTIVIST JUDGES who are suddenly changing the meaning of "marriage"? Or are they actively doing their constitutional duty of interpreting and upholding the Constitutions of their state and country?

To the everlasting disgrace of Bill Clinton for signing the absurdly named Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and all those cowards (like NY Senator Chuck Shumer, but not John Kerry) and blindered members of Congress who voted for it, that statute codified a newly restrictive definition of marriage. Defining marriage as "the union of one man and one woman" as DOMA does, ignores the essential meaning of marriage: a close and intimate union.

The Republican/Puritan's newly constrictive redefinition of marriage eliminates such notions as "the marriage of music and dance" or "a marriage of ideas" from the common language, and thus the mind. We already gender everything and limit our understanding of gender to only two possibilities, male and female. The absurdity of this dominant paradigm of mainstream consciousness keeps us nicely busy idiotically allocating. Who's the guy, music or dance? Which ideas are married, a male idea and a female idea, or is it a transgressive pairing of same-sex ideas——or horrors! more than two ideas married at once!

The Bush/Frist/Hatch/Santorum (Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania who'd best be in a sanitorium in Transylvania) attempt at making narrow-mindedness Constitutional shames the slave-owning founders further and further sets back the advancement of equal rights, mutual respect, and individual freedom over which the United States remains at civil war.

It isn't activist judges who are redefining marriage.

It's the narrow minds elected by the narrowed minds which the Republicans have been wildly successful at constricting since Ronald Reagan made greed good, ketchup a vegetable, and thinking and questioning bad (following in the footsteps of Republican former Vice President Spiro—no lo contendre—Agnew), who are the ones trying to redefine—and demean—the meaning of marriage by narrowing it.

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2004-06-27T21:25:00.000-07:00

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Republican Invasion

Am I alone in feeling oppressed, deeply offended, and intimidated by the impending Republican National Convention in New York City, my home?

No one asked our permission for this boorish imposition on the inhabitants of this city. We will be under marshall law in my neighborhood, northern Chelsea, for the entire time—5 or 6 days, and maybe a few before the convention actually convenes. Eighth Avenue from 23rd to 34th Streets will be closed all those days; demonstrators will be confined to 31st Street and Eighth Avenue, no doubt spilling down numerous blocks. Which means police will be swarming around them, maybe on horses like the nightmare last year on Third Avenue from the 40s to the 70s or 80s. Only this time it will last for 6 days, not 6 hours.

Thousands of city taxpayers will have no escape from this but to abandon our homes. Most of us neither can nor want to do this.

Many major city streets will be closed to traffic, which as anyone who is here on a daily basis knows has a profound ripple gridlock effect on much of Manhattan, far beyond the edges of Madison Square Garden.

Precious millions of dollars are being spent on accommodating this invading corps of the cold, dead rich, money which we all know is urgently needed for housing, education, healthcare, sanitation, infrastructure——exactly those things Republicans don't want to allow us as a nation to spend our money on.

Yeh, yeh, I've heard that the convention will bring over 200 million dollars here. Start by deducting the millions the City is spending on theater tickets for conventioneers, and more millions for more goodies and special conveniences to insure that the leisure class is kept clear of the realities of our great city——like a pedestrian footbridge to funnel the great unwashed away from the monomaniacal zealots.

So New Yorkers must be inconvenienced——and for what?
So that the Corporate Power-Mad Party whose incompetence brought us September Eleventh can come and celebrate on-site the fruits of that calamity: permanent war.

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2004-06-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

................

Preface to Love

We must become conscious of our brutality

To see it as unnecessary

Offer mutual respect

Help each other see

That violence is unnecessary,

Beyond Live and let live

Live and help live.

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2004-06-17T23:54:00.000-07:00

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War criminals
lusting for Armageddon—
Bush & Co.—
must be jailed
to prevent their perpetrating
further crimes against civilization.
Then we must cleanse the Augean Stables
which ReaganBushCheney
have made of our country.

2004-05-19T00:19:00.000-07:00

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What Are We !?!

I've heard clergymen frequently refer to Jesus as "God's Only Son."

WHAT???

If Jesus is God's ONLY SON,
who are we?

Aren't we God's children too?

If we're not God's, then how did we get here? Are we made by some Other Creator?
There's another Creator??

But if there's only One, then only He could've created us.
We have the same Father as Jesus.
So he's NOT God's Only Son.
If there's just One God,
then we are all his children.

And what kind of Father plays favorites?

Ok, so Jesus is one of our siblings. Brother Jesus.

Now if there's God, He/It made us, we are made of Him/It.
We are what we are made of.
We are each God.
Lots of Gods, no two identical.
As many unique Creators as People.

We are God.
We are Creators.
We are Artists.
We are Transmitters of ourself.

GCAT, AGCT, either way spells DNA.
Not GOD.

2004-05-18T22:04:00.000-07:00

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STICK EM UP.
This is a Hold-Up.

We the People are the Witless Victims of Republican Armed Robbery
in which we take a real baath, softsoap in our eyes we blindly pay
for the guns pointed at us by way of the Middle East
in league with the Saudi Princes including bin Laden.

It was almost too good to be true for the Thieves-in-Chief who
have not only invaded Iraq, but run away with our country,
our freedoms to know, our fortune.

Take a look at a map.
[ http://mapmachine.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/viewandcustomize.
html?themeId=100&ext=38.794701,29.061661,48.560688,37.383675 ]
The US invasion of Iraq puts them in position to surround Iran,
with Saudi Arabia at their back;
and Afghanistan—
the HypoChristians' other big prize—
borders the other large border on Iran's east. We surround Iran,
glue together Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel, and Westernize
yet another outsource of cheap labor which,
like their brethren employee-gigantic-class here in the Homeland,
will never get even a sliver of a share of their own productivity,
just as we in the US haven't,
which makes the employers so massively rich.
What fantastic success in brainwashing — demonizing the originally
Christian concept of socialism!
Ah, the brain-scrambling efficiency of tv.

That sucking sound is the handful of owners sucking the life out of
that mass of human species,
We the Employees.

Don't wait for the Congress to stop the Grand Theft. Hardly anyone
was watching them...until the porn started pouring out of the Theatre of War,
a contemporary Molière could not have written it better.

People are gradually waking up to the wanton
arrogance, insensivity, lack of understanding, and
incompetence, at best, of BushCheneyRumsfeld and their
enablers, like Powell and the media coverage-up of on-the-offensive deceptors
like head rationalizer David Brooks (NY Times, that "liberal" rag) and sneering anti-apologist Paul Gigot (The Wall Street Journal, the "conservative" corporate pimp),
to the bottom-feeding Scaifes, Limbaughs, Scalias, etc.

Come to remember—it's been a stick-up since day one of the coup d'etat
of the BushCheney power grab by the military-industrial complex.
How far has come the Republican Party of President General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

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2004-04-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

THE GOD CARD

What will it take to get more than 50% of the dumbfounded
citizens of the US to disapprove of the CheneyBush autocracy?
As of today, Bush still had a 51% approval rating.

This after that press conference of belligerent nonresponsiveness.
Such arrogance. No WMDs and a revising of the reason we went to war daily;
how was his permission by Congress to wage war—mass murder, not fraudulently
obtained? Clark's book, Woodward's book, upheaval spreading throughout Iraq,
international condemnation. Not to mention the venal and destructive environmental
assaults, and theft of the US treasury perpetrated by CheneyBush et al, of which most
people seem unaware or not to mind.

Still, even with a 51% approval rating, the Autocrat Party is getting worried.

Today discussing Iraq in the US Senate, Utah hypocritian Senator Orrin Hatch, defender
of such scofflaws as Oliver North, Clarence Thomas, and veteran of so many battles to keep the
country a Christian Patriarchy, said:

"These young people [US soldiers in Iraq] are doing the Lord's work."
Substitute "Palestinians vowing 100 attacks" or "Osama's martyr's-in-waiting"
for "US soldiers in Iraq."

Then there was Bush's press conference declaration last Tuesday night, that he is doing
the Almighty's will.

Pretty scared and scary of them, playing the God card to rouse the large numbers of
believers in this intellectually primitive country. No matter to CheneyBush that such
pronouncements are the equivalent of pouring gasoline onto a raging fire.

After Woodward's claim that Bush and Bandar would rig the election by rigging oil
prices in September, will CheneyBush still try to play the gas card in the home stretch?

2004-04-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

More Lessons from Bush U.

1 + 1 = 1

Today (April 12, 2004) Bush was having a little press conference with Hosni Mubarek,
President of Egypt, in Texas. (Bush called him his friend, Hosni.)

Bush referred to the Iraqi resistance to the U.S. Occupation as
a "few people" who are "willing to kill to stop progress."

If that is bad,
is it good to be willing to kill for progress
of one's own agenda?

If so, then we can see that the Iraqi "insurgents" (as the big talking heads call them)
are willing to kill to progress their own agenda, which is exactly what Bush
is doing.

An agenda which is evil to women, who must be under the control of men at all times
(wives will obey the loving commands of their husbands, said the big Baptist convention less
than a decade ago in the U S of A); and evil to the freedom of thought and action which
the Islamic "fundamentalists" like their brethren the Christian "fundamentalists"
(code for "zealous zombies") will stop at nothing to prevent. Patriot Act, Howard Stern's
sudden eviction from the airwaves after decades of disgusting shows, progressive narrowing
of women's right to control their reproductive functions.

Who knew that Bush and the terrorists were exactly on the same motivational page?

Killers killing killers.

Is it time yet to progress to compassion as the modus operandi of human interaction?

If Mel Gibson's movie doesn't move those who see it to horror at the brutality of human
being to human being, send them weeping into the arms of the anti-war movement,
then we really must call the game of religion over, and regard it as the mother of all
fantasy games, maybe the blood-thirstiest and most sex-obsessed creative group endeavor
ever devised by man.

2004-04-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

Danger Ahead

I hope the Democrats, Terry MacAuliffe, whoever, are preparing for a serious
onslaught of election tampering among other unimagineable-to-me tactics by
Republicans to keep hold of outright power.

Of course, these martinets are never really out of power,
just more out of sight.

Maybe we should elect them to office just to keep a better eye on them.

Although that wouldn't work either, since the only eye available to our citizenry
is a blind eye.

2004-04-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

1 + 1 = 0

HOW BUSH'S NATIONAL SECURITY ADDS UP

1. August 6, 2001—previously classified Presidential Daily Briefing:

"Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States"

1. September 11, 2001—four U.S. commercial airliners hijacked

U.S. Air Force response: "Huh?"

—————————————————————————————————

0. Bush administration of U.S. human and financial resources:

Incompetence at best, opportunistic treachery at worst.

(see http://www.adrienneleban.com - click on "Society Pages," then click "September 11, 2001"
posted on 9/14/2001)

2004-04-05T23:47:00.000-07:00

Reality Strikes
by
Adrienne Leban

I hope my fellow Americans saw the hatred and defiance in the faces of the Iraqi men, jeering and chanting death threats into the lens of the world as their brothers were pummeling the burned dead bodies of U.S. hired guns who the Iraqis saw as armed and dangerous terrorists.

That sight made me see more what “our” leaders have led us into:

Terrorists Fighting Terrorists

I’m not calling “our guys” terrorists as an insult. From the point of view of the other side, “our guys” are terrorists, as much as an occupying army which is uninvited can legitimately be understood to be. The 150,000 U.S. and the relative sprinkling of other nation’s troops in Iraq are surrounded by a sea of tens of millions of hostile men. (Women, too, probably, though who knows? Women don’t matter there or here enough to have their views reported upon.) This Goliath of “coalition forces” is a sitting duck amidst millions of enraged Mohammeds who are becoming more explosive each day. If Western troops are to see that sea as the Goliath, and use their superior slingshots to slay the leviathon of “terrorists”—people who want to live in their own ways, undetermined by us—what will be the consequence?

Millions Must Die

Do American “voters” (i.e., the uninformed, rapturized inhabitants of Republican Christo-pop fiction) realize that military force cannot be dealt in “humanitarian” proportions? Already maybe 10,000 Iraqi people have been killed by the U.S. attack, but we only focus on the 600 American soldiers who have been killed on a mission to kill people who did nothing to harm America.

Are millions of Americans prepared to volunteer to die in the regions and surrounds of Iraq as perhaps the resident Muslims are? Because 150,000 troops can quickly look very inadequate as the hundreds become thousands become millions of righteously vengeful infidel killers.

Are the people of the United States ready to authorize the killing of millions of Muslims? Because if the mindset in force at present continues, that’s where we’re going.

In spite of this “preemptive” attack against a weak enemy far away, we in the “homeland” are also sitting ducks— on trains, buses, sidewalks, tunnels, bridges, in malls and movie theaters, restaurants, supermarkets, schools, hotels, apartment buildings, beaches.

Boss of the World

I do understand the Bush doctrine in a realpolitik sort of way: an American presence and installed government, personnel, and political structure, will convert those Muslims into a culture of consumers, a new mass of maker-buyer cyclists peddling what wares the obscenely wealthy corporate (i.e., Caucasian tribal) chieftains require them to endlessly make and buy.

Does one culture have the right to erase another?
Isn’t this a form of genocide? By drastically altering cultural practices cultural identity mutates into something else. Good, one might say, thinking of women with no rights, people without options.

Imagine that 150,000 militant Muslims suddenly popped up with weapons of mass destruction here in New York City, telling us they were here to liberate us from the oppressions of capitalist profligacy, from the evils of the anti-democratic coup d’etat of the BushCheney regime.

Hmmm. Allah under some misogynist mullah, or the corporate hitman Cheney ambushing us from behind a burning Bush….