I usually like to start off my posts with a peripherally relevant pop culture reference, and given the political rip-offs of late, it's hard not to think of novelist Jim Thompson. As well as both his novels, The Grifters and The Killer Inside Me. The former is an uncompromising tale of a hustling family that implodes in violence and the latter is one hell of a yarn about a homespun maniac who just happens to be, what else, a cop who everyone loves. Sound like anyone you know? Do the hustle!
Truth be told, for this post I would rather have hopped on board the "tar baby" train with Tony Snow and it would've made perfect sense. After all, no one's really said or written anything so hilariously surreal since Genesis sang the infamous lyric "It's no fun/Being an illegal alien" from song of the same name. But after reading Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse, and soaking in the fact that oil was only $18 a barrel when Bush took office, I've had other nightmares to attend to. Fox News' redneck van is now firmly parked at the White House. I'm sure "tar baby" is just the tip of that particularly anachronistic iceberg.
For now, let's all just sift through the numbers that, who else, Henry Waxman recently floated out to a crunched public now sucking gas at $3 a gallon. (A bargain compared to what's coming, people) and wondering whether their healthcare will cover something as routine as a rectal exam. For those of you who haven't noticed, under Bush the following things have happened:
*Crude oil prices have increased by 143 percent
*Energy costs have increased nearly $2,000 per family
*Dependence on foreign oil has jumped from 56 percent to 65 percent
Along the way, the energy sector has reaped record profits, and wars over oil (its access, commodification and stranguation) have started killing off the younger generations of Earth with a quickness. We're being grifted from all angles.
It starts, of course, with the vote-jacking, because in an addled democracy like ours -- and, more importantly, an administration like ours -- faith in the integrity of our elections is usually the last thing to go. Get people to believe that you can have safe elections, and you can get them to blame themselves for what's happening to them, rather than the grifters who gamed the system. Then comes the spying, the paranoia, the bizarro glimpses of humanity beneath what passes for Condi Rice's creepy mug. Next thing you know, we're looking back at our polluted past wondering where everything went wrong. It's deja vu. All over again.
Of course, we can stop it if we want to. We have before. But we tend to enjoy these disconnections from reality. As a species, not as a nation. We're given to extended, consensual hallucinations, and have a hard time unplugging when the Shi'ite hits the fan. Maybe we're grifting ourselves, this time out of a future. I've thought about it. Every night since 2001.
Have you?