George W. Bush, War Patsy
Dear Mim:
Good morning again. This time it's coffee and two cigarettes. I've been
writing all night on some kind of destructured Burroughs roll out of which I
have yet to make sense, so I guess this serves as a return to comparative
sanity.
I promised that I'd explain why so much money is being heaped on George W.
Bush to make him president, and here goes. If the predictions don't actually
pan out, and I actually pray they don't, it's also a classic example of how to
build a high conspiracy theory from the ground up. The trick is to combine
totally separate news stories as factors in the same scenario, and take it from
there. In this case, the first clue was provided by Paul Beaver of Jane's
Defense Weekly reporting on the massive proliferation of a class of cheap,
post-Scud, surface-to-surface missiles with limited range that are ideal for
wars between adjacent countries such as India and Pakistan, North and South
Korea, and most of the Middle East. The missiles are designed to deliver
conventional weapons, but can be easily adapted to carry a payload of anthrax
or a small, dirty atomic bomb. The matching piece of the puzzle was served up
on CNN's Worldview . The Middle East is seemingly about to hit a
catastrophic water crisis. Rainfall in Syria, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, and South
Lebanon is down a frightening 85 percent, the Sea of Galilee is at a
dangerously low level, and the River Jordan could be a trickle by the end of
the year.
All peaceful solutions would require immediate cooperation by the nations
involved, but I doubt we should hold our breath on that. The alternative is
drought, famine, and ultimately war over the entire area. What better U.S.
president to have in power during this unfolding scenario than a completely
malleable nonentity, totally in the pocket of corporate oil? The true face of
the alliterative compassionate conservatism? This may sound a little wild, but
what other reason is there for heaping so much funding on a self-admitted
boozer and cokehead, whose road to Damascus was provided, at age 40, by Billy
Graham? After the entire area has decimated itself, some compliant commander in
chief has to be in place to send in the troops to secure the oil if it's not
too radioactive.
Any thoughts on Pokémon? I've been sifting through the reports of all the
lawsuits against Nintendo claiming that collecting the Pokémon trading cards,
with their built-in scarcity factor, is a form of insidious infant gambling. I
sympathize with the family whose kid blew a thousand dollars on the cards. (I
always sympathize with the irredeemably stupid.) I wonder, however, having now
watched the show, that it may be its impenetrable Japanese-ness is what really
scares parents. Let's not forget that the zombie-teens on the current Gap
television commercials were raised on Power Rangers. Whither the Pokémon
tots?
I was also going to mention David Bowie and the new California license
plates that carry a picture of Ronald Reagan in a cowboy hat, but I fear I've
run out of space and will have to save these gems for later.
Love,
Mick
