Differentdrummer

Bush's Presidential Library

Plagued by record disapproval ratings and a pair of shoes during his waning days in office, President George W. Bush hopes to burnish his legacy by establishing a presidential library. Dallas has been selected for the institution's site because Baghdad's Green Zone and Wall Street were deemed insufficiently secure until The Rapture. Aside from selecting the site Mr. Bush developed the template for this project- code named Op Fuscate.

 

The Bush presidential library will not simply be a clone of those developed by his predecessors. The most dramatic departure will be the near absence of books, reports, memos, letters and other print documents. President Bush has often stated that he does not enjoy reading and he wants his library to be particularly user-friendly for those sharing his predilection. As Vice-president Dick Cheney recently observed, "The president doesn't even like to read newspapers. He  relies on me to give him the important news. Of course, I don't cover it all. I tell him the baseball scores, but he particularly likes the comics which are hard to understand if you don't actually take a look."

 

The relative absence of evidence will not, however, mean evidence of absence. The institution plans to provide heavily redacted summaries of the kinds of printed matter available at his predecessors' libraries. For a nominal fee, visitors will be able to rent earphones and listen to tapes of Mr. Cheney reading from documents pre-selected for their uplifting content. One tape, for instance, will feature the president exulting in a 2004 letter to a friend that "The Texas Rangers beat the Yankees bad last night and this made me feel a lot better after I just was told another one of our convoys was attacked in Iraq."

 

Some highly sensitive materials will not be made available until the president chooses to declassify them at a future date, typically---never.

Besides immersing themselves in the triumphs of the current Bush Administration visitors can take time out to explore the terrain on mountain bikes, cut brush and worship at prayer services in every Christian denomination.

 

While excited about the having his own library, the president is cognizant of potential security problems. The building will be designed to thwart terrorist attacks there, and possibly elsewhere, in concert with the Department of Homeland Security.

 

A decision tio allow entry into the library will initially be based on checking photo ID, fingerprints and any records gleaned from personal, postal or electronic surveillance. In addition, behavior inside the institution will be monitored. Not surprisingly, persons requesting materials, for example, on "water-boarding endurance stats: Guantanamo vs. Abu Graihib detainees" or "extraordinary rendition travel vouchers, " among many others, will be red flagged and probably escorted to undisclosed locations for lengthy five-on-one interactions with attentive "Friends of the Library and America."

 

One certainty is that library security will inevitably be fluid, reacting constantly to emerging concerns. A case in point: only recently have rules been established requiring future visitors to have their shoes removed by armed attendants prior to entering the premises. Finally, Blackwater-trained guards, given blanket immunity for any security-related behavior they deem necessary, will have enormous discretion to rapidly respond to any suspicious speech or action. It is for this reason that visitors are requested to bring extra-clothing and toiletries, but not cameras, writing implements or recording equipment.

 

When light-heartedly questioned regarding the legality of some of the

proposed  library policies, former Attorney General and currently chief

counsel to Op Fuscate, Alberto Gonzales said "The institution will want to be involved in community outreach in the broadest sense, including identifying and neutralizing potential terrorists. President Bush wants to protect our country from them while they're at the library, not wait until they're detonating a nuclear device in Orange County, Grosse Pointe, or at a visitor's restricted country club back home.

Faux WWII Redux: An Immodest Proposal for Economic Recovery

As one reads about the grim prognosis for the U.S. economy the more likely it becomes that The Great Depression is the appropriate template for our future. Unfortunately, even the most ambitious stimulus package being contemplated by our leaders might be insufficient to bring about recovery. After all, it is generally acknowledged that only the massive public spending occasioned by U.S. participation in WWII ultimately succeeded in making Americans view "depression" as a psychological state rather than economic collapse.

No one wants to have WWIII, of course. Even if such a catastrophic event were to happen, modern weaponry---nuclear weapons and missiles---would not require the mobilization of labor that the mass production of equipment for WWII's millions of ground troops once did.

But if economically and socially useful expenditures of tax dollars can't do the job---or Republicans veto any stimulus that doesn't involve military spending--- perhaps the answer lies in mobilizing labor intensive production for a faux WWII redux.

We could reinstitute a military draft, thus automatically lowering the official unemployment rate and giving people a sense---false though it may be---that the economy is improving. Credit markets can begin to thaw and our people conspicuously consume again.

Next, an army of workers can build WWII-style tanks, ships, military aircraft and appropriate weapons to supply our faux infantry, sailors and airmen. Since the mobilization will be for a faux WWII redux weaponry can be technologically modified to make them inoperable---firing blank bullets, rockets, bombs.

As for the soldiers, sailors and marines, they can engage in massive war games with faux equipment. We can even copy the Israelis and build faux towns to engage in mock counter-insurgency games. More ambitious possibilities would involve the actual re-creation of WWII's most famous battles which could employ many of those who currently re-enact Civil War combat as directors.

Above all, faux WWII will not produce the 70 million or so military and civilian deaths worldwide the real one did. This critical fact will encourage other nations to create and mobilize their own faux military resources and participate enthusiastically since, except for a few accidents, there will be no genuine casualties. In this manner the global economy will also be rejuvenated along with our own and bring us the world's good will---real not faux---that we basked in on V-E and V-J day back in 1945.

Rush Limbaugh's World: Ideology or Drug Side Effect?

LimbaughRush Limbaugh's addiction to the narcotic OxyContin, alleged doctor and "street"-shopping, and subsequent efforts to avoid prosecution for illegal drug use have been noted as indicative of the right-wing radio talk show host's extraordinary hypocrisy. As The New York Times (April 30, 2006) observed in an article reporting his apparent deal with Florida law enforcement authorities which could spare him jail time, "Before his own problems with painkillers surfaced, Mr. Limbaugh had regularly told listeners that drug users should be jailed."

Hypocrisy aside, Mr. Limbaugh's acknowledged addiction raises an interesting question: should his fame as well as his shame be at attributed to his drug of choice?

According to the medical literature, OxyContin, like all medications, can have a variety of untoward side effects. Most notable among them in this case, between 1-5 percent of users taking prescribed doses (up to two twelve hour time-released pills each day) may experience "thought abnormalities." Reports at the time Limbaugh's activities came to light suggested he was taking OxyContin between 1998-2002 and in just a six month period in 2001 his housekeeper, who he allegedly paid to procure the drug from illegal street sources, obtained 11,900 doses for his use. Doctor-shopping garnered him another 2,000 in 2003.

Given the magnitude of Limbaugh's apparent habit (let us assume that even this exuberant cheeerleader for unfettered capitalism probably didn't try to profitably re-sell his stash), one can only wonder whether he might have had a stray thought or two as a side effect of his addiction. In fact, listening to his bizzare ramblings on the radio might it not be more likely that Rush was actually, unbeknownst to his loyal fans, suffering from what could more aptly be described as full-blown symptoms of "abnormal ideology?"  A large number of internally consistent "thought abnormalities" linked to misperceptions and flowing from reprehensible values---what else to call it?

Still, to be fair, we cannot be certain Rush Limbaugh's success is an unintended by-product of drug addiction. For one thing, Limbaugh's views during the period of OxyContin abuse, were  indistinguishable from those he expressed both before and after that period. Perhaps he was addicted to narcotics even before his use of OxyContin and he furtively uses others to this day. On the other hand, that the views he has long expressed on radio appear to be identical to what one might expect a drug-induced "thought disorder" might produce could be purely coincidental. We report. You decide.