journal . Ben Sommer

Reductio ad Absurdam

I'm on a streak here. So as stated earlier I listen to 96.9 talk radio in Boston during most days. Jay Severin is the 500-pound Gorilla in this market and his is the marquee show for WTKK in the afternoon commute. He used to be on in New York, as I remember from years ago when I lived in CT. You'd think a right wing fiend like him would be a fish out of water in liberal Boston, but outside the communist strongholds of Cambridge/Brookline/Newton there is a seething majority of conservatives - your typical gap-toothed, slack-jawed, xenophobic, jingoistic New England Micks - the kind of guys who pronounce the letter 'R' like 'aaaaaaa'. I was amused by Severin early on, but now you could call me his most loyal sycophant. I agree with him 99.9999999999999999% of the time. But I have one disagreement - and it's one of degree, not substance:

He says we should drop several MOABs on Baghdad if it means saving the life of even one American soldier. This is like a macabre twist on the 'no child left behind' marketing hook of the 'compassionate conservative' movement, i.e. no costs spared and no punches pulled in trying to bring even one Boy home safe. It's also a rather raw demonstration of the 'states have interests, not morals' concept described here the other day - by which I mean that Mr. Severin has the kindergarten version down pretty well, though I would like to amplify it.

The problem is that this anti-American sentiment is pervasive and global. Our enemies are no longer just pointing guns at us or hijaking our planes - they are filibustering in the UN, they are marching in peace parades, they are spouting from the stage at the Oscars. And its like the proverbial butterfly that beats its wings and causes a thunder storm halfway across the globe. Say that Jacques Chirac is sitting on his bidet one morning irrigating his crack after a nice dump, and a nasty thought about America crosses his mind. That thought will somehow work its way into a French policy that will - sometime down the line - result in a dead American. So, since the new logic of preemption demands we nuke to hell all our enemies, wherever they are - I say that we NUKE THE WORLD, perhaps excepting Britain, Spain, Italy, the Australian continent, and maybe Bulgaria.

And if you think I'm nuts, eat this: scientists have confirmed the existence of several dozen Earth-like planets outside our solar system - planets that could very well be host to civilizations like ours. Now, its only a matter of time - maybe just a couple centuries - until we make first contact with them. They may even decide that they don't really like these arrogant Americans, and could declare an alien Jihad against us in which many Americans die. So, my Final FINAL solution is to preempt the Extra Terestrials, and NUKE THE UNIVERSE. Then Americans would be safe.

Long Live The Gravedigger

As a light prelude to the more weighty matters ahead, I'll tell you about my day at the Thunder Nationals. It was a mild spring day at the University of Rhode Island in Kingstown. In the Moster Truck category, Grave Digger came out ahead in the drag racing competition, though American Guardian took first in the junk-car-jumping contest, circle-spinning-on-two-wheels contest, as well as the very anticipated Freestyle competition (junk-car-jumping AND circle-spinning-on-two-wheels). It was loud, stinky like a garage, and actually pretty boring. These Monster Truck guys only have a few tricks up their sleeves, and it was all they could do to fill up 2 hours with 'whoop-whoop' crazy announcing, doing The Wave five times, and tossing free t-shirts to the crowd, in between the 5 second bursts of Monster Truck Madness. It was not the ironically amusing spectacle for which we were hoping, though we did spot a few hoochie-mamas and mullet cuts. Geoff and sister Vanessa took me along. The drive across Rhonde Island was nice.

Onward

[in a weasle-y Peter Jennings voice] -- 'We are at war'. Let me break it down for you. I am reading a recent biography of Churchill. He is the greatest statesman of modern times, and - unusually - left behind lots of written material - published memoirs, novels, treatises, and letters. His aphorisms are my favourite [british spellings for now]. One lept out at me - 'States do not have allies, they have interests'. Remember: states interfacing with eachother do not do so at a moral level. We hope that citizens within states did their moral duties in electing politicians to best represent their intersests, which - again - we hope are based on some morality. But states and their foreign ministers only insert moral considerations of life/death and good/evil into their strategic calculus when adding up figures like 100,000 dead now, or 1,000,000 dead next year. Call them megalomaniacs, call them unwise, call them crusaders, call them Real Politikos - Bush43 and his people are acting no differently than George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Timothy Pickering were when they nearly succeeded in pushing our infant nation into war with Jacobin France alongside Britain. All nations act this way when it is in their interest - and ours is no different in this respect than any other nation.

There are only two legitmate positions to take on this war. 1) Con: Iraq is no threat. 2) Pro: Iraq is a threat. Illegitimate positions are: 1) Con: War and killing is wrong always. 2) Pro: We need to liberate the Iraqi people so they can drink Coke and bitch about corrupt elected politicians instead of the corrupt unelected politicians they have now. REALLY illegitimate position: 1) Bush sucks ass and can't be trusted to speak coherently with his mouth always full of shredded wheat.

Its no joke, man. Little Bush is a dumb ass. He is handled like a Meat Puppet by his inferiors. And there is a thin irony in Chuck Schumer, Lieberman, and other members of the jewish caucus in congress who automatically say 'its black' whenever Bush43 says 'its white' - except when it comes to killing an Arab.

My hands are tiring, so I have to stop - another reason I've been off the wagon here so long. To conclude - Bush is a Wanker - Peter Jennings is a wanker - Dan Rather is a media whore - Susan Sarandon should keep her nose in her scripts where it belongs - we should shut our borders with iron gates and make all wetbacks apply for asylum if life at home is so bad. That is a policy that will work, and one that - curiously - is already on the books.

One more: Mishmosh is hereby renamed and repackaged as 'Super Brain'. It was just finished mastering by Johannes. It'll be on sale in about a month.