High Masculine Tones

Brian Eno with a compelling, if slightly obvious, model for the modern empire -- an American ethos that doesn't feel alien to the contemporary Canadian mindset:

A gated community is defensive. Designed to keep the "others" out, it dissolves the rich web of society into a random clustering of disconnected individuals. It turns paranoia and isolation into a lifestyle.

Surely this isn't the America that anyone dreamed of; it's a last resort, nobody's choice. It's especially ironic since so much of the best newthinking about society, economics, politics and philosophy in the last century came from America. Unhampered by the snobbery and exclusivity of much European thought, American thinkers vaulted forward--courageous,innovative and determined to talk in a public language.

But, unfortunately, over the same period, the mass media vaulted backwards, thriving on increasingly simple stories and trivializing news into something indistinguishable from entertainment. As a result, a wealth of original and subtle thought--America's real wealth--is squandered.

Apparently this piece was intended for publication in Time magazine -- the editorial decision to cut this tame commentary needn't be thought of as censorship, but rather as care taken to preserve snug comfort hacked out this holiday season, safe from the din of an inhospitable world. A considerate gift of collective good cheer from our media keepers.


::Brian Eno, Counterpunch: American Empire as Gated Community

The following passage, from ee cummings' six nonlectures, was not written with our interminable War On All Evil in mind, but it could have been:

. . . "Security?" I marvel to myself
''what is that? Something negative, undead, suspicious and
suspecting; an avarice and an avoidance; a self-surrendering
meanness of withdrawal; a numerable complacency and an in-
numerable cowardice. Who would be 'secure'? Every and any
slave. No free spirit ever dreamed of 'security'--or, if he did, he
laughed; and lived to shame his dream. No whole sinless sinful
sleeping waking breathing human creature ever was (or could
be) bought by, and sold for, 'security.' How monstrous and how
feeble seems some unworld which would rather have its too
than eat its cake!"

And since I'm quoting poets writing prose, there's this more pointed analysis by Adrienne Rich:

To be "antiwar" is not a simple position. It means disentangling the strands that connect the weapons industry with the lack of will for diplomacy and coherent foreign policy. It means understanding what the militarization of a society costs, economically and socially and in terms of civil liberties, the propaganda of violence as both heroism and efficient solution. It means probing the official versions to reveal how and why we are being driven toward aggression. To be "antiwar" is to be for public debate and knowledge, the foundations of democratic polity.

::Adrienne Rich, The Nation: Making the Connections

Selected responses from an online petition to Wal-Mart, urging them to continue selling handgun ammunition.

I'm a career Police Officer and my family and I shop at Walmart, exclusively. However if you cave into the liberal socialist scum and stop selling ammunition. I will not shop with you ever again. You should learn from K-Marts debacle with fat Rosie O'Donnell. I made them the same promise and I have not been back into one of their stores. The boycott against K-Mart has put them at the door of bankruptcy and has helped your company. Please learn from their mistakes.
Robert Clements, #175

I love Wal-Mart and shop there for everything primarily because they honor my rights.
Joseph A. Ferrante, #178

I don't own a gun. I don't hunt. I However I find this a violation of AMERICA!!!
Todd Brewster, #16371

Dear Wal-Mart: If you cave in to the anti-White wishes of the demented liar Michael Moore (real name Izzy Fishbein), and defy the wishes of the majority of your customers, I will never set foot in a Walmart again, and will never stop encouraging others to do the same. You can pump all the diversity bilge you want, but you customers are WHITE, and you screw us over and you are done for; I'm shorting your stock as I write. Get rid of that Jew Rosey O'Donald and her hatchet faced friend while you're at it.
Victor J. Gerhard, Esq., #16590

Being able to carry a gun is a way of life in America. Don't try and deny us our rights. There's no better high in the world than jerking yourself off and unleashing your load, as you fire bullets into one of Gods lesser creatures, for example a stag or even Afghan !! God bless America.
Peter Falconio, #5405

Amen to that brother !!
Harry Moore, #5406

Freedom is Freedom is Freedom
Doris Moran, #4690

Stand Fast
Roy Hill, #8504

::Ftrain: Wal-Mart is Everything

The urban legend goes that Tom Lehrer quit performing when Henry Kissinger was given the Nobel Peace Prize, because the award had rendered political satire obsolete. That bit of apocrypha came to mind last week when America's most beloved war criminal was appointed to lead an 'independent' inquiry into the September 11th attacks. Though the decision makes sense given the administration's understandable desire for an investigation more whitewash than Whitewater, it also suggests that there are some folks inside the White House with a keen and malicious sense of irony. Sam Heldman describes it as 'a grotesque triumphant dance of the currently-powerful, designed largely to make the opposition feel marginalized and disheartened.'


Let's not forget some of the other sardonic appointments served up as delicious black comedy. Liar and drug trafficker John Poindexter has been charged with building a data mining superapplication that they hope will track our every electronically-recorded move. An inspired and audacious choice to run the program, and have you seen his office's logo? If that doesn't get the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy nuts foaming at the mouth, nothing will. Then there's Elliot Abrams, another Iran/Contra hack who actively covered up human rights atrocities by the Contras. He's been appointed to head up -- this is gonna kill you -- the Office for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Relations. Toss in John Negroponte and Otto Reich, whose own blood-soaked exploits engage an amusing aesthetic tension with their current positions of eminence.


I eagerly await the next triumph of the wit. Their artistic imperatives demand that each act top the last for sheer daring. But how? Perhaps they'll nominate Kenneth Starr for the Supreme Court. Or G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to head up the FBI and CIA. Michael Milken to run the SEC. Maybe David Duke can chair a Presidential Panel on Race Relations.


None of these speculations are likely to come to pass. The minds at work in Washington are too brilliantly fiendish for a mere admirer such as myself to anticipate their next masterwork. Their genius for outrage is far too profound.


::Image clipped from Get Your War On
::Stephen Thompson, The Onion AV Club: Interview with Tom Lehrer
::David Corn, The Nation: Kissinger's Back...As 9/11 Truth-Seeker
::Project Censored: Bush Appoints Former Criminals to Key Government Roles
::Electronic Privacy Information Center: Total Information Awareness Page