Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Elmer Gantry Economics Fleecing the Faithful on behalf of the Fed: Gary Bauer, prophet of the plunderbund. A vast potential for infernal mischief can be found in some otherwise harmless adverbs. Let us examine the specific case of the seemingly inoffensive modifier “normally.”Incorrigible cynic that I am, I’ve long believed that […]

Tuesday, December 2, 2008 The Lincoln Gambit The Idol and the Avatar: Barack Obama, the second socialist politician from Illinois elected President of the USA, borrows some mojo from the first. “The president addressed Congress the other day. I don’t know which was scarier — the speech, or Congress cheering him on. He invoked Lincoln. […]

Monday, December 8, 2008 Sovietizing the Economy: The Final Phase “Insanity,” according to a famous definition, is a condition revealed by the habit of doing exactly the same thing repeatedly in earnest anticipation of a different result. A closely related form of derangement is megalomania, a prominent symptom of which is an individual’s self-exalting belief […]

Thursday, December 11, 2008 Leviathan Devours a Family “Now there came a day when [Job’s] sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house; and a messenger came to Job and said … `The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I alone […]

Monday, December 15, 2008 Flying Shoes, Bursting Bubbles The most remarkable thing about the gesture was the fact that it was an act of defiant contempt, rather than one of criminal violence.Bush’s reaction was remarkable only in the sense that he displayed, for perhaps the last time before he becomes deservedly inconsequential, the depth of […]

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part I: Militarizing the Police The future of law enforcement: The 193rd Military Police Battalion, Colorado National Guard, trains at Ft. Carson last July 12 in preparation for deployment as part of JTF-DNC — the military component of security arrangements for the Democratic Convention in Denver. There […]

Monday, September 29, 2008 Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part II: Perpetual War, Here and Abroad (Updated) Two missions that should never intersect are those of the military and of the civilian police, respectively. The logic of empire ultimately demands that which our rulers have now provided: A militarized apparatus of coercion in which military and […]

Friday, December 19, 2008 “Question 46,” Revisited Policing the world, from the outside in: A US soldier deployed under UN command in Bosnia frisks a civilian at a weapons confiscation checkpoint. Military personnel are now taking part as “observers” at sobriety/driver’s license checkpoints here in the US; could firearms checkpoints be in our future as […]

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part III: En Route to Military Rule (Updated, 12/27) The military occupation of New Orleans, post-Katrina. Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of […]