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I don't want to be party pooper, but is
it possible that all the 9/11 remembrance hoopla was a kind of weekend refuge
from reality for this psychologically spavined nation? Memorializing is easy;
acting resolutely in the here-and-now is another matter. To me, the various
9/11 doings that radiated out over the media gave off an indecent odor of
triumphalism - a correspondent of mine referred to it as "self-important
histrionics." We seem to put on these shows because we don't know what
else to do, and because the only truly effective homegrown industry left in
the USA is public relations, the business of making your own reality.
The
trouble is that reality accepts no substitutes (as the old ad jingle goes).
It does its thing regardless of whether you acknowledge it or not. I was in
Mexico City mid-week and sojourned behind the Zocolo
at the ruins of the Templo Mayor, headquarters of
the New World's champion people-eater, Huitzilopochtli, a bad-ass muthafucka of a god if ever there was one. The Aztecs had
everything going for them except their reality, at the center of which was
this bloodthirsty hallucinated monster demanding fresh beating hearts by the
hundred-weight. And so, consumed by this insane myth, a half a million of
them allowed themselves to be destroyed by three hundred adventurers from
Spain.
Strange
to relate, the environs of the ruined pyramid was the most tranquil spot in
the entire super-gigantic permanent catastrophe of Mexico City. Old Huitzee would like these times, I thought: a bad moon
rising and plenty of fresh meat everywhere. The way the stars were lining up,
a pitiless deity could really get his mojo on. It made my skin crawl, I hardly know where to start this week.
I'll
yield to the obvious, then, and turn to President Obama's jobs speech. I
don't believe for a minute that it added up to much beyond more political
game-playing - although there is more than one game being played judging by
the knuckleballs and downfield juke-moves displayed by Mr. O. You can throw
in some rope-a-dope, too, since the main objective was to make a virtue out
of weakness. So, the Republican-dominated congress will pass a few fragments
of the proposals (probably some tax cuts and maybe even unemployment
extensions) but they'll wrinkle their noses at everything else and the result
will barely make a difference - given the nature of this economy, which is
having its Thelma and Louise moment. Obama will claim that the nation
was gyped, and the Republicans will claim that they
were just following the orders of party chairman the Hon. Jesus H. Christ.
None
of them has a clue that reality has other plans for the US economy, which is
to contract, de-globalize, downscale, and go local. That so-called economy
they're trying to bring back? It's gone, baby, gone. I saw the remnants of it
in the supermarket yesterday afternoon, endless freezer displays of
unbelievable food-like shit such as Fridays © frozen fried
cheddar-stuffed jalepeno poppers and something
called "Rattlesnake Pasta." What kind of people are we? Is Huitzilopochtli
behind all this, fattening us up for the altar? The fact that chili peppers
are involved makes me suspicious. Anyway, this trip to the supermarket was
like a visit to some unholy museum. A lot of the stuff behind those glass
freezer doors I'd never actually noticed before, and surely never imagined in
my wildest Iron Chef fantasies. In a few years, when the US public has
become accustomed to a diet of cabbage soup and corn-pone, the memory of all
that will astonish us.
As
to Mr. Obama's delivery, I wish he would give up that little vocal trick he
employs of constricting his windpipe so as to sound extra-special sincere. In
fact, every time he puts that phony voice on, I discount what he is saying,
such as you would if listening to a speech by Pinocchio and seeing his nose
grow at every utterance. The non-entity former governor of New York, George
Pataki, who mounted a seventeen-minute campaign for president a month or so
ago, also favored that speech-delivery trick. All it accomplished was to make
him look like he was straining himself to appear authentic. Note that the
most self-consciously clueless political podcasters in the whole pod-world,
the jokers at The New Yorker Magazine's podcast, gave Obama super
props on delivery. For them, it was all about public relations, of course.
They have no idea what kind of economy is greeting us in reality. Not your
grandpa's Wheel of Fortune Rotary Club extravaganza, I assure you, Rick
Hertzberg and Ryan Lizza. They're thrilled that Mr.
Obama may finally be getting John Maynard Keynes right. OMG....
The
stars are lined up now pointing straight at the tragic heart of Europe. I
really don't quite see how the Euro currency gets through to the end of this
week. German government officials are making noises about an orderly
bankruptcy in Greece. What do they mean by that? Does Greece walk into its
lawyer's office with a tidy list of assets for sale? Say, the Parthenon,
assorted caryatids, the contents of the Thessalonica Country Club's trophy
cabinet, and Uncle Nikos's fabulous stamp collection? I don't think so. More
likely, you can expect an unholy shit-storm of credit default swaps setting
every bank in the OCED (and few outside it) on fire, and by extension every
executive mansion, until you turn around on Saturday morning and the world's
currency system looks like an incinerated slice of smoldering wonder bread.
It was a wonder that the Euro nations could keep their end of this unholy
racket going as long as they did, since their constitution doesn't even allow
bail-outs, period. Anyway, it is nowhere recorded in the annals of Bernal
Diaz or the Aztec codexes that Huitzilopochtli
liked sandwiches. He was a straight-up barbeque deity, though a little molé on the side goes nicely with a plate of human
thigh.
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