New World Orwell

SMILE!

2010-02-12T22:25:00.000-08:00

To my billions of fans, This video was removed from YouTube because of an alleged "copyright violation." You don't get to face your accuser with YouTube, so I have no idea what the nature of the violation was. I suspect I "borrowed" a still image and didn't give due credit. But the song is mine, the goofy video footage is mine, and I never made a dime on any of it. So please enjoy and comment. That's the only reason I do what I do.

GREAT NEWS!!! You CAN take it with you!

2008-11-14T14:56:00.001-08:00

I want it all, I want it now, and I want to keep it. Is that so much to ask?

In the roaring 90s, people didn't seem to think so. You could be a super-mom, a super-dad, a condo-flipper or a day-trading master of the universe in your spare time. Hard work? Thrift? Saving for the future? That was SO twentieth century. In the New Economy, all you had to do was buy a house and invest in the stock market to retire fabulously wealthy at age 50.

But something funny happened on the way to the Great American Empire – it began to crumble before our eyes, and one day we woke up to the possibility of not a new empire, but a new Great Depression. Since then, we've been scaling back our expectations, as befits a population that's been bitch-slapped by reality in the past year or so.

So, providing you have anything left, can you really take it with you? Well, to paraphrase a prevaricating president, it depends on what the meaning of the word "it" is. If "it" means money, cars, houses, and Treasury bonds maturing in 2038, chances are you can NOT take it with you. Of course, because of the tendency of the dead to remain silent, we can't even be sure of that.

But the Bible tells me so, and who am I to doubt the Word of God? In Luke 18:18-30, Jesus states that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. (Besides being the Son of God, Jesus was a master of metaphor.)

On the other hand, if you had told me in 1985 that the entire sum of the world's computing power would one day fit on a 1-inch square sliver of silicon, I would have given the camel better odds. And camels are nasty animals who would just as soon spit in your eye than share their extra water with you. So camels are out. I'm counting on my laptop and my online "short selling" account to "thread the needle" and give me a full trailer to back up to the Pearly Gates.

But you say, "Scott… Scotto, whatever the hell your name is—surely you jest! You can't really believe that a Celeron processor will get you into heaven, do you?" Of course I don't. It would take at least a quad-core CPU with 4GB of memory and perhaps some RAID-striped hard drives. As soon as the market turns around, I am SO going to buy one.

But in all seriousness—and I'm rarely all serious—the expression "you can't take it with you" is only partly true. All religions have some concept of the afterlife (or rebirth). Unless you're an atheist who believes that the afterlife consists of being eaten by worms, you have a certain faith that the things you do in this life will follow you into the next.

If you have this faith, it follows naturally that the sum total of love, kindness, compassion and joy that you share with people in this world will not be simply wiped out upon your earthly demise. The permanence of spiritual treasure is what makes it infinitely superior to any material reward. In fact, seeking material success and recognition is simply a misguided attempt to find this spiritual treasure and keep it for your own. But you can't have love unless you give it away.

As my friends and family are painfully aware, I have been going through a tumultuous time over the past few months. Demons that I thought I had once conquered returned, including alcohol abuse, marital problems and paralyzing self-doubt. When it all came to a head, I did what any mature, adult man would do—I went home to mom.

There, as the sun went down each night, I would sit outside in the warm southern air, gazing at the heavens and wishing on the evening star. My wishes were mostly selfish, pleading to the ancient gods to rearrange situations as I would have them, and return things to me that I thought were rightfully mine, by virtue of destiny. But if destiny is in the stars, the stars weren't listening.

As I was flying home into San Jose, the evening star again came into view. Above the clouds and pollution, it shined brighter than I had ever seen. With my face pressed up against the window, I watched it with an overwhelming sense of awe and wonder. I could have taken that moment to restate my personal wishes with a new energy. Instead, I found myself wishing that the star would shine love over all of the world.

Just then the plane dipped and turned, and the lights of Silicon Valley came into view, stretched out like a carpet of jewels covering the four corners of the earth. My heart overflowed with joy, and I had a sense of finally returning home—not to San Jose, but to the original home that is the source of all life—the abode of unlimited, unconditional love.

I walked off of the plane with the same feeling of fullness and joy, and to this day I feel transformed. Will it last? That's beside the point. Every one of us, at every instant, has the ability to feel love, kindness, compassion—but only if we are willing to give it away. According to the gospel of John, Paul, George and Ringo, "The love you take is equal to the love you make."

For those of us who want it all, this is the best news we could ever hear.

Steppenwolf MONSTER 2008

2008-05-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

In 1969, Steppenwolf released “Monster/Suicide/America,” a rock trilogy that told the story of America from its humble beginnings to its descent into corruption, militarism, oppression and apathy.

Musician and songwriter Scott Pettersen brings this classic up to date with a new musical performance and visual imagery that was not widely available in 1969. Nearly 40 years after it’s release, the lyrics to Monster are as relevant today as they were in the tumultuous ’60s.

MONSTER 2008
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of Kingdom and Pope

Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end

While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has its share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But its protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a Monster and will not obey

(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And its keepers seemed generous and kind
Its leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won’t pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it’s all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there’s a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there. Watching.

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is strangling the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole world’s got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who’s the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there. Watching

(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
And don't you know, we need you now
We can't fight alone against The Monster

Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom. © Copyright MCA Music (BMI)

Musical performance and video editing by Scott Pettersen
© 2008 Newspeak Publishing

ANIMALS GONE WILD!!!

2008-04-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

I was on the road with a traveling band,
I saw a revolution in a foreign land,
The animals thought they could run the farm,
They marched through the barnyard singing this song:

Four legs good, two legs bad
The animals know that the people are mad
Four legs good, two legs bad
The animals know that the people are mad
On the Animal Farm

The cows and the horses will plow the fields,
The sheep and the goats will cook the meals,
The ducks and the crows they pick the corn,
The chickens and the geese keep the nest eggs warm

And up on the barn with watchful eyes
The hogs and the pigs will supervise
On the Animal Farm

People are cruel and they just don’t care,
But everyone works and everyone shares
On the Animal Farm

Everyone is equal here,
There is no need for greed or insincerity
Will reality appear?
Could it be true that animals are people too?

I went to a party in the county jail
The animals came and they posted my bail
They took me back to the animal farm
They sobered me up and they kept me warm
I don’t know why they befriended me
But soon I was walking on my hands and knees
On the Animal Farm

I got my job and I earn my pay
When you live in the city it’s the only way
I got my house and I got my car
And a bumper sticker says
I’d rather be down on the Animal Farm

Then one night there arose a sound
Coming from the distance of the manor ground
The animals crept through the moonlit night
What they saw was a terrrible sight.
They peeked through the window at the poker game
The pigs and the people all looked the same…

©1985 Newspeak Publishing

Ron Paul Goes to the Zoo

2008-01-25T10:43:00.000-08:00

Ron Paul Goes to the Zoo

Elephant and donkey walking side by side
Fightin’ over who’s gonna take you for a ride
Dark horse gallops up to join the brawl
He’s fightin’ for the people and his name is Ron Paul

He’s the only candidate who speaks his mind
and he knows he works for you
And that’s why all the animals
are trying to kick him outta the zoo

Well you don’t have to drive to the local zoo
You can watch all the monkeys on the TV news
talking in circles hopin’ no one’s seen
The half-ton gorilla in the middle of the screen

Cause when the Ron Paul juggernaut comes to town
Well they’re nowhere to be found.
Cause it’s mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru all around

So all you fat cat zookeepers tryin’ to rig the stage
Don’t taunt the tiger when he’s in his cage
One day that tiger’s going to jump the wall
Walk into a voting booth and vote for Ron Paul

Don’t listen when the polls say he just can’t win
Cause you know the fix is in
And if you want to save your country
then you gotta put your two cents in

Words and music by Scott Pettersen
©2008 Newspeak Publishing

Santa Slain in Drive-by Shooting

2007-12-23T09:07:00.001-08:00

Here's to the Bubble Man!

2007-10-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

A tribute to Alan Greenspan and his successor "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke.

The Bubble Man

Here’s to the Bubble Man
Drink to his health
Filling the punch bowl
With bubbling wealth
They call him the Maestro, 80 years young
Just watch the bubbles roll off his tongue

Cause when the Bubble Man speaks
Everyone hears
Don’t know what he’s saying
But the message is clear
Let the good times roll over
We’ll pay it some day
Meanwhile the bubbles
Will float you away

Here’s to the bears asleep in their dens
Here’s to the bulls, may the good times never end
Here’s to the hedgehogs and the weasels and the swine
Peddling snake oil in sparkling wine bottles

Who can make money out of thin air?
Why, the Bubble Man can, but buyers beware
One day your dollar’s worth less than a dime
Cause bubbles all pop, it’s just a matter of time

So mortgage the future, mortgage the past
You can spend your self wealthy if you don’t do the math
Can’t pay the piper, but he’ll loan you what you need
Just sign the paper and give up the deed, brother.

Cover your ears when the Bubble Man speaks
Somethin’s so fishy the whole country reeks
The Emperor’s naked, it’s more than obscene
The world takes a bubble bath but no one comes clean

And so as the Bubble Man rides off into the sunset,
There’s not a dry eye on Wall Street.
But wait! What’s that sound?
Why, it’s Son of Bubble Man!
He’s dropping money out of helicopters!
Hallelujah! Good times are here again!
Cash-out refi anyone?
No credit, good credit, bad credit
We don’t care! The Bubble Man’s back in town!

The Bubble Man is dead. Long live the Bubble Man!

© 2007 Newspeak Publishing

New bin Laden tape!

2006-09-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

An anonymous source at the Al Jazzeria Network has leaked this audio recording of a meeting between Osama bin Laden and his accomplices, showing them planning the 9-11 attacks. A transcript follows. [note: the CIA cannot currently verify the authenticity of the tapes, but will do so when it’s clear the public is going to fall for it.]

Osama bin Laden: In the name of Allah and the prophet Mohammed, peace be on his name, this meeting will come to order. Brother al-Zawahiri, will you please read the agenda?

Ayman al-Zawahiri: Praise Allah. Here are the items for discussion.

• Item 1: Strike at the heart of the great Satan and bring the wrath of Allah upon all it’s inhabitants.
• Item 2: Unite the entire Islamic world in a jihad against the godless infidels.
• Item 3: Replace the plumbing in the main cave with copper piping.

Osama: What is wrong with the plumbing?

Mohammed Atta: Every time al-Shahri flushes the toilet, the water turns scalding hot in the shower.

Wael al-Shahri: Well, if you wouldn’t hog the shower every night...

Atta: Cleanliness is next to Godliness! A curse upon you!

Al-Shahri: Zionist lackey!!

Osama: Order! Order! Brother al-Shahri, that was a blasphemous comment. For this, you will attend flight school.

Al-Shahri: Huh?

Osama: Which brings me to my plan. We smash four jetliners into the World Trade Center and other targets to be determined. Five volunteers will board each plane, take over the controls and fly into the targets, killing themselves in a glorious sacrifice for Allah. Any questions?

Hamza Algha: Just one, great leader. Are you out of your fucking mind?

Osama: That does it. flight school for you!

Algha: But I have a wife. A family!

Osama: They will understand. We’ll make some martyrdom videos.

Atta: Can I wear my red Jihad headband?

Osama: You can wear whatever you like.

Al-Zawahiri: But we already struck once at the towers. If they don’t fall this time, it will look like we failed again.

Osama: According to my calculations, the towers will collapse due to the intense heat of the burning jet fuel.

Al-Zawahiri: But no steel building has ever collapsed due to fire. A hydrocarbon-based fire doesn’t burn near hot enough to melt steel.

Osama: Fool! You don’t have to melt the steel, just weaken its integrity.

Al-Zawahiri: But won’t it just bend? The towers will sag like a limp male member. We will be the laughing stock of the world.

Osama: It won’t bend. The floors are supported by trusses. When these fail, the floors will progressively collapse in a pancake effect.

Al-Zawahiri: That’s ludicrous!! Er... I mean... could your holiness be mistaken? Is it really that easy to demolish a building? If so, controlled demolition teams could just set buildings on fire and save a lot of money on explosives.

Osama: (impatiently) The jetliners will strip away the fireproofing, and...

Al-Zawahiri: Fireproofing? But steel still won’t melt even without...

Osama: Silence! Ali-baba [Bin Laden likes to give his associates nicknames] you have to trust me on this one. Now, do we have any volunteers for this glorious suicide mission?

Wail Alshehri: I would volunteer, but, uh... I believe I can serve Allah better here on Earth. Change the system from within, as it were.

Osama: But with this act, you will ascend to paradise and have 72 virgins at your feet.

Atta: I will do it. Praise Allah.

Al-Shahri: Great leader, is it possible to have the 72 virgins first, then find our path to Allah?

Osama: No that is not possible. OK, if there are no more volunteers, I’m going to send all 19 of you.

Al-Zawahiri: Why not 20? Aren’t there four planes?

Osama: We have a 20th hijacker in the states, trying to find out if you can learn to fly a jetliner without having to take off or land.

Al-Zawahiri: Won’t that arouse suspicion?

Osama: No. They will never connect the dots. Not on their budgets.

Al-Shahri: Well, I’m going to get good and drunk the night before, that’s for sure. In a strip club. They have in America what is called “lap dance.” You sit in a chair, and the girl...

Osama: Silence! Our mission is to kill infidels, not to dance on laps. Anyway, if you must have this “lap dance” make sure to bring your Koran. And don’t leave it on the bar like you did in ’93!

Al-Zawahiri: But what about the US Air Force? It is the most powerful and sophisticated in the world, death to the infidels.

Osama: (chuckles) Believe me, they’re going to be so flustered and off-guard, they won’t be able to get a fighter off the ground. Besides, their defense is focused outward, in a cold war posture. They won’t be able to respond to a domestic threat. Not without a Homeland Security department.

Al-Zawahiri: Are you sure? What about that golfer, Payne Stewart? They intercepted his jet over Ohio in a matter of minutes.

Osama: My brother, have faith! We’ll turn off the transponders. Sure, they’ll still show up on ground radar, but who’s monitoring radar at 8:00 in the morning? Americans are late sleepers, death to them. Besides, they’ll never be able to imagine planes being used as weapons to crash into buildings.

Al-Zawahiri: But suppose we strike, say, the Pentagon. How are we going to fly a jet all that way without air traffic control?

Osama: Allah will guide us.

[general murmurs of assent]

Osama: Now to the operational details. Kahlid Sheik Mohammed, you will be the mastermind. What is your plan?

Sheik Mohammed: There are flight schools in Florida where you can learn to fly Cessnas.

Al-Zawahiri: (sarcastically) How is learning to fly a puddle jumper going to prepare these clowns to navigate jumbo jets? They can’t even drive a car.

Osama: He’s right. Maybe we should rent a simulator.

Sheik Mohammed: It can be arranged. A few hours in one of those babies should get them up to speed. We could also get some flight manuals in Arabic. They can study those on the way to the airport.

Osama: Perfect. I think we’re good to go.

Al-Zawahiri: Great leader, I mean no disrespect but... Why are we doing this? What can we possibly gain? This will unite the Americans and the world against us. Their leaders will use this to rally public support for invasion of our lands, while increasing the budgets of their military and intelligence agencies. I think we’re playing right into their hands.

Osama: Perhaps. But at the same time, they will use this opportunity to deprive Americans of what we hate most – their freedom.

(enthusiastic shouts of agreement, chants of “We hate freedom!”)

Osama: Mark my words. As a result of 9-10 [note: the plot was delayed a day when a hungover Atta missed his connecting flight] dissent will be declared “unpatriotic.” They’ll launch domestic surveillance programs. They’ll detain people without charge and without legal representation. Basically, they’ll trash their own constitution. Mission accomplished.

Al-Zawahiri: Well, no one has said how we’re going to pay for all this. Osama is cut off from the family fortune. And if we do the plumbing thing, we’re going to pay out the wazoo. Do you know how hard it is to find a good plumber in Afghanistan?

Osama: We will not have to carry out this mission alone. The infidels have many in their ranks who want this attack to happen, to further their agenda of world domination. I have many intelligence contacts from the Mujahadeen days, and they...

Al-Shahri: Man, those were the days! Hangin' with the CIA, shooting stinger missiles at the Russkies, getting wasted on Vodka... that’s what I call Jihad!

Sheik Mohammed: (ignoring Al-Shahri) With the infidel’s technology, they could paint drones to look like commercial aircraft and fly them into the buildings using GPS. They had a plan to do that in the 60s – Operation Northwoods – so they could start a war with Cuba. We wouldn’t even have to sacrifice our own men. They could be patsies.

Al-Shahri: I move for patsies!

Alshehri: I second the motion!

Atta: What about the virgins?

Al Zawahiri: (ahem) But great leader, would this not be collaborating with the enemy?

Osama: It is written. To serve God, one must sometimes deal with the devil.

Al Zawahiri: (thumbing through the Koran) I don’t see that written anywhere.

Osama: Besides, they’ll blow their own agenda. I know these guys. My family did business with the Bushes for years. They could screw up corn flakes. First chance he gets, Bush will attack that bastard Saddam and they’ll get bogged down in a quagmire that will drain their military and divide America. In the process, they’ll create new generations of terrorists for decades to come.

Believe me, this is going to be sweet.

Boardwalk and Park Place with Five Hotels

2006-01-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

I recently bought the classic version of the board game “Monopoly,” hoping to teach my eight-year-old daughter some lessons in the lost art of old-fashioned capitalism. I was eight years old myself when I first discovered the game, and quickly became the robber baron of the family. My ruthlessness was only exceeded by my father, who didn’t play that often anyway, so my kid sister became my favorite victim.

Poor Sis was no match for a cold-blooded monopolist such as myself. While she blithely trotted her little dog around the game board, window shopping and chatting with imaginary proprietors, I was racing about town in my sports car buying up everything I could get my hands on.

Before long I had control of the railroads, the utilities and virtually every property in town (save for the Bailey Building and Loan, which I couldn’t seem to get my fingers on). Sis seemed content with bread and circuses, happy to win second prize in a beauty contest or other such cheap diversions.

Needless to say, she would inevitably be bankrupted by my aggressive tactics, which would have been OK if I had simply let her lose with dignity. But I insisted on loaning her just enough money to keep her in the game and spending her subsistence at the company store, as it were. My mother still has notebooks that I kept at the time of my sister’s chronic indebtedness: “Teri owes me $1000. Teri owes me $1500, etc.” This indentured servitude would probably have continued indefinitely had my mother not intervened. To her credit, she never attempted any sort of wealth redistribution or land reform, though she often insisted we start the game over on a “level playing field.”

My sister, embittered by the experience, eventually grew up to become a hard-core socialist, also known as a typical American voter. Actually, she’s a bit left of that description – call her a typical Portland, Oregon voter.

This Christmas, perhaps out of revenge for her childhood exploitation under my merciless rule, she sent me an “alternative” board game with the suspiciously cozy name “Our Town.” The game preaches a “friendly spirit” that stresses “Our” rather than “My” in creating “a healthy economy for all the citizens.” I smelled a rat of the collectivist variety. (One tip-off: the use of “the citizens” rather than just “citizens.” Only a commie body snatcher would talk that way.) But I figured I’d keep an open mind and play the game, secretly hoping I could beat the system and in the process teach my daughter how an economy really works.

But I soon realized the game was rigged. I would be minding my own business amassing wealth for my personal benefit until I landed on a Daily News space. Flipping the card brought tidings of woe such as “Crop Failures!” in which the player is penalized by losing a couple of tokens. Fair enough. Stuff happens. But here’s the catch. If your farm is “co-op owned,” then (vive la revolucion!) “organic, ecological practices are instituted.” These practices apparently make crops immune to failure, so the politically correct actually pick up a few new tokens while the greedy sole proprietors are left to pick up the pieces of their selfish designs.

Other Daily News cards present misfortunes such as weather-induced disaster for the bourgeoisie “Resorts and Sportsplexes,” while the “Ploughshares and Community Recreation” suffer no loss because “Government assistance relieves the weather problems for some aspects.” (Government controlled weather—scary.)

Of course, as Hayek taught us, centrally planned Utopias inevitably descend into dictatorship. The seeds of this inevitability are hinted at by the fact that the chief antagonist in “Our Town” is the dreaded “OBOC,” or OWNERS BEYOND OUR CONTROL. Here lies the not-so-hidden assumption that keeps hope springing eternal from socialist breasts even today: If only we can control all the owners, the Workers’ Paradise will finally be ours.

Not wanting to subject my daughter’s impressionable young mind to more of this collectivist nonsense, I drove to my neighborhood non-co-op Target store and bought a shiny new Monopoly game. Now I would show her how prosperity and freedom go hand in hand in a true liaise faire economy.

But I soon realized that Monopoly, at least as I used to play it, was rigged too. I know because I rigged it, though I’m sure I wasn’t the first one. At first it was innocent enough. Proceeds from “Luxury Tax” and other confiscated wealth were placed on “Free Parking,” where the next lucky fellow to land there picked up the windfall cash and recycled it back into the economy. This bit of pump-priming seemed innocuous at first, but it didn’t take long before additional fiscal stimulus seemed necessary and appropriate.

So, by common agreement, the banker would occasionally throw a few hundred dollars into Free Parking to sweeten the pot. But soon even this failed to produce the desired stimulus. So it wasn’t long before crisp orange $500 bills were tossed in with abandon, creating a colorful mixed salad of illusory wealth.

Interestingly, no one in the game, regardless of their financial status, was opposed to the injection of this funny money. Voting on the subject was always unanimous, save for the occasional fuddy duddy who grumbled about “playing by the rules” but, when pressed, couldn’t seem to come up with sufficiently compelling arguments for doing so.

Followers of the Austrian School of Economics can predict the disastrous outcome of these policies (though their predictions could be years or decades early). Prices went through the roof, property markets became overbuilt, and speculative fever ran rampant. But these were only the most visible effects. More insidious were the subtle changes in the game and its players.

For instance, passing Go soon became passé as an economic incentive. After all, who cares about your paltry $200 salary when the prospect of instant riches is right around the corner? Free Parking became the destination of choice, and landing on it became the ultimate object of the game. A New Monopoly was born. While winning the game was once a testament to discipline, planning and delayed gratification, success now came down to a roll of the dice…

As the liquidity bubble inflated, a corresponding deflation of values and principles strangely took hold. Prudence and frugality went out the window, which seemed to breed a general disrespect for rules, ethics and especially tradition.

For instance, the time-honored Monopoly rule of only one hotel per property was rejected as old-school, and soon rows of shiny red hotels were springing up on single, small-lot properties.

Eventually, there was a shortage of hotel building materials, and Lego blocks were brought in as substitutes, stacked up like high-rise condos along the New Monopoly skyline. Before long the bank ran out of $500 bills, so the now-worthless $1 notes were declared to be $1,000 bills by fiat. Eventually, in a stunning display of central banker irresponsibility, an imaginary zero was added to all currency notes, so people could afford to pay rent on Boardwalk and Park Place with five hotels.

Personal values and integrity continued to slide. Even going to jail was OK, because the jailhouse was only ten spaces away from Free Parking. Sure, the rules say you have to wait three turns before you can get out of jail, but that rule went by the wayside as well, as long as you paid your $500 fine into the Free Parking pot. The tyranny of democracy.

So how did the game end? To tell the truth, I don’t even remember. With unlimited liquidity, we all became too big to fail. At that point, I guess we got tired of passing the same paper notes between us and called the game a draw. In real life, things rarely end so simply, so one can’t draw parallels. (You weren’t drawing parallels, were you?)

I do remember one spectacular market crash. It was when my dog Tripper upended the temporarily unattended game board in a successful bid for an also-unattended pizza slice. Tripper had a keen instinct for inherent value. And even a dog knows you can’t eat money. Gee I miss that mutt.

Republican no more—an open letter to President Bush

2005-08-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

Dear President Bush,

I have been a conservative since I voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980. I believe in free markets, small government and a strong national defense (not to be confused with military adventurism). There was a time when that made me a Republican. Not any more. Mr. Bush, you and your cronies have thoroughly disgraced the Republican party and destroyed whatever was left of the principles and morals that gave conservatism the high ground.

Today, the high ground belongs to the anti-corporate, peacenik, blame-America-firsters. And today, I consider myself one of them. How could I not? You’ve done more damage to the Right than the Left could ever have hoped to.

You have robbed the national treasury with more abandon than Ted Kennedy on a four-year binge. You have lied with such blatant arrogance you could make Bill Clinton blush. Ralph Nader could never dream of discrediting corporate America the way that you and your Enron-loving, Halliburton-enriching, corporate-welfare-state mobsters have.

Republicans once had the country’s confidence in foreign policy. Let’s check your record. You took an oil-rich country led by one of the world’s most brutal, corrupt dictators and made it more violent, more oppressive, and more poverty-stricken than Saddam Hussein could in thirty years. Nice work! Mission Accomplished. Your “War on Terror” has created more terrorists than Bin Laden could in a lifetime. (Though to be fair to Osama, he didn’t have $200 billion in taxpayer money to spend like you did.)

Support our troops? Yes, why don’t you, Mr. Bush? Buy them some armor and spare parts and get them the hell out of that God-forsaken sand trap and back home into counseling. They’re going to need it after the horrors you’ve put them through.

As a conservative, I’ve always been against national health care. But we may have no choice when hundreds of thousands of troops come home with amputations, brain injuries and—mark my words—a new, improved version of Gulf War illness that will make the original look like a case of the sniffles, and in the process make “depleted uranium” a household word. (Depleted uranium: also known as “DU”—the shell shock that keeps on giving. Google it.)

Family values, morality, Christian principles. Slam-dunk issues for the Republicans, right? Not when you get through with them. By the time we extricate ourselves from this Mesopotamian hellhole once known as Iraq, you’ll have sent more Red State families to the Democrats than FDR. Because sooner or later, even the most die-hard, Fox-watching flag-wavers are going to figure out that you sent their sons and daughters off to die based on a blatant, premeditated lie. And you’re not even man enough to admit it.

If that’s your idea of family values and morality, I’d sooner give condoms to middle school students and “Heather Has Two Mommies” to kindergarteners. I’d sooner vote for Hillary. (Well, perhaps I’m getting carried away.)

And speaking of societal decay, liberal activist judges around the country must surely be awestruck by the ease with which you stretch and mangle the constitution like silly putty to fit your agenda. That crafty socialist Orwell must be marveling from his grave as you trample our proud constitutional heritage with a doublespeak masterpiece of legislation you have the audacity to call the “Patriot” Act.

Of course, it’s not all your fault, Mr. Bush. Our congress, Republican and Democrat, has probed new depths of spinelessness, with scarcely a squeak of dissent lest they appear “unpatriotic.” The mainstream press has completed its transformation from junkyard watchdog to whimpering lapdog (Where’s the “liberal media” when you need them?) but at least the traditional gumshoe detective is alive and well, albeit banished to cyberspace for not parroting the party line.

We certainly needed a national consensus after 9/11 but, true to form, you shamelessly exploited the tragedy to further your preplanned agenda. (By the way, I have a few questions about your explanation of 9/11, but that’s for another rant.)

To sum up, Mr. Bush, you and your PNAC neo-con traitors have done what all the liberals among my family, friends and media couldn’t do—you’ve made me leave the Republican party. Or perhaps I should paraphrase Reagan: I didn’t leave the Republican party—the Republican party left me. And if there are any true, principled conservatives left in this country, I suspect I’m not the only one left behind.

Sincerely (look it up),

Scott Pettersen

My Dad, Big Oil, and the New World Order

2005-04-03T17:59:00.000-07:00

It’s hard for me to be objective about oil. Some of my earliest memories are of motoring past the Standard Oil refinery where my father worked as a chemical engineer. From the back seat of our shiny wood-trimmed station wagon, I remember gazing with awe at the massive, entangled clusters of pipes, towers, and steam valves that somehow brought gasoline to our corner filling station. At least that’s what my father said—and I had no reason not to believe him.

Indeed, whenever we pulled into the local gas station, they all seemed to recognize my father as someone important in their industry. I could tell by the way that the smiling young men in crisp white uniforms followed my father’s instructions with military precision, wiping the windshield, checking the oil, and calling him “sir” at every turn.

Needless to say, these memories predate the small-is-beautiful late ’60s and the Big Oil-is-evil late ’70s, not to mention the self-serve 80s, 90s, and 00s. Back then, oil was cool, at least in my house. It wasn’t unusual at our dinner table to hear references to catalytic cracking units and distillation columns mixed in with the usual chatter. My father was the only one who knew what it meant, but we could tell by the way his eyes lit up that it was something truly good and powerful and somehow American.

Soon my hair started growing longer, as did the gas lines at the corner filling station, and I began to develop a more nuanced view of the ultimate goodness of oil and its producers. But my father kept me honest. When the TV would show a dark, grayscale image of a refinery spewing alleged contaminants into the air, my father would wail in frustration: “That’s steam!” he’d say—and I had no reason not to believe him.

“No blood for Oil!” went the cheer of the 1991 anti-Gulf War crowd. I hated that slogan—so typical of the simplistic mindset of the aging hippie left. In my mind, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was exactly the kind of brazen, colonialist resource grabs that the anti-war movement was most successful at discrediting. If we couldn’t use our military might to protect a defenseless country from blatant aggression, why have a military at all? At least that’s what I thought then.

I was living in Japan at the time, having recently retired from 20 years of starving artistry and, for the first time, learning the true joys of punching a clock at a real money-making, goods-producing enterprise. (OK, it was an advertising company, but at least we celebrated capitalism, unlike my musician friends who hated big corporations unless they could sign a record contract with one.)

It seemed I was one of the few born-again capitalists who came to Japan in the booming ’80s—most of my fellow ex-patriots were left-leaning youngsters who had come to teach English to the Japanese and change the world in their spare time. Lots of backpacks.

One night I was having beer and sushi with some friends when the topic of the Exxon Valdez oil spill came up. My roommate’s girlfriend, who had just flown over from the States, suddenly became indignant. “Exxon should be SHUT DOWN,” she huffed. I thought this curious coming from someone who had just consumed tons of jet fuel flying halfway around the world for a week’s visit. In a strange way, I envied her hypocrisy, but my father wouldn’t have allowed it…

My father doesn’t work for Big Oil anymore. He retired early, sailed around the world, and settled on a bayou in Mississippi with his new wife and three kids. He doesn’t own a TV set and rarely picks up a newspaper, but somehow he knew about September 11 and the alleged perpetrators. I joked that I had become a “conspiracy theorist,” at least to the extent that government’s b-movie plot of Arab hijackers, “let’s roll” heroes, and cave-dwelling evil masterminds didn’t quite ring true to my ears.

Never a fan of conspiracy theories, my father smirked, in the same way that he used to smirk at rumors of fully loaded oil tankers parked offshore in the ’70s, driving up prices while Americans waited in gas lines. He scoffed at such tales—and I had no reason not to believe him.

So he listened with amusement as I ran down some of the alternative theories of 9/11: The Mossad trying to drag the US into a war against Israel’s enemies; an attempted coup by renegade elements in the military; a Reichstag-style pretext for the US to invade Afghanistan and seize control of Central Asia’s oil resources…

Something changed in his face. I could tell I had struck oil, as it were. In the same animated voice that he used to describe catalytic cracking units and distillation columns, he brought home to me—like no one else could—just how high the stakes are when it comes to oil.

“They talk about the effects of a stock market crash on the economy, the crisis in investor confidence, blah blah,” he said mockingly. “Let me tell you, without a steady supply of oil, the economy would STOP.” His words created vivid imagery of society at a standstill, like a scene in a 1950s sci-fi movie. “Believe me,” he assured, “there’s no government on earth that would let that happen—no matter what the cost.”

And I had no reason not to believe him.