The United States of America is very much like an alcoholic-addict who is in the throes of his disease, oblivious of the harm he causes every day of his life, and not in touch with the fact that he has a chronic, fatal disease. Uncle Sam, apparently taking a cue from Charlie Sheen’s playbook, is heading out on another round of binge drinking, snorting, and womanizing … and these equate to spending, warring, corrupting, destabilizing, and puppeteering. In short, trying to be two and half nations instead of one.
To continue the metaphor, if Uncle Sam were forced to submit to a breathalyzer test, he would blow far beyond the minimal 0.8% blood-alcohol level that would secure a DWI. He would be way up in the 2 – 3% range. Yes, that would normally mean death, but he is well-connected and the County Coroner is on the take.
Uncle Sam likes to mix his medicine – uppers (starting wars), downers (launching more internal bureaucracies), and psychedelics (allowing one branch of government to usurp the jobs of the other two). Like any real addict, Uncle Sam likes to spend like there’s no tomorrow. He thinks nothing of blowing his entire paycheck on an all-nighter of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll … i.e. lobbying, bombing, over-taxing, pandering, and gerrymandering. He wears slick suits in public, but back home at 3:00 AM, in his wife-beater t-shirt, he gives his wife a black eye and beats his teenage boys to within an inch of their lives.
I’m beginning to enjoy this metaphor, but it’s a bit creepy. Who are the beleaguered wife and children in this scenario? I guess you and I – the citizens. We are the innocent shmucks who stick with this loser, even though all our friends, neighbors, therapists, and complete strangers told us long ago that we ought to kick the bastard out.
That’s hard, though, when Big Daddy is the police chief, the mayor, and the banker, all rolled into one. He seems to have an endless supply of suckers that will allow him to pawn more assets, which, for some bizarre reason, they allow him to keep in his possession. Oh yeah, he’s a charmer. Like Charlie Sheen, Uncle Sam knows how to have a good time, trash the joint, and move on to the next hotel before the management is the wiser.
As far as Uncle Sam is concerned, denial is a river in North Africa. “Egypt? Libya? Tunisia? Oh yeah … those folks know how to party. Let’s go!”
With the Recession-Depression lingering, high unemployment holding, stagflation blooming, government-run education failing, infrastructure crumbling, and health care abominating, there is no better time than the present to get on a really expensive airplane, like Air Force One, and hit the road to sell more snake oil and to schmooze with more sheiks, mullahs, dictators, and hookers.
Mark my words. Charlie Sheen and Uncle Sam will be photographed together next week in the south of France, or Qatar, or maybe Hong Kong, getting shit-faced on radioactive Japanese sake and leaving a wake of Polynesian prostitutes in their wake. The bill will be enormous, but that’s okay. You and I are used to stuffing our mattresses with those pesky IOUs. And they do help us stay warm in winter, since we can’t afford heating oil anymore.
