Commander Palin and the Flying Submarine

A few years before the first Great Depression, President Calvin Coolidge said that the "business of America is business," suggesting that the God who blesses America is Mammon, the fat deity of unbridled greed whose Invisible Hand guides the free market, efficiently feeding and enriching all who defend the laissez-faire faith.

But America has a new god for the 21st century: Mammon has wed, or been raped by, Mars, the god of war, and spawned the monster that Eisenhower warned us about -- a Military-Industrial Complex on steroids, lobbying and conspiring for perpetual war, a sustainable war, to keep the promotions and profits infinitely rolling without a downturn as the rest of the nation slides deeper into debt and depression.

To keep the war racket going (as Marine Gen. Smedley Butler, the only recipient of two Congressional Medals of Honor, called it), the public must be continuously stupefied with the glory of blood sacrifice and Pavlovian slogans, such as the profound bumper sticker sported by all true patriots: "Freedom isn't free." Meaning somebody has to pay for it -- the Chinese, for instance.

And the public must swallow, without a hiccup, a steady diet of Orwellian double-talk, such as the claim that American missile bases in Poland are not, repeat not, aimed at Russia. They are there, reiterated Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently, to protect Poland against the "Iranian threat."

Of course, it's widely known that ever since Xerxes, Persia has lusted to conquer Poland, coveting its vast resources of kielbasa and pickles. In Farsi, the word for Poland is the same as "the Prize." Some may dispute that Iran, even if it had a nuclear arsenal the size of Russia's, poses any kind of danger to distant Poland, but they haven't heard the special evidence released by the Pentagon: a declassified NSA communications intercept between Iranian President Ahmadinejad and a top aide:

AIDE: Oh Esteemed One, have you heard the anger-making report from our spies in Poland?

AHMADINEJAD: No, what?

AIDE: In Warsaw, they are converting Polack jokes into demeaning Iranian jokes.

AHMADINEJAD: Like what?

AIDE: I tell you, but please not to decapitate the messenger... What is long and hard that an Iranian bride gets on her wedding night?

AHMADINEJAD: I know, but Allah forbids me to say it.

AIDE: It's not that.

AHMADINEJAD: Not the mighty sword that puts uppity harlots in their place?

AIDE: No, sir.

AHMADINEJAD: Then I give up.

AIDE: A new last name.

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