Zen and the Art of Hoaxes

(El Paso, TX) America is the home of the “Inconsistency for fun and profit” school of business philosophy. Here's a good example: Richard Heene says he didn't know that his kid wasn't in the balloon and a large part of the USA reacts by crying: “Fraud!” George W. Bush claims he didn't know that the WMD's in Iran were a figment of his own imagination and all Republicans respond with this nonchalant reaction: “well, that's good enough to start a war (even though it contradicts the American philosophy as stated at the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials) and let's let it go at that.” Who, other than the Who, cares about getting fooled again?

Isn't inconsistency the basis for driving people nuts (as well as the hobgoblin of small minds?)? When Pavlov's bell rings and the dog doesn't get the expected treat isn't that a good way to make the dog begin to manifest schizophrenic behavior?

Don't Texans, and especially the 43rd President, know that a different term for hoax is to call it a practical joke or to at least use a deceptively exotic label such as: “preemptive strike” rather than calling it a “sucker punch”?

Richard Heene should be held accountable for an expensive prank, and

George W. Bush should get a pass regarding any war crimes trials and be hailed as the one who should be getting this year's Nobel Prize for his efforts to track down rogue weapons of mass destruction. What's wrong with a little bit of inconsistency?

“You got your mind right, Luke?”

Good patriotic American Christian Republicans have no trouble seeing that a Texan like George W. Bush deserves an “attaboy” for his use of extreme questioning because the results saved American lives. The Geheime Stastspoltzei used the same methods while questioning

French citizens (AKA “frogs”) in an effort to root out members of the resistance and they faced charges of war crimes for their dastardly efforts, but if it could have been proven that by doing so, they had saved American lives, then all the expenses involved in the Nuremberg trials could have been avoided.

Can't the Democrats see that sending American troops to Afghanistan today is in the same commendable tradition as sending volunteers to the Alamo?

When Texas was invited to join the United States, they put a secession clause into the contract and by golly if Americans can't live up to the contracts they sign, then hellfire, they are getting this capitalism stuff all wrong.

Didn't some great capitalist say “I don't want lawyers who will tell me what I can and can not do; I want lawyer who will get done, what I tell them to do!” Wasn't whoever said that the same fellow who coined the phrase: “Get ‘er done!”? Would he have let some lawyer foil attempts to save American lives by using whatever interrogation methods were necessary to learn what a terrorist didn't want to tell?

In a capitalistic democracy the bottom line is king.

The big difference between George W. Bush's search for WMD's and Balloon Boy's adventures is that 43 was smart enough to not let a six year old spill the beans on national TV. The Bush bunch knew that once you make up a story, you stick to it and so the search for WMD's in Iraq has become a sacred American tradition that is not questioned.

Letting a kid commit a blooper that “lets the cat out of the bag,” isn't a good game plan. If you are going to fool all of the people all of the time, you'd best select a Svengali spokesman who is erudite and eloquent. Shouldn't Donald Rumsfeld have offered his services to the Heene family?

Online Davy Crockett is credited with saying: “Step down off your high horse, Mister. You don't get lard unless you boil the hog.”

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