Operation Odyssey Dawn and Charlie Sheen

A March Madness Recap: When a Society Mentally Losses It



It began with blowing up over 120 million dollars in one sitting (120 Tomahawk missiles * 1 million+ dollars per missile). The Nobel Peace Prize winner decided that perhaps it is best to divert attention from the fact that US still does not have a budget (and is now down to 56 billion in cash!) with a little bit of the old ultra-violence. Millions of democrats and college students went to the streets to prevent involvement in another civil war in the Muslim world cheered on the mass murderer in chief in his quest to help the oppressed Libyan civilians/rebel army/Al-Qaeda (eastern Libyan cities that NATO is now championing have disproportionately contributed to sending Jihadists to Iraq).

It appears that bread stamps, circus stamps, and diversionary adventures abroad stamps will be the last things to be defunded by American empire (after gutting such monsters as the teachers unions and the EPA). People just need to feel any semblance of power in their emasculated poverty stricken lives even if it means cheering on multi-millionaire steroidhead super bowl players ramming into each other or multi-million dollar bombs dropping on cheap pick up trucks in the desert. This vague psychological association with military projection of power abroad will even be remembered in fond terms after the debt default.

Speaking of winning, this March the country also discovered a new postmodern leader. Charlie Sheen came to embody the American dream within just a few days. Millions rallied to a person with the financial power to not only super engage in (qualitatively and quantitatively) addictions that most Americans already have but who also told the world to go where the sun doesn't shine. The rising economic depression derived mass psychological hysteria has found a champion, somebody who they briefly lived through.

All that's left is for Sheen to run for the office of the President of the United States. California, which usually shows what the rest of the country can expect in the future (financially, socially, emotionally, in terms of paying gov employees with alternative IOU currency, etc), demonstrates the sheer circus that can happen when people are desperate for a celebrity hero. Sheen, Trump, fundamentalist Christian teabagger crypto-fascists rising to the challenge are guaranteed to make for a final absurd complimentary theatrical gasp as money printing and austerity measures go into high gear. Unlike in the last days of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the national psyche will be painstakingly televised.

And that is at oil just costing $115 a barrel. When it matches its record high in 2008 and moves beyond, we should see things get "gnarly" as entire regions are literally separated from each other due to people's inability to drive. Perhaps then certain characters will be able to conceptualize to the public on how they can start winning outside of this ridiculous circus. Seriously? Blowing up a million dollar missile and losing a 30 million dollar plane while negotiating cuts to the EPA (as the country is slowly being poisoned by gas fracking)? They've even outdone the Soviets in self immolation. The sole Reagan International Airport air traffic controller falling asleep is a preview of things to come.