Saturday, February 21, 2009

Rants: Too Good to Fail


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Last night it struck me--struck me right below the belt--as I sat hunched before the tube, unenthusiastically watching the political talk shows while eating my evening meal, how many of the commercial spots were for banks and investment firms. Even now. Even now.

The fat cats having already gobbled up the lion's share of whatever we had, the hyenas, the carrion dogs, and the vultures are now circling in to feast on the tatters and the bones, ravenous for marrow.

This, my friends, is your revered self-regulated Capitalism at play on the vast savannahs of the Free Market. The jagged snout you now feel pulling your intestines out of your newly-enlarged asshole is that of the frisky puppy you begged Santa for as an unquestioning and idealistic child, resting safe and secure on star-spangled lap of an Uncle (can you believe it?) too fucking GOOD to fail.

Too good to fail, because under the protection of Divine Providence. O, y-a-a-s, brother! Protected by an approving--and grateful--Deity from the common fate of the French and all those other foreigners--like Biafrans and, uh, Chechans and shit.

But I've seen enough. And you've now heard enough. Back to books then. I am currently reading:

2666 by Roberto Bolano (the last of the five books)

Pleasing Myself - from Beowulf to Philllip Roth by Frank Kermode

Nietzsche: Volume I - The Will to Power by Martin Heidegger

Collected Poems of William Empson

The Royal Beast and other works by William Empson, edited with an Introduction by John Haffenden

The Gnostic Religion by Hans Jonas

This last book is particularly appropriate reading at this time, because it offers a dualistic explanation of human existence which seems to jibe particularly well with those events we read about in the New York Post and watch remote shots of on the Fox News Network. To state it in the simplest terms, the gnostics point out that Man is holding the shit end of the cosmic stick.

That said, I point out that, if you are not already reading these books, too--or other books of their general ilk--then the chances are excellent that you are spending your idle time listening to Rush Limbaugh, or Chris Matthews, or Sean Hannity, or Keith Olbermann, or other intellectuals of their general ilk.

But, hey--it's okay: Jesus loves you.
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