The last couple of years have been a live demonstration of Chomsky's criticism about US imperialism, US power-politics, abuse of American power, and the deep flaws within the US media system.

The last six and half years have seen America floundering and falling flat on its face. No oil is coming out of Iraq. Gas is no longer at record lows and can only go higher. We've taken no steps to deal with future energy shortages. American armies are at the breaking point, if not beyond, with no sign of relief in sight. Pax Americana is breaking up, Russia and China and even Europe are getting stronger relative to the US. Islamic fundamentalism is getting stronger and bolder, boasting of flagrant beheadings and stonings and terror killings. The American economy is stagnant, few new jobs are being created and stocks have not come close to recovering to 1999 levels. Now that we've had a normal (but anemic) business recovery, we can soon expect to see a normal downturn, with even more jobs lost in the downturn than were lost in the recovery. New Orleans is gone, health care and college will soon be gone for the middle class, wages are declining, and Democrats don't have the nuts to do anything about anything, or even to say anything much stronger then 'excuse me, please,' and 'why don't you go first?'

America is no longer functioning. American's elites are failing. They're failing in business, government, the media, and in academia. They're failing in the Republican party, the Democratic party, the Green party, and outside the parties. And they're failing in the blogs as well, most of which are just little spheres of rapidly expanding ego and diminishing influence. American elites are not suceeding at much of anything these days, not even in the bad old Nazi sense. At least Hitler grabbed off a few big countries and almost won the world. We can't control a little country or leave it alone or figure out what we want to do there or how to get home. We can't decide if we want to torture people or paint their schools--how fucked up is that? Even our rich people aren't getting obviously richer; Gates and Jobs became billionaries decades ago--so where are the new billionaries? America is now the land of can't do people--can't have a draft, can't have health care, can't have good wages, can't have jobs, can't control immigration, can't get a city back from a hurricane, and can't win a war or get out of it. So why do you persist in believing that somebody, somewhere, in American government must know what they are doing? Take them at face value, please--you can damn well see they don't know what they are doing.

Contrary to the claims of both the Chomskyites and the conservatives, America's good fortune was always based far more on good luck than on any sort of competence. Now that we could use some competence, we're not finding it because it appears we've never really exercised any of it before. Our competence was far delusionary than actual reality. Our competence was more like the competence of the big dumb steer who gets fed a big fattening meal every single day of his life.

Look, all Chomsky ever really was, was a defender of the elites. Whether good or bad, the elites always had to be all powerful, nearly unassailable and impossible to defeat. After all, Chomsky is one of the elite himself. But it's impossible to believe in the elites anymore, hence it's impossible to believe in Chomsky any more.

...but they couldn't get bin Laden and they couldn't go into Pakistan to get him and besides Afghanistan was all too easy and not that exicting. So they talked up the 'Axis of Evil'--Iraq, Iran, and N. Korea. So what were they going to do about that? Well they couldn't do anything about Iran or N. Korea so they talked up Saddam Huessien and his WMD, this guy being already conveniently surrounded and contained by US troops. So what were they going to do about that? Well maybe they would invade if he didn't own up to his WMD. Then it appeared that the weapons inspectors couldn't find any real WMD and Saddam wasn't admiting to anything and massive demonstrations were starting up around the world and France was dissing us and some people were starting to question the shaky evidence for WMD and the even shakier rationale for the war, so what were they going to do about that? Well now we're going to actually pull the trigger and invade, how can we not? We've talked it up and now we have to follow through. Full speed ahead!

This is basically the true and dirty history of the Iraq war. The administration talked it up just to look strong and then felt they had to follow through, lest they look weak. And now they still feel they have to stay in Iraq lest they look weak. They don't know to get out and look strong.

These people are WEAK, not strong, they are STUPID, not smart, and far from being masters of events, they are COMPLETELY HELPLESS and PASSIVE in the face of events. This is what all the evidence shows.

Why does the left persist in wanting to believe that these guys are somehow the Secret Masters of the Universe? They're just LOSERS and that is all they are. Let us call them what they are. LOSERS.

How are you going to 'kick the asses' of the Democrats when about half the country votes for Democrats? All you can do is MAYBE hurt them in tight races, and that gives the advantage to the Republicans. Nader redux.

And that is reality. Face up to it.