War. Obviously there’s no point to it. Some malicious fucker got into power and started thinking he and his army were the bright shining hope of this earth and then things went piss-poor. Understandably, no one likes to be pushed around by malicious fuckers, and so guns come out, bodies fall, and fathers don’t come home. What more can really be said?

We’ve come to five years in Iraq. Of course, the events that brought us here are far older and often forgotten. The British Occupation; the Iran-Iraq War; the US government’s empowerment of the Bathist party, leading to Saddam’s rise; the UN’s continuing indifference toward the Kurdish tragedy; the US-supported plot for a military coup in Iraq, combined with the betrayal of said military coup by the first President Bush; Bush’s implied support of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, followed by the trampling of sacred Muslim soil during Operation Desert Storm; and the UN’s failed oil-for-food policy, frequently violated by leading nations like France and Russia, two major detractors of the 2003 invasion. This list does not even take into account the dismissive sins of colonialism, its violence bred deeply into the bones of the now liberated, or the US’s unfortunate relationship with other middle east nations such as Iran and Syria. Many events brought us here. Now we’re stuck.

Isolationism doesn’t work and it’s certainly not morally defensible because so many problems throughout the world our past actions have contributed to and helped create. We do a lot of good worldwide, but taking credit for freeing the world from the Nazis doesn’t mean we can ignore the way we have economically ravaged much of the world, time and again, over the last century.

While striving to be the best versions of ourselves, we have to remember how we got here and recognize how the sins of the past can poison the actions of the future if we do not act to correct, or at least acknowledge, them. Senator Barack Obama spoke on such a theme during his address on Tuesday, March 17, 2008, about race relations in America. And that same theme, that we poison our future by failing to redress our past, can be applied to our involvement in Iraq.

No solution to this equation is clear or forthcoming. But to think of these things, these heavy subjects, is important. What is done is done in our name, whether we choose to acknowledge or accept it. When we are old, we will be asked to explain the world and how it came to be.

There is no way out of this without darkness first. But to pay attention, to understand the poison of the present, that is a first step.

In continuing its long- and short-term policy of promoting a free market economy, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury gave JP Morgan about $30 billion in taxpayer money to aid in its takeover of Bear Stearns, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious private investment banks.

The move essentially guarantees Bear Stearns’ financial portfolio, which is in large part based on junk bonds and failed mortgages. The $30 billion that JP Morgan will pay to buy Bear Stearns works out to be about $2 a share, even though last week BS was being traded at over $30 a share.

While this buyout was only possible with obscene amounts of taxpayer money, anyone suggesting that taxpayers now own a part of one of these giant financial institutions is just plain stupid.

This morning’s action was one more in a long line of attempts by the Federal Reserve to help the ailing economy. And by that, they mean the free-market, capitalist, laissez-faire economy, untouched and unmolested by government action.

Last week, the Federal Reserve makes a $200 billion loan to the 20 largest banks, but apparently, this loan did nothing to improve markets. These loans were also to guarantee the banks’ junk bond investments, essentially guaranteeing those who made huge profits from predatory loans should not later pay the price. The government would prefer to ensure that large private financial institutions remain at the forefront of the economy, as they will do, just as long as there is no government interference.

In conjunction with its bailout of the ailing BS, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have promised unlimited loans to the 20 largest investment banks in the nation. Of course, the introductory APR is 0%, but the government will surely get even with the banks when they raise the interest rate after the first year, probably bringing the rate up to the rarified “never pay us off ever” percent.

The “strong and decisive action” that Mr. Ben S. Bernanke has promised was intended to boost morale throughout the market. Other actions proposed were for President Bush to dance the same tap-dance he performed at his endorsement for John McCain, but that option was shot down by policy-makers when the president insisted on playing his violin while dancing around a fire.

Bernanke has emphasized how the Fed needs to encourage liquid, well-functioning financial markets, which are essential to economic growth. He spoke about how this investment in Bear Stearns, while it can’t possibly make any money for taxpayers and can only cost them huge numbers of undocumented suitcases full of cash, will maximize value and minimize possible disruptions caused by a cash squeeze.

By disruptions, he means that the owners of the buildings where BS and JP Morgan do business will not have to kick out the inhabitants because they can’t pay their bills. By maximizing value, he means nothing at all like the no-bid contracts given to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. And by liquid markets, he doesn’t mean to call attention to actual liquid, which balances out and becomes equal in measure among all places. Because that would be unfair. And what’s that dirty word: socialism.

Ah, socialized banking, what can’t you do? It won’t save our economy, and socialized medicine certainly won’t ever save the 30 million people without healthcare in our country.

And a final thought: who was the man who was taking the banks and investment firms to the grindstone for their predatory practices, and who was the same man brought to his knees by scandal the same week of such a bailout of those same financial institutions? Public Enemy #1 and no doubt a socialist, Mr. Eliot Spitzer.

On Friday, February 16, 2008, two former slaughterhouse workers were formally charged with abusing ailing cattle. The two men, Daniel Navarro and Luis Sanchez, failed to appear for their arraignment and bench warrants were issued for their arrest.

The charges were brought after an undercover video surfaced, shot by the Humane Society, showing workers kicking, shocking, and abusing the so-called “downer” animals. “Downer” animals are defined as animals that are too sick or injured to walk to the slaughterhouse. These depressed animals are too easy to catch and kill, and therefore less tasty – blind taste tests have repeatedly shown that the meat-bag is much better suited to consumption if it has enjoyed an invigorating chase through the forest. The US has a ban on using “downer” animals for human consumption.

“The facts of this case are horrendous,” said Michael Ramos, the San Bernardino County District Attorney who brought the charges against the men. “Animals this sad and depressed are simply in no state to be eaten. Imagine if they actually knew what was happening to them right before we ate them? They would taste horrible!”

The slaughterhouse, located in Chino, a city popularized by the Fox TV show The OC but for some reason not yet gentrified, is owned and operated by Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Hallmark Cards, Inc., which supplies the meat to the federal school lunch program and a number of major hamburger restaurants.

The cow, for a number of reasons, is one of the most popular types of meat for human consumption in the United States. Many cite the fact that, when separated from her young, a female cow will call to her child for days. Others cite that scientists have proven cows have the mental capabilities to nurture friendships and form small groups of friends. Or, even better, that cows are capable of experiencing strong emotions such as pain, fear, and anxiety. These qualities, which scientists often refer to as the “flavorings” of the cow, make eating beef highly pleasurable for humans.

According to the Humane Society, approximately 35 million cattle are raised in the United States for beef each year. The normal experience for a cow usually goes like this: Most cows are castrated, de-horned, and branded without any form of anesthesia. This treatment is considered normal, and provides for a juicier, more tender beef patty, when all is said and done. Better, nothing is said, and it’s all done. Well done.

Eventually, these cows end up in a slaughterhouse, a name derived from its inventor, John D. Slaughterhouse, a convenient alignment of the stars. The cattle are chased dramatically to the Kill Floor, where individual cows are put in Slaughter Boxes. These names, once again, are derived from their designers, Erik I. Kill and George W. Slaughter. Once inside, a rigorous blow to the head surprises each individual cow, killing them practically instantly. Practically, because they don’t live for very much longer after that. Which means they’re practically dead. Frequently, the cows murmur with their last words, “Whew, didn’t see that coming!”

This surprise is essential to maintaining the high quality of beef in the United States Food Supply. Presumably, downer cows have discovered that the humans have not brought the cows to the slaughterhouse for tea and biscuits, and are therefore engaging in a strike. This sort of anti-violent, anti-social behavior can severely affect the emotional stability of the other cows, ruining the lot of them for delicious hamburgery.

Some cows also had water forced down their throat, not unlike the practice of waterboarding, which has been deemed not torture for humans by the State Department, but is considered a little too cruel to cows, since the cows don’t actually know any secrets.

All this suggests that we as Americans are profoundly unaware of what we do and say. If we were, scientists surmise our heads would explode from the backlogged irony.