We all knew it was going to happen. Chronicle of a war foretold. I hope, during this anniversary, the press will be willing to rigorously cover themselves. But the American ‘press’ has a malicious habit of almost never doing so. Which is why we need comedians, I guess. They do the (media) criticism that the press, or politicians, or corporations systematically try not to do. (The irony of being able to capitalize on outrage as part of the information-entertainment complex is not lost on many of us.) It’s not that such criticisms don’t exist in the public sphere. Rather, they just don’t exist for very long. They are never the stories upon which we can dwell, contemplate, think. None of the aforementioned institutions can soundly or ethically examine their own underlying structures. They exist as phantasms of their own doing, their hidden underbellies are always to be protected.*

And why would such institutions examine the basis for their own being, their wealth, their profit? Their hold on power relies upon one another. They exist for one another. Their animating  competition is a myth to which we are all told to subscribe. And that is planetary. And that is neoliberal capitalism. And that is why the United States is not really a  a democracy. After 9/11, we accelerated the colonization of ourselves. And, yet, this may be a very good thing. Depending, of course, on how you look at it.

*They pay fines of various sorts to absolve themselves of their own corruption. Guilt never has to be admitted. Not the first time in history this has ever happened.  And as (if?) the species goes forward, probably not the last. We will all, of course, pay for these sins.  The act of writing is obscure in the face of such power. So am I. But the obscurity of billions may still have value.