Out with a bang.

Right now, as I write these lines, MSNBC is probably in its fourth hour of coverage on the death of Michael Jackson, with many more to come. So much for "The Place for Politics". I will admit to be a frequent viewer of Olbermann and Maddow - often enjoy watching them, in fact - but that network operates on a definition of politics that is nearly indistinguishable from that of personality and celebrity. So much of the discussion is about individuals, about style, about posture more than policy. Incidents like Jackson's death put it in harsh relief. They'll be on this for days, turning it like a roast on a rotisserie... and they won't be alone in that. It's just the type of narrative our pop culture loves best: the mega-star, staggeringly popular yet strangely isolated, follows a long downward trajectory into a very public disintegration, then dies under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Elvis all over again. That and the myth of the young crash-and-burn star (e.g. Curt Cobain) are particular favorites. I'm sorry Jackson's dead, but honestly... is he the only one today?

We have two pointless wars going on, mind you. People are still dying by the score in Iraq, though each incident is treated like an aberration. I think the mainstream media is too focused on the bogus success story of the surge to dwell on the fact that the temporary truce appears to be falling apart. And while the spotlight is directed elsewhere, our antiwar congress has approved a massive supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan (with funds tucked in to support the IMF) and sent it to our antiwar president to sign. This is the power of branding, my friends. As long as you sell these political actors as something different, they can do the same thing as the last group and barely raise a note of protest. Let the wise ones and the compassionate ones drive the killing/wrecking machine for a while. Surely they will wreak havoc more wisely than their predecessors.

While cable news cameras followed the ambulance block-by-block from Jacko's mansion to the hospital, one wonders how many Iraqis met their end as a result of the violence we ignited; how many Afghans were shaken down by a kleptocratic state run by warlords and fueled by international aid dollars; how many nameless detainees were beaten, starved, electrocuted, waterboarded, or worse in some third-world dungeon on the orders of a faceless bureaucrat. And those are only the fires we started; there are also those we merely profit from, like the continuing blood-letting in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and elsewhere. (And yes, before you email, we did have something to do with putting the Congo in the state it's in today, funding and directing a terrorist army in the sixties that secured the deranged Mobutu's grip on power.) In short, there's no such thing as a slow news day... and no day when it becomes any less important to talk about injustice the world over.

They're playing "Thriller" again. Ah, well. That's all I've got.

luv u,

jp