Igor Yopsvoyomatsky,
editor-in chief, paranoiaisfact.com
answers readers’ questions.

Dear Igor,

I sell souvenirs to tourists on the Staten Island Ferry and after eight years of Dubya I can’t give America away. Nobody wants Statue of Liberty piggy banks, FBI caps, “Brooklyn Rules” tees…Not even Michael Jackson wind up dolls. People used to be in awe of how cool we were–NYC, DC, the Grand Canyon, Hollywood. Now they come to sneer and feel superior. Our plunging dollar makes us a cheap date. Our leaders get no respect. After Bush trashed the American brand I thought Obama would turn it around, but his novelty has quickly faded and now I’m stuck with a gross of “Yes I Can” hoodies. I’m afraid America will never be cool again. Is this paranoia or fact?
Distressed Peddler
Sunnyside, Queens

Dear Distressed,

This is fact. According to a recent Pew survey,the US ranked 117th on the cool index, right under Tierra Del Fuego. Only Russia, China, the UK and Zimbabwe were considered less cool than the US.

America created the 20th. Century in its own image. Victorious in two wars, innovative in industry and the arts, it was a magnet for the best minds and most energetic workers in the world. Everyone loved Detroit cars, Broadway musicals, Hollywood movies, American cigarettes and Elvis. American Capitalism vanquished Soviet Communism by promising eternal, exponential wealth.

America was cool.

Now the American financial house of cards has collapsed. General Motors is begging Government handouts, Broadway is ruled by British imports, Hollywood is a limping subdivision of bloated conglomerates, the Marlboro Man died of lung cancer and Graceland is controlled by Scientology.

Uncool.

In its ascendancy, the US had the coolest leaders. FDR betrayed his class to bring the US out of the Depression. Harry Truman fired MacArthur and stood up to Stalin. Dwight D. Eisenhower, wartime commander and Five Star General, turned on his brethren to warn about the “Military-Industrial Complex.” JFK, brought hipness, taste and sophistication into the White House and called Krushchev’s bluff in Cuba. Even Lyndon Johnson had the dignity to withdraw from public life when the people rejected him.

Cool.

During its slow decline the US has experienced an unbroken chain of bizarre nonentities. Nixon inexplicably recorded his own incriminating statements; Carter, a peanut farmer with delusions of prophecy, left office with a 19% interest rate; Reagan, an underpaid Warner Bros. contract player, actually believed that the rich would allow a minuscule portion of their wealth to “trickle down” to the working class; Clinton, a glib, small town Lothario, enabled Wall Street to take over the American economy. The Bushes are the greatest argument against ruling class inbreeding since the Hapsburgs. Obama has seen ingratiation turn into antagonism and doesn’t know what to do about it.

Uncool.

American celebrities were the coolest in the world. Could anyone top Marilyn or Einstein (he was a citizen), Astaire, Grace Kelly, Jonas Salk, Jackie O, Brando, Duke Ellington, Broadway Joe–the list is truly endless.

Now you have OJ, MJ, Lindsay Lohan, Elliot Spitzer. You have the dangerous nonentities of reality TV. Sports stars who turn themselves into bionic chimeras with steroids and surgery.

But don’t feel too bad, Distressed. At least you can complain. Three quarters of the world must suffer in silence. They live under the heel of oligarchical thugs who maintain their power by censorship, repression, torture, rape and outright massacre.

Uncool

China hasn’t been cool since Confucius, France since Sartre and Belmondo; the UK since James Bond and he wasn’t even real. Italy has a seventy-three year old President who brags to teenage girls about his sexual prowess. Russia was cool with Rasputin, but Putin poses shirtless like Mr. Universe and Medvedev, the little man who wasn’t there, makes pronouncements that no one hears.

The entire planet is totally, hopelessly…

Uncool.

“To change,” people shouted, raising their glasses.

“To peace.”

This was too much for Ivan Yopsvoyomatsky, recent immigrant from Pinsk and senior scholar at the Greezhnizihd Think Tank.

“Peace?…PFUI!”

Rising quickly from a stool he had occupied for two days, blood rushing to an unfamiliar location–his head–he faced the crowd with fine Slavic disdain.

“You pathetic puppets of Capitalism,” he sputtered. “Peace is when the ruling class has its foot on your neck and its hand in your pocket. Twenty-eight years with Reagan, Bush the Father, your precious Clinton and Bush, the Simple Son was peace…The Russians got rich, the Chinese richer with American corporate help and against the interests of American workers and consumers…Now that Obama has been elected get ready for total war.”

A waitress pushed a plate of piroshki across the bar. “Eat something Ivan…”

Yopsvoyomatsky sent it flying. “I haven’t finished my salad yet,” he said, dipping a cucumber in a glass of Popov vodka.

There was muttering in the cowed crowd. Finally, they pushed a young blonde in Uggies and a tight leather skirt forward for a timid challenge.

“But the world has welcomed Obama,” she said, cringing.

Yopsvoyomatsky leered and beckoned. “My dear you are victim of noble blowjob… I mean global snowjob. World leaders are quaking in their boots…”

“Bloggers in China went crazy,” someone hollered from in back. “One guy said this proved that America was a great Democracy and China was a one party oppressive dictatorship.”

“Doorak,” Yopsvoyomasky boomed. “How do you think Hu Jintao felt when he read that? With China wheezing from pollution, puking from poisoned food, factories closing from financial crisis, people oppressed from internet crackdown, does he need proof that America is closest thing to real proletarian power?” He stroked the blonde under her chin. “I promise you, dooshenkya in party meetings they are talking about one thing only: how can we defeat this upstart Obama?

“But they are a great economic power, aren’t they?” the blonde asked, gaining confidence.

Yopsvoyomatsky smiled indulgently. “From slave labor, my dear. They make your underwear cheaper. Later we will see if your panties were made in Guangdong. But now you must understand that when Obama calls for tougher environmental and labor regulations they see their costs going up and their competitiveness coming down. When he promises to award tax breaks to companies that keep jobs in the US they say the dirty word: protectionism. They know that US market powers their economies. Without help from Bush and American financial interests to keep their yen low and their labor costs lower they will go broke…”

” Obama restored the American image in Europe,” a young man with a German accent said.

“You mean old, decadent, zero population growth Europe?” Yopsvoyomatsky sneered. “How many black faces in English House of Commons? Mostly flushed, overfed, flatulent whites enjoying their squeals of indignation while country’s business is done by MI6…French don’t allow headscarves in public schools…Turks are second-class citizens in Germany, even after three generations in residence. Do you think they want mixed race underclass to embrace electoral politics…?”

Several people finished their drinks and slipped out onto the rainy streets.

“Bush brought us to the brink with Russia,” a voice piped up. “They must be happy to see Obama…”

“Melancholic is closest Russians come to happy,” Yopsvoyomatsky said. “Russians follow Stalinist doctrine of probe with bayonet. Medvedev, latest in long line of metrically challenged rulers, climbs up on two Moscow phone books so he can see over lectern and makes hollow threat to put Iskander missiles in Kalingrad to counter US missile defense. Iskanders have range of 175 miles when they are working. They might land in a barnyard in Poland and kill a few chickens…”

“Russia must be dealt with,” a pale man young man said in a quavering voice said and ducked behind a pillar as Yopsvoyomatsky loomed over him.

“Russia is a gas station with a broken pump,” he roared. “A tavern with drunks snoring through frozen snot. Their market has lost 50% in value. The oligarchs, who grease their corrupt machine are broke. They have to kill a journalist a week just to stay in power…”

Sighing heavily, more people shrugged into their coats and left.

“Obama will bring peace to the Middle East,” a swarthy young man shouted angrily.

“Peace can only be made by people who are fighting each other,” Yopsvoyomatsky countered.

“People in the Middle-East have great hope for Obama.”

“Not Iranian daily Jamhou-ye Eslami,” Yopsvoyomatsky said. “They say: The most that black man can do is replace staff and change ceremony…He will never change capitalist, Zionist, racist structure of American regime.

Saudi daily Al Wotan says: There is no difference between McCain and Obama. Both mean to achieve America’s chief goal which is to rule for a hundred years…”

“But Bush favored Israel and that got us nowhere.”

“Nowhere is obviously where they want to be,” Yopsvoyomatsky said. “Jordan and Egypt do not want Palestinian theocracy funded by Iran on their borders. Lebanese do not want more power to Hezbollah allies. Anyway, Obama will be busy with economic crisis. Israelis and Palestinians will have to sit on back burner for years. They might do something sensational like a war of a terror attack to refocus the world’s attention…”

Most of the revelers had slunk away, leaving a few brooding in their cups. One man paused at the door.

“So there is no hope,” he said

“When does hope last more than a day?” Yopsvoyomatsky said. “The power of the status quo will be arrayed against Obama…Maybe he will prevail…”

He looked around the empty room with satisfaction. “Looks like the party is over,” he said to the blonde. “Want a cucumber?”

Dear Igor,

I’m supporting Obama, but my husband says I’m unrealistic: Wall Street will never let him win. Is this paranoia or fact?

Hopeful,

Chimera, Pa.

Dear Hopeful,

This is paranoia. The fact is that Obama is the fair-haired boy of the super-rich. They are audaciously plotting to change the regime and install him as their standard bearer.

Why, you might ask?

Because the Bush administration has abjectly failed to protect their wealth and privilege.

Newton’s Third Law states: “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

The theory of Reaganomics was that the wealth accumulated in the cisterns of the very rich would “trickle down” into the tin cups of working classes. Now this has been reversed: the poverty of working classes is “trickling up” to infect the very rich.

Corporate profits are decreasing. “This will be the first year since 2001 that domestic profits are down,” says Robert Barbera, chief economist for ITG (Investment Technology Group.

Wall Street shed 7600 high paying jobs in the first quarter of 2008. More “pain” is forecast as banks retrench, hedge funds shut down and private equity reneges on deals because of inability to raise capital.

Populist anger has forced regulators to suspend, price-fixing, “naked” short sales and insider trading schemes, which had made billions of dollars for “barely legal” investors and were immediately sheltered in off shore tax havens.

Corporate executives are being publicly humiliated by dismissals, law suits and indictments

The rich just aren’t having as much fun as they used to and they blame Bush.

The National Marine Manufacturers Association announced that yacht sales in 2007 suffered their largest decline in more than a decade.

Luxury jeweler Tiffany reported a 19% drop in profits for the last quarter of ’07.

Minks and sables are being offered at 40% discount by desperate retailers.

High end real estate values are plunging. “Upscale foreclosures are a growing trend,” says Florida real estate consultant Jack McCabe . In bubble markets like Las Vegas, Miami and Orange County California, mansions are being abandoned…”This is just the tip of the iceberg,” McCabe says.

Domestic discord is suddenly roiling the lives of the rich.

A survey reported in the Economist predicted an “upsurge” in divorces among “high-earners” in the major financial centers. Wives are hurrying to dissolve marriages to lock in big settlements before their husbands’ fortunes are wiped out. Both parties will want to sell community property–houses, cars, boats–before they lose value.

Out of a job, facing indictment, their houses gone, their wives frolicking with the pool man, these angry plutocrats know who to blame—George W. Bush.

All of the Bush schemes have backfired.

The price of oil has increased 1000% since his 2001 inauguration and oil companies have consistently declared higher profits every quarter of his presidency. But the trillions spent in Iraq and the fallout from the credit crisis have devalued the US dollar, diluting their profits. In addition the price of gasoline has risen so high that the American consumer, known as “John Q. Sucker” in certain quarters, has stopped driving and is demanding alternate sources of energy. Big oil is stuck with a sudden surplus that nobody wants. Speculators are pricing oil at $70 a barrel oil by 2011.

The Bush Fed under Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan had a clever plan: lend money to “ninjas” (no income, no job all stars.) Then, when they defaulted in the booming real estate market, the banks would repossess a property worth more than its mortgage. But the market plunged, leading to foreclosures on worthless property, causing big losses to banks.

Hell hath no fury like a banker who can’t pay his greens fees or get his boat in the water for the club regatta.

Obama has sent discreet signals that he feels Corporate America’s pain. He has voted for tort reform and to protect telecoms against lawsuits by private citizens. He even floated a plan to give tax incentives to companies that kept jobs in the US.

The formerly fat cats have reciprocated with discreet contributions and clever sabotage . Their most brilliant move has been to invite Vice-president Cheney to address the GOP convention. The site of thousands of protesters being clubbed, maced and run down by mounted policemen will be broadcast instantaneously around the world and will doom McCain’s already faltering candidacy.

So don’t worry, Hopeful. Obama will win. He will help the merchant princes regain their regal status. And if you stay in your place and hold out your hand, you might catch a few crumbs as well.