RUSSIAN CHESSMASTER TO AMERICAN LEARNING DISABLED CHILD: CHECKMATE, MY DEAR FRIEND

I always try to explain to my friends how Europeans play better chess than Americans because they think into the future, far into the future. Our own culture epitomizes Attention Deficit Disorder. When I was president of a company within a large multinational corporation I could never get over how lamely our NY corporate headquarters handled long term planning: not at all. The Republican greed-is-good ethos, most effectively articulated by Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's brilliant movie WALL STREET, has come to utterly dominate corporate life and spill over like raw sewage into every facet of our national being. And in the case of the CEO President, his CEO VICE-President and his CEO-Cabinet, it didn't have to even spill at all. It's all about the quarter, the next 3 months your obscene bonus is based on-- and the hell with creating long-term underlying value for the shareholders, let alone stake-holders. And that is exactly how BushCo runs U.S.A., Inc. Ideologically, they actually hate planning.

Europeans know better. And Bush's dear friend Vladimir grew up in a tradition-- and in a system-- as well as in a national consciousness that is dominated by planning. And today Vladimir announced that cash-strapped Russia is selling Iran over $1 billion worth of tactical surface-to-air missiles and other lethal defense hardware. (I guess the Iranians took a look at Bush's brilliant strategy next door in militarily prostrate Iraq, and his hands' off policy towards the far more dangerously-armed North Korea and came to the only logical conclusion: arm to the teeth.) Bush's good friend Vladimir is also helping Iran build its first nuclear reactor, which will be part of Bush's consistent and grotesquely bungled and ruinous foreign policy heritage when adults are back in charge of the government. Do you think the neo-cons think they've done Israel any favors now?