With as many enemies as I have, it's a wonder why I didn't think of this before now. Like so many of my other great ideas, it seems as if Michael Jackson beat me to it.
That is, Jacko beat me to using a "bloodbath" voodoo ceremony performed by a witch doctor named Baba in an attempt to curse his least favorite people. These people included Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.
According to Reuters, the March 11th edition of Vanity Fair is poised to report all this and more about the man whose life we love to find revolting. Apparently, 42 cows had to die so Baba could ensure the death of 25 Jacko attackers. Without specifying a timeline, that's probably the safest guarantee any would-be practitioner of voodoo can issue.
The whole ceremony ran Jackson $150,000 and, on top of giving us all another Jacko fact to cackle at, offered us an even more complete picture of what it must be like to live in a world without consequences.
Far away from the sites of various bloodbath rites, a different kind of ritual was taking place in Washington. In fact, this ritual had to do with another kind of voodoo: voodoo economics.
This ritual is somewhat more complicated than the one Jackson used. It certainly is more time consuming, aimed at the result of another enormous tax cut for the wealthy.
The Baba of Washington, D.C., Dubya, quietly put forward his plan while the country was preoccupied with something else - like a war. Then, he put his team of assistant witch doctors on the case.
These assistants try to talk about this plan as little as possible since, as we all know, saying the name of your object of desire too often can interrupt the voodoo magic power. Insofar as they have to answer questions about the plan, they do so with ritualistic mantras designed to make the magic work.
"People deserve to keep their money," they say. "It'll be good for the economy in the end."
I'll leave the creation of more mantras to you. Try it; it's fun.
All the while, these witch doctors avoid talking about the one thing that would seem relevant to anyone not under their spell. They never seem to mention the actual consequences of their plan.
This is the second massive tax cut (read: help-out-the-rich) plan of this type, even though the first was a failure by all accounts. Mix that in with a weak economy and an expensive bloodbath (no, not the Michael Jackson kind - the real one) and you already have skyrocketing deficits before the next round of voodoo treatment even sets in.
The difference between Dubya's domain and Jackson's is that Mr. Bush's actions have consequences that we all might feel. Instead of innocent cows sacrificed to fulfill some sick fantasy, important social programs will end up on the block so we can secure the sadly decreasing power of our richest citizens.
But, in an unimportant way, Bush is right. The economy will improve just as Jackson's enemies will die. And just as the voodoo folks did during the Clinton years when they attributed the economic success of the '90s to Reagan, the Bush people will be waiting in the wings to take credit for any success, whenever it comes.
Still, one has to wonder if even the voodoo magic could make anyone believe that. Maybe it's time for Bush to visit his cattle ranch and start looking for sacrifices.
Benjamin Thelen is a philosophy and political science senior. Reach him at benjamin.thelen@asu.edu.
