I’ve been sitting on on this piece for over a week because it starts out humorous and turns sour at the end. But what the hell.

Memo to Dr. Carl Mumpower: Mr. Mumpower, on the 880 The Revolution Local Edge Radio with Blake and Lesley, you have on two previous Mondays trotted out the old conservative insult of saying “Democrat Party” when the correct name ‘s “Democratic Party.” Challenged on this, you blandly asserted, two Mondays in a row, that a Democrat had told you this usage was correct. You must have heard this from some far-right Democrat like Zell Miller. Please note that Old Zeller is only a Democrat on paper, and a flimsy paper at that; meant to be used only once, over porcelain. Preferably in private.

Memo to Blake and Lesley, while we’re at it: Your show is fine, but nobody is good enough to take Thom Hartmann’s time slot. Nobody. And why does the progressive station get stuck with a low-power license that forces it to shut down at sunset? Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Memo to Ricky Martin: Fine, you’re gay. We get it. We got it a longish time ago, amigo. If you’re trying to shock us you’ll need to bring it a little harder. Maybe Nazi it up a little like Jesse James did.

Memo to Jesse James: Did I hear you’re going to get “treatment?” So then you can come back later and say “All that stuff I did, was because I was sick, and now I’m allll better! Please forgive me!” I’ll forgive you right now, if it’d break the cycle of tabloidity. Oh, who am I kidding? We’re trapped living other people’s dramas like krill in a whale’s mouth. We’ll never escape. Maybe you should just double down to keep everyone entertained. Did I hear an angel whisper “Ricky Martin Nazi Sex Tape”?

Memo to All Y’all: Stop pretending you hate “La Vida Loca.” And stop pretending it’s a Latin song. It is, of course… but what makes it work is that tasty scoop of surf guitar. The guy’s due for another hit, you know.

Memo to Sandra Bullock: Say, why were you with him in the first place? Because Uncle Fester is dead?

Memo to Dr. Carl Mumpower: Yea, it’s me again. You also have been riding those poor immigrants like Frankenstein on a seesaw. For one thing, if they’re breakin’ the law, don’t even get me started on what other lawbreakers we might have in this country, running around all unpunished and stuff. Mostly old white guys, if you get my drift. Frauds, torturers, that sort of riffraff. And set aside also that in the early 1800′s it was Anglos in Texas who were the illegal immigrants in Mexican territory… Just consider the ones we have now. Arriving mostly from Central and South America.

Punto número uno: For thousands of years, people have left the hinterlands to go seek their fortunes where the money was: at the seat of empire.

El punto número dos: Oh? You do not think los Estados Unidos is the seat of empire? Perhaps you never heard of the Monroe Doctrine. Perhaps you never heard how los Estados Unidos accepts electoral results in the Americas which bring pro-corporate vassals into power, and undermines any democratically elected government that isn’t Wall Street’s puppet? Never heard of Smedley Butler? About the only country in the Western Hemisphere los Estados Unidos can’t meddle in overmuch is Canada. Socialistic freakin’ Canada where nobody gets evicted over a hospital bill.

El punto número tres: Do you feel differently about refugees from Fidel Castro’s Cuba? Is it because they’re fleeing Commie political persecution rather than economic want? Where did people get the idea that economics and politics were two separate things? In reality, politics is how societies decide who gets to make economic decisions. When people try to leave a country in large numbers, usually both the economy and the body politic are sick.

El punto número cuatro: It may interest you to know that not so many people are trying to leave Venezuela. Venezuela, under Fidel’s friend Hugo Chavez, has an immigrant problem all right: they’re dealing with masses of refugees from violence in Colombia. A vassal of los Estados Unidos, if you’ll recall. Beset by violencia on account of both left/right politico-economic turmoil and of the proxy war over drugs on behalf of our government. Coca leaves have been chewed as stimulants since time immemorial, but nobody in Colombia was getting shot because of it until the gringos got involved.

El punto número cinco: guess which South American government los Estados Unidos is constantly trying to destabilize. Hint: it’s the one Colombians are fleeing to, not from!

El punto número seis: Consider what economic (and environmental!) conditions are like in the vassal states, where most undocumented immigrants come from. When we consider such examples as Wall Street oil companies poisoning and despoiling the land of the indigenous peoples in a vassal state, with the well-rewarded connivance of the ruling families there, why is it not clear that some portion of the vast wealth accumulating in the seat of empire must have been effectively stolen from the indigenous people themselves? How much of their wealth is now here? How many have come here following their own money?

El punto número siete: Finally, consider the political situation in a vassal state. Let’s say the immigrants stay home. In order to keep from being driven out of their homelands to make it economically, farmers and workers must be able to make a decent living at home. Do you know what happens in a vassal state when workers and farmers organize to improve their lot, to keep their farms, organize for better wages and benefits, organize to prevent foreign profiteers from robbing their nations? They get tortured, harassed, silenced, murdered… sometimes by soldiers, paramilitaries and secret police who will often have learned their trade right here at Fort Benning, Georgia (formerly known as the School of the Americas, this crime college is now called WHINSEC (Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). Like Blackwater, now Xe, SOA/WHINSEC prefers name change to real change.

El punto número ocho: In other words, Central and South Americans could have much nicer places to stay home (like the Socialistic Freakin’ Canadians with their hoity-toity no-bankruptcy medicine). But we won’t let them because Repubicons (oopsies!) and Wall Street fatcats and the pliers-and-electrodes faculty at WHINSEC won’t let us let them.

So, Dr. Carl: expand your horizons, guy. I was about to tell you where some of the best real Mexican food in the city is, but I don’t want to be the naif who turned you loose on them like a lion among Christians.

P.S. All this goes double for the law-and-order goons in Arizona. The previous was written a few days before that immigration law hit the news. It’s just that Dr. Mumpower looks to be the local point man in this topic.

Memo to Repubicons: Reading the previous, you may have classified me as a “Blame America First” type. Not at all, dear friends! I blame you first. You righties are the ones always looking for ways to shaft the poor people on both sides of the border. And you’ve gone and started bringing some of your tricks home. The Chicago School of economics worked so well for looting countries like Chile, in the last few years you just had to try it here. Indefinite detentions and torture worked so well down here, you just had to try it here. Death squads worked so well down there, you’ve started talking like you want to do that here too. If you keep insisting “It’s a dangerous world,” you make it so.

Memo to the news media: Stop wasting ink on tiny Tea Party rallies. The biggest American political demonstrations in recent years have been Latino pro-immigrant rallies, followed by antiwar rallies. Just because they don’t have shiny new buses paid for by Koch Industries doesn’t mean they should be ignored. Quite the opposite, I’d argue. By the by, I’ve seen a convincing argument that Tea Partiers carrying guns and making threats with impunity is a clear sign of white privilege. The police have a different approach to minority militants.

Memo to Scrutiny Hooligans readers in general: I know I don’t post very often. It’s not that I can’t think of fifty things to say. It’s simply that I feel very pessimistic about there being any real point in saying it. Looks to me like the fascists have won in this country (did you know Antonin Scalia’s father was a proud fascist? Why didn’t anyone tell us this before?) Prying the fascists off our necks, soon, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for securing a future, barring a miracle. And that isn’t the half of it. Any comment I make, on any topic, feels about as effective as waving my dick at the moon. James Lovelock, speaking on the environment, probably got it right: “Enjoy life while you can.”