“Condi Rice Wants Us to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Kim Jong Il”

Sounds like “assisted” suicide to me! But then, Secretary Rice and her colleagues have shown a rare talent for alternate reality diplomacy. It’s great, in delusional diplo-land, there are no consequences, no tyrants, no dead souls in prison camps, nobody bleeds. Everyone just keeps pretending, and hoping ‘if only’, and talking, always talking. Until, one way or another, reality starts killing people. I hope Ms. Rice’s diplo malpractice insurance is all paid up.

She has turned into the cranky impresario of The State Department Follies, a musical touring company that has ongoing tours in virtually every country on the globe. The most lavish SDF productions are to be found in the Near, Middle, Far, Inner, Outer, and Intergalactic East and West. These lucky throngs who are the recipients of La Rice’s professional wisdom will soon find their lives so miraculously transformed as to be unrecognizable. Think smoking wreckage. Think frozen craters on the far side of the Moon.

But, hey!, Kim’s no terrorist. He’s left all that behind. Just a few deals with old friends…..it’s nothing, really. Uncle Kim doesn’t mean us any harm; all like peas in a pod now. He even said he was sorry. Well, sort of…. Even going to blow up the Yongbyon thingy for us. No more scams, no more lies, no more manipulation. Well maybe just the occasional batch of Super-$100′s, or just a little drug running, for exercise. But the Kimster’s a new man, transformed by his travails (President Sarkozy’s Courvoisier blockade was crushing). Chris Hill and lots of confidence building have given Kim a new perspective. That $25 million from the Fed was a real incentive too. It’ll be different this time. Kim’s feelings were hurt before because we put him on that terrorist list; but that’s all in the past, it doesn’t matter. We can trust him now. Just ask the happy, fashionably slender populace of North Korea. Besides, Condi says it’s all fine. Kim’s just an endearing puppydog. No nukes here! No worries!

Delusion is a strange thing, ever more exhausting to maintain, soul-killing to perpetuate, and always the crushing pressure, compacting and tearing consciousness apart at the same time. Denying reality is hard work, for it means pushing against, contradicting the flow of reality, of nature. And yet delusional thinking crops up here and there in history, an occasionally recurring affliction of the soul. It flowered during the appeasementfest before World War II. And here we are again. Condi and the boys at State say everything is peachy. They’re not alone. There are legions of people, the elites of the world, mostly, who also reject the reality staring them in the face, in favor of the illusory comforts of delusion. We can yet pull ourselves out of this imbalanced state that we seek to impose on reality, rejoin the real world, and wield conscious influence on the tide of time. We have free will, and we can choose to make this effort, or not. In this last case, simple physics shows us that nature is a self-correcting system that will not entertain imbalance for long. If we cling to our delusions about Kim, about Ahmadinejad, about Assad, about Fatah, etc., etc., nature will come and force reality upon us. It will be harsh, and cruel, and deadly, but nature doesn’t tally those features. All it knows is balance, and imbalance. It’s not a reality adjustment we will like. Delusional thinking and appeasement on such a massive scale will bring a harvest of war and suffering that is shattering to contemplate — unless we change the storyline.