Perhaps America's insatiable demand for entertainment is in fact a form of self medication whose delivery mechanism is television, rather than the hypodermic needle. Mind-numbing, irrelevant, sensory-depriving entertainment is a method to kill the pain of a truth that laves ceaselessly upon the shores of our eroded conscience-a truth so painful that we must suppress it at all cost. It is American Idol, a program whose mass appeal I have never understood, that keeps the white noise of reality at bay and allows so many to ignore the world's pain and misery.

Reality television does many things. But one thing I am quite certain that it does not do is portray reality. Cheap and shallow entertainment only dulls the senses, like imbibing alcohol in excess to keep us comfortably numb, safely insulated from the reality that our nation is foisting upon the world. For many of the world's people, America has reduced their reality to piles of broken rubble; lonely hours of endless terror called Shock and Awe; the filth and stench of secret gulags where torture is implemented on a scale known only to the CIA. The disquieting loss of life and its impact upon families is beyond the pale of comprehension. Genocide and ethnic cleansing are not democracy and they never will be.

The cries of anguish can barely be heard above the din of our own personal struggles in a society that values profits above people. Better turn up the volume on the television to drown out the screams of The New World Order's democracy. We wouldn't want to feel uncomfortable about what the president is doing in our name. The suffering and anguish of faceless, nameless people of other nationalities is a small price to pay for the level of comfort we enjoy. As long as we do not allow reality to come rushing at us all at once, we can manage to live with ourselves. There is safety in ignorance-the refuge of all self-loathing cowardice. Thank God, we are a Christian nation steeped in a tradition of puritanical religion, with only the blood of the native peoples on our grasping white hands. Let us pray.

Ask no questions and you will receive no answers. Ask the wrong questions and you will get the wrong answers. But with the right questions everything comes into clear focus and understanding becomes possible. Be warned, however, that if you choose to know truth that it will frequently repulse you and make you sick to your stomach. But truth alone will set us free-so know it we must.

The fact that our government spends so many of our tax dollars on the implements of death, on militarism and weaponry, and so little on humanitarian causes tells the story of America. Fifty two cents of every tax dollar finds its way into the coffers of the Pentagon in some form. The consequences are visible both at home and abroad. This explains why America is seen as the Great Satan in the Middle East and beyond. How would you feel if you and your kin were the recipient of American democracy, delivered through the sites of an AK-47 or a carpet bomb?

No matter how hard we try we cannot escape the truth and its consequences. America is still the greatest purveyor of violence on earth. We neglect our own poor even as we impoverish the rest of the world, subjecting them to imperial rule and colonialism. We are the only nation to have used the atomic bomb. If this is democracy, the world can stand no more of it. So let us party as if there were no tomorrow. Let us dance and have a good time as we ignore the ice bergs that drift through the darkness in silence and pretend that our Titanic is not sinking. We'll have a wonderful time-right up until the cold dark waves wash over us and carry us into the void.

Reality has been so altered here that speaking truth is akin to living in an insane asylum. Behind the walls of empire speaking truth equates to treason-an act of sedition. Either the inmates do not realize they are out of their minds, or they pretend that insanity is healthy and normal. Irrationality makes perfect sense to them in their state of dementia and denial. Dwelling among the mad is itself maddening for those who remain rational and intelligent, and caring of the needs of others. It would be easy, even rational, to leave them to their own self-destructive devices. But this is our home and we have a moral obligation to set things right. We owe it to the world to try.

We must cease to invest in death and destruction. A bad tree will never bear good fruit. Let us invest in hope and life. Our military should not be the iron fist of oppression acting at the behest of capitalism and empire. It should exist purely for defensive purposes. Let other people empower governments of their own choosing. Our chief export should not be terrorism and militarism-it should be our humanity and our reverence for life. The evil and corrupt cabal at the head of this government is not representative of the great majority of the American people.

Those who choose to serve in the military should only do so as conscientious objectors. They should refuse to take up arms against other people who pose no threat to them or their country, people with whom in fact they share much in common. Let us send the chicken hawks-Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice and the other cheer leaders for war-to assume their rightful place on the front lines of the armed conflict they foment. Let their final resting place be in the Arlington National Cemetery, where they have sent so many others. When it is the blood of the ruling class that flows, rather than the working class, there will be an abrupt end to war. No person of conscience should serve empire in any capacity. It is easy to spill the blood of other people; it is easy to borrow other people's courage when you have none of your own; however, when your own blood is involved, war is no longer an abstraction. It becomes personal and costly, as well as sobering. Externalizing the cost of war upon others is an unforgivable act of moral cowardice. Let them do their own damned fighting!

We should be able to live in such a way that we do not feel compelled to apologize for being American. Most of us are good and decent people who do not believe in world domination or the subjugation of others. Many of us realize that we have more in common with the average world citizen-the Iraqi, the Iranian, the Chinese, the Brazilian and the Russian, than we have with our own political leaders. It is the rulers who send their servants to do horrible things to people who have never done us harm-people with the same needs and desires that we have. Working people should not wage war with other working people. We should wage war with the plutocrats that have hijacked our country. If the rulers want war, let them have it; but let them be the ones to do the fighting and the dying. War making is easy for those who are insulated from its consequences. We must make war as costly for our leaders as it is for us. To internalize the cost of war upon those who wage it is to end war.

Charles Sullivan is a photographer, social activist and free lance writer living in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. He can be contacted at earthdog@highstream.net

Allen could not be reached for comment last night.

His attorney, Mallon Snyder, said last night that his client denies wrongdoing. The lawyer disputed the police account of Allen's actions. "It's his reputation. Obviously, he's very concerned about it," Snyder said.

Snyder said he feels confident that Allen will be able to prove that the incidents were "a series of misunderstandings."

Allen, a former deputy secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services, was nominated in 2003 to a federal appeals court seat. He was appointed the president's top domestic policy adviser last year at the start of Bush's second term. That made him the highest-ranking African American on the White House staff.

Working out of a small office on the second floor of the West Wing, Allen shaped administration policy on such issues as health care, space exploration, housing and education.

He came to the attention of Montgomery police after a manager at a Gaithersburg Target store called the department about an incident Jan. 2. Montgomery detectives were able to document other alleged crimes from Oct. 29 to Jan. 2, some of which were captured on camera, Burnett said.

Allen resigned from the White House on Feb. 9, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family

In a statement that day, Bush said: "Claude is a good and compassionate man, and he has my deep respect and gratitude. I thank him for his many years of principled and dedicated service to our country."

Burnett said Montgomery police contacted the White House to verify Allen's identity after the Jan. 2 incident. He said that was the extent of their communication with the administration. He said he could not immediately determine the date of that contact, or whether police informed the White House that Allen had been charged Jan. 2 and was still under investigation.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said last night that if the allegation is true, "no one would be more disappointed, shocked and outraged" than the president. McClellan said Allen had told White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and White House counsel Harriet Miers that the matter was a misunderstanding.

This is what police said happened Jan. 2:

Employees at the Target store at 25 Grand Corner Ave. in Gaithersburg spotted Allen putting merchandise in a shopping bag. He then walked over to the guest services desk, produced a receipt and received a refund for the items.

After getting the refund, Allen left the store without paying for additional merchandise in his shopping cart.

A store employee stopped him, and police were called to the store. Officers issued a citation charging him with theft under $500 but did not arrest him. Court records show prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charge, which is not unusual in cases in which detectives are considering filing more serious charges.

Detectives from the county's retail crime unit soon learned that the incident was not an isolated event, Burnett said.

He said investigators were able to document 25 fraudulent refunds for items including a Bose home theater system, stereo equipment, clothes, a photo printer and items worth as little as $2.50.

Allen would purchase an item, take it to his car, return to the store, select the same item, take it to the counter and get a refund based on the receipt for the merchandise in his car, Burnett said. "He would get the money back or the credit" on his credit cards.

Allen's arrest was first reported yesterday afternoon by the online magazine Slate.

At the time of his resignation, Allen denied reports that he was leaving to protest military guidelines that required chaplains to perform only nondenominational services.

As Bush's top domestic policy aide, he frequently briefed the president and traveled with him on Air Force One, and he sat in first lady Laura Bush's box during the president's State of the Union address Jan. 31. Two days, later he traveled with the president to Minnesota, briefing reporters about Bush's education and alternative energy proposals.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, where he became a strong advocate for abstinence-only AIDS prevention programs, Allen focused on homeless issues and racial health disparities.

Democrats in Congress blocked his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in 2003, citing his relative lack of legal experience. The court, based in Richmond, covers Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Allen, a native of Philadelphia, spent much of his childhood in a working-class section of Northwest Washington, attending Archbishop Carroll High School. He later attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke Law School.

Allen is a self-described born-again Christian who got his start in politics working for Jesse Helms (R), the conservative former North Carolina senator.

Allen stirred controversy as Helms's campaign spokesman in 1984 by telling a reporter that then-Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. -- Helms's opponent -- was politically vulnerable because of his links to the "queers." He later explained that he used the word not to denigrate anyone but as a synonym for "odd and unusual."

Before that, Allen worked for the Virginia state attorney general's office and as state health and human resources secretary. In that job, he earned a reputation as a staunch conservative; once he kept Medicaid funds from an impoverished rape victim who wanted an abortion.

We are depleting our resources in Iraq. Last night the House Appropriations Committee passed the President's supplemental request, providing an additional $67 billion for the continued military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. With this supplemental, Congress will have appropriated nearly $450 billion for the war, running our federal deficit higher and higher while this country had a surplus when President George W. Bush took office.

The latest reports show that the war in Iraq has badly depleted essential equipment. I am particularly concerned about the National Guard, who have only a third of the equipment they need to respond to a catastrophic event in our own homeland, and much of that equipment is antiquated and worn out. If something were to happen domestically in the near future -- and it's not an "if", it's a "when" -- the Guard will be severely hampered. I have said before that our army is broke, hollow, and stretched thin. I am not talking about the soldiers; they are well trained and have accomplished their mission. I say this in regards to the equipment and my particular concern regarding the National Guard.

"Given Wal-Mart's massive scope and international dealings, it is not possible to rule out a financial crisis within the company that could damage the bank and severely disrupt the flow of payments throughout the financial system."

The congressmen said the losses to the FDIC, which insures deposits at banks and thrift institutions, could be staggering if Wal-Mart begins to have financial troubles that bleed into its bank's business.

"Consider the consequences if Enron or WorldCom had owned a bank," the group said.

The group included Ohio Democrats Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Rep. Tim Ryan, Hawaii Democrat Rep. Neil Abercrombie and California Democrat Rep. Loretta Sanchez. A complete list of signatures was not immediately available.

Wal-Mart is trying to open an industrial bank to handle electronic payment processing.

Industrial banks are state-chartered and state-regulated, and fall under the supervision of the FDIC. Commercial companies may own them because federal laws that bar non-financial companies from engaging in banking activities do not classify them as banks.

But as "industrial loan companies" owned by non-financial companies, they escape a level of federal bank regulation.

Wal-Mart's application has attracted heightened attention in Washington from some members of Congress, consumer groups and banks that fear competing with the retail giant.

Some lobbyists and analysts, however, say the opposition is not surprising, given's Wal-Mart's size and the criticism it regularly receives from labor unions and other groups. Those sources say that if the FDIC follows statute, there is little reason why Wal-Mart's application should be denied when rival Target Corp. (TGT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) succeeded.

The Wal-Mart bid generated a record number of public comments and calls from Capitol Hill for the regulator to slow down its review. The FDIC, under Acting Chairman Martin Gruenberg, has agreed to hold public hearings on the application -- the agency's first formal public hearings on a bank application ever.

Wal-Mart has said it welcomes the public hearings.

Some groups, particularly banks, fear Wal-Mart will use its industrial bank as a base to offer a wider array of services in its branches.

Others who oppose Wal-Mart's application say the bank would violate the historic separation in the United States between banks and enterprises that do not engage primarily in finance. Still, other corporations have already set up industrial banks, such as General Electric and General Motors.

However, there is a fourth tool, a stealth tool, which has more power and impact than the other three. It is called the Federal Reserve Bank examiner. He/she is the person who goes into a bank about once a year and decides which loans are good and which are bad. Based upon their holy edict, a loan is classified in one of several categories which determines how much money the banks must set aside from earnings to reserve for possible losses. It is completely an estimation game. So the rules can and do change, based upon the whims of the examiner, taking his marching orders from the Fed Chairman. If the Fed wants the money supply to expand, then Fed examiners come in with reasonable standards for review of loans, and classify those loans with a general leaning that they will be repaid according to terms. Thus banks do not have to reserve as much for possible estimated losses and are in effect not discouraged from making more loans. When the Fed wants money supply to grow, aggressive lending standards often get passing grades. That's when you business people will see your friendly bank commercial lender more often, jawing you into that expansion project you've been thinking about, inviting you to golf outings and ball games. They want more loans. They need your expansion project.

However, once the Fed Chair sounds the alarm about commercial real estate loans, it starts an entire chain of events that ultimately and unequivocally leads to economic recession. Here's what happens. Out of the blue (that seems to be a favorite modus operandi for all Fed operations) those friendly back-slapping Federal Reserve examiners (not really, they are never overly nice -- okay I've met two or three out of a pool of three hundred -- Mike, Eddie, Eric, you know who you are and I know you read my stuff) show up with a scowl that droops like the golden arch. They ask for the files, a table, an outlet, a coffee pot, and the key to the little boys and girls room. About two days after they arrive, the banker knows something has changed, something serious, and he gets this knot in the pit of his stomach that will last for about three years. Examiner Margo asks for a meeting with banker Joe. She brings her supervisor to raise the fear level of the meeting. The Bank's President, Joe, brings his top commercial lender for protection of his fanny, and that lender brings his junior lender who will ultimately be the sacrificial lamb and get the ax should things blow up.

Bottom line: Margo feels that a good commercial real estate loan, paying on time, plenty of collateral, doesn't quite throw off enough cashflow on its financial statements in file, and is now suddenly rated below satisfactory. Not quite doubtful. What this means is the banker now has to set aside 20 percent of the loan in reserves for possible losses. That reduces income, and he has a big one-time hit coming to earnings this quarter. The banker defends the loan with dexterity -- he has to fight back, but cannot tick them off too much as they hold all the cards -- but the discussion is going nowhere. Finally Margo's supervisor, Lead Examiner Harry, whose head hasn't moved an inch -- just his eyes, rolling back and forth from speaker to speaker -- drones out, "This loan is less than satisfactory," then gets up and goes back to his room full of tables, laptops, and loan files. This goes on for days. Toward the end of the examination, about a month later, they bring out the heavy artillery. More senior examiners from the regional office arrive and the meetings get larger and longer as satisfactory loans have now been declared doubtful, and doubtful loans are now downgraded to total loss. They especially target commercial real estate loans. First ones to go. Again, nothing regarding the loan itself has changed, the game is one of judging the subjective quality of the loans, and for no apparent reason, the subjective quality of myriad loans has remarkably deteriorated. The banker is left with a list of suddenly crappy loans in his portfolio, and a required loan loss reserve that is about 80 percent higher than he has on the books. He is then told in a wrap-up meeting that because of this "loan quality problem" in his bank, his bank's overall rating has been dropped from a 1 to a 2 or a 2 to a 3 (banks are rated 1 to 5 with 1 being the best. Ratings below "2" get bank presidents fired. Ratings below 3 get the Chairman of the Board of Directors removed, with lots of fearful warnings to the Board of Directors of the bank about Director liability and civil money penalties). This rating is confidential, with criminal prosecution should the banker reveal it. In fact everything in the examination report is confidential, with criminal penalties should he reveal its contents. There is no appeals process.

Needless to say, after the examiners pack up their newspapers, laptops, and locked suitcases, the banker and his crew of commercial real estate lenders are left in shock. The Board of Directors gets a visit about a month later from the Head examiner and the top Regulatory folks at the regional Fed office. If they bring someone from "Washington D.C.," then the bank President and Senior Lender are toast. The Board of Directors politely listen as the Head Examiner and his boss cite every blemish and foul found in the place with smiles intermittently flashed with icy stares, a game of intimidation. Warnings are given, then the Fed folks get up, make sure they shake everybody's hand in the room as if its "business, not personal," and leave.

At the end of the day, a junior lender gets canned, the Board steps up the heat on the President to do something about this, and banker Joe and his senior lender immediately decide to stop making commercial real estate loans.

For the economy, this means a credit crunch has started. Expansion stops. Willing buyers can no longer obtain financing to buy properties. This reduces demand for properties at the exact same time bankers are encouraging these suddenly classified borrowers on their books to sell their properties and pay back the loans. This increases the supply of properties for sale at the exact wrong time, lowering prices.

But the black hole is just getting started -- just beginning to suck the economy into the abyss. What I outlined above is merely round one.

About six month later, property values have dropped from this excess of supply and lack of demand due to the curtailing of bank commercial real estate loans. This means the collateral values of the loans on the bank's books have declined.

Another Fed examination is scheduled, they are back in, and with the battle well under way, it is time for these public servants to start shooting the wounded. They are fully aware that property values have dropped, and -- ignoring the fact that they caused them to drop -- they march to the file room, grab their favorite previously classified loans, and get to work. They assign the most experienced examiners to review the classified loans while they send the rookies to find potential problems among the previously good loans. But the action is with the classified bad boys.

That loan they rated less than satisfactory because of cashflow problems the last time they were in has now deteriorated to doubtful because of the compounded affect of collateral undervaluation. That means instead of setting aside 20 percent of the loan amount into the reserve for possible losses, banker Joe must now set aside 50 percent, another big hit to earnings. He had promised the Board of Directors that last year's one-time hit for potential loan losses would be a one-time occurrence. He realizes that is not the case, and begins to wish he had become a UPS delivery man.

At the end of the day, the bank's rating has dropped, the Board is scared about Director liability, and Joe is pulling out every political favor he's accumulated among a majority of the Board to keep him around for one more year. He agrees to sacrifice the bank's Senior Lending officer, who has served as a shield the past year, not making loans, but sitting in his office, ready to be ejected for the good of banker Joe's considerable stock options portfolio and other bennies that come with holding on to a bank presidency for a decade or so. The senior lender is replaced by a credit hack, someone with no people skills, adept at strong-arming bank borrowers into paying back the money. The goal is to shrink the loan portfolio by not making new ones, using the normal cashflow from payments to reduce outstandings, and to sell at a discount or coerce partial payments from existing loan customers who were rated unsatisfactory by the Federal Reserve's finest. This means lawyers get involved, lots of lawyers, skilled at scaring borrowers into "working out" loan repayments with this new nasty bank lender. This means less money is available for potential buyers of property in the economy, more distressed sale supply hits the market, and real estate values fall even further.

It is about now that everyone recognizes a recession is well underway, led by a real estate collapse. The truth of the matter is, the rules were changed by the Fed and nobody was told until it was too late, and the economy plunges. Voters scream, a few politicians get tossed, and the phrase "credit crunch" becomes a darling of the media. It takes action by the President of the United States to haul in the Federal Reserve Chairman, and explain to him the reality of the reappointment process every four years. Suddenly, at the next bank exam, a new friendlier, examination teams shows up, drinks more coffee, has a few extra newspapers tucked next to their laptops, are asking for fewer files, complain they have to rush to another job in two weeks so won't be there as long as the last time, and leave with little fanfare. The bankers are told in the wrap-up meeting, that they've improved their loan quality, the bank's rating is boosted one grade, and all is well with the world -- end of recession.

On March 8th, 2006, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced at the Independent Community Bankers of America conference, "The rapid growth in commercial real estate exposures relative to capital and assets raises the possibility that risk-management practices in community banks may not have kept pace with growing concentrations and may be due for upgrades." Fed examiners are warming up their laptops. The barbarians are headed for the gates.

The Fed announced again on March 9th, with no palatable explanation, that they will no longer publish M-3 as of March 23rd. While they claim that M-3 is useless, in the blurb on their website, the fact is banks are still reporting all the data on their Call Reports used to calculate M-3. The Fed has not eliminated the unique M-3 components from the Bank Call Reports.

Why don't they want to be transparent with the most important statistic, the very measure of why they were established by a minority of Congress during a late night session back in 1913? Because they cannot wait to pump money to high heaven like some sort of fiat tower of Babel.

M-3 was increased by $28.3 billion last week, a 14.2 percent annualized rate of growth. Over the past 2 weeks, M-3 was boosted an amazing $81.9 billion, for an annualized rate of growth of 20.7 percent! Over the past 8 weeks, M-3 is up 129.6 billion, an 8.2 percent rate of growth, and is up a whopping $249.7 billion over the past 12 weeks, a 10.7 percent annualized rate of growth, a $1.0 trillion annual expansion.

What is happening here? How does this reconcile with the Bernanke announcement that bank commercial real estate lending will be curtailed?

There are two ways for the money supply to grow. First is through the bank lending function. The more lending, the more spending, the more bank deposits, which is at the core of the money supply definition. The Fed has apparently decided to slow the velocity of money creation by slowing or shutting down lending. However, the Fed knows it needs money to buy financial markets and monetize our debt. The lending function is too much out of the direct control of the Fed. In other words, money is created that way, however the Fed doesn't get to decide where that money goes. It is going to businesses for expansion and jobs, etc... No, the Fed wants to decide where money goes. So it will replace money created through the lending function with money created from thin air by the Fed itself. The way for that electronic money to enter the economy will be from the Fed directly buying something, or lending money to someone. In effect, the Master Planners will decide where fresh money goes. They will control more of the spending. But they cannot let us know this. Because it would be too easy to prove they are doing this if M-3 remains transparent. You would simply compare commercial and consumer loan data to the M-3 figures. If we saw debt declining but M-3 rising, voila, we would clearly see the Fed is directly pumping and funneling that money someplace, which would beg the tough question, where? You can bet most honest, patriotic, free-market Americans would not appreciate the answer.