AMERICAN SUICIDE

NEW YORK The Pittsburgh newspaper owned by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife yesterday called the Bush administration's plans to stay the course in Iraq a "prescription for American suicide."

The editorial in the Tribune-Review added, "And quite frankly, during last Thursday's news conference, when George Bush started blathering about 'sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved,' we had to question his mental stability." - Editor & Publisher 7/16/07

I'm no cook. As a child I had a hard time making Kool-Aid. I preferred Popsicles, because they were pre-cooked. But my mother knew how to make it, so Kool-Aid was a big part of my youth.

Well, I have a confession to make. It was not 'Kool-Aid', actually. We were poor, so mom used to go for the cheap stuff: 'Fla-Vor-Aid'. She would stint on the sugar, too, to save a few pennies.

Sometimes for big family gatherings she might spring for the good stuff, might even use enough sugar. To impress the relatives, you know. She didn't want the relatives to know we were too poor to afford Kool-Aid, because Kool-Aid itself was a poor man's substitute for soda-pop.

Still, I adored 'Kool-Aid'...OK, 'Fla-Vor-Aid'...right up until...

Around 909 followers of Jim Jones committed cult suicide/murder by drinking and/or being forced to drink cyanide-laced grape Flavor Aid in 1978.^[2] Erroneous references to the mass suicide, in combination with existing references to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test of the Merry Pranksters, gave rise to the saying "to drink the Kool-Aid" as a reference to those who blindly follow an authority even if it leads to serious harm or death. -Wikipedia

A lot of people didn't understand how 909 people could do that, could 'blindly follow an authority even if it leads to serious harm or death'. But I understood only too well. It was pride. They would rather commit suicide than admit that they couldn't even afford Kool-Aid.

The Jonestown Massacre kinda put me off the powdered drinks for awhile, but by then I had moved on to stronger stuff, like milk, which came already pre-mixed by the cow. And then there was beer, which was like this miracle drink and which, I was surprised to find out, had been around a lot longer than Kool-Aid. Why my mother never told me about beer puzzles me to this day.

I drink a lot of beer now, mostly because it is my cruel fate to be living during the Bush administration. I have to drink beer. I'm afraid to go anywhere near the Kool-Aid.

Not so The American People, apparently.

They'll drink whatever George puts down in front of them, even if it's blood.