Humor and deadly seriousness.

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

Read the article from Januari 2001 and tell me it isn't prophetic. I remember Johan Galtung speaking about the American empire and it's decline a year or so ago. He mentioned that in the Soviet Union the humor had flourished (indeed, just read Radio Yerevan). It is so amazingly funny because you can't actually say those things out loud. In a totalitarian society, so the theory goes, jokes are better. While not an absolute truth, I believe there is a lot to it.

The best and most popular analysts of America are not Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler or Marshall Berman. It is the Onion, it is Lewis Black, it is Stephen Colbert and it is John Stewart.