The Flower Moon

On Empathy, Mania, and the Urgency of Tulips

Chicago is bursting with tulips. Tulips, a thousand lips, all swaying to the dance of spring, the annual wakeup call to rejoice in the sacred power of nature.

But we are two months into a “war of choice’’— in other words, an unprovoked assault— on Iran. Because we want their oil? Or their uranium? Or regime change? Or to satisfy Bibi and Mohammed ben Salman? Or something else? Our “leader”, whom I call Agent Orange, demands a new Pentagon budget of one and a half TRILLION dollars. Did Iran invade or attack us any way? No! Has Iran ever had a nuclear bomb? No! Do we need their oil? No! Their uranium? No! This is simply psychopathic.

(War) h'uh / Yeah! (What is it good for?)
Absolutely (nothin) uh-huh, uh-huh

Except, oh yeah: it’s good for Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Honeywell and all the other merchants of war. It’s crazy good for Jared Kushner’s $6 BILLION sovereign wealth fund, harbored in the Gulf states, which are the primary contributors to the fund and very invested in crushing Iran. It’s good for gamblers on the polymarket, where the volatility of war (and of crypto) creates unique opportunities for speculative gambling and insider trading. And it’s great for diverting attention—from the Epstein files. And from the fascism overtaking our government.

“The United States has been at war for more than ninety percent of its existence. […] War is not what interrupts American life. War is how American life is organized.” (@Jermaine Fowler), The Humanity Archives).

This observation is indisputable—and yet stunning. I was born the year we entered WWII. By the time I was ten we were deep in the Korean War. And the CIA was trying to foment regime change wherever the US didn’t ‘like’ the leadership. The smoke had barely settled on Seoul when the CIA turned its attention to Iran. I was twelve. It was 1953.

The US joined with our ally Britain to overthrow the democratically elected populist leader Hamid Mossadegh, who’d been Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1951. His mistake was putting Iran first—and to that end, nationalizing the country’s oil industry. How dare he?

Mohammed Mossadegh, overthrown in a CIA-backed coup. In his place, we installed Reza Shah Pahlavi, corrupt, authoritarian, but to do USA’s bidding.

A year later in 1954, the CIA engaged in a coup d’état that deposed Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz, whose agenda threatened the fortunes of the United Fruit Company. Oh we were terribly busy in the 1950s.

Meanwhile, as the French withdrew from Saigon in 1954, we started sending military advisors to Vietnam to fill the vacuum. President Dwight D Eisenhower had seen the drift of things. In his farewell speech he warned us about the military industrial complex.

Chart from Omid’s Substack, ‘The Industry that Loves War’. In Max Blumenthal’s words (cited in Omid), “the military-industrial complex that has evolved into something far more insidious: a profit engine fueled by taxpayer dollars, privatized warfare, and political capture”

By 1963 there were over 16,000 American advisors directly assisting the Southern Vietnamese fight against the Vietcong. The CIA engaged in a plot to overthrow then-president Ngo Din Diem. In the course of the coup, Diem was assassinated, and three weeks later President Kennedy himself was “86ed”—to use a current expression. (Luckily I did not write this in seashells nor take a picture of it, so I think I’m of no interest to the DoJ, yet…LOL).

“The Vietnam War killed 58,220 American service members and wounded 303,704 more between 1955-1975. Vietnamese casualties were far higher, with estimates of 3.1+ million deaths including over 2 million civilians. An estimated 150,000+ Vietnam veterans have since died by suicide”(per https://www.warcosts.org). The deadly herbicide know as Agent Orange, developed by Dow and Monsanto in cooperation with the Pentagon, was used to destroy the forest canopy which impeded a clear view of ‘the enemy’. Of the 3 million living Vietnam vets, many are still dealing with the cancers provoked by their exposure to that chemical. Yes. But how exhausting it all is, just to rehearse all that.

The Vietnam war, having spilled into Cambodia and Laos, ended in 1975. Already our Iranian puppet Shah was faltering. In 1979 Iran Islamic revolutionaries, provoked by the Shah’s corruption, stormed our embassy and took hostages, which led to parlous negotiations which led to ‘the October surprise’ which led to Carter’s loss and Reagan’s regime and the Iran-Contra scandal and endless skirmishes big and small, from Panama and Granada and our arming of Iraq with poison gas in its war against Iran which led directly to the first Gulf war which almost seamlessly morphed into the Iraq war which led to wars on Afghanistan, the war on Terror (not a nation state but a state of paranoia)—which involved us in the drug cartels of South America. And Somalia, Yemen, Syria… Then Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, Lebanon…

Death and destruction everywhere. Senseless. Obscene. Psychotic.

DOMINION. DOMINATION. The Abrahamic delusion

²⁶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Apologists for this concept will suggest “having dominion” was about stewardship. At peaceful times throughout history, this has perhaps been true. But as small farms gave way to vast ones, as agriculture became Big Business, as possession stoked greed, stewardship gave way to exploitation, to large-scale chemical and nuclear pollution—the degradation of all our earth, air and water.

The war on nature went mainstream.

Now the self-declared masters of the universe (Musk, Thiel et al) declare that empathy is an obstacle. Empathy is completely absent from our leadership. Dominion means domination. And sheer greed. And sheer materialism.

As Mary Trump put it, speaking of her uncle (aka Agent Orange), the pit is bottomless. “Too Much and Never Enough”.

Man's profound disrespect for nature explains every bit of the turmoil we are experiencing today, the violence everywhere (especially against women and children). The wars born of imperial lust. Patriarchal hubris. The persistent and fatal delusion that ‘man’ can own, mine, rape, exploit, transcend and DOMINATE the earth. This is a male delusion. A delusion of ownership. It’s been around for the length of the patriarchy and explained the ages of imperialism and colonialism. Only now is the full absurdity of the delusion. When profit is measured in money, then war is the ultimate investment. Forever war.

Because US leaders from both parties are still united behind dominion abroad, Iran must therefore be denied economic survival. Who among our leaders is even asking the question, why is Iran our enemy? Do they never stop to wonder?

Meanwhile speculative gambling has reached new manic dimensions. What could be more exciting than winning a million because you bet that the ceasefire would be broken today, and it was? (unless you had the bad luck to live in the country under attack). How about betting on the price of fertilizer next week? A few days ago, “A new investigation led by senior U.S. lawmakers is putting the spotlight on potential insider trading within government ranks, as concerns mount over suspicious market activity occurring just before major policy announcements.” The senators pointed to “a pattern of large and strategically timed investments in equities and derivatives ahead of key government decisions. These include developments tied to geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and sweeping tariff measures that have historically triggered sharp market reactions.” Will the speculative bubble burst?

Tulips in Holland.

The first recorded ‘speculative bubble’ (or ‘asset bubble’) occurred in the 17th century during the Dutch Golden Age, when prosperous merchants and artisans grew intoxicated with exotic new “broken” tulips, bulbs that produced striped and speckled flowers. At first they were bought just for showy display, but they soon developed their own dedicated markets, leading to ‘the tulip mania’. Contract prices for certain bulbs briefly skyrocketed, then dramatically collapsed in 1637. For a moment, at its highest price, one exotic bulb cost the equivalent of a middle-class house. Whoever bought that bulb could afford to buy a second home.

Nobody died. No children were bombed. No animals were killed. No earth was laid waste.

Let’s go with flower power. Let’s return to speculating on tulips.

Ottoman-style tlip motif

Litter is the language of disrespect—apparent on battlefields from here to the moon.

Gaza? Iran? Nope. Litter on the MOON

In my darkest night, when the moon was covered / and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice/directed me: “Live in the layers, not on the litter.” (Stanley Kunitz, The Layers)

Instead, flowers!

There are dogs in the yard, howling at the moon, there are sinners like me, our judgements coming soon / And I stand at the bottom of this dark and lonely well / Saying, ‘Please give me answers, so I might escape hell. Come on and raise your voice above the raging seas /
We can’t hold our breath forever when our brothers cannot breathe / Come on and raise your voice above the raging seas / We can’t hold our breath forever when our sisters cannot breathe’ (Delta Rae, All Good People)

HAPPY MAY DAY!

HERE’S TO FLOWER POWER.