The penetration of our news media by CIA-trained specialists began in 1983, during the Reagan administration. Rupert Murdoch (Fox News) and Sun Myung-Moon (Washington Times) had major parts to play. So did Oliver North.

And say, how did Nixon speech writers Pat Buchanan and William Safire end up serving for decades as influential editorialists and staple TV guests? I wonder…

If you want a quick overview, read this summary. For a complete play by play account, buy the book.

First, become a world-renowned, highly respected foreign leader, “a symbol of freedom admired the world over.” That may take some time and effort. You could be forced to spend decades in prison under an internationally despised regime in a distant country. Always remember that the reward is worth it: no longer being subject to arbitrary search and detention when you try to travel by air, and actually being allowed to board an airline flight. You will no doubt be willing — grateful — to work long and hard to reach such an important goal.

The next step is to have your 90th birthday coming up within the month. Yes, it means more waiting, but be patient. This is time well spent.

For extra credit, persuade the US Secretary of State to pronounce your inclusion on the list “an embarrassment.” This step may help you achieve the final one.

Take a deep breath — you are almost there. You just have to arrange an act of Congress which specifically takes your individual name off the list. Be sure to get the bill passed by both chambers and signed by the president.

And that’s all it takes! With a little bit of perseverance, you can go back to living a normal life in the United States of America, circa 2008. In this country, you see, if you try hard enough, you can accomplish anything, even to the point of avoiding dangerous and demeaning treatment by government-employed thugs at one of our lovely, modern air terminals.

Happy 4th of July!

1) The US should drastically limit its oil imports and use what we can extract domestically – although buying from Mexico and Canada is almost like buying from ourselves.

2) The following, in no particular order, are a few examples of low-tech measures we should put into place very quickly, either by use of tax incentives, outright subsidies or, if necessary, policing:

* Gradually curtail use of private vehicles except for approved necessities and emergencies;

* Eliminate sales of incandescent bulbs;

* Sponsor free or cheap fares on multiple-passenger “jitney” (van or small bus) transportation systems;

* Begin a continuous process of building and modernizing passenger rail and bus facilities;

* Encourage delivery of groceries (where possible in electric vehicles), using computerized routing to serve the maximum number of households per run;

* Switch from trucking to railroad transportation for non-perishable commodities;

* Subsidize availability of warmer clothes in winter, including insulated underclothes;

* Begin gradually curtailing meat production, converting feed acreage to human-consumable crops;

* Begin to phase out corn-to-ethanol production…

… and similar relatively easy conservation steps.

3) We will need streamlined funding and approval for measures implementing the above changes. Unfortunately, local obstacles of many kinds will have to be overridden. We are facing an emergency of unrivaled proportions, far more dangerous than any single flood, hurricane or terrorist attack.

4) The US still has tremendously destructive military power, and the strategic oil reserve to deliver it under almost any circumstances. It follows that US leaders may threaten (though not necessarily publicly) to destroy power plants, bridges and so forth unless oil is diverted in the desired direction. The results of such threats are unpredictable – except that they will probably make matters worse rather than better.

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So, when … the … a … by a … in … and … it are the words.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Wednesday U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would have an “inferiority complex” because he is black and if elected he might “behave worse than whites.”

“We fear that Obama will feel that, because he is black with an inferiority complex, this will make him behave worse than the whites,” Gaddafi told a rally at a former U.S. military base on the outskirts of the Libyan capital Tripoli.

“This will be a tragedy,” Gaddafi said.

“We tell him to be proud of himself as a black and feel that all Africa is behind him because if he sticks to this inferiority complex he will have a worse foreign policy than the whites had in the past.” …

Gaddafi saw a dark motive behind a recent speech by Obama in support of Israel. “Obama offered $300 billion in aid to Israel and more military support. He avoided talking about Israel’s nuclear weapons,” he said.

“We suspect he may fear being killed by Israeli agents and meet the same fate as Kennedy when he promised to look into Israel’s nuclear program,” Gaddafi said.

If you ever get tired of the dictatorship business, I’m sure CNN will give you a show. And for heaven’s sake, don’t go feeling all inferior! If Glenn Beck can do it, so can you.

Sociologists and economists who study rural poverty say the mounting gasoline crisis in the rural South, if it persists, could accelerate population loss and decrease the tax base in some areas as more people move closer to urban manufacturing jobs. They warn that the high cost of driving makes low-wage labor even less attractive to workers, especially those who also have to pay for child care and can live off welfare and food stamps.

“As gas prices rise, working less could be the economically rational choice,” said Tim Slack, a sociologist at Louisiana State University who studies rural poverty. “That would mean lower incomes for the poor and greater distance from the mainstream.”

At the local hardware store here, sales have plummeted to $30 a day from $250 a day a month ago. “Money goes to gasoline - I know mine does,” said the hardware store’s manager, Pam Williams, who tries to attract customers by putting out choice crickets for fishing bait beside the front door.

Local governments are leaving grass high along the roads and doing fewer road repairs to save on fuel costs. The Holmes County government has cut the work week to four days to give workers gasoline relief, and politicians are even considering replacing sanitation workers with prison inmates on some shifts to conserve money for fuel…

Dick Stevens, president of Consolidated Catfish Producers, which operates a fish processing plant in nearby Isola, Mississippi, said that 10 workers walked into his office last week and volunteered to take a buyout rather than continue commuting from Charleston, Mississippi, 65 miles away. “The gas ate them alive,” he said.

Workers at the plant are trying to find ways to cope. Josephine Cage, who fillets fish, said her 30-mile commute from Tchula to Isola in her 1998 Ford Escort four days a week is costing her $200 a month, or nearly 20 percent of her pay.

“I make it by the grace of God,” she said, and also by replacing meat at supper with soups and green beans and broccoli. She fills her car a little bit every day, because, “I can’t afford to fill it up. Whatever money I have, I put it in.”

‘Nuff said.

That is increasingly obvious. But why has the once-reliable US strategy of wasting money ceased to create prosperity? For that matter, how could such a plan ever have succeeded?

To the naive observer, the idea that demand can sustain an economy sounds paradoxical. It is true that, under the assumption that all demand will be satisfied, net demand is equal to net production. But that assumption can only hold when there are abundant natural resources available to the economy in question. Under those happy circumstances, demand for goods and services does indeed have an apparently beneficial effect, in that the rate of utilization of natural resources increases. As those resources flow through the economy, they leave behind a trail of buildings, roads, houses, consumer products and all the other accoutrements of prosperity.

But suppose there are not sufficient natural resources to satisfy demand? At that point the habit of stoking the economic furnace simply by turning up the thermostat fails to work its expected miracle.

Oil, in particular, has supplied the powerful and conveniently deployed energy to create goods and services. The US was a net exporter of oil until some time in the 1960s, due to enormous discoveries of black liquids beneath Texas, Oklahoma and California. The rate of extraction of domestic petroleum was always able to increase to fuel the automobiles, tanks and airplanes necessary to satisfy any level of demand.

But for any mineral resource, the pace of extraction eventually slows, as poorer veins of ore or deeper deposits of oil must be mined. In 1971 the US rate of extraction of domestic petroleum reached a maximum and then began to decline.

At that moment, the era of US prosperity based on unlimited availability of cheap fuel came to an end. Large-scale imports of petroleum began to arrive on our shores from various parts of the world, particularly from the Persian Gulf countries. The US gradually transformed itself from a wealthy producer to a poor but militarily powerful consumer.

In the new era, as long as cheap oil could be pried from the hands of client regimes throughout the world, the US lifestyle could be maintained and expanded. Essentially our economy began to thrive only by theft of other countries’ resources. This is of course the colonial model.

Colonial-style exploitation (also known as empire building) as a method of gaining one’s living never lasts for very long. For the US, that wondrous period has now decisively come to an end. The old laws of economics no longer function. But our government does not yet fully comprehend that the rules have changed.

The paradox of reliance on demand to generate prosperity has finally been resolved. Now we must somehow begin to earn our living rather than simply extract it from underground deposits of unexploited wealth.

For a country of 300 million human inhabitants spread over a vast continent, and dependent on cheap transportation for its extravagant way of life, that transition must usher in an era of harsh necessity. How well the US will succeed in coping with this scary new age is as yet unknown.