Optimistically (or perhaps by some stretched symbolism), Madoff has become Louis XVI, some kind of patsy for that current National Hegemony… His was the pursuit of the American Dream. According to its principles he is entirely without fault. I’m talking about honesty here; honesty as a concept rather than a virtue. Not that kind of honesty which acts as a kind of apology; honesty which, by its expression, forgives any past transgression. Or ‘Painted Honesty’, which wears honesty like a badge – it goes to the regular Honesty meetings, bakes fundraising cakes, attends the annual barbecues and can recite it’s 12 point manifesto – not rhetorical honesty. Its that slimy back-alley honesty. Gumshoe Honesty. Honesty that changes everything once She Walks In… it’s a nation of the night-time, of cash deals, casual what-ifs, of “hey, it’s not like anybodies gonna get hurt…”. I do not have a heart. I have only some painted muscle which exists only because it occurs to me to speak about it when I want to talk about honesty. When I am talking about love, I am talking about This Thing. There is no actual love involved, which we are both aware of in this transaction, but neither are we aware that this is the case. Not conciously; rhetorically. Only in that confused way in which we speak when we speak of honesty – a field of rotted livestock is not a tragedy, it is a tax break; an impetus to go into the fertilizer business. There is a sadness here difficult to express, and one we are lucky if we ever really, really feel… Our abdication into language. I give you “love”. “I love you” – a transaction, cashiered, accounted for… The point is the disconnection between what we say and what actually is (excusing, of course, this shorthand). I’m saying that the American Dream is actually something rotten and corrupt that masquerades as freedom and prosperity – like that dead guy Bernie from those wacky movies, and we’re doing our best to pretend he’s still alive and wonderful so people will want to invest – in this image. It is all we are capable of.

In this way Bernard Madoff is a patsy. His crime? Criminality to maintain a sense of pre-ordained dignity. The poor bastard.

A patsy, by definition, is the victim of the cruelest hypocrisy. See – I like Judas. Judas at least dealt with his shortcomings. They were embraced. JC – swanning about in the guise of the miracle man, with the freakish luck of having Omnipotence controlling your trust fund – didn’t really have anything to prove. He was one of those goodlooking straight A kids always slightly baffled by their luck – and didn’t part of you just want to, at least, stub their toe slightly against the curb of life? Madoff, let us quote your biblical sin: acceptance of 30 pieces of silver for the soul of the American Dream, that imaginative part which does not exist except within our painted, rhetoric hearts! Or more literary – a Faustian bargain! Now the Devil claims his due! Ah, the devil has no claim on Honest Madoff.

The thing is that Madoff deserved his riches. It does not matter if it were a lie. He believed so much in himself that, like Judas, he rose from his undeserved preterition to claim his seat beside the Throne. I bet he was a man who could stand in front of a Friedrich and not ask “What does this mean?”. He’d elevated himself to not completely write off Mondrian or confuse his Kandinsky with his Klee. After all, I ask from my pulpit, is it not a devilish trick to say that there are only 144,000 allowed into Heaven – or so few who are allowed Complaet Freedom, given the amounts of money out there no matter how theoretical – while the rest, no matter our personal worth, are cast out from Salvation? Given that Fox News, that Dark Secret American Heart, hooked up to our subconcious EKG as it were, tells us that not selling our souls to the Devil, or not sucking the massive black penis of the Dark God Mammon is just economically silly, and, in fact, tantamount to a moral sin… then I pity Mr. Madoff. I pity his years of Guilty Pleasures. I bet he bought “conflict-free diamonds”, knowing all the time that it doesn’t matter whether it’s conflict-free, or conflict-full, as the entire industry is a fraud – but he bought it. He paid for Salvation. Look, there’s a lot of the people in the world, capeche? And God – he’s omnipotent, sure – but he’s a busy man, and he loves you, but what’s love, y’know? I have love for my fellow man, but how much do you love me? Enough to dedicate your life to me? Nice – but I got that. Enough to buy me a plasma screen? And some hookers? Well – so long as they’re high class – ain’t a sin if they turn up at my door, is it? Be a sin to turn them away; they’re just enterprising young lassies after all.. (and it’d be cruel to deny them some God before I send them down to the Devil, wink wink…)

As far as I’m concerned? I forgive Bernard Madoff. In his guilty plea, in his knowing acceptance of the necessity of his role as poor old Iscariot, his saint-like humility, his general acceptance of terms, he signed away a debt he knows he owes because, in playing by the rules, he must also die by them – look. Let me put it in Ole Time Preacher Terms: do we hate the tree that bears the rope? Do we hate the rope for the burden it bears? No – we hate the man who burdens the tree, who burdens the rope. Ok, cool – you’ve killed the executioner, but the KKK lingers on, posing new patsies every time, no better than suicide bombers, really; each of them promised Nirvana, just before the axe falls. Lol-capitalism!