Remember the story, apparently true, about how one of the Apollo astronauts, upon his return, was asked how he’d felt just before lift-off? His reply: "I suddenly realized I was sitting on top of a very complicated hundred-ton rocket that had been assembled entirely by LOW BIDDERS!"

Hold that thought, and consider this by way of unsettling comparison: Are we not ruled universally by persons who have achieved their positions of power by learning ways and means of wholly expedient behavior? If you think about it, you’ll be hard put to come up with one example of a national leader who has not got to the top by consistently putting self-interest, cleverly disguised when necessary, first.

Quelle dommage, and a fine kettle of fish to boot.

From Alexander the Great [sic!] to Chairman Mao to you-know-who, it’s been a long, winding, very bloody trail and trial for everybody, east and west, north and south, of every color, every religion.

Slowly and at considerable cost in suffering we’ve moved toward a limitation of the damage through various systems of governance based at least in theory on the rule of law and on the concept of a division and balance of powers.

Look, now, though at what the world’s shining example of those concepts has thrown up at us all: George W. Bush, and behind him a rubber-stamp Congress and Supreme Court of his own party.

Is it any wonder that domestically and internationally we find ourselves in such a fix? This spoiled young toady found himself elevated and re-elevated by those whose "successful" lives had been shaped by clever expediency, with the last elevation coming from the last bastion against American tyranny, the Supreme Court itself. A court that saw no conflict of interest in accepting and adjudicating Gore v. Bush because the majority of that court was 1) beholden to the same people that Bush was (and is), and 2) said adjudication was a wholly self-justifiable action in that it was only the ultimate example of the expediency which had got the Bush people onto the court in the first place.

We are beyond mere dommage here and well into the territory of an American version of Greek tragedy. The pathogen of unbridled self-interest is once again loose in the world, disguised as it often is in the bright colors of patriotism.

Doom, gloom, and everywhere you look, unashamed, blind hubris on parade, day after day.

In such darkness, where lies hope?

Two places.

First, the American system of governance is in name anyway still in place and may be capable of functioning. The Supreme Court seems lost, but it’s possible the Congress may, if public revulsion reaches a certain level finally come to its senses and act to stop the tyranny. It’s possible, but given the financial resources behind the tyranny and the mind-molding effects of that money applied to television propaganda, one can only be very guardedly optimistic.

The other place of hope?

Against all expectation, on occasion even the powerful have shunned expediency and acted on principle.

One example and I’ll be done with these tiny shards of hope.

As a Texan I am profoundly offended by the Reign of Terror unleashed by the young Bush completely unaware of the deadly irony that his "War on Terror" was far more dangerous and destructive than the insane acts of terrorism that precipitated it. Thus my counter-example is a Texan who, at the time, enjoyed equal power, made equally horrendous mistakes, but at the end acted twice against type.

Lyndon Johnson in 1965 signed the Civil Rights Act because it was the right—not the expedient—thing to do. The consummate politician, he knew the price he and his party would pay, remarking as he lifted his pen that he was signing away the South to the Republicans for the next generation.

True enough. The stroke of Johnson’s pen that day in 1965—whatever enormous good may have resulted—also gave us the likes of Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, et al. (not to mention to torrent of demagoguery that would soon fill the AM radio waves).

But even as he signed that monumental bill, Johnson was pursuing a war in Vietnam that, soon enough, not only tore that country apart but also threatened to bring America to its knees.

And one more time, Johnson acted against all expectation in 1968 by choosing not to run for re-election. He knew he had made an enormous mistake in Vietnam, knew also that there was nothing he could do except relinquish his power. Which he did.

Are there individuals at the highest levels of the present American tyranny capable of such acts? If so, then there is hope. If not, then the only hope to stop this raging plague of the imperial pathogen will come from an aroused electorate.

If the electorate remains asleep, then we will get precisely the government and the fate that we deserve.

Power is pathogenic. Yes, it corrupts, but it also infects. There are few signs that those at the top in America today are immune to this ultimately fatal disease. There are unfortunately growing signs that key players are themselves permanently infected. Bush makes repeated references to his having been chosen by God himself. Condoleezza Rice muses publicly about how Bush will surely rank as one of history great statement, comparing him to Roosevelt and Churchill. Ashcroft continues to willfully dismantle key sections of the constitution in his self-assured pursuit of "the greater good."

Such behavior, which is completely disconnected from reality, could easily produce a psychiatric diagnosis of folie a deux (or trois), a condition in which two or more people share (and reinforce in each other) a delusion of massive but alas very fragile perfection.

Certainly the bunker mentality more and more evident in the White House (though we saw its seeds long ago in the early days when Bush spoke of "us against them") indicates that our last, best, indeed only, hope will come from the American electorate next November.

Thus we—and the world with us—find ourselves sitting atop this juggernaut rocket of American imperialism, designed, assembled and now controlled by not mere low-bidders but by person who—even if we grant them the best of intentions—appear to be incapable of separating self-interest (George the Great Statesman!) from courses of action leading to utter disaster.