3/18/03: 11:45 AM: A politician from a family entrenched in public life seeks the highest position of power in his system. While adhering to some antiquated and morally dubious spiritual dogma, he sets himself on a course to seize power, both by misdirection of the easily-fooled electorate and backroom deals involving movement of men, money and materials. After engineering a conflict with people he's supplied and worked with for years, people who he'll find a way to sneak out a back door, he reluctantly takes the mantle of unfettered power and begins to, with the help of close confidantes, establish a tyrannical rule from which it would take decades to unseat.

The story of Palpatine of Naboo, or of George W. Bush? Hard to tell.

As of the Ides of March, four nations -- the US, the UK, Spain and Portugal -- lead the rush to war in the Middle East. All four, coincidentally, have had multi-continental colonial empires which gave them unsurpassed financial and political power. Of the nations that oppose this pact, four more (Germany, France, Belgium and Russia) have had their dreams of conquest and empire thwarted by -- and here's the fun part -- either one of the first four countries or a combination of them.

Some believe there are no coincidences.

For all the administrations talk about how a certain Iraqi is "evil," they never mention the extreme measure some members of this administration went to to court and assist said Iraqi. Got that tidbit by typing "saddam cia reagan" into Google.

When I tried "osama afghanistan soviet reagan" I got this little gem, which goes nowhere near as far as some who suggest all of this is a phantom menace or remember that the supposed enemy is armed with US-made weapons.

It's not as if all of this is a secret -- look at the source references. ABC News. Washington Post. This isn't two hairy guys in the Haight busting the man's chops, this is professional journalists looking one way while everything happens in the other direction. Most of my original notice of this happened flipping through channels, and I don't even have cable.

That leads me to believe that my father was right, all those years ago: most people are just plain stupid. That being the case, they'll buy anything if you say it often enough and package it well enough.

The war was a foregone conclusion a long time ago. It's necessary to boost approval ratings and scare the opposition into a lame stance, so as to make the next election an easier win. Dubya may not be a rocket scientist, but his handlers learned the lesson from his father: the crisis must stay or you won't. We're at war with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia.

Interesting side note: just like the "war on drugs" doesn't give a damn about alcohol and tobacco, ask how many members of the IRA are under increased scrutiny in the "war on terror." I'm just saying ...

Sitting on my relatively quiet ghetto street in my walled house, it's all wholly uninteresting to me. Aside from the crappy job market and the high gas prices, it could all be a work of fiction. I'm keeping my head down, writing, thinking, preparing.

"You could take to the streets," many say. "Protest, agitate, march!" Using forty year old tactics doesn't seem too smart to me, thanks. "You could organize voting blocks, blah blah blah." The 2000 election taught us all how little votes actually matter (the end count, with the loser locked out of power, could have easily been adjusted one way or another, and you know it).

I resisted writing this for some time, since some things just happen, whether you want them to or not. If literally millions of people worldwide, crying out in protest, can't stop it, one more blog/column won't tip the scales. On the other hand there's no immediate harm, I reasoned. If I haven't been marked by the feds for my opinions through my elaborate collegiate experience, the intel gathering resources of this country are far shabbier than we could ever believe. Through it all, there's a quote from Jack McKinney's Robotech series of books that keeps echoing in my mind. I remember it as, "set aside all pretense and sham and annointed themselves masters." I've since found the full text, which I'll include here:

"The will to power is disguised in a hundred thousand ways, on many worlds -- as service to the public good, or defending the faith, or protecting the nest from outsiders. But at the core it is always the same; exposed to the light, its features are unchanging: a naked lust to dominate and control.

Not surprising, then, that on that fateful night in a hidden place, the Three who had sworn obedience to the will of the people piled hands in an unholy ritual. Sotted on [power and technology], they put all sham aside and anointed themselves as Masters."

     -- The Scribe Triumvirate of Aholt, Ulla and Tussas, Nothing Save Animus: A History of the Robotech Elders (Chapter 25, Jack McKinney's End of the Circle)