Forget the lifeboats. We can save this sinking tub!

painting of the Titanic by Ivan Berryman

I'm taking a break from the usual theme of this blog. Comes a time when one needs to step back, reevaluate, assess, and decide where to go from here. Whether to stand on the deck of the Titanic shouting at others, "forget the lifeboats, we can save this ship" or jump overboard into the freezing waters. Neither choice appears attractive.

And while thinking about it, I can't help reflect on the past seven years. For example, it crosses my mind a significant number of crimes are solved not by the diligence of detectives and crime labs so much as the result of perpetrators unable to contain themselves after pulling off a heist or murdering someone without bragging to a friend, "Hey guess what I did over the weekend?"

It's this strong need to share with others one's audacity that often lands them behind bars when they could have gotten away with the perfect crime. And I believe in my heart that Bush, in a retro moment to capture the bravado of his adolescent bully past, a past he never completely transcended in adulthood, simply wanted to share with all of us what had just unfolded when he said on December 18, 2000 , "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

That was six days after the supreme court's decision ending the Florida vote recount had granted Bush his illegitimate presidency and, cockily, he wanted desperately to tell us of the audacity of how it had all been carried off. Of course, he had to be careful not to totally confess to theft, but to tell us, "so long as I'm the dictator" seemed like a bold clue to what had just transpired. I've no doubt the dictator talk was an echo of conversations that had taken place between Bush, Rove, Cheney and other high ranking Bush The First cronies.

Now over six and a half years later, those words uttered by Bush in 12/2000 were more prophetic than we could ever have imagined. And it's something we are reminded of continuously by acts like those of our congress just last month before they recessed. That's when, under the threat of cooked up imminent attacks from terrorists, they granted Bush additional authority to wiretap phone calls and e-mails rather than be late for play ground time during their August recess.

"So long as I'm the dictator" keeps bouncing off the inner walls of my brain. I shouldn't let it bother me. It doesn't bother our congress. Nor the media who are but an amplifier of Bush's message. The sacrifice of we Americans for Bush and Cheney's global misadventures is zilch. Life goes on pretty much as usual if you can overlook 3,800+ dead sons and daughters (none which were mine) or the creeping hints that Bush's "dictatorship" statement may have been a clue to what's really happening.

So I'm stepping back. I'm gonna put my Titanic deck chair in the recline position (which now means vertically) and blog about things that really matter more than a morally corrupted United States in its last days of a dictatorship.

Yeah, I'm gonna blog about my editor, Sam. And I'm gonna blog about planning for life in the new America. Maybe include a few photos of a side trip or two taken while trying to outrun the echoes of this mind. Hopefully.