I didn’t watch very much of the God-King’s half-time pep talk to Americans tonight concerning the continuing Gulf oil fiasco.  His empty efforts to channel Winston Churchill’s “we shall fight them on the beaches” talk did not impress. I almost felt a sense of embarrassment for this man who, as much as anyone else, is the embodiment of the fundamental truth that most of us are not prepared to acknowledge: as our civilization continues its collapse, there is nothing that anyone in authority can do to alter the course.  I don’t know how, or if, the oil flow will be stemmed, but I doubt that any exercise of governmental force will accomplish such ends.  What I fear is that the state will do what it always does when faced with an insurmountable problem, namely, deflect attention to a realm in which its capacities for violence can serve its appetites for power: perhaps another contrived war against another innocent and harmless nation.

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