Where's My Consolation Prize?

Tom Engelhardt: Undoubtedly, the Bush administration is not yet out of ammunition, either figuratively or literally. Even as they stand in the rubble of their world, top Bush officials remain quite capable of making decisions that will export ruins to, say, Iran and create further chaos in the oil heartlands of the planet as well as here at home. I don't sell them short, nor do I see a Democratic Party capable of taking the reins of the globe's last standing imperial power and doing a heck of a lot better. Still, there's something consoling in knowing that history remains filled with surprises and that the short, rubble-filled, disastrous career of the Bush administration looks likely to be one of them.

While rubble-filled and disastrous are painfully accurate characterizations of the Bush Years, short is not.

And I'm certainly not feeling very consoled at the moment.

Yes, we can still be surprised. The nature of those surprises ranges from mildly pleasant (no Al Qaeda attacks on home soil since 2001, even though we can surmise attacks are pending) to the extremely unpleasant (Fascism in America has no domestic enemies).

I have some bad news for you, America: Relief is not forthcoming, and reform isn't going to blow across America like an Arctic coldfront.

The sad truth is that liberals are insisting electoral politics can and will deliver us from the knobby boot of oppression -- and that ain't gonna happen. Until political change is forced from the bottom via a sustained generational social movement, we can forget any chance of resurrecting our Constitutional Republic. For now, the prospect of such a gestalt are dim because of our collective refusal to take The Long View and learn how to fuse action with ideals.

With or without George W. Bush and his Merry Band of Mad Bombers, and with or without a Democratic Congress, the Neoconservative Revolution will continue steamrolling over everyone and everything in its way. Even as the prospect of nuclear war hangs in the air like the putrid stench of death, I have seen no evidence - not one single shred - that Americans will tolerate tyranny and lawlessness any less than we have since BushCoup2000.