Okay, all right, I get it. America is no longer the Boss. Liberal journalists all over the place have been shouting this for a while now, either with a kind of wide-eyed fear that the sky is about to fall on our poor little heads, or with a kind of feverish glee that, for better or worse, things are changing. Okay. All right. Things are changing.

Now what?

China is rising, India is rising... even the Middle East is rising in a different and weird kind of way. It's exciting because for the world at large there will be no stagnation. In addition to their "dark side" on some human rights issues, the Chinese, for example, are nevertheless developing environmentally friendly practices, simply because their industry is getting so huge they'll all suffocate before they get anywhere. So it's not like the East is adopting American capitalism, they're building their own, and I guess that's called "progress".

What do we do? Do we swallow our pride and realize that when in China, do like the Chinese do? Or do we try to pull ourselves out of the swamp by our own hair and develop a new revolutionary paradigm from scratch? Do we get excited about the new challenges, or do we ruminate on a Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times?"

Right now, from what I read (and it's little enough, I must say), Americans are split right down the middle: some are bouncing up and down in frightened excitement at the changes all around us, while others are squeezing their eyes shut and shouting "la la la". Both of these approaches have one very important thing in common: inaction. We are beginning to suck at this game.

Horse pockey, all of it! It's not his webmaster's fault! It's Turkey's fault! Seriously. How DARE they pose as Baghdad! The NERVE! We must invade and teach them a lesson!

Those darn Turks. Never a calm moment with those people, never! How is a Republican to run a campaign when they keep derailing him like that. I mean, one may think that their sole purpose in life is to destroy the leadership of California. Think about it: first California... then the WORLD!

Ahem. (I bet tomorrow O'Reilly will take my words out of context to prove something or other about the "radical left". Sorry about that.)

Oh poo. As per another quote of the day (a different day) from Mr. Bush: "Dictatorship would've been a heck of a lot easier." However, hailing from USSR, I can tell you that some dictatorships have elections all the time, as well. Except in those elections, the people picked by the government get 98.4% of the vote, every time. Funny how a little arm-twisting can produce national unity...

Of course, according to the far right, Mr. Bush has not been necessarily elected by the people (and in 2000, he indeed was not), but rather placed on the throne via divine right. Don't you hate it when God interferes so in the democratic process? I mean, doesn't He have something better to do, like keep the angels in line or brush his beard or something?

DeLay's sledge-hammer tactic of forcing the lobbyists to line the pockets of exclusively Republican politicians is apalling in its brazen simplicity, but it is also self-defeating. Lobbyists are getting a long-deserved bad reputation these days, and some of them are going to jail outright. Proudly declaring, therefore, that the GOP is the prime recipient of special interest money (some or much of it illegal) and that the Democrats are simply jealous, is stupid at best. Then again, that's been DeLay's tactic all the while: insolently crossing over all kinds of lines (moral or legal, it appears), bragging about it and getting away with it.

It is refreshing to see that at least he can't get away with all of it. You see, Americans are not special or different: at the core of our supposedly superior society lie the simple basic values of any human society. This inherent desire for stability, and therefore decency and the rule of law, works regardless of ideology or political system. The rule is simple: you cross that line, and you're out. Not because Ronnie Earle is a hero (that's irrelevant), but because society casts out those who destabilize it, corrupt politicians destabilize society and DeLay is a corrupt politician.

DeLay's problem was hubris; he ran against a force that is greater than any human being or human construct: the force of human nature itself. Maybe I'm waxing poetic a bit too much, but when you live in a nation unable to come up with any strong, competent and decent leadership, you end up relying on the fundamental forces of nature for making things turn out okay in the end. I'm just glad it worked this time around, and we're not out of the woods yet. Still, every little bit helps.