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"Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain." (from Maud'Dib)
Not that Obama will end up a relic like Ozymandias. Statues today lack staying power-Who was that ruler of Iraq?-oh, yes, Saddam Hussein. Of course, his statue was not Ramesses quality. It has probably since been hammered into tourist knick-knacks. Barack, of course, would look awesome with a Ramesses goatee on his presidential bust. But he is no Peacock Production. He is a baritone-voiced, steady-eyed man, who knows what needs to be done, and will say it in a nice way, even if it kills us, damnit!. Admittedly, the learning curve is steep.
The problem of leadership is invariably, "who will play god?" (Paul-Muad'dib to the Guild navigators, at his confrontation with the Emperor Shaddam IV)
Congress, meanwhile, remains nonplussed, rationalizing the benefits of endless war, and fraternizing in the feeding trough of feudal spoils, fast forwarding the bottom line to future generations-an American amortization of amazing proportion. To facilitate the fiduciary coup, fears are cast in catastrophic light, to blind the benevolent, and buttress the true believers, as congress gathers like cows at a saltlick, their ears nicked with marks, and salivate at the sound of slaughter. Salt they must have; their tongues lap; they drool. The pool runs darkly beneath the sand. The sand whispers. But they do not listen. The dunes speak.
Do you wrestle with dreams?
Do you contend with shadows?
Do you move in a kind of sleep?
Time has slipped away.
Your life is stolen.
You tarried with trifles.
Victim of your folly.
(Dirge for Jamis on the Funeral Plain, from Songs of Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan)
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