The world is in tumult, but here in the heart of Empire the level of creative political energy runs flat along the bottom of the graph. As Iraq disintegrates amid frightful slaughter, US generals propose to bring to life the mad plan they ascribed to Saddam Hussein, to dig a defensive ditch round Baghdad, one of the larger cities on the planet. In Afghanistan the Taliban are once again on the rise. Amid these vivid implosions of the "war on terror," the US antiwar movement is near dead.

Here in the homeland, the mightiest names of the auto-industrial age have their backs to the wall. Tens of thousands of men and women face grim times as Ford and GM shutter plant after plant. Yet the pulse of organized labor amid this devastation is feeble. From the environmental movement there is an even fainter heartbeat, even as an actual conspiracy--official concealment of the toxic toll on New Yorkers from the 9/11 attack--finally comes to light. There's no convincing energy plan beyond posturing about ANWR; no protest at the giveaways of public lands.

Less than two months from the midterm elections, the Democrats cower from confrontation with a widely hated President. When Bush tries to annul America's always frail commitment to the Geneva Conventions on torture, Joe Biden complacently announces that the Democrats are happy to sit this one out and let Republican Senators McCain, Warner and Graham mount a counterattack. This is the way to rally millions of antiwar voters in November? Bush's present bounce in the polls shows the bankruptcy of Democratic strategy, as supervised by Rahm Emanuel.

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