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The 1979 film, "Apocalypse Now," based on the Joseph Conrad novel "The Heart of Darkness," is well know to film goers and/or readers of American fiction. The story is about someone who descends into the darkness and is changed by it, not the other way around.

I resist making the comparing the President and the current Administration to Colonel Kurtz, the Marlon Brando character who deep in the Cambodian jungle starts to mirror the butchery he encounters in his enemies, and then some. And when he finally starts to mimic it, calling it "genius," he loses everything that he ever stood for.

But I will compare the United States as a Republic, collectively sinking into the heart of darkness. That we would dignify torture in a Congressional debate and have rules of torture spelled out, shows that we, like Kurtz, have seen the "genius" of our enemies.

The President's Administration have been a disaster. He has destabilized the Middle East. Writing in The New York Review of Books, William Pfaff writes,

President Bush and Karl Rove, his propaganda packager, preferred the global cold war model—the "long war" —capable of being presented to the American public as a communism-like "struggle for the world," so as to mobilize Americans around George Bush, wearing his flight jacket.

Iraq now seems all but certain to be left broken as a state, immersed in sectarian violence and terrorism, in far worse condition than it was under Saddam Hussein's secular dictatorship (which would have come to an end when Saddam died, or when he was overturned by a coup, or a revolt, as has happened to all of modern Iraq's previous leaders)

Indeed, we have lost Iraq and may well lose more in this struggle. But there is more here, as well.

For those who like conspiratorial explanations, involving oil and Israel, consider that now Iraq will produce little or no oil for the United States, or anyone else, for years to come, and the Saudi monarchy and the Gulf oil-producer governments are newly threatened by fundamentalist militants.

Saddam Hussein has been eliminated as a distant threat to Israel, and a ring of aggressive Shiite states and movements has been substituted, with Hezbollah having already brought Israel under rocket fire, and humiliated the Israeli army. Iran's influence in the world has grown larger than ever.

These results are due in part to the amateur geopoliticians of the neoconservative New American Century initiative, and their Washington allies. Israel needed no such friends, nor does George W. Bush, who with their help, on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, looked more than ever as though he'll finish his term as the most disastrous president in American history.

One more thing, though that this has caused our people. We have been lead, however unwillingly, into the heart of darkness.

The Administration is comparing Iraq and Fascism. Images of World War Two are used, but not Vietnam. Communism is mentioned, but the fact that the world's most populous nation is also a Communist state, slips most people's minds. We are busy making sure we are in good standing with the biggest nation, let alone the biggest Communist nation, that we no longer say that "Communism doesn't work."

Why is this relevant? Well, the Administration is talking about how the United States fought Fascism and Communism. It declares victory.

We are told we have to fight the terrorists "over there," otherwise we'll have to fight them "over here." This used to be called the "Domino Theory" during Vietnam. If we let Vietnam fall, we'd be soon fighting Communists at home. Instead we're importing Communist goods and setting up factories in Communist China.

No longer do we hear slogans about how Communism doesn't work and that we're fighting Communism. The war against Communism is largely forgotten, except for Cuba and Korea.

More to the point, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Administration have it wrong about World War Two. Why doesn't the current Administration look at Lyndon Johnson's War in Vietnam? The comparisons are striking beyond the Domino Theory. In the 1960s, Americans were also told to "stay the course" insofar as Vietnam and that "victory is just around the corner," and "we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel."

Today's pundits blame Democrats for being "soft" on national security. Most are too young to recall the slogan, "The Democrats are the party of war and the Republicans the party of depression." Many people fail to remember that World War One and World War Two were fought during Democratic administrations. The standoff during the Cuban Missile Crisis was under a Democratic Administration. This is not to say Republicans are weak despite the stalemate in Korea and Nixon's pull out in Vietnam.

Author Tammy Bruce, a once progressive convert to Reagan, gives a lesson about how World War Two happened and she advises that "Mein Kampf" tells the story, but those who have actually read it find its is largely an anti-Semitic tract. Yet the United States declared war on Japan, not Germany, after Pearl Harbor. It was the Germans who declared war on the United States through a Japanese-German Treaty because America had declared war on Japan. America was not a member of the League of Nations and Americans did not broker much, if anything, in Europe during the Hitler's rise to power or the carving up of Europe.

It was Zbigniew Brzezinski who said,

I am also somewhat inclined to feel that their criticism of our hysterical approach towards Iraq, viewing Iraq as another Nazi Germany, Saddam Hussein as another Hitler is not without merit. I think we have lost our sense of proportion.

Surely we should stop terrorists, but miring America's Army in an overseas civil war is not going to stop, for example, British citizens from plotting to blow up planes. Using the name of Hitler and the Domino Theory has little to do with the real threats.

The best comparison to a war of the past is America's involvement in Vietnam ... a Civil War where the enemy blends into the populace, where raw military force cannot crush the opposition, where we are told to "stay the course" and told that if we don't, the Domino Theory will mean we end up fighting them here.

And yet, history has proven that staying the course did not win us anything and yesterday's enemies, Communist or not, are our big friends.

The Administration is comparing Iraq and Fascism. Images of World War Two are used, but not Vietnam. Communism is mentioned, but the fact that the world's most populous nation is also a Communist state, slips most people's minds. We are busy making sure we are in good standing with the biggest nation, let alone the biggest Communist nation, that we no longer say that "Communism doesn't work."

Why is this relevant? Well, the Administration is talking about how the United States fought Fascism and Communism. It declares victory.

We are told we have to fight the terrorists "over there," otherwise we'll have to fight them "over here." This used to be called the "Domino Theory" during Vietnam. If we let Vietnam fall, we'd be soon fighting Communists at home. Instead we're importing Communist goods and setting up factories in Communist China.

No longer do we hear slogans about how Communism doesn't work and that we're fighting Communism. The war against Communism is largely forgotten, except for Cuba and Korea.

More to the point, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Administration have it wrong about World War Two. Why doesn't the current Administration look at Lyndon Johnson's War in Vietnam? The comparisons are striking beyond the Domino Theory. In the 1960s, Americans were also told to "stay the course" insofar as Vietnam and that "victory is just around the corner," and "we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel."

Today's pundits blame Democrats for being "soft" on national security. Most are too young to recall the slogan, "The Democrats are the party of war and the Republicans the party of depression." Many people fail to remember that World War One and World War Two were fought during Democratic administrations. The standoff during the Cuban Missile Crisis was under a Democratic Administration. This is not to say Republicans are weak despite the stalemate in Korea and Nixon's pull out in Vietnam.

Author Tammy Bruce, a once progressive convert to Reagan, gives a lesson about how World War Two happened and she advises that "Mein Kampf" tells the story, but those who have actually read it find its is largely an anti-Semitic tract. Yet the United States declared war on Japan, not Germany, after Pearl Harbor. It was the Germans who declared war on the United States through a Japanese-German Treaty because America had declared war on Japan. America was not a member of the League of Nations and Americans did not broker much, if anything, in Europe during the Hitler's rise to power or the carving up of Europe.

It was Zbigniew Brzezinski who said,

I am also somewhat inclined to feel that their criticism of our hysterical approach towards Iraq, viewing Iraq as another Nazi Germany, Saddam Hussein as another Hitler is not without merit. I think we have lost our sense of proportion.

Surely we should stop terrorists, but miring America's Army in an overseas civil war is not going to stop, for example, British citizens from plotting to blow up planes. Using the name of Hitler and the Domino Theory has little to do with the real threats.

The best comparison to a war of the past is America's involvement in Vietnam ... a Civil War where the enemy blends into the populace, where raw military force cannot crush the opposition, where we are told to "stay the course" and told that if we don't, the Domino Theory will mean we end up fighting them here.

And yet, history has proven that staying the course did not win us anything and yesterday's enemies, Communist or not, are our big friends.

GOP pundits have misremembered and misread history in hopes that the same forces that destroyed the Democratic Party in 1968 don't repeat themselves, this time with the Republicans getting swept aside. Maybe Ramesh Ponnuru was not yet born; maybe David Brooks was too young to remember it well; maybe George Will's memory has failed him, but in 1968 the Democrats were destroyed because they were PRO-war, not anti-war.

In recent news panels, Ponnuru, Brooks, and Will, have each said that in 1968 the anti-War faction of the Democrats lead the Party to defeat, yet in 1968 the Democratic standard bearer, Hubert Humphrey dared not cross his boss, Lyndon Johnson, and take a strong anti-War stance. Thus, it was Richard Nixon who claimed to have a "secret plan" to end the war, who left the albatross of Vietnam hang around the neck of the Democrats.

Orson Wells in his "The Begetting of the President," a sort of biblical take-off on the politics of the time, reads the story from "The Book of Hubert" (Job) and it is sad and ironic and it hit the point, smack on. Hubert dared not speak against LBJ, or "charge foolishly." His loyalty was being tested and hence the standard bearer could not speak of the mistake of Vietnam in the way he needed to and early enough.

The real tragedy for this nation was the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy won the 1968 California primary and on the night of his victory he said, "now it's on to Chicago and let's win there," at the Democratic National Convention. Moments later he was shot through the head.

Of course these things can never be proven, but had Kennedy lived to go to the Democratic Convention, he may well have won there and taken the election. Kennedy may well have been able to end the War sooner than Nixon and with less cost.

As it was, the anti-War Democrats did not lose because their policy was wrong. They lost because their standard bearer was murdered. Robert F. Kennedy would have had no problem at all saying Johnson's Policy had failed.

Today the pundits of the GOP are misremembering the lessons of 1968. In fact, we see a similar foolishness with Lieberman who unlike Humphrey is not beholding to the President, does not charge "foolishly" and in being pro-war has painted himself into a bit of a political corner.

The lesson of 1968 is not that the anti-War wing causes Democrats to lose elections. In my view it is that rhetoric about the war being right and let's not talk against the war is a way to lose.

The GOP is following in the footsteps of LBJ and the 1968 rout.

November draws near and time will tell.

Is history repeating itself?

Historian A. J. P. Taylor once remarked that there comes a day when students learn from books what is within the living memory of the instructor. I am no instructor, but I vividly recall when the United States was embroiled overseas in the midst of a foreign nation's civil strife - where American troops could not tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys" because the enemy could simply melt into the environment.

I recall how that war had been popular and that the President had won a second term in his own right because he would be better at handling threats to the United Sates than could his opponent.

And yet, it wasn't long before the American people rejected the war policies of administration, but someone had to stand up to the President, and even if by proxy, people had to have the mechanism by which to have a quasi-referendum on the war, and that turned out to be the 1968 Presidential Primary in New Hampshire.

LBJ was challenged by Senator Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy went neck and neck with Johnson and soon the entire nation knew that being against the Vietnam War was not unpatriotic nor were those who opposed it alone.

We read in The Union Leader 1968: McCarthy stuns the President.

On November 30, 1967, Senator McCarthy announced for the Democratic nomination for President, stating, "My decision to challenge the President's position, and the administration's position, has been strengthened by recent announcements out of the administration — the evident intention to intensify the war in Vietnam and, on the other hand, the absence of any positive indications or suggestions for a compromise or for a negotiated settlement. I am concerned that the administration seems to have set no limits to the price that it is willing to pay for a military victory."

The rhetoric of Iraq is different. Our Defense Secretary isn't calling for winning "the hearts and minds," or the "Iraqification" of struggle, but it seems events in Connecticut and the defeat of Joe Lieberman by Ned Lamont.

Like LBJ, Bush has squandered much of his political capital for little, but the way this has played out so far is a bit different. Lieberman has decided to go it alone. It may not be fair that the race turned into a referendum on the war, but voters do find a way to register their resentments. Alas, Lieberman was caught in the crossfire.

What LBJ realized in 1968 was that he had spent his political capital foolishly and no longer had the popular support. Instead he gave speeches on military bases where the audience was more or less vetted. But it is said that this deeply wounded a man who was used to having popular support. And so, in March 31, 1968 ... barely four months after McCarthy announced he would run, Johnson made an announcement which stunned many of us,

I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.

And in that four months, America had turned a corner.

We are about to turn a corner like that again, and we shall see if Lieberman is as wise as Johnson was.

This morning Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald writes an article with the headline Al Qaeda endorses Joe Lieberman.

Another quarter has been heard from in Connecticut’s senatorial race. The crucial al-Qaeda endorsement.

This pack of political activists -- thuggish, given to strongarm tactics -- just endorsed Joe Lieberman.

The Lamont crowd, narrowly victorious in Tuesday’s primary, had forgotten about this part of the body unpolitic. The part that wants to kill us.

Ned Lamont, like Cindy Sheehan and the rest of the one-issue Left, thinks the enemy is George Bush. They think George Bush is the greatest threat to world stability and individual rights. They think he is the one who wants to kill us and enslave us.

Is Crittenden channeling Anne Coulter?

Surely the headline is one that means to shock, but not enlighten. A more apt headline might be, "GOP endorses Joe Lieberman."

In Lieberman's defense, I see how he recoils from the Bush kiss (of death?). You think Lieberman is offering his ear and not his cheek. "The Pres. wants to say something over the roar of the crowd. I'll lean closer to hear ... What! He kissed me ... no wonder we need a Constitutional Amendment about the sanctity of marriage."

But that kiss was Lieberman's undoing because it embodied a closeness to the President that has haunted Lieberman.

The crucial al-Qaeda endorsement.

This pack of political activists -- thuggish, given to strongarm tactics -- just endorsed Joe Lieberman.

Don't look now, Jules, but what do you call the Bush/Lieberman exchange?

Lieberman is likable enough and might stand a chance, so he doesn't need the "help" of Crittenden's smear of Lamont, or of "Cindy Sheehan and the rest of the one-issue Left." No mention of Alan Schlesinger, the candidate who'll bear the colors for the GOP.

And yet, in this odd turn of events, where Lieberman cannot seem to bear the news that he was beaten in the primary, the Connecticut senator soldiers on because some sort of internal guidance system has taken over. The game plan called for Lieberman to run for re-election and Joe simply has not gotten a grasp of the facts.

In the meantime as the right runs to Joe's side, Lieberman is tapped in a Byzantine drama that has all the makings of a tragedy. As the old saying goes, "with friends like the GOP, who needs enemies."

This is not a movie review, but a general complaint. Is it possible we're living in the 21st century? Not judging by the stories we're telling, which recycle the same staid gender roles. I'm taking about the summer blockbuster movies Superman and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

I was pretty disappointed with the characters written for women in both films. This is not an indictment of either Kate Bosworth or Keira Knightley (Superman and Pirates, respectively). I'm sure both actors were doing the best they could with the material they had. But have you ever seen a worse Lois Lane? I didn't feel she was a crack reporter, driven to nail a story down - she seemed to be there as the damsel in distress. Yes, Margot Kidder fulfilled the same role in the Superman film of 1978, but at least there were gestures towards her career: the balcony scene where she gets out her pad and pencil for the scoop on Superman, and the general indication that she had drives and desires, and led an autonomous life.

In fact, having recently viewed Superman: The Movie, I was stunned by a scene I'd forgotten: there's a long sequence where Superman and Lois Lane fly above Metropolis at night, just after the balcony scene mentioned above. The audience gain access to Lane's thoughts during an unrushed monologue where she muses on what is unfolding before her. This places the whole audience in sympathy with Lane, and places our subjectivity squarely on a female character's shoulders.

I got the sense from the 2006 Superman script that it could've cared less what Kate Boswell's thoughts were, or what drove her, besides the socially sanctioned love for her child. Speaking of child - how boring is it to have her kid be male? For God's sake, at least take a bit of a risk and make the child female - that way we would've had more interesting ideas raised about gender and the whole "superman" mythology. But, no - they had to keep that whole Christian Father/Son thing chugging along.

In Pirates, there's a wonderful moment where Keira Knightly, as Elizabeth Swann, is aiming a gun at some barrels of gunpowder. You think - yes! - they've given her some action, something interesting to do. But the inclusion of her fiance on the barrels, along with a swaying boat which, in her female incompetence, she is unable to contend with, means that the satisfaction of blasting the Kraken's tentacles is left to the ever-shaky Johnny Depp. Yawn, sigh. Well, what was I thinking - they'd let the female character actually do something?

The Pirates script even has a promising set-up where Swann has to disguise herself as a sailor and work on a ship incognito. The writers could've taken this in any number of interesting ways, having fun with the role reversal, undermining gender expectations, etc. But her passing as a male member of crew is left largely unexplored. Disappointing.

Am I too optimistic about gender roles crumbling in this new century? Hollywood seems stuck in reverse with its unexamined assumptions about men and women, endlessly recycling the same old stories…

Blur penned these lyrics in 1995:

This is the next century
Where the universal's free
You can find it anywhere
Yes, the future's been sold

Every night we're gone
And to karaoke songs
How we like to sing along,
Though the words are wrong

It really really really could happen
Yes it really really really could happen
When the days they seem to fall through you
Well just let them go

I share Blur's thinly-veiled skepticism. Chances are, the plum roles will continue to be written with men in mind, until more women move into directing and producing. Then maybe we'll have a fighting chance of having complex, interesting leading ladies: in short, humans, not cardboard characters.

It really really really could happen.

Lyrics: Blur, "The Universal", The Great Escape

This is not a movie review, but a general complaint. Is it possible we're living in the 21st century? Not judging by the stories we're telling, which recycle the same staid gender roles. I'm taking about the summer blockbuster movies Superman and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

I was pretty disappointed with the characters written for women in both films. This is not an indictment of either Kate Bosworth or Keira Knightley (Superman and Pirates, respectively). I'm sure both actors were doing the best they could with the material they had. But have you ever seen a worse Lois Lane? I didn't feel she was a crack reporter, driven to nail a story down - she seemed to be there as the damsel in distress. Yes, Margot Kidder fulfilled the same role in the Superman film of 1978, but at least there were gestures towards her career: the balcony scene where she gets out her pad and pencil for the scoop on Superman, and the general indication that she had drives and desires, and led an autonomous life.

In fact, having recently viewed Superman: The Movie, I was stunned by a scene I'd forgotten: there's a long sequence where Superman and Lois Lane fly above Metropolis at night, just after the balcony scene mentioned above. The audience gain access to Lane's thoughts during an unrushed monologue where she muses on what is unfolding before her. This places the whole audience in sympathy with Lane, and places our subjectivity squarely on a female character's shoulders.

I got the sense from the 2006 Superman script that it could've cared less what Kate Boswell's thoughts were, or what drove her, besides the socially sanctioned love for her child. Speaking of child - how boring is it to have her kid be male? For God's sake, at least take a bit of a risk and make the child female - that way we would've had more interesting ideas raised about gender and the whole "superman" mythology. But, no - they had to keep that whole Christian Father/Son thing chugging along.

In Pirates, there's a wonderful moment where Keira Knightly, as Elizabeth Swann, is aiming a gun at some barrels of gunpowder. You think - yes! - they've given her some action, something interesting to do. But the inclusion of her fiance on the barrels, along with a swaying boat which, in her female incompetence, she is unable to contend with, means that the satisfaction of blasting the Kraken's tentacles is left to the ever-shaky Johnny Depp. Yawn, sigh. Well, what was I thinking - they'd let the female character actually do something?

The Pirates script even has a promising set-up where Swann has to disguise herself as a sailor and work on a ship incognito. The writers could've taken this in any number of interesting ways, having fun with the role reversal, undermining gender expectations, etc. But her passing as a male member of crew is left largely unexplored. Disappointing.

Am I too optimistic about gender roles crumbling in this new century? Hollywood seems stuck in reverse with its unexamined assumptions about men and women, endlessly recycling the same old stories…

Blur penned these lyrics in 1995:

This is the next century
Where the universal's free
You can find it anywhere
Yes, the future's been sold

Every night we're gone
And to karaoke songs
How we like to sing along,
Though the words are wrong

It really really really could happen
Yes it really really really could happen
When the days they seem to fall through you
Well just let them go

I share Blur's thinly-veiled skepticism. Chances are, the plum roles will continue to be written with men in mind, until more women move into directing and producing. Then maybe we'll have a fighting chance of having complex, interesting leading ladies: in short, humans, not cardboard characters.

It really really really could happen.

Lyrics: Blur, "The Universal", The Great Escape

Congress is debating whether or not to raise the minimum wage.

Why not set a maximum wage, instead? What about a maximum wage of $1,000/hr ... that's 2.08 million a year based on 40 hours a week. Pretty cushy for anyone if you ask me for working 9 to 5.

Those who have read books on economics or who have taken the subject in school know the argument that "the minimum wage 'costs' jobs." The argument goes that if wages are raised, employers will hiring "up the food chain." For example. The $5.15 per hour worker, now waking $7.63 hour won't look as attractive as the worker already earning $7.63. In fact, employers will bid-up the wages of the person already making $7.63 (say to $9.45 before the bidding is over) and all that happens is inflation.

Listening to the folks on the New Hour (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june06/minwage_06-21.html) we hear about low productivity employees who are not worthy of more.

But no man is an island. It's like a pyramid with a bunch of low wage earners at the bottom supporting layers (of ever fewer) workers who make more ... all the way on up.

What about a maximum wage? An idea whose time has come?

They called it the Reagan Revolution. I meet intelligent and articulate people who cannot remember America before Reagan.

Steven Colbert interviewed a young conservative woman who wants to go back to the "old days" and she looks longingly back to a by-gone era. But that era that she describes was an era of Democratic Presidents and liberal reform.

The conservative nostalgia is based on an era with mainly Democrats in the White House and Congresses largely control by the Democrats. From 1932 until Ronald Reagan, the only two elected Republicans Presidents were Eisenhower and Nixon - Nixon who resigned in disgrace and had Ford fill out the remainder of the term. The rest were all Democrats in the Presidency with a largely Democrat Congress.

So the nostalgia that conservatives wax poetic about has nothing to do with the "Reagan Revolution," except in the sense of the nostalgia.

Reagan was of the great grandparents age of the young people today. People of Reagans era had memories of growing up in the Great Depression. These were hard times and the Democrats came to power because economic times were bad. Rightly or wrongly the bad economic times were blamed on the Republicans and they were voted out.

America became powerful and great during an unprecedented era of government involvement and regulation.

The Reagan vision of America before Nixon/Ford/Carter does not square with the fact that for almost 50 years, the Democrats' vision of America is the one the conservatives think they will have by reversing all the policies and programs that helped make that possible.

The halcyon days were not achieved by Republican policies.

GWB, or President, is not in a Great Depression scenario, but clearly the economy is not what it once was.

We got a glimpse of what Democrats can do - and Clinton (a rather conservative Democrat) was able to bring fiscal responsibility and move the government into the black.

Reagan did a good job of selling the Democratic era as a Republican deal.