Humanity loves the idea of greatness. Powerful mythical leaders with super-human intelligence, strength, healing, or harming. At least that is the standard lore, the baggage attached to many cultures and religions. Since the current Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions are very touchy (to say the least) about having their mythologies called mythologies (many in them can reason but the intolerant fundamentalists rule the day today and shout down reason whenever possible) I will start with the Greeks. The Greeks loved them freaks.

        The Greek Gods, though as prone to genocide when provoked as much as the big G(od), generally could be questioned. There was more than one of them, leading to specialties and you could (sometimes) pick your favorite to put upon your mantle. This made storytelling about them much easier. One could play the good god, and another could play the bad god in each story. A good god could accidentally kill a lot of people (usually unimportant “mortals” anyway) by mistake, or even hurt a fellow immortal without due reason, and feel bad about it afterwards. Infallibility was not part of the picture, and why they were so easy to relate to. They were superior beings but prone to jealousy, anger, lust, and any number of good old-fashioned vices, at least in stories which were parables about what not to do. And among many many of these stories was the arrogance of power and the pain and suffering it can cause.

        Beyond the gods, the Ancient Greeks had half-gods, or mortals with god-like powers. They were half-breeds usually, with a father or mother who was a god. There were all kinds of stories about how these half-gods could be conceived, often through trickery or magic, but with them were the original Supermen. Because the Romans “adapted” the Greek gods as their own, the foundation was there for understanding Christianity as having a half-god at its core, the father being an immortal, and the mother being a human, usually a virgin. Some Christians cannot really fathom that the idea of a virgin birth is older than Christianity and is found in other religions, but then many of them cannot believe the Universe is older than a few thousand years. (Actually to me, the Universe is not older than I am but of course that is not exactly the case and strictly a matter of a certain perspective, so who am I to throw stones?)

        Of the half-gods with super powers, the most famous still around today in Western cultures are Hercules and Prometheus. They had adventures, had different super powers, sometimes with the aid of magical devices, but they were less than gods themselves. They were partially human. At the risk of pissing off followers of these Gods, it is safe to say that these myths came about over time through the creativity of people who were fully human, although I can allow that some may consider their creativity divinely inspired. They certainly did capture the popular imagination of large numbers of people over thousands of years, and we still repeat their adventures today to every new generation.

        One of the modern myths of supermen, is of course, Superman, as in the DC Comics super-hero. Being an American, it is impossible to gauge whether Superman is as Universal as our culture would like to think, at times called the American Messiah, but it is safe to say many who are familiar with Western culture at all have at least had multiple if not countless of possible references to that popular cultural icon, Superman, who inspired countless other comic book characters which they probably did hear of. In reading how this new myth evolved, it was revealing as to how such stories can begin, if one can concede that we low humans are capable of creating such mythical characters out of thin air.

        It is worth mentioning that Superman was originally conceived and written as a villain. That obviously did not fly. But heck, it was a super name, and with a little retooling, became what now is a part of a lot of peoples consciousnesses. He was originally a human, given super-powers, behaved predictably like a Dick Cheney, tried to destroy the world, but luckily the powers wore off in time and he ended up in the end again becoming a nobody. Good parable, but wrong super character.

        The Superman we all, or most, know today slowly took on more and more super-powers, kind of like President Bush, made up out of thin air as the story went along. As Superman became more god-like, it became harder and harder to come up with villains to make the story interesting. If your hero could not die, could not be injured, and really was so much out of the league of any bad guys to have to break a sweat to always save the day, it would have made for a very boring set of stories. So as Superman's powers evolved, great and more powerful bad-guys had to evolve to threaten our hero with death, dismemberment, or at the very least, a black-eye.

        Going back to the Ancient Greeks, they had no really “all good” gods, and even the bad ones were not really all bad. Hades, the lord of the underworld, basically got a really bad job, was despised or feared by most humans, but still got invited to most of the really big god parties. If there were bad gods in this mythology, one could say it was the Titans, who were the previous generation of gods who were overthrown by the next generation, whom Zeus was a part of. Still, other than arrogance or complacency at getting overthrown, their biggest sin seems to have been being a bit dated. Time seemed to march on, even for timeless beings, and one generation seemed to have to yield to the next. That may have been why Zeus was such a bastard, knowing he too could or might eventually be overthrown.

        To those who think, at the very least, this is not the actual "History of the Universe" but an at least partially fictional history made up by humans to understand both themselves and an order to their societies being ruled by similar kings and dynasties, they ought to realize that Judaism and later Christianity and Islam shared this “War in Heaven” pre-history. With God really having no protagonist to be God against except humans, who were really no threat to him, and like Zeus or Superman, really too easy to beat to make for interesting reading, if not a non-fictional "History of the Universe", there needed to be a villain, a match for God to have to kick ass against without it being a foregone conclusion or such a mismatch in power as to seem just plain boring.

        Thus the Devil stepped up to the plate as the mythology evolved, became a devils-advocate to God's instructions, and other than contributing to a little thing called free will, generally was seen in mostly negative turns. (I leave out Lucifer as that is sometimes more than just another name for the Devil, for then it gets into a big complicated mess because it is not a simple religion (or even three simple religions) but has been expanded and simplified (and re-expanded and re-simplified, again and again) as time went on.) As with the Greek's mythological history, there also was a war in Heaven between immortals, the big G won, and the devil was stuck with Hades old job, but no longer got invited to the God parties, although he did get summoned to talk with him from time to time, kind of like Henry Kissinger. At least God got to at least once kick some super-villain immortal's ass once upon a time.

        With a new offshoot called Christianity, it too was lopsided. However, an “amendment” which I have already written about as having wrecked havoc against what was up until that time a fairly harmless peace-loving philosophy, gave birth to the idea of the “anti-Christ”. Unfortunately for comic book lovers or literal interpreters of revered writings, there is no real detailed template for how this war went down because it has not actually happened yet, but of course to its believers it will happen, and of course to them cannot happen any other way than how they imagine, so for them it already may as well have happened. That being the past tense future case, lets look at how it did/will have gone down.

        The “anti-Christ” supposedly will not/did not get any cool comic book super-powers, and generally other than trying to control the world, have lots of money and power, and making most of the world think he is the cat's meow (damn, I so wanted it to be Bush), really does not get much to hold against the big C(hrist). He is a super villain to be sure, a causation of countless suffering, but he is merely a warm up act to the real Christ, which is why so many Americans are hip to get the Armageddon bandwagon rolling. That being because he is fated to lose, and there was/will be much rejoicing afterwards, and Lord knows there is littler every year for us to rejoice over these days, economically, environmentally, and liberty and justice-wise.

        Long story short, Jesus the reincarnated, or just reinstated, does some sort of battle against this ultimate foe, the Anti-Christ, or even the Devil, which his Father had spared and just let him rule Iraq, oops, Hades, finally gets this War thing over with once and for all, even with the approval of Halliburton, Boeing, and every other industry devoted to War on Earth, no doubt a bigger miracle even than defeating the Devil and the Anti-Christ combined. And in this miraculous military industrial complex permitted peace there is even greater profits for all major warmaking corporations, and lower taxes for all, amen.

        So Zeus and his crew got to fight the Titans, God and his Angels got to fight the Devil and his rogue Angels, and even the peacenik Jesus gets to, at least in one warped story which has become Gospel for countless numbers of Christians, finally will get to/did already kick some super-villains butt, someday, but what about Superman?

        They just made him too damn super! As his origin became more fleshed out, gaining more abilities as time went on, at least the opportunity for other Super beings became in the cards who occasionally made it to Earth so he could at least deal with something other than humans with freakish powers or weird inventions. He also was given an Achilles Heel, Kryptonite, to make it at least possible for him to die. But in typical mythological and moralistic fashion, to some, his greatest enemy was himself, the bad Superman.

        The bad Superman was Superman from an alternate Universe. This opened up an avenue that other older more revered mythologies (or actual Histories of the World if you are so inclined to believe) did not have, that the Universe goes more than one way, and that different paths not taken exist somewhere. Usually in this manner, the bad Superman somehow makes it into this reality and proceeds to do, well, bad things which is made easier because everyone thinks he is Superman and trusts him implicitly.

        Now in religious mythologies, this has many precedents. The Devil had pretended to be God to deceive people, Zeus often pretended to be a human when he wanted to get laid with an Earth chick, and of course, the Anti-Christ gets very rich or a lot of power or both, from playing the J(esus) card, or at least is ambiguous enough about it to get a very good retirement portfolio from dropping the name at the right times.

       The problem is, for those whom these are more than just stories, they are heavily indoctrinated or raised to defer to those who play such super cards of unquestionable authority. He is God, he is Jesus, he is Superman, he is the President, he is the King, he could not possibly be leading us astray / taking advantage of us / trying to wreck our economy / country / reputation. Such blindness makes it so damn easy, no matter how much you warn people about it, they just never are willing to wrap their little heads around the concept.

       EVERYONE has good and bad in them, possibly in equal measures. These can be brought out in numerous ways under extremely varied, and sometimes extreme circumstances. And to those who think they are above or beyond such mistakes or transgressions of their self-image, it makes it that much more tempting and fun to do to them. Even the most holy god-like people among us can be broken, and Lord knows there has been enough studies done on torture to know which buttons to push in people to bring out the worst. Others are intuitive and can sense weakness in others, blindness, and can zero in on how to manipulate them without even having to torture large numbers of people in their cultures to know how to do so.

       The wisest people in the past knew this to be the case. No one is to be trusted with vast amounts of power. It is not the man (or woman) but the position itself which corrupts, corrodes, and destroys their very souls. Trying to obtain that much power is weakening and suspect in itself, holding onto it for long is fatal to the goodness inherent within anyone.

       The stronger or more immune one is by office or social structure from the rules that govern others which do not apply to oneself, the longer one can go on making mistakes and not paying a price for them, the more people one can harm or destroy with lessening guilt, and literally the weightier the misdeeds grow, the more able one becomes to shrug them all off and deceive oneself more than it is possible to deceive others, no matter how great their “power”.

        That is the moral which has ceased to be passed on. It needs to be embodied in others, it needs to be played out endlessly from one generation to the next. It is in the cards so long as people defer to anyone. The greater the prostration, the greater the havoc wrecked by those who claim a title no one should hold, a sole decided, savior, judge, juror, and executioner.

       For awhile, America, for all its many many faults, did push back against this. The king and even the notion of a divine right of kings was overthrown, and the President was subservient in power to the legislature. This new model was held up to a world ruled by claimers of divine right to rule and pass on that right to their heirs or chosen heirs.

        Now this has reversed itself. America itself has asserted it has a divine right to rule given to it by God. Though it speaks of “democratizing” the world, the “democracy” it entails is one subservient to Washington more so than to its own people, and even the best PR firms of Madison Avenue cannot make the complete lack of legitimacy of the Iraq or the Palestinian governments to do what its people wish against American interests look “democratic” except to the most ardently mislead and uninformed about the reality on the ground. America has now permanently poisoned the very word “Democracy” for many all over the world, by such unthinkably flagrant and destructive misuse, far beyond any means to see it in any other way than intentionally. We are the ultimate bad Superman destroying our own reputation inestimably.

       Though many have rightly claimed that this destruction is not limited to this present Bush Administration, that it is merely continuing policies begun by both Democratic and Republican Presidents and Congresses, the idea of democracy, what vestige of it still remains at home, is that a change of administration can herald a change of direction. “That is not us anymore,” a new President is thought to be able to proclaim upon taking office. “I will undo these mistakes or at least try to make them right,” one can hope a new President will promise. The bad Superman has been vanquished. The good Superman has returned and we must look to the future and give back the trust.

        But the trust will not return. There was no bad Superman from an alternate Universe to blame our mistakes on. No Democratic candidate currently running is advocating anything drastic enough or different enough to justify belief in any significant course change to how the US has conducted itself these last 6 years. The lies will continue, either from a different Republican or Democratic white man or woman, or from a Black man or Hispanic President. Pre-emptive war will not be “off-the-table”, threats of regime change of countries that displease us will continue, arms races desired by the corporations which control both parties will increase for the state subsidized guaranteed profits they will generate, and the world will not have much more reason to trust us later than now.

       But they will have to, we think. Our musical chairs, feigned course changes or slight alternations deemed to give to our home population that hope that the future will get better, we think will still spill over to the rest of the world. We do spend countless billions to plant positive stories in foreign press about ourselves, and they get to watch our own propagandized channels and “entertainment” shows (which praise our armed services / CIA / Presidency, etc.) without cost to our government. It is inherent in people to want to hope though. They want to give us the benefit of the doubt that we will not be overthrown completely and plunge the world into a hellish power vacuum, though every day we are inching toward making more and more of the world think, “how could that possibly be worse that what we are offered now?”

       To much of the rest of the world though, they have it bad enough that that end, the end of American hedgmony, cannot come soon enough. Among the richest countries, though our image is tarnished, they remember how we took the heat and did the dirty deeds during the Cold War to keep their economies safe. They may not be grateful and they may realize more than our own citizens how we were getting rich off of that conflict through raping most of the developing world through puppet governments terrorizing their own publics, but they have much stake in keeping the US-based economic system healthy. They want to believe the myth if not the reality of the good Superman is not dead, or at least that a less psychotic one is on the way. Their continued positions as higher than the rest of the world in comforts and economic advantages depend on it. But to more and more of the rest of the world every year, they see only the benefits of our continued implosion.

        The problem is, and I have tried to emphasize this as much as the dangers of attacking Iran, the unpredictability of weapons development. New types of weapons are evolving in ways that will not only put current ones to shame, but will be cheaper and more widely available. Every system of government may soon come apart at the seams. Russia has recognized one avenue pending with trying to limit the availability of its major ethnicity's DNA, but that is simply impossible and even laughable with so many diasporate Russians. America, other than sort of having a “ruling class” of whites which its government might seek to protect, is less at risk, but China has both the greatest vulnerability and is the greatest threat for developing such ethnicity based DNA biological weapons, and also was the first to unlock the code of human DNA as well. Yet biologicals and other types of weapons we can name today are merely the tip of the iceberg of what is in the works for the next 50, 20, or even 10 years.

        Neo-Cons and generals unfortunately have deluded themselves enough to think that having enough weapons pointed at every corner of the earth, even from space can protect American hegemony but that is beyond even the most wishful thinking. Other than mass liquidation of populations so massive that a word stronger than genocide will have to be formulated, in the end it will as now only create more hatred and more unacceptable risks to all but those profiting from making the weapons systems. Armistice, the most hated and feared word of those running America today, at the tops of BOTH political parties, is the ONLY course of survival that has even a negligible chance of long term success. The only question is how many will have to die before the real discussions begin.