OCT 16 - 31, 2004

VOL. 2 ISSUE 20

OCTOBER 21, 2004 – What four things were considered to be the epitome of greatness, unbeatability, and inevitability?

The US Olympic men’s basketball team, the LA Lakers, the New York Yankees, and the United States.

It was a no-brainer that the US Olympic men’s basketball team would claim the gold over the rest of the world, that the Yankees, especially once up 3 games to none with a lead in the ninth inning of game 4, would beat the Red Sox, that the almighty Shaq/Kobe/Mallone/Payton-powered Lakers would pound the unknown Pistons, and that the US would be able to win a swift and easy victory in any military conflict it involved itself in, in particular against the sanction-decimated nation of Iraq.

However, in each of these cases these outcomes were not the result.

There was no question that the US has by far the most basketball talent on the planet, nor that the Yankees had the legacy, the firepower, and seemingly uneclipsable lead, nor that the Lakers had one of the most impressive pools of talent in the history of the game, nor that the US Military is the most incredible fighting force in the history of mankind and unparalleled on the planet at this time.

Yet in each of these cases, they each fell pray to the same fatal flaw – arrogant individualism.

The US simply considered itself so talented, it didn’t think to assemble a coherent Olympic basketball team, but instead just sent a bunch of extremely talented individuals, each probably more talented than the most talented players on the other world teams.  But the other nations who played as teams thrashed and humiliated our dominant talent pool.

The Lakers as well certainly had more firepower and talent than the Pistons, but the Pistons gelled together as a cohesive unit of unselfish players working together for the best of the whole.  And the Lakers got thrashed.

The Yankees showed their dominant potential in the most historically brutal victory in all of League Championship history, when they blasted 19 runs and took a 3-0 lead in the series.  But Boston held together as a team, while each of the Yankees suddenly turned to individualistic fence-swinging.  And so they fell in historically unthinkable fashion.

And it was the same when the Bush/Limbaugh American neo-conmen considered themselves so talented, so blessed with military supremacy, that they didn’t need to assemble a team.  They were Kobe saying he was the star and didn’t need Shaq; they were A-Rod, swinging for the fences, and so striking out, yet again when all the team needed was for him to get on base; they were the US Olympians thinking how they didn’t need any of those boring outside shooters or defensive types, but were so assured of victory they would just send a bunch of show-off individuals who would put on a slam-dunking PR show.

And make no mistake, this is exactly who Bush, Cheney, and the Bush/Limbaughians were.  There is a debate now about whether George Bush told Pat Robertson before the invasion of Iraq that there would be no causalities.  It is a stupid debate, because we know that is how they thought.  Dick Cheney said they would greet us with flowers, and anyone who talked to one of these Bush/Limbaughians heard them say clearly, again and again, that it would be a cakewalk, that not only didn’t we need France or Germany or other allies with us, but we didn’t want them, because we could just as easily get the victory without them and this way we wouldn’t have to share the oil-pumping and nation-rebuilding contracts.

And so, like those poor US Olympians, our military was sent out there with all the firepower it needed, but no helpful teammates.  And so they now sit there like Alan Iverson had to sit while the Ukrainians frustrated the US team’s attempts to get a hold of the situation again and again; like Kobe, who just kept throwing up shot after shot and trying to make super-talented cut after super-talented cut to the hoop, only to end up frustrated and thwarted and unable to obtain a full victory again and again; like A-Rod and Sheffield flailing away at yet another round of horrible pitches yet again as their unloseable grip on victory kept slipping and slipping and slipping away, an inning at a time, little by little, until somehow a dominant, decimating early round of victories ended up in an ultimate defeat of historic proportions.

The Bush years for America have seen one theme played out again and again and again.  From the Olympic basketball team to the Lakers to the Yankees to the US Military, the best, most feared, most talented in the world have been denied the thrill of victory because, again and again, they arrogantly thought they could do it all as individuals.  In each case, team mattered more than talent, and victory went to those who counted on and trusted others.

The agony of defeat has gone to three of these groups so far.  Fortunately for the one who remains so far without a final defeat, there is still time to heed the lesson of the Bush years and realize that arrogantly individualistic firepower and talent alone will, more often than not, find itself standing bewildered in futility as seemingly assured victory slips from its grasp.

Indeed, if this were not the case, Britain would still be ruling the Colonies of America.