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So nothing to do with people, "americans" "christians", "provincials", "rustics", anyone, or their fear or their stupidity. Which was obvious even before any likely top-level criminality was mooted. It's entirely to do with manipulation of the mechanisms which get you into power, which have never been safe. and it seems, the wider the "democracy" the more precarious those structures are. After all, how many supporters do you need in order to reach top power and have complete control over a nation? For Blair, perhaps 200 or 300. Bush wd need more with all those States, maybe a thousand or two. That's all. Once you've got your strategic support (including top lawyers, publicity, media, business leaders, money people, persuaders manipulators and opportunists of all kinds) voting is a mere formality: it can be arranged, without necessarily having to resort to cheating. And once you're there you position your supporters under you, both inside and outside the political system, in a kind of pyramid which makes you completely impregnable. Democracy = dictatorship. I think Pericles or Genghis Khan probably operated by these methods. It's tempting to believe that forces of class, tradition, privilege and even aristocracy which at one time carried a lot more weight in state governance, might have acted as a safeguard against this. It's difficult to see someone exercising absolute power cloaked by a small band of adherents in stategic positions, in the British 19th Century parliamentary system, partly because parliamentary debate and action was then free and not tied to Party, which is what paralyses the majority of labour MPs: solidarity to the party and the Labour Movement, fear of the single alternative. Isn't it the either/or, the dichotomisation of political position, which makes all this possible? I don't know, John, what we can call "americans" so as not to upset Mexicans and Canadians, but perhaps we shall end up referring to the empowered group of USA as The World Office, or The Bosses, or The Evil Eye. /PR