The French Revolution coincided with the Age of Enlightenment, an 18th-century movement in European and American philosophy, or the longer period including the Age of Reason. The term can more narrowly refer to the intellectual movement of The Enlightenment, which advocated Reason as the primary basis of authority.

Developing in France, Britain and Germany, its sphere of influence also included Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Scandinavia, Spain and, in fact, the whole of Europe.

Many of the United States' Founding Fathers were also heavily influenced by Enlightenment-era ideas, particularly in the religious sphere (Deism) and, in parallel with classical liberalism, in the political sphere (which had a major influence on the Bill of Rights, in parallel with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen).

The era is generally agreed to have ended around the year 1800 and the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (1804-15).

Age of Enlightenment

In the reign of Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, who ruled from 1643 to 1715, it was the era of the "divine right of kings" - the king's power was absolute and unquestioned.

Louis XIV is reported to have said, "L’État, c’est moi" or "I am the state!".

Sound familiar? Remember, "Don't keep throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper."

Capitol Hill Blue Reports Bush Tantrum Story

And then there's one of the president's favorite Bushisms: "I'm the decider."

At the other end of society were peasants and prisoners, many jailed by the king, who could imprison someone for any reason that struck his fancy. Political intrigue? Inappropriate remarks? Prison. Fashion faux pas?

Louis XIV repprtedy condemned folks for good reasons and bad, with a "carefree flourish of the royal quill."

Who was the "Man in the Iron Mask"?

Is Don Siegelman our Man in the Iron Mask?

While there's no way 1,000 Americans will ever try storming the Pentagon, maybe we could take Fort Morgan on Mobile Bay and have a big spontaneous party. Maybe the Sweet Water Brewing Company would donate some beer.

Or better yet, get the local civil rights, peace and environmental movements together and surround that new, shiny Birmingham News building in downtown Birmingham in a candlelight vigil for truth from the press. That would be a start.

Even better, what about 150,000 peaceful protestors surrounding the White House with candles lit at dusk in a symbolic protest of the dusk of democracy?

It wouldn't have to be that organized. Just put out the call and set a date and let a bunch of bike riders and hikers with candles wander up in Lafeyette Park on the south lawn of the White House, in front of that statue of Andrew Jackson on his horse, and sing Give Peace A Chance.

I used to ride a mountainbike the 14 miles there from Alexandria Virginia, through the Carlysle Group compound on the way, and sit on a park bench and look in those back windows of the White House trying to figure out what they could possibly be thinking in there. I wish I had Jack Anderson's connections at the Russian Embassy to listen in.

That was in 2004, before Bush's reelection, and I was surely hoping enough people had heard the bad news on Bush that he wouldn't get a second term.

But they fooled enough of the people enough of the time, or stole the election in Ohio, and there they still sit - fucking up on almost a daily basis everything Americans have historically held dear and turning the world against our grand ideal.

I've got some news for the people in the national press who think they are somehow going to "get" Karl Rove or Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: It ain't going to happen.

Bush could never do what he does without Rove, and Rove has the dirt on everybody, including the special prosecutor who let him off the hook and offered up Scooter Libby as the not-so sacrificial lamb, as it turned out.

Bush can never let Gonzales go, because there is no way he could get another do-nothing yes man confirmed by the Senate in his remaining year and a half. So he would have to nominate someone independent, which if he or she was truly independent, would be forced to immediately begin investigating, you guessed it, Gonzales himself, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney - and George W. Bush.

Unless somebody storms the wall of the Bastille, we are stuck with them until January 2009.

Cindy Sheehan is trying to get Nancy Pelosi to do it, but like some recent reports about Hilliary Clinton working against the Senate subpeonas of the White House in her desire to preserve executive privilege - in case she is ever elected President herself - Pelosi and Leahy and the rest have too much of a stake in a system that works for them. The rest of us peasants sit down and out here because of Bush's corporatizing of America and brutal retribution for anyone who is "not with" him but "against" him.

Unfortunately for him, about 71 percent of Americans are against him now too, and they can't all be terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, can they? They are not just Democrats either. Independents and a growing number of Republicans are too.

The successful, rich Democrats just don't want to challenge the system, only to continue to mildly embarrass Bush every day on the front pages and on TV news to keep him down enough in the polls to allow them to perhaps take the next election - and let the political pendulum swing back.

But I'm afraid that is not going to be good enough this time. Something has to break. Something has to change. Or as Hunter S. Thompson liked to say, "we are doomed." And like they say in Texas, the poor folks in America are just road kill, like so many Armadillos - squashed on the side of the road.