"Happy is the country which requires no heroes," Bertolt Brecht commented. Today, by that standard, the United States is a very unhappy country.

These days, the public's genuine eagerness for heroes is difficult to gauge. If media output is any measure, the hero industry is engaged in massive overproduction. Whether the "products" are entertainers, star athletes or politicians, the PR efforts are unrelenting. Some brands catch on.

In mass culture, the media consumer is constantly encouraged to swoon for personalities who seem to turn glitz into a verb. From MTV to the mall multiplex, the role models are on the market, glorious in two dimensions.

Among politicians, heroism has become a holy grail. During his first months as president, George W. Bush -- a militarist without a military record to speak of -- could hardly qualify. On his resume, the only people he had killed were death row prisoners in Texas. But in the aftermath of 9/11, with the title of "wartime president" conferred on him, Bush made use of ample opportunities to sprinkle himself with heroic stardust, marinated in blood, from Afghanistan

Didn't John Kerry ever read about rope-a-dope? Karl Rove must be kicking his heels with merriment at the way the horse-faced son of Boston is tangling himself up in the Swift boat comedy. A couple of weeks more and I reckon Kerry will start crying on TV at the besmirchments of his war record, and it will all be over. Are there any skins thinner than those belonging to Democratic loyalists for Kerry? The other night, Jeffrey St. Clair, who coedits the political Website and newsletter CounterPunch with yours truly, found himself at a gathering of antiwar activists in downtown Portland, touting our new book, "A Dime's Worth of Difference, Beyond The Lesser of Two Evils."

        There were about a hundred souls assembled, and Jeffrey's seasoned eye assayed the political temper of the throng. Sure enough, at least a score had that fixity of gaze and tensed naso-labial musculature that betrayed the presence of Zombies-for-Kerry.

AUSTIN, Texas - It's an early Labor Day SURPRISE! Congratulations, if you make between $23,660 and $100,000, you have just very likely lost your right to overtime pay, courtesy of the Bush administration.

        If this comes as news to you, thank your friendly media, who are much too busy reporting lies abut John Kerry's heroism in Vietnam to bother with this story affecting your life. But next time you hear someone say, "Oh, I just don't care much about politics," you might want to recall this particular connection -- especially if it means you have to go out and get another job.

        This stunner is brought to you by President Bush and his big-business campaign donors. The Senate has voted twice to stop the change, so there's no point in raising hell with them. The House of Representatives, the "people's house," dodged the question. So Bush's Department of Labor just up and issued hundreds of pages of new rules on who gets overtime pay.

George W. Bush's big-money backers at Ohio's infamous FirstEnergy electric monopoly are re-opening the door for a nuclear apocalypse by terror or incompetence (whichever comes first). In classic Bush style, they are trashing public oversight as they go.

The Akron-based FirstEnergy blacked out the entire northeast a year ago, resulting in at least $10 billion in losses to the public. No criminal charges have been filed, though the company has reportedly paid tens of millions in civil suits and has been under grand jury investigation for a wide range of issues.

FirstEnergy's top management, starting with President Anthony Alexander, has poured huge sums into Bush's campaign coffers. Before last year's blackout FE big wigs hosted a fundraiser with Vice President Dick Cheney, raising a reported $600,000.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Remember what it was like just before the war? Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- Colin Powell told us to the pound how many tons of this, that and the other -- Saddam had a reconstituted nuclear program, he had numerous ties to Al Qaeda, and he was an imminent threat.

        As the president put it, we couldn't afford to wait until the smoking gun was a mushroom cloud.

        "To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man. ... .Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect."