STAYING A FAILING COURSE

TO STAY A COURSE

By Peter Fredson

August 24, 2005

In the days of Yore, ships were made of wood and sea captains were made of iron resolve. Navigation depended upon maps, charts, instruments, depth-soundings, and reading the stars, sun, waves, sea birds, winds, clouds and many other factors. Before sailing out on the wide ocean a destination was chosen and a course was laid out to reach the destination. A helmsman took the rudder to follow a predetermined course. The ship’s compass was consulted regularly to make sure the ship was on course.

If a sailor, mate, or captain noticed that the ship was drifting off course he would command: “Stay the course.” This meant to stop following a course which would not reach the destination. Following the wrong course has caused the destruction of the vessel and death of the entire crew.

Any captain who continued following a wrong course was considered mentally disabled, willfully obtuse, or incompetent. And if the course was not stayed (stopped) the captain could be brought up on charges of negligence and either demoted or retired or face a more severe courts-martial.

Today the slogan “To stay the course” has seemingly been stood on its head by the Bush administration. It denies charges of negligence or being willfully obtuse, but continues to follow a failed course. No one dares to tell the captain that the course to reach the destination port of Liberty, Freedom and Democracy is dead reckoning wrong. That the ship is in danger of falling into a stagnant swamp or quagmire.

But the captain keeps assuring everyone that “everything is going well,” and that even if the ship gets mired down it “was worth it.” Instead of looking at the compass the captain gets out his sacred book, consults it for soothing quotations, then continues on his failed course. Egomania substitutes for seaworthiness, platitudes substitute for wisdom, looking into the wrong end of the telescope is not the way to find the destination.

So the captain struts, swaggers, emits toothy smiles, does a little hornpiping, sings a little sea chantey, consults an oracle, has his first mate Karl chart alternative wrong courses, and finds scapegoats to walk the plank for him.

Meanwhile the ship continues on a disastrous course but no one competent is at the helm, the compass spins crazily, the main mast is splitting, the sails are fluttering wildly, the boom sweeps half the crew overboard, while the captain is resting in his cabin, dreaming of some little ranch and a couple of cows, still “staying the course.”

There is a dividing line between stubbornness and madness, between good sense and folly, and some member of the crew should tell the captain he is “off course.”