Half in fear

The most “sharp social commentary” on Joe Biden’s decision to stubbornly plow ahead in his 2024 campaign (never mind how full of wits and gaffes it promises to be)

I see in Roger Zelazny’s timeless classic Lord of Light.

For those of you who haven’t yet sampled it, a massive spoiler follows:

the playground of this great novel is a nameless planet where human colonists from the Indian spaceship adapted Hinduism, so that concepts of Karma, Maya, reincarnation, and godlike superhuman abilities became the undisputable reality, supported with legacy machinery of the starfolk, but mostly by talents of (a very few) mutants and geniuses, escapees from Earth (Uratha) after it had perished in some unknown catastrophe. They consequently ordain the order of life as literal gods of the regressed population, while commoners are left tightly shackled with the caste system.

We find an episode where Sam, the self-styled Siddhartha Gautama (a Buddhist dissident outwardly, but essentially more a Prometheus mixed with a devilishly cunning trickster figure), asks Taraka the Rakasha (one of extremely powerful denizens of the planet, whom ancient colonists ruthlessly fought with and labeled as demons, confining them to the local Well of Hell) to help him make a pact with Nirriti the Black against the gods, those who keep a tight rein on the reconstructive development of humanity.

Taraka departs, but, for reasons of his own, falsely claims that Nirriti declined the proposal.

The reaction of one Sam’s ally, to me, strongly resembles the feelings that Team Trump may bask in today,

after the charge of Dems’ light bedwetting brigade suffered a heavy defeat from Biden’s inner circle.

“Good,” said Yama. “I half feared he would agree.”

At that point of the timeline, the plan of Biden campaign’s salvage calls for the code name Operation Argo. Fortunately, Iran’s presidential elections are in full swing…