The Pipeline of Power: A Dance of Will and Weakness in the American Wasteland

Behold, O seekers of truth, how the great steel serpent that was to traverse the sleeping lands of North America writhes once more in the consciousness of those who fancy themselves leaders! The Keystone XL pipeline, that monument to man's eternal struggle for dominance over nature, emerges again from the depths of political slumber.

Lo, how these metal arteries lie dormant, these vessels of power! They are but symbols of mankind's perpetual dance between greatness and mediocrity. The strong must seize them, must forge them into reality, else they remain but dreams in the minds of the weak!

In the grand theater of American politics, where the masses drowse in their comfortable ignorance, Trump, that peculiar embodiment of both will-to-power and spectacular vanity, beckons to resurrect this fallen titan. "Get it built – NOW!" he thunders from his digital pulpit, a cry that echoes through the valleys of complacency where the last men dwell, content in their warm houses, untroubled by the great struggles that shape their world.

Yet observe how the corporate entities, those merchants of necessity, shrink from the challenge! South Bow, spawn of TC Energy, declares with the tepidity of the marketplace: "We've moved on." How characteristic of these latter-day traders, these calculators of profit and loss, to abandon the grand vision when the path grows thorny!

Witness how they retreat from greatness! These corporate shepherds, these counters of coins, lack the courage to seize destiny! They are but symptoms of our age's great malady - the fear of magnificent failure!

The saga of this pipeline, spanning fifteen years of political warfare, reveals the essential weakness of our democratic age. Like a pendulum swinging between opposed mediocritities - Obama's environmental pieties, Trump's industrial fantasies, Biden's bureaucratic timidity - it has become a symbol of our inability to will anything into being.

In the northern realm of Alberta, where Premier Smith speaks of "shovels in the ground," we glimpse a flicker of the old spirit, the desire to build, to create, to overcome. Yet even here, the language of commerce and compromise prevails over the language of conquest and creation.

These leaders speak of "markets" and "trade," when they should speak of destiny and dominion! They negotiate when they should command, they hesitate when they should strike!

The masses, meanwhile, slumber on, dreaming their small dreams of environmental salvation or economic prosperity, never grasping that both are but different masks worn by the same fundamental weakness - the inability to embrace the tragic nature of existence, to will something into being despite its costs, despite its consequences.

The experts and analysts, those priests of the modern age, scratch their heads and wonder at Trump's motives. "What does he want?" they ask, as if the answer could be found in their charts and statistics. They fail to see that in the realm of will and power, want is secondary to will, and understanding is less important than action.

And what of those who oppose this grand project? They speak of "clean energy" and "transformation," yet their words ring hollow with the timidity of those who would rather adapt to weakness than strive for strength. They are the prophets of comfort, the apostles of the easy path, the very embodiment of the last man's creed: "We have invented happiness," say the last men, and they blink.

Let them oppose! Let them resist! For in resistance lies the possibility of overcoming, and in the struggle itself lies the seed of greatness! But let them not hide behind the mask of virtue while they cower from the challenge of creation!

As this drama unfolds in the theater of North American politics, we must ask: Who among these players has the strength to will this project into being? Who has the courage to stand against both the inertia of bureaucracy and the resistance of the comfortable masses? Who dares to build in an age of destruction?

The answer thunders in the silence of their hesitation. The pipeline lies dormant not because of laws or regulations, not because of environmental concerns or economic calculations, but because we live in an age of the last man, where comfort is preferred to greatness, where safety is valued above achievement, where the will to power has been replaced by the will to comfort.

Arise, O builders! O creators! The time has come to cast off the chains of comfortable mediocrity! Let those who would build, build! Let those who would create, create! And let the sleepers wake to find their world transformed by the will of the strong!