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Re: [Mai-not] Fwd: Can America be Salvaged?
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Doug Everingham
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Oct 17, 2009 23:20 PDT
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Relayed by Doug Everingham.
{Top message in this thread preaches to some converted freethinkers,
and lower quotes are not cheerful so I recomed not wading thru the lot.]
====
From: thin-@xplornet.com
Subject: Re: [Mai-not] Fwd: Can America be Salvaged?
Date: 17 October 2009 12:20:30 AM
To: mai--@globalproblematique.net
Reply-To: mai--@globalproblematique.net
The war was waged for the sake of the early version of "economic
efficiency" and "competitiveness". After all, it was written that
Noah cursed his son Ham, for having laughed at his balls, when he was
drunk. Ham then lost his soul, was turned black by the Lord and all
his descendants sentenced to be the servants of whites forever.
In other words people and states that questioned this well known fact
in the scriptures, have committed unforgivable, mortal sins.
Just wait till the Blessed and the Holy take over the world. They'll
show what the truth is !
Cheers, Ed.
At 08:47 PM 15/10/2009, you wrote:
The war of 1861-5 was a colossal mistake - going to war to keep the
slave states in the union when they were willing to do the US a great
favour by seceding. Slavery would have had a better chance to
collapse if the North (in contrast to Canada) had not actively
collaborated with the slave owners - epitomised by their prosecution
of John Brown for "treason" and by such monstrosities as the
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 requiring escaped slaves to be sent back
to their owners in the South.
The result of the war, including the death of 360,000 Northern
soldiers, was the retention of the states which were the centre of
pig-ignorant culture as part of the Union. The result to this day
has been that Rebel tail wagging the American dog to the disadvantage
not only of Americans but also of the rest of the world which is
stuck with the result.
When the dog can't stop wagging, the time is long overdue to dock the
tail that wags it.
Dion Giles
At 11:46 15/10/2009, you wrote:
Weekened Edition
September 18-20, 2009
Politics in the Past Tense
Can America be Salvaged?
By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which
proposing
a new and better version of corporate-plunder masquerading as national
healthcare gets you burned in effigy for being a socialist stooge by
gun-toting angry mobs.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which the
same
people who hate you for being a socialist simultaneously hate you for
being
a fascist.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which
angry mobs
of supposed anti-socialist demonstrators scream at their congressional
representatives to "keep your government hands off my Medicare".
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which claims
that the government is going to start killing off seniors are taken
seriously by tens of millions of people.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which
people are
all worked up about government czars, but sat silently while the Bush
administration destroyed the Bill of Rights and used a thousand signing
statements to write Congress out of the Constitution.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which
deficits
have all of a sudden become the source of enormous anger among people
who
said nothing about them previously, as the tax cuts for the wealthy,
off-budget wars based on lies, and unfunded prescription drug Big Pharma
giveaway transmogrified the biggest surplus in American history into the
biggest deficit ever.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which
politicians can rant incessantly about other peoples' sexual
morality, get
caught screwing prostitutes, and then still be reelected to the highest
ranks of government by trashing the president.
I could go on and on, but what would be the point? The positions of
so many
Americans on so many policy questions are truly inane - yes, for
sure. I
wish that was all that concerned me. But it all goes so much deeper
than
that.
The entire premise of a self-ruling democracy rests on some reasonable
degree of rationality and some reasonable degree of an ability to
discriminate between real information and falsehoods. Today's American
democracy seems to lack these qualities in increasingly abundant
amounts.
And yet it goes deeper than that still. The entire premise of a
society -
any society, democracy or not - is that it possesses a certain degree of
shared community, a 'we-ness' that transcends narrower tribalisms and
self-interest in critical ways and at critical moments. That too has
unraveled of late. Think of the nice white men with shotguns
blocking the
exit from flooded New Orleans during the worst moments of Hurricane
Katrina.
Looking at America today, it all feels so very past tense to me.
In some very profound ways, this is not the place nor the time you'd
expect
the implosion of an established democracy and society. To be an
American is
to be a member of the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. If
they're
not whining so much in Botswana these days, who the hell are we to?
On the other hand, though, it makes a lot of sense. The moment
correlates
precisely with the peaking of the empire several decades ago, now
further
exacerbated as the deep wells of remedial pillaging - our credit
cards, our
mortgages, our children, a rising Chinese middle class, brown people
everywhere, the environment - have disappeared entirely, with nothing
but
despair and moral dessication left in their place. Moreover, the
folks most
aggrieved and most estranged from their senses of late are precisely the
people who were bought off of their sanity at every turn with the latest
form of bigotry du jour, used to assuage their ever-diminishing sense of
relative social status. Over and over again, the people I see on my
television screen acting absolutely and incoherently stupid in their
senseless rage seem to be little more than fat, white, Southern,
sixty-something racist good ol' boys.
Well past their sell-by dates, they've of course gotten tremendous help
cranking it up again. That's no surprise. I'm not sure these
crackers are
smart enough to even be stupid without coaching. As Lyndon Johnson
used to
say: "Couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were
written on
the heel". Lucky for them, those marching orders come from a host of
politicians and media whores who, in an even moderately just world,
would
receive a wee taste of Abu Ghraib in repayment for the reckless
destructiveness they've fomented upon the always precarious edifice of
liberal democracy. There's special place in Hell reserved for these
shouters of "Fire!" in crowded theaters, these bloodsucking bottom-
feeders,
especially since they are being paid so handsomely for their faithful
service as prolocutors for predators.
I doubt anyone has ever reminded us of this ongoing danger more
eloquently
than did the famous American diplomat, George Kennan, when he wrote:
"The
counsels of impatience and hatred can always be supported by the
crudest and
cheapest symbols; for the counsels of moderation, the reasons are often
intricate, rather than emotional, and difficult to explain. And so the
chauvinists of all times and places go their appointed way: plucking
the
easy fruits, reaping the little triumphs of the day at the expense of
someone else tomorrow, deluging in noise and filth anyone who gets in
their
way, dancing their reckless dance on the prospects for human progress,
drawing the shadow of a great doubt over the validity of democratic
institutions. And until peoples learn to spot the fanning of mass
emotions
and the sowing of bitterness, suspicion, and intolerance as crimes in
themselves - as perhaps the greatest disservice that can be done to the
cause of popular government - this sort of thing will continue to
occur."
Hear, hear. Sorry to say it, George, but you're lucky to have died
when you
did. It's only gotten so much worse in just the last few years.
And while the O'Reillys and the Reagans of our time have joined
forces to
turn "the counsels of impatience and hatred" into an entire political
party
and more, they are, of course, mere conscious tools of the Big Green
Greed
that ultimately drives the system. They know they are prostitutes,
but the
money's good. And so is the fame and adulation - no small thing for
these
sorry critters. Look at the Becks and Limbaughs and Gingriches of this
country. Were there ever people in this world with so much self-esteem
ground to be made up from the transparent ostracization of their younger
days? Were there ever individuals so obviously motivated by retribution
against everyone who treated them like the jerks they were in their
formative years? Was there ever a walking warning sign more brightly
flashing about the costs to society of youthful bullying? I'm sorry
Glenn,
I'm sorry Rush, I'm sorry Newt. I know when you were younger you
were pudgy
fast-talking smart-ass petulant pricks who made up in wedgies from
bigger
guys what you never got in attention from attractive women. But
isn't about
time you stopped taking it out on America? I'm sorry you got your ass
kicked on a weekly basis, but I didn't do it.
Though I'm thinking about it now.
It takes a willful act of ignorance (something we see a lot of these
days)
not to perceive the United States as the latest in history's falling
empires. Like Rome, the true contribution of its sometimes great
ideas has
ultimately been substantially buried under the rubble of its ill-fated
decision to greedily grasp the nettle of empire. Unlike Rome, this
puppy is
taking decades, rather than centuries, to collapse.
Empires come and go, of course. Rising and falling is what they do.
It's
their job in life. What is truly frightening to contemplate,
however, is
what happens when an empire falls in the era when technological capacity
absolutely dwarfs political maturity? And what happens if that
occurs not
just anywhere, but in arguably the most immature, self-serving and
self-indulgent of developed societies on the planet?
The only model we have for this so far is the Soviet implosion of two
decades ago, though even that is only a partial representation, since
the
Soviet bear was no match for the American boor in piggishness. Even so,
that history does not bode so well, outward appearances
notwithstanding. We
should all collectively be walking on eggshells thinking about the
tens of
thousands of strategic and smaller tactical nuclear warheads that may
or may
not be accounted for. Nor is the renascent and rather irredentist new
Russia necessarily a pretty picture either, a fact that may become
increasingly relevant in the coming decades. Still, all this noted, the
Russian imperial collapse has to be said to have been relatively
uneventful,
closer to the post-war British and French experiences than to any
cataclysmic end of days scenario.
I wish I could be so sanguine about the implosion of the American
empire.
In one sense, it was probably a good thing for the Russians to go
through
this experience with only a fake democracy and repressed civil
liberties in
place, and some serious if undemocratic quasi-dictators running the
show.
It might have saved the country from the worst elements seizing
control. I
don't much care for the product of American democracy and political
discourse as things now stand. Imagine how it might all turn out
under real
duress, with the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs further egging on
both the
angry rabble on the ground and the Sarah Palins in the political sphere.
I'm tired of overused Nazi references these days, but the most salient
analogy has to be to 1930s Weimar Germany. The economy is broken, the
political system is broken, the public is struggling, angry and full of
nationalistic rage at their country's failure to possess all the
riches and
glory it and they deserve. And so say bombastic demagogues, backed by a
small army of street thugs, and offering both a scapegoat and a
solution.
Given a democratic election in which voters can choose between a
dynamic,
assured and energetic salvation figure, on the one hand, and an
enervated,
inept and passionately passionless status quo government, on the
other, it's
not hard to figure what will happen. And what did.
Above all, what is wrong with this country (and what therefore
inevitably
becomes the world's problem too - just ask the people of Iraq), is
not so
much the vicious thugs who would just as soon vacuum it free of any
piece of
wealth they can get into their hands as take their next breath. Nor
is it
the existentially petrified Confederate Crackers for Jesus who find that
hate and violence is a pretty decent emollient to mitigate for the
moment
their otherwise completely debilitating fears.
That stuff always happens, though admittedly not often quite like this.
What's really wrong is the near total absence of prominent political
figures
willing to sacrifice much of anything to protect their country from
these
depredations.
It's been so long now that I've forgotten for sure, but didn't they
used to
call that patriotism?
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra
University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers'
reactions to
his articles (dm-@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time
constraints
do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at
his
website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
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<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><B>Relayed by Doug Everingham. </B></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><B>{Top message in this thread preaches to some converted freethinkers, </B></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><B>and lower quotes are not cheerful so I recomed not wading thru the lot.] </B></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><B>====</B></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><B>From: </B><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN> <A href="mailto:thin-@xplornet.com"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0B00EE">thin-@xplornet.com</FONT></A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN><B>Subject: </B><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN><B>Re: [Mai-not] Fwd: Can America be Salvaged?</B></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN><B>Date: </B><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>17 October 2009 12:20:30 AM</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN><B>To: </B><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN> <A href="mailto:mai--@globalproblematique.net"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0B00EE">mai--@globalproblematique.net</FONT></A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN><B>Reply-To: </B><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN> <A href="mailto:mai--@globalproblematique.net"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0B00EE">mai--@globalproblematique.net</FONT></A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The war was waged for the sake of the early version of "economic efficiency" and "competitiveness". After all, it was written that Noah cursed his son Ham, for having laughed at his balls, when he was drunk. Ham then lost his soul, was turned black by the Lord and all his descendants sentenced to be the servants of whites forever.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">In other words people and states that questioned this well known fact in the scriptures, have committed unforgivable, mortal sins.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Just wait till the Blessed and the Holy take over the world. They'll show what the truth is !</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Cheers, Ed.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">At 08:47 PM 15/10/2009, you wrote:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD">The war of 1861-5 was a colossal mistake - going to war to keep the slave states in the union when they were willing to do the US a great favour by seceding. Slavery would have had a better chance to collapse if the North (in contrast to Canada) had not actively collaborated with the slave owners - epitomised by their prosecution of John Brown for "treason" and by such monstrosities as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 requiring escaped slaves to be sent back to their owners in the South.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD">The result of the war, including the death of 360,000 Northern soldiers, was the retention of the states which were the centre of pig-ignorant culture as part of the Union. The result to this day has been that Rebel tail wagging the American dog to the disadvantage not only of Americans but also of the rest of the world which is stuck with the result.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD">When the dog can't stop wagging, the time is long overdue to dock the tail that wags it.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD">Dion Giles</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD">At 11:46 15/10/2009, you wrote:</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0A00DD"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Weekened Edition</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">September 18-20, 2009</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Politics in the Past Tense</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Can America be Salvaged?</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which proposing</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">a new and better version of corporate-plunder masquerading as national</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">healthcare gets you burned in effigy for being a socialist stooge by</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">gun-toting angry mobs.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which the same</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">people who hate you for being a socialist simultaneously hate you for being</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">a fascist.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which angry mobs</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">of supposed anti-socialist demonstrators scream at their congressional</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">representatives to "keep your government hands off my Medicare".</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which claims</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">that the government is going to start killing off seniors are taken</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">seriously by tens of millions of people.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which people are</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">all worked up about government czars, but sat silently while the Bush</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">administration destroyed the Bill of Rights and used a thousand signing</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">statements to write Congress out of the Constitution.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which deficits</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">have all of a sudden become the source of enormous anger among people who</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">said nothing about them previously, as the tax cuts for the wealthy,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">off-budget wars based on lies, and unfunded prescription drug Big Pharma</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">giveaway transmogrified the biggest surplus in American history into the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">biggest deficit ever.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">politicians can rant incessantly about other peoples' sexual morality, get</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">caught screwing prostitutes, and then still be reelected to the highest</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">ranks of government by trashing the president.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I could go on and on, but what would be the point? The positions of so many</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Americans on so many policy questions are truly inane - yes, for sure. I</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">wish that was all that concerned me. But it all goes so much deeper than</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">that.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">The entire premise of a self-ruling democracy rests on some reasonable</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">degree of rationality and some reasonable degree of an ability to</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">discriminate between real information and falsehoods. Today's American</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">democracy seems to lack these qualities in increasingly abundant amounts.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">And yet it goes deeper than that still. The entire premise of a society -</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">any society, democracy or not - is that it possesses a certain degree of</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">shared community, a 'we-ness' that transcends narrower tribalisms and</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">self-interest in critical ways and at critical moments. That too has</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">unraveled of late. Think of the nice white men with shotguns blocking the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">exit from flooded New Orleans during the worst moments of Hurricane Katrina.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Looking at America today, it all feels so very past tense to me.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">In some very profound ways, this is not the place nor the time you'd expect</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">the implosion of an established democracy and society. To be an American is</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">to be a member of the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. If they're</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">not whining so much in Botswana these days, who the hell are we to?</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">On the other hand, though, it makes a lot of sense. The moment correlates</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">precisely with the peaking of the empire several decades ago, now further</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">exacerbated as the deep wells of remedial pillaging - our credit cards, our</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">mortgages, our children, a rising Chinese middle class, brown people</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">everywhere, the environment - have disappeared entirely, with nothing but</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">despair and moral dessication left in their place. Moreover, the folks most</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">aggrieved and most estranged from their senses of late are precisely the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">people who were bought off of their sanity at every turn with the latest</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">form of bigotry du jour, used to assuage their ever-diminishing sense of</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">relative social status. Over and over again, the people I see on my</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">television screen acting absolutely and incoherently stupid in their</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">senseless rage seem to be little more than fat, white, Southern,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">sixty-something racist good ol' boys.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Well past their sell-by dates, they've of course gotten tremendous help</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">cranking it up again. That's no surprise. I'm not sure these crackers are</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">smart enough to even be stupid without coaching. As Lyndon Johnson used to</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">say: "Couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">the heel". Lucky for them, those marching orders come from a host of</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">politicians and media whores who, in an even moderately just world, would</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">receive a wee taste of Abu Ghraib in repayment for the reckless</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">destructiveness they've fomented upon the always precarious edifice of</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">liberal democracy. There's special place in Hell reserved for these</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">shouters of "Fire!" in crowded theaters, these bloodsucking bottom-feeders,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">especially since they are being paid so handsomely for their faithful</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">service as prolocutors for predators.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I doubt anyone has ever reminded us of this ongoing danger more eloquently</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">than did the famous American diplomat, George Kennan, when he wrote: "The</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">counsels of impatience and hatred can always be supported by the crudest and</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">cheapest symbols; for the counsels of moderation, the reasons are often</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">intricate, rather than emotional, and difficult to explain. And so the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">chauvinists of all times and places go their appointed way: plucking the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">easy fruits, reaping the little triumphs of the day at the expense of</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">someone else tomorrow, deluging in noise and filth anyone who gets in their</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">way, dancing their reckless dance on the prospects for human progress,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">drawing the shadow of a great doubt over the validity of democratic</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">institutions. And until peoples learn to spot the fanning of mass emotions</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">and the sowing of bitterness, suspicion, and intolerance as crimes in</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">themselves - as perhaps the greatest disservice that can be done to the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">cause of popular government - this sort of thing will continue to occur."</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Hear, hear. Sorry to say it, George, but you're lucky to have died when you</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">did. It's only gotten so much worse in just the last few years.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">And while the O'Reillys and the Reagans of our time have joined forces to</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">turn "the counsels of impatience and hatred" into an entire political party</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">and more, they are, of course, mere conscious tools of the Big Green Greed</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">that ultimately drives the system. They know they are prostitutes, but the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">money's good. And so is the fame and adulation - no small thing for these</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">sorry critters. Look at the Becks and Limbaughs and Gingriches of this</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">country. Were there ever people in this world with so much self-esteem</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">ground to be made up from the transparent ostracization of their younger</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">days? Were there ever individuals so obviously motivated by retribution</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">against everyone who treated them like the jerks they were in their</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">formative years? Was there ever a walking warning sign more brightly</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">flashing about the costs to society of youthful bullying? I'm sorry Glenn,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I'm sorry Rush, I'm sorry Newt. I know when you were younger you were pudgy</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">fast-talking smart-ass petulant pricks who made up in wedgies from bigger</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">guys what you never got in attention from attractive women. But isn't about</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">time you stopped taking it out on America? I'm sorry you got your ass</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">kicked on a weekly basis, but I didn't do it.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Though I'm thinking about it now.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">It takes a willful act of ignorance (something we see a lot of these days)</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">not to perceive the United States as the latest in history's falling</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">empires. Like Rome, the true contribution of its sometimes great ideas has</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">ultimately been substantially buried under the rubble of its ill-fated</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">decision to greedily grasp the nettle of empire. Unlike Rome, this puppy is</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">taking decades, rather than centuries, to collapse.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Empires come and go, of course. Rising and falling is what they do. It's</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">their job in life. What is truly frightening to contemplate, however, is</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">what happens when an empire falls in the era when technological capacity</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">absolutely dwarfs political maturity? And what happens if that occurs not</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">just anywhere, but in arguably the most immature, self-serving and</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">self-indulgent of developed societies on the planet?</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">The only model we have for this so far is the Soviet implosion of two</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">decades ago, though even that is only a partial representation, since the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Soviet bear was no match for the American boor in piggishness. Even so,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">that history does not bode so well, outward appearances notwithstanding. We</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">should all collectively be walking on eggshells thinking about the tens of</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">thousands of strategic and smaller tactical nuclear warheads that may or may</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">not be accounted for. Nor is the renascent and rather irredentist new</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Russia necessarily a pretty picture either, a fact that may become</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">increasingly relevant in the coming decades. Still, all this noted, the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Russian imperial collapse has to be said to have been relatively uneventful,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">closer to the post-war British and French experiences than to any</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">cataclysmic end of days scenario.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I wish I could be so sanguine about the implosion of the American empire.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">In one sense, it was probably a good thing for the Russians to go through</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">this experience with only a fake democracy and repressed civil liberties in</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">place, and some serious if undemocratic quasi-dictators running the show.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">It might have saved the country from the worst elements seizing control. I</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">don't much care for the product of American democracy and political</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">discourse as things now stand. Imagine how it might all turn out under real</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">duress, with the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs further egging on both the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">angry rabble on the ground and the Sarah Palins in the political sphere.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">I'm tired of overused Nazi references these days, but the most salient</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">analogy has to be to 1930s Weimar Germany. The economy is broken, the</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">political system is broken, the public is struggling, angry and full of</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">nationalistic rage at their country's failure to possess all the riches and</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">glory it and they deserve. And so say bombastic demagogues, backed by a</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">small army of street thugs, and offering both a scapegoat and a solution.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Given a democratic election in which voters can choose between a dynamic,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">assured and energetic salvation figure, on the one hand, and an enervated,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">inept and passionately passionless status quo government, on the other, it's</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">not hard to figure what will happen. And what did.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">Above all, what is wrong with this country (and what therefore inevitably</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">becomes the world's problem too - just ask the people of Iraq), is not so</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">much the vicious thugs who would just as soon vacuum it free of any piece of</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">wealth they can get into their hands as take their next breath. Nor is it</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">the existentially petrified Confederate Crackers for Jesus who find that</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">hate and violence is a pretty decent emollient to mitigate for the moment</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">their otherwise completely debilitating fears.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">That stuff always happens, though admittedly not often quite like this.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">What's really wrong is the near total absence of prominent political figures</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">willing to sacrifice much of anything to protect their country from these</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">depredations.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">It's been so long now that I've forgotten for sure, but didn't they used to</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">call that patriotism?</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">his articles (</FONT><A href="mailto:dm-@regressiveantidote.net"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0B00EE">dm-@regressiveantidote.net</FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">), but regrets that time constraints</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">website, </FONT><A href="http://www.regressiveantidote.net/"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0B00EE">www.regressiveantidote.net</FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">.</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#086412">------------------------------------------------------</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; 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