Distress in America

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed" - Abraham Lincoln, November 21, 1864


I cannot take credit for this wonder piece of artwork, and I cannot tell you who did it. I really do like it, though. We did (as a country) manage to survive well past the civil war, which I am sure seemed like 'end times' to the people who suffered through that. The song "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was written during the civil war, and that song reflects the feeling that the world was going to end with the coming of "the Lord." But it didn't. And I expect it will not happen this time around either. But tonight I was at a panel for stopping torture flights in North Carolina, and like the presenters on that panel, I have to agree: I have never lived in times that were as bad as they are now. And, I have been around over a half a century. What we mean by saying "times that are as bad as they are now" we are talking about unnecessary wars, torture, kidnapping, stripping of rights of individuals, getting rid of the right to challenge your arrest, and the trashing of the Geneva Convention, Nuremberg Principles and the Constitution of the United States. I do think a lot of people are waking up to what is going on, and getting active. But a lot are not.

I wanted to add my recent comments on an Ignatius Column in the WaPo. He talked about how we need to "get it right in Iraq" and his ideas on why we need to do so (protect American interests) and how we will do so. I have often accused Ignatius of not missing the forest for the trees - I think he misses the forest for the LEAF.

My comments:

"So how to protect vital American interests amid this tsunami of violence?"----- what, exactly, are those "American interests"??? OIL??? Don't you think it is time we started getting over our addiction to this oil that is not ours and will never be ours?

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*In seeking to rally Sunni Arab moderates to combat Iran and its proxies, the United States risks expanding the Sunni-Shiite fault line from Iraq to the region as a whole.*

That's the plan, dumbie. It's a big game of "Let's You and Him Fight" and we need to get our troops out of there - and bush OUT OF OFFICE - to stop this insanity of provoking WW3 in the middle east. I could have told you how this was going to go down over four years ago, as could any thinking person in the world. And they surely did TRY to tell you, yet you refused to listen. No, DON'T BOTHER TO START LISTENING NOW, FOR GOD'S SAKE.

I do not expect he will start to listen until after the whole Middle East is in flames.