So... This is what we've become.

[loveable liberal]

I remember exactly where I was on 9/11. I remember the statement my boss made after we found out it was a terrorist attack. She said "We need to bomb the people who did this back to the stone age". As difficult as it was, I disagreed. If we are to be considered a superpower in the world, we must take this. As much as it hurts, the country has to absorb the pain and just take it. In doing so we would have gained strength from both within and without our own borders.

As a country we reacted with the mindset of a two year old. Revenge, to satisfy our base instincts.

The mysteries that surrounded the weeks after the attack; mistakes made by our national defense agencies, escorting the Bin Ladens safely out of the country, memo's warning of impending attack. We move on to engage in two wars of choice, both wars in countrys where we neither understand the language nor the culture. Afghanistan bankrupted the Soviets, you'd think we would have learned from recent history. Our Afghanistan will be Iraq. People against war at all levels ignored, the thirst for revenge blinding our sense of justice and compassion.

I believe it was Ron Reagan who changed our country from one with a sense of community to being purely commerce oriented. If you dont pay for it, it is worth nothing. Unions gained power through numbers but somewhere along the line the idea was planted that union labor is comprised of loafers and miscreants. They were the heart of the middle class.

Oil is now used to make all manner of products, plastic and otherwise. We decided that cheap is better than good. China now makes everything and we are seriously screwed if they decide to turn off the tap. If China and the Middle East were to turn off the taps simultaneously where would we be?

Ronald Reagan strove to destroy effective government and liberalism. His unintended consequence was that reasonable conservativism was also tied to the same anchor. Now the only discourse we have perpetrates the polarization that was fueled by Newt Gingrich and his lot.

Government is the only protection a society has against the excesses of the greedy and the unfeeling. Once government becomes ineffective we are at the mercy of those who only value money.

The profession I work in does not pay well but it does allow me coach youth hockey and spend time with my family. We've never vacationed in 12 years of marriage and my kids have never seen the inside of a day care facility. I deeply appreciate those who join the armed services. I also believe that without a willing civilian population to support it there is no honorable military. There is honor in everyday work. It is a lifetime of sacrifice through employment that no one appreciates. I would gladly become cannon fodder if our soil was ever invaded. I will not kill for speculation.

Corporations and corporate types who believe soley in the bottom line you are going to burn in hell.

[one mean sheath]

1. favorite quote...

it makes me feel better sometimes.

"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
- Arundhati Roy