Outclassed

When I read what other people are writing online, I remember one of the main reasons I gave up politiblogging regularly. Too many other people writing, and doing it a lot better. I particularly liked this one, today: Grifters' Tale - Mercenary opportunism doesn't respect Party lines.

As the lights go out in Colorado Springs I wonder if the city is small enough to survive. Only in a place where people are close enough to their government to understand the cause-and-effect between taxes, expenses, and legislation can real democratic reform hope to succeed.

Okay, I won't make any stupid Republican jokes today. But I hope I can be forgiven in pointing to a reminder that our illegal and unprovoked invasion of Iraq wasn't as simple-minded as the rightwing warmonger rhetoric tried to make us believe. (If any of you are still interested in Bonehead's reportedly--unusual, not to say abnormal, psychology*, don't miss the opening to the Thrill of the Kill section. Surprises me not at all.)

I actually returned to that site because I'd wanted to link to the first in a series of articles explaining why the USofA should hang its head and cry when Haiti is mentioned. From Thomas Jefferson to Bonehead Bush, plenty of Presidential Administrations have beaten up on Haiti. Admittedly the story is more complicated than this series of articles explains, but IMO they cover the major points. (Also, since I've decided that Bonehead-bashing is a whole different subject than stupid Republican jokes, let me make sure you don't miss Bonehead's contribution to our legacy of shame in Haiti.)

As much as the U.S. government has touted its love of democracy, the affection often has been conditional, based not on the will of a nation’s population but on the elected leader’s acceptance of American economic and political dictates.

You could hardly help knowing that's true, even if you'd only paid ten minutes worth of attention to international events in the last decade.

And, while I'm bashing, contemplate Iraq. Seriously. Read it. That's modern warfare, folks. We came, we saw, we decimated. If you don't like who we are, in the 21st century, it's not too late to demand that we change.

Always remember and never forget you can't nuke a country. Mother earth doesn't know from territorial boundaries. To her, it's all one planet.

The more I realize that we are not who I thought we were, the more depressed--and embarrassed--I become.

To the world, I offer my apologies. What can I say? Founded by intelligent, well-educated, reasonably idealistic men who hammered out a set of reasonably flexible guidelines, this country has nevertheless fallen prey to short-sighted, opportunistic, power-mongering morons.

All I can offer in our defense is that it's the same fault that brought down the USSR but so far we're still teetering along. It's not out of the question that we might get it right one day.

__________

* Honestly? I'm not. Never was. But I know many people were, because I remember seeing headlines now and then, each purporting to offer some kind of explanation of what the guy's problem was.

Me, I classed him as, "stupid, possibly dangerous, maybe psychotic" the first time I saw his smirking face and never found any reason to change that assumption.