Let's All Take A Chill Pill,

 I have a hope of a major change in this country while I spend time in federal prison. I hope the nation comes back home and spends as much on this country's problems as we have on other countries' problems.

I had this same hope in 2000, but saw it die in the Iraqi desert in 2002. The Iraq War, right-wing hysteria, and the war on terror kept us distracted with our own troubles. Then the economy broke and we had to think about our own.

My dead mother had a saying I think will apply here: clean off your doorstep before cleaning off someone else's doorstep. We have issues about race (as always), class (as always but seldom acknowledged), economics, culture, and government.

Give President Obama credit for attempting to work on these issues. The Great Recession looks like it pout a crimp in his plans. Too bad that we are again engaging in ad hoc solutions instead of a true conversation about our country's difficulties and the solutions to those problems. Instead of just plugging holes, should we not be asking if want to keep the dike?

I say it is time to come home and have some discussions instead of rants. We should all ask who benefits by a policy of constant warfare? Who wins by distracting us from our own internal problems?

I recommend voting against any politician advocating war. In my fifty years, I have seen the Cold War, and hot wars in Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq; wars on poverty, crime, drugs, and terrorism. I have not seen us with enough time for rational decision-making. So I say anything for which we need to be whipped into a frenzy needs to be rejected until the proponent can justify it in therms other than war. (Out of the so-called wars, I do not recall LBJ using apocalyptic terms in starting the war on poverty. If the war on poverty had been properly supported, what would have been the need for the “wars” on crime and drugs.) Hysteria and the hard sell – have we not had enough of this from our politicians? We should ask all politicians, regardless of party, what is the rush?

sch

[Instead, we got the Tea Party, Donald J. Trump, and MAGA Republicans. sch 3/5/23.]