The Sadness of America

Conversations, headlines, and pundits fill the airwaves and publications with the topic of war on Iraq. This all-consuming debate smothers everything else, which is a reason to pause. Perhaps we need to step back and focus on the "big picture" of what is happening to America as a result of the war on Iraq and the war on terrorism. The death and destruction of war is one thing, but the looming devastation of America is quite another.

On the PBS web site there was an article and interview about another of those secret edicts floating up the Potomac that seeks to extend the powers of the misnamed Patriot Act. The new extended version brings back the bad old days of FBI and CIA domestic abuses and invasions on American citizenry, but this time there will be less oversight and even more secret investigations and incarcerations. Of course His Hindness and regal court see no reason to be open and transparent with congress or the American people because it is none of their business how government works. Only Iraq and North Korea and the axis of evil need to be transparent.

9/11 and Afghanistan, Iraq and the war on terrorism, and - oh yeah - Osama bin Laden (remember him?) are the murky shroud for what truly has become a war on America.

The devil is in the details, as they say, and the details ain't pretty.
[more]