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The Fall of the United States
We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling… the United States.
--Clarence Darrow at the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Welcome to the late great United States – a country in economic and moral free fall. A country in thrall to a cult of greed, selfishness, and ignorance.
A country that is trying to hold onto its belief in its own “exceptionalism,” even as it rejects the very forces that made it exceptional.
Once, the US was a leader in science. Today, most Americans are scientifically illiterate and one of the major political parties – Republicans-- largely rejects science and scientists as "elitist." Research budgets are being slashed. The space shuttle has flown its last flight. Climate scientists are demonized and marginalized, even as epochal storms, heat waves, and draughts sweep across our country and lay waste our planet.
Once, US infrastructure was the envy of the world. Our planes, our trains, our highways, our damns, bridges, buildings and communication systems were the benchmark against which other countries measured their worth. Investing in it created well-paying jobs and wealth-generating capacity. Now, it is a crumbling punch line to a tragic national joke.
Once, the US system of laws and regulations was recognized as the pre-requisite of a civilized and prosperous society. It created transparent markets; honest securities exchanges; level playing fields for all players; equitable sharing of wealth between workers and managers; safe and humane working conditions; a clean and livable environment. Today, most Americans think government regulation destroyed the economy. They even believe that the plutocrats who destroyed this regulatory infrastructure -- the most successful wealth-generating machine in the world’s history -- are the “job creators” and the source of the formerly shared prosperity that is now disappearing into the coffers of the few from the wallets of the many.
Once, the US educational system was the preeminent model for educating the populace. While our Universities are managing to hold on to their esteemed position by their thumbnails (partly by attracting talented foreign students), our K-12 programs are not keeping up.
What do these all have in common?
They were the source of our national prosperity and they were funded or enabled in whole or part by the government.
Federal research yielded a steady stream of innovation – the agricultural revolution; the aerospace industry; computers; the Internet; most of the important breakthroughs in Pharmaceuticals and health care; the GIS system. While the investments continued, the jobs came and the wealth flowed. But today, the spigots are turned off, the seed corn eaten.
Federal,state and local government's investment in energy, transportation, communication, and water supply infrastructure yielded enormous financial returns. Now these systems lie crumbling around our collective ankles and workers line up for unemployment as half empty trucks dodge potholes on our national highways.
Investment from around the world flowed into the US, bolstered by the fact that our well-regulated financial markets were not only honest and transparent, but that they fulfilled their fiduciary responsibility to manage risk prudently when handling other people’s money. Now, our markets are a wild-west shoot out, with a few winners, many losers and all the trustworthiness of a tiltable Vegas roulette table.
Education? Take the case of California, which has had a 40 year jihad against taxes. When Reagan assumed the governorship, the state ranked number one in education, and colleges and universities charged no tuition. Now the state’s K-12 school system ranks in the bottom half of the country and college costs are skyrocketing. And ever since Reagan brought his “government is the problem mentality” to Washington, the rest of the country is following suit.
Two important things happened this week, and both point to the decline of America. At the Republican Tea Party debate, a cheering jeering crowd supported the idea that a man who didn’t get health care insurance should be allowed to die. Meanwhile, the Census Bureau reported that poverty in the US reached its highest level since 1993. In absolute terms, more Americans are below the poverty level than at any time in our history.
These events are connected. When greed becomes our moral compass, then tolerance and humanity die, and prosperity is a casualty.
Alan Grayson compared the Tea-Partiers in Florida on Monday night to the Romans at the Coliseum calling for the lions to eat the Christians.
It is an apt metaphor. The Patricians – plutocrats all – have been using their bought and paid for media to field a long-running circus featuring illusion, delusion, distraction and deception. The populace, distracted by this steady stream of “reality show news,” now regularly chants for the death of the very force which made their lives the apogee of shared prosperity – a government that represented them, not a few fat cats.
Cheer and jeer on, America. But know this: unless we miraculously stand up to the ringmasters, and confront the circus that has become our political process, we are cheering our own demise.
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147 Comments so far
Show AllThe people behind the scenes that put reagan in are us--and most of us are still paying omage to him.
The image of the crisis orientation of the flag is more powerful than any here seem to imagine. Try displaying it in this mode and see what happens.
From the beginning there are all kinds of examples of public-private cooperation and/or public initiatives: Revolution, Post Office, Courts and Government itself...and on and on...
What we're currently facing are distortions and misrepresentations of governments proper role by a bunch of hoodwinked and bought scalawags whose self-delusion and self-promotion is beyond the pale.
" Today, most Americans think government regulation destroyed the economy."
There are a variety of contexts to that. It's true that regulation was designed to punish the little guy and let the corporations do all the mugging.
On exceptionalism, the US was always that and refused to correct itself on it.
On education, higher taxation alone won't work as long as education continues to be censored as it always has been.
Public transportation? We might have gotten off the ground with more train tracks all over the country had the highway pork barrel projects not been allowed to get out of control. But since exceptionalism and individualism trump cooperation and sharing, the ruling class elites found it too easy to exploit our weaknesses and put trains almost out of business.
As for "Tea Party", the decline happened long before those rightwing reactionary scums changed their label to "Tea".
What you describe is the result of a business model centered on the CORPORATION.
The corporation floats the wrong people to the top of the power structure for the wrong reasons, and gives them cover for irresponsible/criminal behavior.
It's a death spiral. The famous race to the bottom. Hopefully it will take its principals to the bottom with it.
Very well put, Mr. Atcheson. America has fallen victim to the stereotypes and myths of the right wing and its powerful media echo machine. And yet, in spite of all this wretchedness and manufactured stupidity, the vast majority of Americans support the following agenda:
* Tax the rich and corporations
* End the wars, cut military spending
* Protect the social safety net, strengthen Social Security and improved Medicare for all
... * End corporate welfare for big business
* Transition to a clean energy economy, reverse environmental degradation
* Protect worker rights, collective bargaining, create jobs and raise wages
* Get money out of politics
The problem is the people who support this agenda must wake up to the reality that the two bought and paid for political parties have no intention of delivering on this agenda--quite the contrary: they are joined in a wholesale assault on the middle class, seemingly intent on destroying it. Americans on the whole are too hopeful, too optimistic. They have been duped, but not only by the media but by their own denial. Real hope can come but its precondition is willingness to experience disillusionment. We are living through a time of great disillusionment--with the political system, with the Democratic Party, with Obama.
It is up to those of us who have already gone through this disillusionment, and who have a vision for a truly democratic, ecosocialist future, to do all we can to kindle the process in others of realizing that THERE IS NO HOPE, NONE WHATSOEVER, of getting anything close to a liberal or progressive or humane agenda from the current totalitarian two-party system in the U$A.
I think you are exactly right about "the willingness to experience disillusionment". I remember going through that process when Reagan got in. It just astounds me that at this late stage in the game there are so many who prefer to cling to those illusions. Denial has to be the most stubborn of human emotions to overcome.
yes, intotheabyss, I am equally astounded that at this late stage, so many people can be corralled into buying into Lesser Evilism and continue clinging to these illusions. I would add to what I said earlier: it takes political education, something we don't really get in school, and often not even in college. Political education itself is a disillusioning process, because we find out that the mythology we were taught about America the Wonderful is a bunch of b.s., masking a dark, imperialist agenda.
I was fortunate to go to a junior college that had at least one radical professor of US history teaching there, and to learn US history from the POV of a radical black man. In high school, I was lucky enough to go to an alternative school that had a Marxist teacher, who taught me some basic ideas about capitalist economics I otherwise never would have gotten. By the time I voted in my first election (1980), I was already thoroughly disillusioned with the two parties. I voted for Barry Commoner and the Citizen's Party.
So I wonder if in many cases the problem is not so much *denial* as simple lack of political education. Denial is certainly a problem, but that assumes one has been exposed to information that one remains in denial about. If one is never exposed to anything but the cultural mythology one is simply miseducated and uninformed. One cannot even be in denial yet, one is simply mired in illusion. Once one acquires a bit of real education about how politics really works, as opposed to the cultural mythology about how it works, then one has a choice: to be in denial, or to pursue further education and to modify one's actions accordingly.
The corporations have become our government. They always get what they want, right down to many of their lobbyists writing the bills themselves. Their huge campaign contributions are nothing but bribes. No thought is given to what "we the people" want. If a bill is passed that most people are for, that's only a coincidence.
Both parties are beholden to the same industries. The only answer is publicly-funded elections, but that won't happen without a revolution. Most of the people in Congress are very happy with things as they are. As their reward for being good little boys and girls they go right from public office into cushy jobs, where they don't always do much, but are paid quite well.
Our war mongering has reached new heights and the country is paying dearly for it. The war on terrorism is used as an excuse to rob us of many of our civil rights and any privacy we thought we might have had.
The war on drugs has ruined more lives than it has ever saved, and it has made the crime rate go up tremendously. Our educational system is suffering at the hands of this poor economy and is constantly threatened by right-wingers, whose ultimate goal is to completely dismantle the public educational system. Our health-care system is a disaster, with 50 million, or more, people without health coverage. Not only is accessability a nightmare, but the quality is not there. Not for most people. The only sane thing to do would be to have a single-payer plan.
This country was never the exceptional paradise that many would have us believe, and the "good old days" for some were often "bad old days" for others. We grew as a country, and even with our flaws, we were getting more and more democratic and egalitarian. By about 1975, we had made great strides in equality for people of color and women; we had seen the ousting of a corrupt administration and found an end to an unpopular and immoral war. Things started falling apart in the late 1970s with the energy crisis and the start of massive job outsourcing. Then came Reagan, and we started going downhill faster. It has gotten worse with every
administration since then. Conservative rulers became the norm, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. I wouldn't call either one of them a friend to the common person.
There's nothing left but revolution. Revolution is primarily a young people's game however, and most of our young people don't seem interested in much of anything beyond their electronic devices.
Uhhh, yea. So what's new? And what do we do? We all know this. Words. Words. Words. CD can start reposting old articles.
The celebration of greed may not destroy the US, but the celebration of stupidity and ignorance definitely will destroy the US.
It is really so sad that we are headed they way we are. It breaks my heart. I think this country will have to fall before many see what is going on. I am so angry at this President. There is so much he could have and should have done from the beginning of his term to set this country right. He knew going in that this country, over the past several years has turned decidedly right, thanks to bad leaders. Yet, he walked in and tried to play on their level, instead of setting out a plan on how to level the swing. He clearly has no emotional investment in the history of this country or this party, else he couldn't have made the decisions he has. What I'm most angry about is that he has set Democrats back severely. How can we now claim to be the better party when our leaders have been doing the very same things in terms of destroying this country as the opposition? Whose going to consider anything that may potentially help them if it is coming from a Democrat now?
There is alot of deep thinking going on here, and I feel I may be out of my league...
What I don't understand is why all these hardworking people all around the country still use the one power they have remaining-voting- to continue to enslave themselves to the ruling elite? Why don't they see the obvious? They continue to vote these people into office time after time to maintain the status quo.
I admit I was fooled by Obama also. I thought that there might be real change coming. Ha. I think one thing you never see mentioned in the media is the amount of younger people that turned out to vote for him. I feel that was an encouraging sign. If we can get the message out to the younger crowd, grab their attention, not an easy thing to do granted, there may be hope for this country.
hey, Jersygirl11!
I can only answer for myself...
the confusion you are experiencing is natural, as it is the symptom of an underlying cause that eludes you: the cause is the fraudulent nature of your government, and, by extension, your very life, and the lies that have been handed you to conceal this fraudulence...
enslavement is an accurate description, but it is not self-inflicted...the vote was a lie perpetrated by those with the power to do so...those who violently captured the territory we now call the United States, claimed ownership, and divided it into plots for resale...they created the need by depriving the rest of us of our daily requirements, and forcing us to work for them in return for money they printed, themselves, and loaned us at interest...again, to purchase, from them, the very necessities they had stolen...
they still control all of those resources...in fact, even fewer companies than ever now control almost all of the production and marketing on the planet...the world's governments are but tools to be manipulated, and manipulate they do, via global banking entities, clandestine branches of government, fake military actions, trade agreements, etc.
in the end, the gun is what drives all of it, which is why one can get so confused by voting...
the vote is all the citizen has to make them feel as if they control the government, rather than vice-versa...if they were to discover the vote meaningless, they would have to confront the fact they have no voice, whatsoever...
that is why it is imperative to go to such great length to portray the vote as the ultimate power of our culture...this is why we debate campaign finance, or campaign tactics, or what have you, because it reinforces the integrity of the vote...that is why candidates pretend to court voters...it is nothing but flattery, meant to dull and distract...
it is all a lie, however...
anyone seated in Congress goes along, as they will either be rewarded for doing so, or punished for not...violently punished, along with family and friends...
voting has never decided anything around here...the slave is truly a slave...
we must take back the land...
What we are witnessing is our foreign policy since WWII being turned on us. Look at the track record of the IMF of forcing huge loans on smaller countries which are turned over to private contractors for their extraction industries, then forcing austerity measures on the people who never benefited from the loans. It's just that most Americans have been kept ignorant of the nature of our foreign policy and so don't recognize the pattern. The global banksters are bleeding the world dry.
corrupted politicians, greedy big corporations, ignorant citizens, all led to decline of a great country. Not only that much more Americans are not able to make their ends meet, but average Americans actually have no say in any business of the country. The country is only controlled by big corporations and foreign governments. The decline can certainly be avoided if, and only if at least a few percentage of Americans are willing to rise up against the government and demand a new constitution and a new governing system. However, it seems like the Americans have yet realized they are already walking into their graves.
There needs to be a decline--the world can no longer afford the us style of profligate consumption. The only question is whether it will be a soft or hard landing--a discussion which would require a whole book.
Excellent article, but please correct the spelling. It's droughts, not draughts.
And dams, not damns ;-)
This John Atcheson article about how the US was once the best at everything and it's various institutions 'pre-eminent', 'the envy of the world,' and 'the pre-requisite of a civilized and prosperous society' is a lot of arrogant nonsense. I live in the 'rest of the world' and am not aware of people envying American infrastructure or just about anything else mentioned, other than maybe the Space Program. To say "A country that is trying to hold onto its belief in its own “exceptionalism,” even as it rejects the very forces that made it exceptional." is to wrongly presume it ever was exceptional in the first place and so he just ignorantly perpetuates this tiresome myth. The US has never been exceptional, at any point in its history, just ignorant about the rest of the world. Maybe nothing much has changed about the United States, it's just that now, with so much global information at our fingertips, the delusional cocoon most people in the US have lived in for so long about themselves and their relationship to the rest of the planet, that is to say, the myth of their superiority and exceptionalism, is dissolving somewhat and the long obscured truth that they are not exceptional at all is finally becoming more evident.
So, to vote means nothing and the solution is to break up the US?
We're trying not to think so but the system is pushing us to it and our empire is already getting there.
Most Americans don't seem to understand is the countries we invade were here way longer than this land was known, and the ones who got it started were immigrants.
As the USA falls, we can say hello to the United Chinese States of America! They now own 40% of our income and rising
What are we looking for? "Their demise" or "our rising". I do not think that the rise of something great requires "their demise" first. We need to get grounded and get clear what a good life means to us. For me, most of the trappings are there. My family, my talents, my health, my knowing right from wrong. What remains to be constructed is the ability to sustain a community that is just and healthy. So often the loving and just efforts of so many are over-shadowed by the death culture enacted through the money system and its related politics. Chris Carlsson of critical mass and others are describing that locally we are already building the alternative in the rotting hull of the dying system. So, for what to do, I guess I'd say:
*Remember that the death culture is dying, it is unsustainable, and we are not completely yoked to it.
*Protect and cherish one another in all we build. We are all part of the earth and the earth is in us all.
*start with local economies (I like time exchange systems), local food, collective housing when feasible, teach and build, retrofit to save energy, etc. In this way, everyone's work becomes meaningful and everyone can work in an economy that is just and sustainable and respectful to egalitarian values.
*Resist in all ways possible, resistance is a way of living in full knowledge that forces are at work that plan to kill us at a profitable time and place.
*Always remember that all resistance is a form of cultural preservation and propagation of diversity. We are building complexity, a teeming planet with peoples who are thriving.
*Women must lead and be supported as leaders and men must give 100% to systems that are about "power with" and not "power over". As men we need to step back and help create power shifts and live by them. As Paolo Friere said, "We must commit political suicide" in order to be the change we are fighting for.
*I thinks the ideas are there, we need courage and humility, to realize
that we will all die before the work is done. To live a just life is the cure for nihilism, that's it.
This is how empires fall they are brought to their knees in global pursuit of rabble armies, destroyed from within by corruption, greed and internal division, threatened from abroad by erosion of international credibility, all the while believing in their own invincibility and propaganda. Surviving only to play second fiddle to the rise of the next world power. Squandering their final opportunity to create a lasting peace, by simply empowering the people with their wealth and knowledge created. Situation: Global Industrial Complex destroying life sustaining process of entire planet. Consequence: Civilization Fails. Solution: Develop sustainable nonviolent methods to heal environmental & social infrastructure. Ultimate Goal: Create Technology & life styles supporting a healthy diversified Earth while Tera Forming Mars into a life sustaining World.. Outcome: Military Industrial Complex is tasked toward Project*Mars, Global Population is tasked toward healing itself & the environment. Solving World issues & initiating strong Global*Economic Recovery is a matter of effectively applying Human Potential, NOT Political, Financial, Corporate or Market Wrangling. C.C.C.+Community Conservation Core, A.R.C. +Abuse Recovery Centers, My*1040 + Individual Directed Capitalization, Lotto*2013 = 2*Billion Jobs, Global Investment, Recovery, Security, Unity, Healing & Global Shift toward a World4Peace. There is a Plan, it Can*Work 12*Minutes + 13*Months = World4Peace Unite the C.H.A.O.S. Global Peaceful*Intent must start somewhere, Imagine people all over the world, displaying their heart of peace in actions of all types wearing peace heart jewelry patches tee shirts etc. YT videos, Flash mobs holding peace heart signs singing "We All+R+Saying " + "Build Peace Today" - Silent Marchs carrying peace heart banners, A unity of global expression, with a single powerful goal. Displaying the people's commitment to developing nonviolent, sustainable, peaceful solutions... Start*2*Day ;)
Interesting comments all but running them is the idea that the United States of America came about through a revolution. Yet if you Google "define revolution" you get this: "A forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system" and second you get "The American Revolution." Was the American Revolution a forcible overthrow of a government?
I think not as the government at the time was Britain and it removed itself from north American just as it removed itself from India, and the rest of its colonies: it wasn't overthrown.
Further, although I think it's fair to say that the piece of paper called the "US Constitution" defines a secular government, in fact, the people who voted it in were mainly white protestant Christians. Thus we have the (ostensible) government and what people (actually) believe and act on held together with Presidents, et al. saying "God Bless America." Totally conflicted. Good luck and good night.
I have to agree with what many of you said, but it will be a long haul, unless you start acting soon; we have to take our democracy back. I'm a product of 20s and 30s; married to my wife (age 86) for 67 yrs; I'm 87, a Navy vet of WWII and both my wife and I have watched in dismay as, first, our state of CA had Reagan as Gov. when he started his war on the middle class; lowered taxes for the rich & raised my taxes! I went Independent (from Repub.), but never vote Rep. He fought the state employees, unions & teachers; Reagan stopped funding for the mentally ill and put them on the streets; then he was elected President where he declared Gov't to be evil; lowered the income tax marginal rates on the wealthiest; first, from 70% to 50%; then down to 28%!! Deregulated anything and everything he could get his hands on. Any wonder CA and the USA are in real trouble? Oh yes, he went in with the Nat'l Debt at about $900 billion moved it to $2.7 trillion, Bush Sr. increased the debt; Clinton came up with a surplus at the end of his term; G.W.Bush used the Rep. CR card and upped it $5 trillion more, with two wars, but the carry-over to Obama pushed us further. Obama programs upped it about $1.5 trillion & was left with lg. deficit. Obama has impossible task. Hillary would have done much better though Anything Rep. say is suspect, i.e. "Gore is stealing election" (Fla.) while Rep. stole Fla. & election. Cheney, going in, said "we need a war." Hence the Militaryj-Industrial complex Ike warned us about. The worst is the Rep. have wrapped up the Supreme Ct., they battle for the Attorney Generals and Gov.ships of each state. Plus app't only far right judges. Demos are way behind. We have to battle the bastardos for every inch! Violence won't work. But we have to be careful for any president we elect; I'm now convinced the CIA had a huge hand in the assination of JFK. Read: "A Farewell to Justice; by Prosecuter Jim Garrison; JFK's assassination & the case that should have changed history." I now wonder if they had a hand in Rob't Kennedy's & MLK deaths. JFK was upset with "lies CIA told him about Cuban Bay of Pigs" & wanted to dismantle CIA," so he was eliminated. Also, CIA is repository for all UFO sightings and they insist the sightings are fake, baloons, etc., despite sightings by pilots, other qualified people, and countless citizens of countries all over the world. Some of you say "they are Plutocrats" but I've felt for some time they are Fascists, with a terrible hatred for the Middle Class. I'm getting tired, but some of you will have to get people to understand what they are up against. Good Luck.
The US will not "Fall" since the gunboat dollar can be printed forever and the militarized police state will put down any visible rebellion. The US will just revert back to colonial slavery, imho, that's all. It will be survivable for Super-Citizens like cops and government workers who will still have huge pay and benefits, but it will continue to be a Monopoly-hell for 90 percent of the common citizens who are constantly preyed on by CSI type minor infractions trumped up into major felonies and Fortune 500 Monopolies who legislate that you pay them for protection (mandatory auto, house and health care insurance.)
High Stagflation, high unemployment and high real inflation like I used to see in South American dictatorships. A true banana republic in every way married to a totalitarian "security" apparatus that only looks after millionaires behind gated communities.
I already decided decades ago, that if I have to live in a FUBAR Fake Democracy, I might as well do it in style out in the islands. Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. Potholed roads and power outages are no big deal if you're drunk all the time and a Legend in your own Mind.
Don't worry, be happy.
TJ
I think the empire is already there except for the colonial looking part, not that colonial or modern makes any difference. Glad to see you again btw.
John Atcheson appears to be unfamiliar with the diabolical history of the USA. He laments the loss of a USA that was never there, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, that lived under its terror for over a hundred years.
Yes and no to this article, yes to the idea that relying on markets that incentivize greed leads to failure. We must have collection action to educate people, support the arts, and support pure science research and infrastructure like internet access. No to the idea the Federal government is the correct venue to provide this, the "corporate persons" and the MIC are in the drivers seat in D.C. and unless we have a total revolution or economic collapse they are going to stay in control there for the foreseeable future. Therefore we ought to be far from supporting D.C., we ought to be wishing for it to fall to bring our money back home from the wars, and from earth raping projects like Federal highways and big dams into local collective action, like local health care plans, co-ops, bike lanes, schools, libraries, emergency services, local wi-fi meshnets that serve neighborhoods with cheap broadband, etc, etc.
"A country that is trying to hold onto its belief in its own “exceptionalism,” even as it rejects the very forces that made it exceptional."
Awe, hogwash! The US was never exceptional. The US was just an empire like any other empire before it, plain and simple. Amerikans, on the other hand, are probably stupider than the average citizen of the average empire and allowed themselves to be brained with that canard which was only concocted so that their criminal government could get away with the invasion and pillage of every other nation on Earth and with the slaughter of millions of innocents civilians. Bullshit by any other name is still bullshit.
We who thought we were so smart, so elegant, so civilized...hogwash is right. The 20% that sees what's coming, who know Taylor Caldwell said it dead on in "Devil's Advocate", who can't hardly believe that Americans haven't been smart enough to turn things around...oh well...the Handbasket is real and we are all in it.
The author makes some great points. But it's disappointing to see an article decrying the decline of education and intellectualism containing phrases like "storms, heat waves, and draughts" and "Our planes, our trains, our highways, our damns."
Great seeing, thank you and our circus of politics and race of a death penalty of an innocent person of color, Troy Anthony Davis. It says all of our education and judicial system. And also the strength of good folks around the the world. May we all awaken to America's walking dream soon..Our valves and the nation's character is on trial for the world to witness. Truth will make us all free...
Yes. Pride goeth before a fall (I just wanted to write 'goeth').
Two Points:
1) Re: The Troy Davis abomination. (He has been slaughtered, pronounced dead at 11:08pm EST)
Today I realized that it is the the U.S. that has been on trial in this case. We've now confirmed our guilt by way of Davis's execution. Something tells me that this situation may be one of a number of turning points. Karma-wise, that is.
We've had a number of chances to get it right...and we keep getting it very, very, wrong. Our new battle-cry should be, "Remember Sodom and Gomorrah!"
2)
One the most dangerous things about not going after the actual perpetrators of 9/11 (or at least opening a new investigation in this regard) is the following:
An enormous amount of verified data re- 9/11 is now on the web. For the most part this info has been gathered and vetted by citizen reporters, and other reg'lar folks. A relatively small number of individuals have written books, given public talks etc. (For example, see Ruppert or Griffin clips on YouTube).
In this way the process of disclosure is slowly, but surely growing toward a critical mass. Let's say pressure continues to build - as it already is.
It doesn't take a genius to hypothesize that, if the evidence (which strongly suggests that 9/11 was an false flag operation) becomes widely known --- the perpetrators (or those close to them) may well decide to create another one to keep the long arm of the law from reaching in their direction.
This will not be pretty. And, it would provide a perfect rationale for creating an even more draconian society than we have now.
And it seems eminently possible.
This is probably too late for anyone to read but almost every comment has made the assumption that democracy in the US exists. It does not, if it ever did. Yet the spectacle of the political fight seems real and compels emotional commitment. Every comment is naive that way.
Now is the time to plot some non-violent way to bring about the downfall of the US. To think this way is not a waste of thought and emotion like most comments here. The US is dead--accept it and move on. Grow up!!!!