Well Laura could you not think of Anything

clever, insightful, informative, stylish maybe

even inspirational with which to open?

Do you Have No insight or style to express?

This is the Don Imus school of writing --What?

--No racist or sexist slur? Just disgusting

pus? You could have raised your skirt with

a dirty little dirty sex anecdote, but

I think you know that you have a lot of 'stiff'

competition there.

What sickens me more than your choice of 'opener'

is that writers think that this is a valid

tactic to shake the reader into attention.

It is a cheap quick trick which is used in

place of an intelligent even brilliant

observation. Why not start with Fuck You

or something similar to avoid the pus,

the feces, and vomit, to get the attention

you want?

Does ANYONE expect the democrats to

oppose anything that Israel wants,

near a presidential election??

Israel wants the US to stay in Iraq.

Israel wants the US to bomb Iran.

Expect Lebanon III. Expect 500 more

houses in the west bank, expect a mega

depot of military hardware sent to Israel. expect more $$$ "aid". Expect US policy to be twisted into a shape preferred by Israel.

Cluster bombs? Phosphorus? Napalm?

Sure, why not, we did it before.

The vast majority of the US public who

want an end to the war can goFetch.

Argonne

Whatever happens in America in the next two years has

nothing to do with Rome. These speculations are, really,

a laymans parlour game (which on other occasions gave us

"The Rapture" and "The Iraqis will-greet-us with flowers")

historians don't mess with this stuff. Hitler was not funny,

nor was Stalin, nor is deathbed bankrupcy.

Regarding the question implied throughout : Que sera

domani ? (the parlour game hook), --If the US is run by

a bunch of jerks next year, we will be worse off than now.

If run by bigger jerks than now, we will be driven deeper

into the ditch. Period. Rome is irrelevant, except in one aspect:

".......policy prescriptions based on the Roman historian Livy's injunction hat: what makes a society strong is the well-being of its people -- basic justice......." (from the article)

Basic justice ? --Economic justice? Habeas Corpus? NOLA?

We burned all the safety nets, offshored everything but

big macs and Nascar, causing 9 social layers of Rustbelt from

C programming in SF, on down to widget stampers in

Ohio. Look ma, No Net: -and no extended benifits, and

no retraining allowance and no health care, and no....food.

So the mullas in Iran, and the preachers in the US

gathered up these grapes of wrath from the disposessed,

and made Jihad, and Armaggedon. No

Bolshevism or NationalSocialism, but the result is

the same; Deprivation, then Screwyou, we'll bring

it All down......

Livy's view...(above).....: War reparations during the

Depression destroyed Germany's economy and

middle class (as ours is being destroyed) Destroyed

to the point of insanity.. (which followed).

re 'que sera domani?':

--You take a stack of regular investment grade paper,

and mix it with some B and C stuff, --then with some real

stinkers: SubPrime mortgages, then SubSubPrime, ..then

..yeah, there is no bottom to this.....in the biz its called

toxic waste: you dont recycle this stuff, you call the environment

people. You keep on slicin' and dicin' and leveraging till,

like ratshit in peanut butter, no one will taste anything bad or

get reportably sick. Pension funds love it. There is 20-30 TRILLION

of it out there. Nobody knows the ingredients.

So it will collapse, and Herbert Hoover will say that the

economy is strong, and Franklin D will have to deal with

the grapes. Bigger jerks did not exist in '29.

--But It could save the Constitution.....It did for FDR/USA.

Argonne

(CaVaC?)

The lack of comment on the Content/subject doesnt

speak volumes; Not even 1.

We are not amused.

Argonne

oooh-wow; Mr Owen (and pro and an -tagonists), you made my day. -and have

improved the whole month. I like curry sauce with chutney on my eggs and, also prefer

women who can kick ass, (they seldom do -why damage That infrastructureÉ ). We could compare notes over 47 beer, -but I wont Say that, -it could dilute my credibility.

Folks, Gary O has a point, which I have read in several otherwise cautiously

pessimistic columns: Where Is The OutrageÉÉ. (I ask myself this several times a

day, in disbelief at what I see as an untypical passivity). Will we discuss political

military and historic -points- foreverÉÉ No, we wont -we will express our outrage

in a clear and simple expressions of rage that will sweep through the halls of

power like an endless Arctic storm, trembling the columns, the minions, the usurpers.

Or will weÉÉ History has a timetable for Fateful events, and if late, we miss the

opportunities and live under the whim of others.

Gary has a point. The fact that his point was not considered I find very depressing

---readers seem to want outrage expressed in polite, delicate,sociable terms,

and only against Their chosen targets, with no collateral damage.

Is it so much to ask citizens to lawfully express their outrage To the Limit of the

LawÉ. We are nowhere near those limits. 800,000 protestersÉÉ Where is

the OutrageÉÉ. LeCastor, tell us about Moscow 1989. We need it.

(----BROKEN KEYBOARD é = a question mark :-))

Argonne