And we have citizens in America and posters on these threads who seem to quiver and shake over the challenges we face. Not very inspiring to keep reading their posts.

I'm quivering and shaking, but it is from rage, not fear.

Tutu had the advantage of a large majority who very clearly saw things for what they truly were.

Here in the US we do not have that advantage, those of us calling the alarm are a small minority who are despised by all "right thinking" people.

On the few occasions I have let the full force of my true feelings be known other than online I have gotten either shocked silence or violent argument and then shunning.

The propaganda is simply too pervasive and has gone on for too long.

Hating people who abuse and oppress you is a natural reaction.

I'm an atheist living in the middle of the Bible Belt, I don't hate theists, I just wish they would leave me alone and stop trying to enact their particular theology into law.

If I could be you, if you could be me

For just one hour, if we could find a way

To get inside each other's mind

If you could see you through my eyes

Instead your own ego I believe you'd be

I believe you'd be surprised to see

That you've been blind

Walk a mile in my shoes

just walk a mile in my shoes

Before you abuse, criticize and accuse

Then walk a mile in my shoes

Now if we spend the day

Throwin' stones at one another

'Cause I will think, 'cause I will think

To wear my hat the same way you do

Well, I may be common people

But I'm your brother

And when you strike out

You're tryin' to hurt me

It's hurtin' you, Lord how mercy

Now there are people on reservations

And out in the ghetto

And whether they're for the grace of God

Or you and I,

If I only had wings of a little angel

Don't you know, I'd fly

To the top of a mountain

And then I'd cry, cry, cry

-Joe South

laddeedadadadanee, etc, etc

Oh the Games People Play Now

every night and every day now

Never meanin what they say now

never sayin what they mean

Why they while away the hours in their ivory towers

till they're covered up with flowers

in the back of a black limosine

Ladandaladandadada, Ladandaladandadada

Oh we make one another cry, breakin' hearts when we say goodbye

Cross our hearts and we hope to die, that the other was to blame

and neither one will ever give in, so we gaze at an 8 by 10

Thinkin' 'bout the things that might have been, and it's a dirty rotten shame

-Joe South

That Obama either does not know or chooses to ignore the fact that the sin which Jesus the Christ most often and vociferously condemned was that of hypocrisy makes me believe that his "faith" is as thick as the coating on an M&M candy.

I'm quite positive that young Barack would have found a lengthy stay in state prison to be a salutary experience which would have immeasurably furthered his political career.

That is what Barack the candidate wishes upon others who are in the same place as he was as a young person.

I have a challenge for Obamaphiles, explain how Barack's life would have been changed for the better had he been arrested and imprisoned for his admitted cocaine use and possession, something which Obama now advocates.

Perhaps you can give me an example of someone in politics who is not dishonest.

Or is your definition of an honest politician one who stays bought?

I've already said here that my brother in law is a physician. He has all kinds of outrageous beliefs that I have very little problem shooting down when we end up in debate..

As someone who is an oenophile, he has very little room to talk about drug use and yet he constantly tells me how evil drugs are and how marijuana makes one lazy and stupid.

My point being that an individual's status as an MD does not preclude them having some very whacky and hypocritical ideas.

Not all drug offenders are addicts, in fact the majority are not.

Not everyone who tokes a joint or does a little blow needs treatment, just as not everyone who drinks a beer or has a scotch and water needs treatment.

Speak to the hypocrisy Obamaphiles, speak to the hypocrisy.

The entire drug war has now become the state religion of the USA, supported almost to a man by politicians of both major parties.

I define religion as a belief in something despite a lack of evidence for the existence of that thing.

Not only is there no evidence for the efficacy of the drug war, there is indeed a veritable Everest of evidence showing the undesirable consequences of such a war.

Not the least of this evidence being that the eighteenth and twentieth amendments are only thirteen years apart.

That is an astoundingly short time for public opinion to change in such a dramatic fashion as to enable the passage of a Constitutional Amendment completely reversing a previous one. In fact it has never happened before or since.

There must have been some powerful reasons for the public to make such a u turn in their opinion so quickly.

I still get frustrated when people who can and should know better nevertheless say things theyu don't believe because they think it will "play in Peoria"

Which was my point about the Democratic candidates possibly waffling on evolution.

I think the Sage of Baltimore had something to say about that.