Great insight! I think the nomination process is good for other reasons as well. By the time this contest is over, the nation will finally have had enough of the Clintons. Good riddance.

We also will have a clear choice of opposing nominees. McCain doesn't have much to offer - more of the Bush policies that got us where we are, an ill temper that could get us into a World War, a boatload of post-traumatic stress, and an unstable grasp of ethical principles.

It likely will also be the beginning of the end of the proliferation of hate media. It may have already begun, but the vitriol between now and the convention will likely reach such a crescendo that there will be casualties. It's all an act, but actors still have bodies, and the levels of emotion and bombast reached by such performers as Limbaugh and O'Reilly will probably escalate to lethal dimensions. Good riddance.

I'm not exactly an Obama devotee, but I think he will be the catalyst the country needs for fundamental change. We need to change our entire way of being on this planet, and he will be a follower as well as the leader. But he has the mojo, the force, and can be the inspiration for making those changes.

Thanks for the good counterpoint. It is much needed, and will hopefully be a catalyst for a different dialogue.

This is a good lesson in two regards. One is that as a people we have reached a state of near-total corruption. The Patriot Act may be an evil piece of legislation, but it wouldn't have passed in an honorable Congress. The Justice Department and its policing arm, the FBI, wouldn't be mounting such phony prosecutions if they were honorable men. The judge and jurors wouldn't go along with such a sham trial if they weren't already compromised as human beings.

The other lesson is about "activists" who commit crimes as a method of effecting change. They are grandstanders, always. Ego-centered macho types, they feed on the energies and selflessness of those who do the hard work to save our civilization from ruin. When faced with responsibility for their actions, they cave.

I lived in a house with the leadership of the midwestern branch of Greenpeace in the early 80s. While they were off to protest a nuclear plant in "Canada," a stranger showed up. He made a lot of talk about how he was at "Rocky Flats" (in Colorado, a nuclear weapons plant, site of numerous protests), and was asking a lot of questions about the Greenpeace bunch. He didn't exactly come right out and suggest violence, but he said things to the effect that he was into "direct action." I felt uneasy about him, and didn't let him go past the living room. I was glad when the Greenpeacers came back a couple of hours later. They got rid of him immediately.

Wakeup calls like this come every so often. This one makes two things abundantly clear: our government/political class is completely corrupt, and anyone who advocates violence or destruction should never be trusted, and avoided completely. Prosecuters make their reputations on convictions, then they run for governor. In their mad quests for political power, the lives of the innocent matter not a whit. In the grandstanding "activists" quests for "underground" glory, the lives of others than themselves also matter not a whit.

These times will pass, but until they do, great care is called for in all that we do.

I don't look at this predicament in linear terms, but phenomenally. Swiftboating is a phenomenon that has its roots in World War II, and in some ways earlier. The victory of the "U.S." in the war was also a victory for everything Roosevelt, especially the New Deal.

As far as the wealthy class was concerned, this situation was intolerable. Thus began the long progress of anti-communist hysteria and fear-mongering.

Now we are witness to the intersect of two major trends: the growing crescendo of hate/hysteria in various news media, and the beginning of the death rattle of our infinite growth economic system. It hasn't become clear yet that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible, but global warming as its own growth trend will convince us soon enough.

Rather than hand-wringing about how debased our level of discourse has become, we might want to look at it as a movie, with the egos of desperate men raging against the inevitability of their failure, as we as a species refuse to recognize we are at the end of a certain way of life.

This goes far beyond Clinton versus Obama, or Mellon-Scaife versus humanity. They are just some of the leading actors. Since the continuance of human life is at stake, the only real question is this: Do we, as a species, have the capability of creating a new way of being on this planet?

The likelihood is no, but the first departures will be the crescendoists of hate. They are fundamentally weak human beings, and as they approach perfect hatefulness, implosion beckons.

"On the Beach" is playing on Wisconsin Public Television tonight. It is a good metaphor for what we are going through. You can probably rent it at your local public library. The original version, with Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astair, and Anthony Perkins, is the one to see, a classic of classics.