Our national interest is to control the huge oil and natural gas reserves of Russia, yet we haven't invaded Russia. I would be very interested to have sex with my neighbor's stunningly gorgeous wife, yet I never considered forcing myself on her. The fact we have a national or individual interest in something doesn't make the use of military or any other type of force legitimate. By declaring we have a right to intervene militarily whenever we feel it's advantageous to our national interest, we made ourself an empire, regardless of what the so called experts say. Our imperial presence in Saudi Arabia, where we used to have troops who defended the feudal and corrupt royal family in order to protect our oil supplies resulted in 9/11. If we don't get off this imperial trip we've been on for far too long, we will end up making most of the world into our enemies, a process that has already begun, and 9/11 like reprisals against us for our imperial arrogance may become routine.

Even if most of the American public hasn't noticed or admitted that we are an imperial power, the erst of the world has reached that conclusion, and rightly so. Any student of history knows that anti-imperial forces fight with great ferocity and determination. Ask the British, French, Dutch or any other imperial/colonial power. The US as an empire which Bush/Cheney took much further that any other administration has condemned our nation to suffer frightfully bloody battles for their empire. What we see in Iraq is only the beginning, and the FPC is an accomplice to forcing our nation into this horrible present and future.

In this day and age, the lines between imperial-colonial and hegemon are totally blurred-just semantics. A powerful superpower like the US has no need to follow the 17th and 18th century model of occupation by force and colonial governors ruling the occupied country with an iron fist, looting the land for the king or queen or commercial interests like the East India Company. The US had t ruled most of central America without needing a military occupation. The US used puppet, corrupt juntas and US trained and financed death squads to do the dirty job for them. In many ways this is the model they have in mind for Iraq, eventually.

"If you want alternative power, make easier access to regulatory approvals"

In other words, there is more than one way to describe Enron..

What Vick has done is horrifying almost beyond words. It's a shame that he will spend probably no more than 1 year in jail and when released still be a multi-millioner young man. Having said that, there's an underlying mountain of of hypocrisy and denial involved around the subject of American football. AF is a tremendusly violent sort in which athletes are rtained to hit and tackle with a ferocity that would kill a normal sized person. many players retire with horrific injuries or become crippled a few years after retirement due to the exremely brutal natuer of the sport. true, unlike dogs, AF players aren't forced to become gladiators, although you could get an argument about this from many of them, because they consider playing in the NFL to be the only viable method of escaping the depravity of the black ghetto or rural poverty. I guess I stil wonder why dog fighting, an extremely vicious, cruel and barbaric activity all around is consideed a big no-no, while an extremely brutal and violent gladiator type of acivity like Ameica football is so revered.

Compared to Bush, Cheney, Rove and their associates, Vick and his cronies seem like choir boys. It just goes to show you how hopelessly fucked up our society is.

The human body was not designed by evolution to whitstand the kind of pummeling even the strongest football players receive while playing it. In that sense, allowing American style football to be played at all makes as much sense a allowing dog fights, even if the players participate willingly. It's nothing but a cruel gladiator sport, like boxing, and as far as the fans go, they glorify a ritual of extreme violence by watching and adoring the players. I've been asked often when traveling abroad why this extremely brutal sport was allowed in the US and why it's so popular. My answer has been that I believe violence was glorified in our country. You can't a show a nipple on a TV show, but extreme violence on TV shows and football was routine and a matter of fact. Other societies and cultures have blood sports as well, like cockfights, bullfights and of course dogfights, so it's not unique to our society. What is unique in our sociey is that the most popular sport is also the most violent team sport. People who faint atb the sight of one person slapping another in a dispute, go nuts with excitement at bone shattering tackles on the football field-that I can't explain.

Beyond the terrible cruelty to the animals which is so horrifying that one year in jail isn't nearly enough-20 would be more like it, there's the Vick apologists repulsive parade. Growing up poor and black does not justify being a gangsta any more than growing up white and poor in the South justifies being a racist and KKK member. Residents of the worst inner city projects know that murdering a person or animal is a big no-no. Many black professional athletes grew up in the worst neighborhoods imaginable, yet didn't turn out gangstas. Vick has chosen that image, that life style and the creeps he hung out with. It's all about choices we make, and apologist for the gangsta life style cannot explain and justify his choices.