Thank you, Glenn Greenwald, for your work, your blog and for bringing Norman Finkelstein to the attention of a broader audience. Please note, however:

1. Both -- not one -- of Norman Finkelstein's parents were Holocaust survivors;

2. Prof. Dershowitz, a proven plagiarist, deserves no "credit"; he is largely responsible for Prof. Finkelstein's being denied tenure (and much more). To whatever extent Prof. Dershowitz criticized the actions of Israel's government in detaining, interrogating and banning Prof. Finkelstein, it was the hypocritic act of a hypocrite who gave only the charity of one who had already succeeded in succeeded in destroying his target.

3. See NORMANFINKELSTEIN.COM, Prof. Finkelstein's books and Prof. Finkelstein's debates with Prof. Dershowitz from Amy Goodman's DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG. And if you like those debates, do go on to see Prof. Dershowitz debate Prof. Noam Chomsky; and

4. In connection with the foregoing, you will find that when Prof. Finkelstein first discovered the fraud of "Joan Peters's" (who may or may not be a real person) FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL, and consulted Prof. Chomsky, Chomsky (who had already acquired tenure before becoming a "public intellectual") cautioned Finkelstein that even though he had discovered the truth, he would be "destroyed."

The subject line is the title of and is borrowed from the second book in Chalmers Johnson's trilogy.

Where to begin? The problems and pathology of the U.S. are so deep and widespread that it is difficult to know where to start or how to set forth a summary of the matter.

A frequent reference of Gore Vidal might be a start, namely, what Benjamin Franklin said after the Constitutional Convention (in paraphrase): [We have given you] "a Republic, IF you can keep it." According to Vidal, Franklin predicted (accurately, as it turned out) that the American republic was doomed to fail due to "the corruption of the people."

The Constitution mentions the remedy of impeachment approximately six times. There is nothing shocking or remarkable about the impeachment of a President AND (in this case) a Vice President in any circumstance where there is evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors.

And yet, Nancy Pelosi declared that impeachment would be "off the table" if the Democratic wing of the war party became the majority party in the 2006 election. This was craven political expediency at its worst, of course. There is compelling evidence to suggest that she and her cohorts will have done this to what will be their everlasting regret. ]

There is little doubt that Bush and Cheney are about to bomb Iran on yet another false pretext. The immediate consequences of this almost inevitable catastrophe may even involve the suspension of the presidential election.

As Chalmers Johnson said recently, the extent of the degeneration of the U.S. empire is so advanced that it is beyond correction by the "swinging of the pendulum."

Bad people in power have done bad things (foremost, perhaps, being the destruction of the public education system, which impaired the ability of "the people" to think critically). Nonetheless, "the people" will be compelled to suffer -- even more than they now are -- the consequences of their abdication of the duties that accompany their rights of citizenship.

Could it be that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" will "perish from the earth"?

I have always "believed" (actual evidence to support such belief being impossible to obtain), that the anthrax attacks were a government operation, intended to take advantage of post-9/11 fears (and I am NOT a "9/11 Truth" subscriber). According to footnote 18 to the Bruce Ivins story in Wikipedia "no autopsy" is "necessary." This all smells very bad, to say the least.