Thank you so much for posting that. I needed it (see The Jerk).

Now that Gordon Brown has both seen and seized the opportunity to reclaim the moral ground for Britain's democracy, I have increased hope for Western civilization -- meaning Europe.

I still have little hope where America's moral compass is concerned. We no longer seem to know how to even read a moral compass, much less use it to travel in a desired direction. We have made monopoly capitalism our politic and fear our religion. Our corporate masters have given up on America, trusting that the consumer classes of developing nations will eventually take the place of the collapsing middle class in this nation. Ultimately they think civilization will be reduced to two classes, a global ruling class (i.e, shareholders) and a global lower class (i.e, consumers).

They hope to make corporate equity the master over democracy. If it is necessary for global monopoly corporatism to ride the coattails of democracy to fame and fortune in order to reach this goal, so much the better.

This administration talks about the danger of sex and the importance of family values and the need for security from enemies. What a joke that is. A deadly joke.

I cannot imagine a more degenerate group of people than those people currently governing this country. Because of that, I understand the desire to force change away from these daily displays of gross criminality and in the direction of justice and fairness through any means possible. Even violence. I understand it, but I do not accept it. I know that violence is not and will never be the answer. The frontal lobes of the brain have far outrun the morality of the limbic system and the aggression and survival instinct of the amygdala. Our technology is too advanced. That is why terrorism has become what it has become. Terrorist nations. Terrorist organizations. Terrorist individuals. All of them have access to technology capable of killing large numbers of people. All that is needed is a little money, a little technology, access to innocent people, cameras and a willing audience.

Words are far more powerful than the sword. It has always been that way. When civilizations are destroyed it is always because their words are first destroyed, their treasure words, their power words, their words of authority, meaning and purpose -- words like honor, justice, integrity and truth. Our American media and politicians have done their best to destroy those words, because those words stand in their way. They deride anyone who uses them as naive and foolish. They call such words quaint and outdated, or even worse, they try to attach opposite meanings to them in the minds of the citizenry. Injustice becomes justice, lies become truth, fear becomes security.

Gordon Brown seems to be trying to resurrect the original meanings of our treasure words and to restore them to their original purpose.

Good for him.