It is very tough for modern writers to excavate the motives of people who lived in a different culture. Henry VIII almost certainly did fear for his soul after marrying his brother's (older) widow in a shotgun political arrangement between his scary, dominating dad and the powerful King of Spain. His lack of an heir may very well have spooked him into believing that God was displeased with him. And his understanding that if he died without an heir England would go right back to the civil war that had, from 1470-1485 nearly ruined the country, was spot-on. Henry could have gotten all the "crumpet' he needed, so his dick was only a small part of the issue. What he needed was a new wife and a legitimate heir. Why the writers of this story can't make it come to life is, sadly, because it is easier for most people today to understand the foibles and motivations of a thug like Tony Soprano than it is to imagine the real fears and concerns of a deeply flawed 16th century monarch.

Remember when the Republicans were running around pushing their "Balanced Budget Ammendement" horsepucky? They all stressed that the nation was like a family, that it had to live within its means? What happened to that rhetoric? And why doesn't anyone ask this deluded old fool how he will make up the lost revenue and run his assinine war if he cuts all these taxes? Shouldn't that be question #1--where's the money gonna come from? It is any time you suggest helping out the sick or the poor.

All those Hilary and Obama partisans who like denouning the other side, take note: this is what we will get if you keep this shit up.

How is it that capitalist economists now believe that you can spend your way out of poverty? I mean, this country is in debt up to its eyeballs. We are, if the loans were all called in, insolvent. The first thing any serious person would think would be that we have to produce our way out of this mess, not consume our way out. That means make stuff and export it. You know, work hard, make more, spend less. Handing people money now will only encourage them to buy more Chinese crap and Japanese cars and electronic equipment. Does money flowing out of the country really signify a rise in our GNP?

Call it "Little Engine that Could" economics, or "Do you want to save Tinkerbell" economics. If we all wish real hard, spend more money, and pretend we are not over-leveraged, then somehow, someone or some thing will bail us out and it will be the 1950s again. Madness.

The whole neocon enterprise is a weird amalgam of personal bile, the need to worship power, and the need (by its Jewish contingent) to both completely assimilate by proving their absolute loyalty to the non-Jewish Powers that Be who run American (the idea that Jews are in control here is an absolute myth) while at the same time aggressivley asserting their Jewishness by being unyielding advocates for Israel. The brutal use of American power to smack down the Arab/Muslim world fits both needs perfectly. America gets to "stand tall' and control the global fuel pump, while Israel gets its unchallenged military mastery further enhanced without the spilling of one drop of Jewish blood. See, everybody wins! Well, not the lower-class grunts who have to fight these wars, or the middle-class taxpayer who makes a flat salary and can't hide their incomes, or the uncounted thousands of human beings over there who suffer and die under the hail or our bombs and shells. But they don't Endow Chairs at the AEI, or the Heritage Foundation, or the Council on Foreign Relations, or run this country, so the neocons could care less about them.

For those who want to pull the anti-semite card, forget it. I don't believe that Israel runs American foreign policy or Jews run America. The WASPs still do. And they support Israel because in their opinion it is in America's interest to have a "bad cop" on the beat over there so America can occaisionally pretent to be the "disinterested broker" i.e., the good cop. The neocons, Jew and Gentile, are useful idiots for the corporate/financial oligarchy, the investor class, that runs this country. Those that see this as a Jewish Conspriacy are putting the cart before the horse.

Read my post. Anti-semitism is stupid and wrong. I don't want to kill any Jews. But look in your heart and answer me--how many innocent Iranians are you willing to murder so that the POSSIBILITY, not the likelihood, not the inevitability, the simple possibility, for that's all that there is, of a nuclear exchange between the Israelis and the Iranians taking place?

Or are Iranians untermenschen? Because that's the way you talk about them.

Our moral bearings about what is justifiable and unjustifiable killing in war were set more than three centuries ago in the aftermath of the 30 Years War bloodbath. Back then, no weapon existed that gave anyone the ability to kill with impunity if the other guy was also an armed combatant. Musket volley fire created a battlefield crapshoot in which the odds of killing and getting killed were roughly balanced. Either you killed a man face-to-face with pike or sword, or you blazed away in ordered ranks and hoped that your number didn't come up.

Today, we have weapons and training that make a mockery of the moral order of war that those earlier impliments bequethed to us. America has crossed the threshold of turning war into de facto murder. Worse, we embraced the opportunities technology gave us to kill without risk to ourselves. It's not just terrorists and insurgents who have thrown out "the rules" and fail to "fight fair." What honor or glory to those who kill without risk? And why would we expect men so armed and trained to fight honorably?