This isn't meant as a personal slam against you, as I don't know your circumstances, and I also realize there are many people carrying credit card debt for perfectly understandable reasons: a catastrophic medical problem, urgently needed home repairs, etc.

Yet your posting is confirmation for me that far too many Americans have adopted debt as a lifestyle of sorts, and seem to believe that, not only do they have the right to live above their means, they have the right to do it at low rates of interest. That's partly why the country is in the mess it's in. Our parents and grandparents managed to get by without granite countertops, zero-degree refrigerators, and a new car every two years, but over the past 20 years I've watched as homes and cars have become supersized and my fellow Americans have become like spoiled children. "I want it - and I want it now!"

Unfortunately we live in a corporate oligarchy that seeks to squeeze middle income and poor people for every dime it can get and transfer that wealth upwards. The only rational response to that is to defy them. Shop minimally. Pay cash for as much as you can, and be very conservative about when and how you take out debt. Buy locally and directly from a producer whenever possible. Save and invest.

People trying to sell us stuff in the mass media are not our friends. The moment you "have" to have something, the battle is lost. It's all about distinguishing wants from needs. That word "no" is pretty powerful. We should all learn to practice it a bit more often.

If you can't grasp the difference between granite countertops and indoor plumbing, then you've made my point better than I ever could about Americans' not being able to distinguish between wants and needs.

As to the idea of a party's leadership ignoring its voters, I'd say that's exactly what happened in the case of Democrats and the FISA amendments last summer. It fits in perfectly with the phenomenon Glenn has long described - how the establishment views Democrats as being stronger when they're ignoring their base, a logic which isn't applied nearly as frequently to Republicans.

This post is the best articulation I've ever seen of the perils of the long-term conflation of one's own country's interests with those of another.

I for one would be more than willing to contribute to it.

I'd like to buy a big box of three dozen Krispy Kreme donuts (one for each year since Roe v. Wade) and have them delivered to Judie Brown at the American Life League on Jan. 20. Who's in?

All the things Lind writes about in this article would be eminently possible if the U.S. were willing to give up its empire. But we're living in a country whose "defense" budget is larger than that of every other country on earth COMBINED. Moreover, we as a culture continue to indulge the fantasy that our mission is to remake the world so that every other nation is a little America.

Until we can figure out how to break the military-industrial complex, I'm wary of new taxes and spending that will bloat the already alarming level of U.S. indebtedness. Americans need to make a choice: either we give up our imperial ambitions and invest in infrastructure, health and welfare, or we continue down the path we've been on since WWII, which flatters our already overinflated national ego (we're number one!) but will ultimately lead to economic and social ruin.

Last night on "60 Minutes" there was a segment on the increasing unlikelihood of a two-state solution. Link at signature.

Easily the most disturbing aspect of the piece was an interview with an Israeli woman who is involved with groups that build Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Their goal is that, given a sufficient number of Jewish settlers, the land will never be able to be ceded as part of a new Palestinian state. They are largely succeeding.

As I watched that interview and the sick feeling at the pit of my stomach grew, I realized I was watching the face of the American taxpayer - me - in the Middle East. The fact is that these groups would not be able to do this if their government didn't have vast and unqualified support from the U.S.

Is that like when the Republican Party wants the government to interfere in the private lives of gays and lesbians to prevent them from having legal contracts equal to those of straights?

Just checking...

Since when is Korea in South Asia? Has the reviewer confused Korea with Vietnam?

Calling West Virginia "Southern" in a comparison to Faulkner's world is a bit of a stretch. The Appalachians have a culture all their own, which is distinct from lowland Southern culture and especially from the kind of decaying landed gentry that inhabited Faulkner's Mississippi. The Southern aristocracy as we know it (plantations, slaves, etc.) barely existed in places like West Virginia, which is why it seceded from Virginia during the Civil War. Mountain people from Pennsylvania would likely have more in common with their counterparts in Georgia than they would with Philadelphians.

Unfortunately the terms "southern" and "gothic" have nearly become inseparable in the wake of Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. Speaking of fiction set in the actual South, though, isn't it refreshing when someone writes a more naturalistic work? Rather than just slouching towards Yoknapatawpha?