Indeed, Teribus, it is a damning indictment of the America educational system, especially within recent years, and especially of basic education in the grade and high schools, where the fundamentals are supposed to be taught. I graduated from high school in 1949, when education was measurably more thorough than it is now, and although I got the usual idealized picture of American history, I was something of a history buff and read widely on my own. Also, when in high school, an older friend introduced me to the writings of Philip Wylie and other social critics, so I learned early on to bring a measure of skepticism to what I read. More recent reading includes such works as The March of Folly by that late Barbara Tuchman. Highly recommended, as I think much of what she says applies directly to the current American situation, both foreign and domestic.

I could catalog details of the abysmal ignorance of history and current events of a shocking percentage of American high school graduates (and an alarming number of university graduates as well!), but suffice it to say that a huge number of them can't distinguish between the events of World War I and World War II, couldn't give you even an approximate date for the Civil War, and something like 8% of high school graduates couldn't name the current U. S. president (i.e., George W. Bush!). Is it any wonder that some 61% of the American public (nudged a bit by Bush spinmeisters) think that it was Saddam Hussein who attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11?

So much for Thomas Jefferson's "informed electorate." The future of democracy in this country looks pretty dismal.

Now. On the matter of my use of the word REAL—

By "real," I mean what actually is the case, not what the aforementioned spinmeisters are trying to get us to think. As in the real reason the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq—a matter of long-term foreign policy—is explained in considerable detail on the web site of The Project for the New American Century, a Right-wing think-tank. What lends this credibility is that 1) their Statement of Principles (note the signatories listed at the bottom of the page) was written before the Bush administration came to power, and 2) a large number of the members of this think-tank are now in the Bush administration. If one read the material that was posted on this web site prior to the "election" of George W. Bush, and then noted the list of people whom he appointed to his cabinet, one could easily predict exactly what they would do if the came into office. And lo and behold, they did! And it has nothing to do with whether or not Saddam Hussein is a nice man or a monster, or whether or not he has WMDs (or whether or not he had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks because when the Statement of Principles was written, it hadn't happened yet—that was an enabling gift, providing a flawed but, with some fine-tuning, a usable excuse to do what had long been on the drawing boards). The Bush administration had to peddle this multi-layered story to the American public (and to a Congress who should have known better—although some members did) to get them to accept the very un-American act of initiate a war against a small, second-rate country that just happened to have resources the world needed, the Bush administration wanted to control, and was strategically located geopolitically. The real reason (Merriam-Webster)

real
adjective
Etymology: Middle English, real, relating to things (in law), from Middle French, from Medieval Latin & Late Latin; Medieval Latin realis relating to things (in law), from Late Latin, real, from Latin res thing, fact; akin to Sanskrit rayi property
Date: 14th century

2 a : not artificial, fraudulent, illusory, or apparent : GENUINE <real gold>; also : being precisely what the name implies real professional> b (1) : occurring in fact real life> (2) : of or relating to practical or everyday concerns or activities real world> (3) : existing as a physical entity and having properties that deviate from an ideal, law, or standard real gas> -- compare IDEAL 3b c : having objective independent existence real>

I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of a political party. Early on, I leaned toward the conservative side. I have voted Republican. In fact, some decades ago, I was a fan of Ayn Rand—until I saw from my own experience and observations that although she makes some good metaphysical and epistemological points, much of her ethical system takes a mighty leap away from the basis of the more solid parts of her philosophical view, and the political ideas she draws from her ethical system are harsh in the extreme, amounting to little more than Social Darwinism. Let the weak (i.e., the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and others who, for whatever reason, cannot get by without a measure of assistance) die and get out from under the feet of we űbermensche! I gradually evolved into, not a democrat, but something more resembling what might be call a progressive—although, as I say, I belong to no political party.

For at least a century and a half the big battle in this country, often going on below the threshold of the general awareness, has been who is going to control the government, big business, or the people? According to the Constitution, it's supposed to be the people. But in the halls of government, it see-saws back and forth. At the present time, the government of the United States is under the control of big business much more rigidly than it has been since the early 1930s. Now, I'm not just repeating the cliché (although clichés are often true, which is why they are clichés) that the Republicans are the party of big business and the Democrats are the party of the people. A pox on both of these parties! But the Democratic Party, historically as now, is a slight bit less hostile to the people that the Republican Party. Since this is a two party system (no viable third party), I am aware that supporting the Dems is not going to solve all our problems My current support of the Dems is an attempt at damage control. Under the Dems we won't be hurtling toward the abyss quite as fast as would are under the Reps. This gives us a bit more time to try to steer the country in another direction.

The direction? A government that is more concerned with the well-being of its citizens than it is in satisfying the greed of American-based multinational corporations.

The legitimate and honorable purpose of business is to provide goods and/or services to its customers, and to provide work and a living wage for its employees. If a business does this, then all is well. It needs to make a profit to insure that it will stay in business and continue in this honorable purpose. But if its sole purpose is profit, if its raison d'être is for its owners and upper management to enrich themselves at the cost of furnishing goods and/or services of less quality than they are capable of and by treating their employees merely as resources to be exploited and discarded rather than as fellow human beings, then that business is corrupt. It is even more corrupt when it bribes the government to pass laws that give free rein to its corrupt practices. And a government that colludes in this kind of corruption is beneath contempt and deserves to be impeached, or at the very least, removed from office in the next election.

When that collusion between government and corporations (Halliburton, Bechtel, et al) extends to having the government invade other nations, not for any altruistic motives, no matter what noble motives are invented, but to add that country to the list of resources for corporations to exploit, and further, put the government in a geopolitically dominant position from which it can subject more countries to such exploitation, then what you have, my friend, is corruption as deep as has ever been achieved.

You speak as if those who oppose the Bush administration do so because they have some sort of spontaneous, causeless, pathological hatred for Bush and the Republican Party. This is not true. I, for one, hate no one. I do, however, hate that flaw of character in any human being that allows him or her to become a predator, feeding their own avarice at the expense of the welfare of other human beings. I hate the flaw of character that allows a person to order the institutionalized murder of thousands of people so that his or her friends and associates can extend their power and enrich themselves. And I hate the flaw of in the character that allows a person to look on another person less well off than himself with contempt rather than concern. And I hate the flaw in the national character that allows its government to do all of these things without rising up in outrage.

But, save in the abstract, there is no such thing as a "national character." There are many Americans who do see these things and who are outraged. And you see some of the manifestations of this outrage in many of the posts here. And I don't hate, but I do wonder about what I might consider to be the strange quirk of character in a person, particularly someone who considers himself to be a-political, who sees these manifestations of outrage, then takes issue with any comment of a liberal, progressive, or anti-Bush administration nature, seems to regard the writers of the comments with contempt, and spends an obviously inordinate amount of time nit-picking details, restating right-wing arguments that have long since been proven spurious, parsing sentences, and generally chasing mosquitoes while tigers run free.

By the way, I fully realize that I won't make a dent here at all. But this gives me an opportunity to vent a bit, and especially to write up some notes for what may very well become the basis for a few op-ed articles and several letters to "letters-to-the-editor" departments in magazines and newspapers as the 2004 presidential elections come closer and the campaigning heats up.

Thank you for your indulgence, and good night.

Don Firth