You poor man. ;-) You seem to be utterly incapable of reading between my lines.

I agree, though, that Spaw's remark was very astute. Never underestimate the reactionary nature of the average American when confronted with someone like Joan Baez or Jane Fonda or Angela Davis.

Anyone as truthful as Joan Baez is bound to alienate middle America the moment she dares to speak, and it has always been so, because middle America is utterly lost in jingoistic feelgood mythology that's as far out of date now as John Wayne pretending to be Davy Crockett. They haven't got a clue. They live in a dream world that is manufactured on TV.

So if you tell them the truth...if you lay some pearls of truth before them...be assured, they will turn and rend you.

It was like that in Germany too, after 1933. It's very dangerous to speak the truth openly in a social mainstream that has collectively bought into a great and terrible lie...that their are "the best", that they are the world "leader", that their way is "the only way", that they and they alone can police and "save the world", that God is on their side.

That's the extent of it. Grand hubris combined with grand paranoia combined with idolization of military power. It's capable of anything...even launching a "pre-emptive" war on a small, basically helpless country...even using nuclear weapons in another pre-emptive war on some other small country farther down the line?...yes, probably even that. Excuses will be found, and the sheep that fall in line behind the wolves will swallow the excuses.