GUEST - Well, that's a pretty broad question... I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I'm going to cook up some brown rice and stir fry. I really have no idea what you should do, but maybe washing behind the ears would help... :-)

Venthony - Your description of an aroused democracy is entirely appropriate to the events of December '41, but not to most other historical cases of the USA at war. Most of them involved opportunism at the expense of someone militarily weaker...like Spain, Mexico, Canada, hundreds of Indian tribes, and so on. Yes, the citizenry was always all het up about defending "democracy", but the citizenry is easily fooled. What the hell, they spend their money daily on crap like cheesies and beanie babies, don't they? They are accustomed to being fooled.

The present "war on terrorism" is as phony and unrealistic as the "war on drugs". Terrorists are like little tiny fish that pass through a net. You cannot eliminate them by invading and massacring small countries (killing a bigger fish that is caught in the net). You can create lots more future terrorists by doing so, however. And...since the USA itself has been practicing and funding terrorism routinely for a couple of centuries all over the world...how can the USA be against terrorism???? The World Court brought down a ruling against the USA for practicing and funding terrorism against Nicaragua in the '80's, and the USA ignored it. Have you ever heard that reported on your local news programs? I bet you haven't. You live in a controlled media fishbowl with its own version of reality, and it's not even telling you half the story. No one is threatening your democracy except the people who run it...from the top. They lie to you, steal from you, and use you to keep the economy running. Their behaviour suggests to me that they hold you (the voters) in contempt, although they certainly find your patriotism convenient for their larger purposes.

- LH