I don't know what the future holds for America anymore. This amnesty bill, I'm not so sure of. I think we should just train & educate all illegals within our borders & place them in charge of their homelands' economies. They'd turn their countries around & bring them up to par with us economically speaking. Then economic unity would follow & then ultimately political unity applying our Constitution & Bill of Rights to their political way of thinking.

Anyway I fear a Sino-Russian alliance because it will obliterate this nation a thousandfold. Our leaders don't give a rat's @$$ about us. They screwed up our future, our hopes, & our dreams for us. China & Russia already have a military alliance planned & with the current conditions of our leadership, who the hell can blame them? UN, NATO, EU, China, & Israel are only 5 of the factors that may very well be the death of us as a nation.

SORRY TO BE SUCH A PAIN IN THE @$$ ABOUT ALL OF THIS but I look at the situation of the world & I think it's about to explode or at least put us back in the late nineteenth century with EMPs & half a dozen laptops. Well, I'll try to feel better about all of this somehow. I'm truly amazed at your optimism. You don't let anything get you down, well you know what I mean. I know we've had this conversation before but I've got such a thick head in some ways.

Thanx for putting up with my crap for one e-mail. Take care.

The thing you need to appreciate is that government is the SMALLEST PART of the United States. That's not where new things start, that's not where the dynamism of the Nation originates or functions best. Government is always YEARS BEHIND the people. It catches up only when the people move ahead and Government sees that it is out of step. Sometimes the people have to remind Government thru massive demonstrations that it is out of step. Sometimes letter-writing (and now emailing) campaigns, vicious attacks in media and now the blogosphere suffice. The point is that the bulk of the work of society is done not by Government but by "the private sector", by NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) of many types, from charities to medical-research foundations to private colleges (which do the bulk of the work in educating students from abroad who later return to transform their own societies), and by private persons doing 'their own thing'. ABC and NBC in their evening newscasts each Friday hilite some of these private persons' activities. ABC calls its feature "Person of the Week"; NBC, "Making a Difference".
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As I have said before, you need to take a more active stance, to break yourself out of your funk. Write some emails to members of both houses of Congress; write to the President about the basic civilizing mission of the United States. Tell Bush and your Senators and Representative how alarmed you are that the U.S. seems not to appreciate how dangerous things are getting vis-a-vis, for instance, Russian-Chinese cooperation, EU rivalry, etc., and how they may lose superpower status for the United States thru their actions and inaction in the face of challenges the gravity of which they seem not to recognize. If they need a wake-up call, call them! Start, perhaps, with some small step in the right direction, that in itself would be worth taking, like urging Congress to make Puerto Rico a State (incorporating the U.S. Virgin Islands as well). That little step would strengthen progressive forces in Congress by two Senators and 6 Representatives and would simultaneously eliminate one part of the colonial stain on our national honor. We'd still have some insular colonies in the Pacific whose status needs to be resolved, but the bulk of the population now suffering colonialism under our flag would be freed.
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Do not count on Government to change just because you tell them they need to change. Write to letters columns of major and minor publications. Leave comments on the message boards of, e.g., CNN and print publications on the Internet, and at the end of blog entries you find intriguing, because of what they either say or don't say. For instance, if someone writes about the U.S. trade deficit with China in strictly economic terms, leave a comment to wake their readers to the fact that Communist China is using U.S. dollars gained in unfair trade to finance the greatest military buildup in its history: that American corporations are shipping boatloads of money to the People's Liberation Army to be used against US. If someone speaks of authoritarian developments in Russia, leave a comment saying that Americans must encourage private initiatives in Russian society to create and strengthen democratic institutions that will force Putin to recognize that he is not the people's stern father, Russians don't have to be treated like stupid children, and he should work with the people, and for them, not treat them as serfs or fools who cannot be trusted to handle their own affairs. If your local colleges don't have large and aggressive foreign-student programs, write to their presidents and boards of trustees, and to local newspapers, urging them to get involved in imbuing American civilization in the leaders of tomorrow from all around the planet.
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If you just sit by and watch as things go from bad to worse, of course you will become depressed and desperate. There is, also of course, no guarantee that what we want to accomplish will ever be done, but there is a better likelihood that at least part of our program will be adopted if we work for it than if we just sit on our hands and leave the field to others. Remember that even the loser in a race experiences a physical exhilaration that makes him feel better for having run. And if the wrong things are done despite our best efforts, we can at least say "I tried."
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At end, we who favor geographic enlargement of the United States really do have the answer for almost all the problems we face, internally as well as externally. We can strengthen the will of the States to resist Federal encroachment on State areas of jurisdiction by bringing in formerly independent areas that will be militantly jealous of their own prerogatives; and we can enact things that the present close, domestic balance between progressives and retrogressives does not permit, such as a brilliant and efficient universal-healthcare program -- thru new votes from new States. We can end starvation and preventable disease in the Third World; progressively limit war; educate everyone, everywhere, and thus erode religious fanaticism by balancing it against informed rationalism.
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We can indeed become the Light unto the World and City on a Hill that the Founders envisioned, if we just remind people that that's what we're all about. We're not just one country of 193 ripping the map to shreds. We have no right to operate on a business-as-usual basis, nor cynically in the world, catering to the narrowest interest of the smallest elite of transnational corporations and tribalists. Americans want to believe they are special, and we once were. But the little people who run the Government now don't have our vision. They use the rhetoric of mission to manipulate us into wars not for democracy but for Zionism, not for the ordinary Arab on the street but against him. They pretend to be an honest broker in an Arab-Israeli peace process, then give billions to Israel but cut off the Palestinian Authority without a dime because the DEMOCRACY they insisted is the cure for everything puts into power people they don't like. Democracy, you see, is valid only if every election turns out "right". And you don't work with democratically elected governments to help their PEOPLE if their elected leaders don't agree with every single stance of the Administration of the moment in Washington. Our brave leaders pretend indignation about Darfur but do nothing as thousands die before our eyes. Are we supposed to sit still and take it? Or are we supposed to demand action?
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At end, American democracy is PARTICIPATORY democracy, in which each individual who cares DOES something. It might be no more than writing a couple of letters or emails to Congress and the President. But there is a multiplier effect, because people in power know that for everyone who writes, there are at least a hundred more who feel the same but haven't yet been moved to exert themselves to tell them. That's why tightly organized minorities, like Zionists, are able to lopsidedly impact public policy: because they organize letter-writing campaigns that fool Government into thinking they are the majority opinion. And their outspokenness, in media too, gives the silent and passive actual majority the impression that maybe they really are. A 2% Jewish minority have the great preponderance of the population believing that Judaism is one of the "three great religions" of the United States! 2% is one of the three great religions of the United States? I don't think so. But Americans in general do. Why? Because Jews are everywhere in media and government, constantly making their presence known and pushing their program, like carte-blanche, uncritical support of everything Israel does. Does the typical Midwesterner or Southerner even know what a Jewish name is? When they see a "Levin" or "Lieberman", "Bloomberg" or "Krauthammer" talking Radical Zionism and the need of the American people to identify as Israelis and defend Israel to the death, do Americans realize that these are Jews telling Christians they need to be Jews? Do Americans understand that they are being propagandized and used by people who have not our best interests at heart but the best interests of Jews in Palestine? I'm afraid they do not. They believe these are just "fellow Americans" telling them what is true-blue Americanism, not agents of a foreign power using American power to do terrible things in the world that George Washington would be appalled at. A country that is 96% Christian has been persuaded that Christianity IS Judaism, Israel IS the United States, and no price is too high to pay for the safety and security of Israel. If we have to suffer 3,000 dead and vast devastation in the largest city of the Nation, that's a small price to pay. If we have to invade a country 7,000 miles away that never attacked us, kill hundreds of thousands of Arabs, and go into debt to the tune of $500 billion and counting, that is a small price to pay. If we have to have a dirty bomb go off in the heart of every major American city, even THAT is an ACCEPTABLE price. If, indeed, we have to see full-scale nuclear war over Israel, THAT is an absolutely reasonable price to pay. And hey! That would be Armageddon, and that would mean that Jesus -- who was, we are told endlessly, a Jew (not, crucially, a Christian born Jewish but who converted not himself but his religion) -- is coming back! And that means that after the Apocalypse we will have a thousand years of peace -- for such as survive the holocaust, that is.
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There is so much madness abroad in the Nation today because the anti-Zionists, Americans who believe that Arabs are just as important as Jews and that we must not fite Israel's battles for it, [are silent, so the Radical Zionists] have the field of public opinion all to themselves, and anyone who says that Zionism was a horrendous mistake that should now be corrected, not compounded, is denounced as an "anti-Semite". Never mind that the great preponderance of Semites (speakers of a Semitic language) are ARABS. Never mind that it is not necessary to be anti-Jewish to be anti-Zionist, because Zionism is a political movement, not a religion. Never mind that to destroy Israel is not necessarily to kill a single Jew but only to dissolve one form of government and replace it with a larger one, encompassing all of Palestine in a democratic, multiethnic society in which tolerance is the highest value. "Anti-Semitic" is supposed to shut us up so that only Zionist voices can be heard. Anything but Radical Zionism -- Israel uber alles -- is to be shouted down, and we are to go on to even worse crimes in the region, such as a new war, against Iran -- because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on either side of Iran, are going so well!
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We are never to stop and say, "You know, this is crazy. Let's stop for a minute and rethink everything from first principles, to see where we went wrong and how we can go right in the future."
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None of this will happen if you and people like you just sit at home and get depressed. The new "Americans", facing the greatest power on Earth of the time, the British Empire, didn't say to themselves, "It's helpless. There's no point in fiting because we'll just lose." Iraq's Sunnis didn't say, on being invaded by the greatest power on Earth of our time, "It's helpless. There's no point in fiting because we'll just lose." The Americans fought; they found allies; they won. The Sunnis of Iraq fought, and fite today. They found allies -- unfortunately, they have allied themselves with people who do not have the Iraqi people's best interests at heart -- and they may well win the withdrawal of U.S. forces from their country.
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And the best thing is that these are not losses, but gains. Britain eventually got over its fury at Americans, and at France. Britain and the U.S. are now best buds, and Britain is part of a European Union with France. The U.S. went into Iraq for "regime change". The regime is changed. We won. Let's go home and let Iraqis sort things out in their own country. Let's encourage national reconciliation. It can happen. Look at South Africa. Ask the Arab League to offer help to Iraqis in rebuilding their country, and replace an army of 'infidels' with an army of 'the faithful'. And maybe in a year or two, a fully reconciled Iraqi nation and the U.S. will be best buds too.
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As with any emotional depression, the only antidote is positive activity. Outspoken advocacy of a foreign policy that is generous, positive, enlightened, is certain to make you feel better. You're one of the good guys. Speak generous words, promote generous deeds, and you'll feel better about yourself, whether the Nation follows your recommendations or not.

THANKYOUVERYMUCH!!! That was something I needed to hear & I believe that there are things I can do fail as I might. I will do them starting today.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:57 PM