News-Record.com

if you'll read the last book of the bible, you'll be comforted to know these are still "the good old days"...

"We deserve a decent attorney general who will tell the truth."
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement- we need an AG who will vigorously enforce immigration laws and stop the influx of undocumented foreigners.
"Our nation needs healing. Wake up, America, before it's too late!"
The inmates are now in charge of the asylum- it's already too late.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-TJ

"Politicians & diapers need to be changed, often for the same reason"

I think we should carry through with throwing out the Republican members of Congress, and when the Dems show they are rubber stamps for the President, throw them out too. As James D. Rockefeller has stated on many occasions, without balanced government, there will be NO oversight. The past GOP congress proved that without a doubt.

LC, I couldn't agree more- how about a Democrat House of Reps, a Republican Senate, and a Green Pres- no spending, no bills, the government would stagnate and gridlock, and Big Business would bring this country back to its glory- let free enterprise reign.

Bill:

I'd sure like to hear some support for your contention that "Big Business would bring this country back ... " I say Bull Feathers: Big Business is nothing like free enterprise.

I'll accept it for 1946 - when the rest of the world was gutted, when outsourcing was impossible, when everything was done here, when men were men and American businesses were run by those men - not today's self-important cynical financial rapists.

These days it's different. Because it is so powerful - I submit the following:

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We live in such a dialectically pre-occupied country right now. Everything is red state or blue state - good bad young old - our media culture sort of exaggerates fights and disagreements.

In 1940, America was filled with diversified opinions but we also had a kind of community and when Pearl Harbor was attacked we knew - in part because we had sacrificed during the depression - we knew what shared sacrifice was about. We segued into the Second World War and there was a triumphant radical impressive transformation from an America limping out of a depression into this world wide power. We had an army smaller than that of Romania in 1940 and by 1945 more that 50% of all the manufacturing in the world took place in the United States and we were the greatest power on earth.

That transformation didn't happen because there were a lot of mergers and acquisitions. In the beginning as we were learning how to fight, the only thing we had going for us was an American work force able to out-produce our enemies while we got up to speed as a military power.

Think about what happened after 9-11: we were asked to go shopping.

We made 3-1/2 million civilian cars in 1941 and less than 200 over the next 4 years. Everything went to the war. People were asked to curb their driving, their purchase of gasoline, the tires. People saved bacon-fat, the sugar, they couldn't have cakes.

In shared sacrifice - the word isn't sacrifice it's shared - we experienced this together and it made us paradoxically richer.

Today we sacrifice nothing and we feel a poverty despite the accumulated riches that at least some of us have. There is a huge valuable lesson in the Second World War, quite apart from the story of battles and the brave and courageous actions of young men - teenagers really - that helped save the world.

http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/9853 - from Ken Burns starting at about 4 minutes in.

Dadgummit.. now you've gone and made me sad. It was inappropriate of me to make light of a serious subject. What's it called when you don't really believe what you're saying? Devil's advocate?
Your essay on the state of shared sacrifice is both instructive and insightful. I applaud your missive.

Sorry Bill, didn't know you were being sarcastic. There are many who actually believe that Big Business baloney.

As being President was for GWB a calling from God .. that is to say after a bunch of wealth benefactors visited his ranch and redirected his thoughts - offering to back him financially .. I have a calling to support sound business practices - that's good for America - and rail at business' with globalization rape and plunder styling.

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PS - that was of all people, Ken Burns (the documentary guy). Some will claim he's a Hollywood Elite - maybe true, or he was fired and therefore has an agenda - clearly not true. Regardless he's right-on imho.