1 Boring Old Man

• The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
• Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

Right now, we’re watching this phenomena play out in our two leaders, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Both men are locked into monotonous patterns of behavior that seem impervious to any input from the outside. Neither of them seems capable of learning from their mistakes. Neither man seems capable of coming up with any new solutions in response to new information. But worse than that, they both appear to be enslaved by their personalities. It’s apparent to even the most casual observer that what we’re doing in Iraq isn’t working. Even their most ardent supporters see that. But they don’t budge. They’re throwing away money and human lives at an alarming rate, but continue to rale about Democrats being big spenders. Worse, they both are unwilling to listen to anyone else, so they reflexly resist Congress, advisors [like the Iraq Study Group], popular opinion. They both have a quality that is characteristic of what is called Narcissism – they believe their own thoughts are correct – absolutely. When they are questioned, they both immediately go into a defensive mode and start looking for ways to counter their critics, rather than listening to what the critics are saying. It’s automatic. And they both sneer on the way…

But, there are some differences between the two men – at least that’s how it appears to me. Dick Cheney seems to have no moral compass – no bedrock attachment to the truth. In the Valerie Plame Affair, he immediately responded with political skullduggery. In the buildup to the war, he immediately jumped on the slimmest hint of intelligence about Hussein and dogged the C.I.A. until he had his reasons to justify invading Iraq. His [now] Chief of Staff, David Addington, seems to work full time making up rationalizations for him to do whatever he wants to do. In the recent series in the Washington Post, there were example after example of hasty rationalizations that he jumped on, even though they turned out to be disasters – like the massive Salmon Kill in the Northwest. When there’s something he wants to accomplish, he begins to look for a way to do it, a loophole or rationalization, never looking at the fact that the things in his way are there for a very good reason. His contempt for oversight has become legend.

Not that George W. Bush is any moral giant. But he doesn’t seem to me to be so dark a figure as Dick Cheney. He strikes me more like a spoiled brat who wants his way and surrounds himself with people who help him get it. Whatever the case, I don’t trust either one of them to act responsibly to new challenges. They are both enslaved by their personalities. The best predictor of their future behavior is their past behavior. Their insanity is doing the same things over and over, claiming that there will be different results.

I doubt that they’ll do anything to change the course of events in Iraq. I expect they’ll continue to "stay the course" to the end unless Congress finds some method to make that completely impossible. I doubt that they’ll do anything about the fact that we currently have no effective Federal Justice System in our country right now. They’ll keep nickle and diming Congress to the bitter end and leave Alberto Gonzales exactly where he is. I’m skeptical that they’ll do anything about their decimation of our military forces and our abuse of our own troops. They are going to continue to inflict their disordered personality structures on the American people until they can no longer exert any influence – and they’re good at it. And they’ll continue to make "the sneer" the face of America.

Harriet Miers’s Contempt of Congress: Are Conservatives About To Neuter Congress, While Claiming Full Legal Justification for this Separation-of-Powers Violation?

… if Miers is found in contempt, the House itself can take action against her at the bar of the House. (The Senate can similarly hold such proceedings.) Congress has the power to prosecute contumacious witnesses to require them to comply, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed this power. For example, in 1987, in Young v. U.S., Justice Antonin Scalia recognized "the narrow principle of necessity" or "self-defense" of the Congress in protecting its institutional prerogatives. Scalia said "the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches must each possess those powers necessary to protect the functioning of its own processes, although those implicit powers may take a form that appears to be nonlegislative, nonexecutive, or nonjudicial, respectively."

When all is said and done the only way Congress can protect its prerogatives is to undertake its own contempt proceedings. The parliamentary precedents of the House provide such procedures, by which Congress can effectively protect itself. There is no shortage of past instances where the Congress has held such trials. Readers may want to consult, for example, Hinds’ Precedents and Canon’s Precedents. Unfortunately, however, this machinery has become a bit rusty, for these procedures have not been used since 1934.

Congress Must Avail Itself of Traditional Procedures to Compel Testimony and/or Punish Contempt

Given the clear attitude of conservative presidents, who are doing all within their power to make Congress irrelevant, Congress should turn to these underemployed precedents and put them back to work. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees should take the lead in reviving these procedures, and the Democrats’ leadership should announce that they are embracing them.

If they do not, Fred Fielding has it right: Officials are absolutely immune from compelled Congressional testimony. Bush can simply tell Congress to stop sending subpoenas to his appointees. However, if Congress does engage in a little self-help at this crucial juncture, it can be sure that not only Harriet Miers, but also George Bush, will be forced to pay attention to congressional subpoenas – for the bottom line is that Congress will not need the cooperation of the other branches to enable it to conduct proper oversight.

Kind of funny how things play out. In catching up on things, I finally turned to the fired U.S. Attorneys issue. Sara Taylor’s non-testimony wasn’t much to look at. And then there’s the bizarre – Prince Bush ordering Harriet Miers to not show up in response to a Congressional Subpoena. So I wanted to find out what the legal points were in this stand off. I thought of John Dean – a Watergate player, and ultimately whistle-blower. So I put harriet miers findlaw into Google® and up popped the above article by John Dean. He seems to think that Bush wouldn’t be playing this card if he didn’t think he had the Justice Department and the Courts in his pocket – Bush is playing to win. Dean points out that Congress can hold its own contempt proceedings – and he suggests that is the correct direction., adding "this machinery has become a bit rusty, for these procedures have not been used since 1934." It’s an irony that we turn to former Watergate figure John Dean for an opinion, but he’s made it his business to be a rehabilitated Watergater – and done a fine job of it. His plan of action makes good sense. I hope John Conyers reads his column.

Tom DeLay tells College Republicans that abortion, illegal immigration are linked

Former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay told a gathering of College Republicans that a link exists between legal abortion and illegal immigration in America. The remarks were included in a video produced by writer Max Blumenthal and posted at The Huffington Post.

"I contend [abortion] affects you in immigration," DeLay told the Washington-area gathering. "If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 30 years, we wouldn’t need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it."

Blumenthal was later apparently forcibly escorted out of the conference by College Republican staff.

DeLay is currently under indictment for money laundering and conspiracy charges in Texas.

Remember him, Tom Delay? He was the House Majority leader. Now he’s a Pundit with a problem – like under indictment as a major league crook. As a Pundit, he’s still spouting Talking Points from 2000. I thought about that in the middle of the night listening to Senator Inhofe – using worn out Talking Points in his speech in the Senate – "Liberals" "Terrorism" "fighting Communism" "Reagan’s speeches" etc. I wonder how that stuff is playing in the heartland – "Libruls," Abortion, Patriotic Slogans and stickers, Gay Marriage, Immigration, Family Values, Quaisi-Religious allusions, etc. Tom Delay is reaching pretty deep to get two of those issues into one rant. Abortion causing Immigration is a real reach. It’s also blatantly racist.

I thought a lot about that on our trip to Eastern Europe. In Theresenstadt, a fortified town in the Czech Republic, all the inhabitants were sent away and it was turned into a Jewish Ghetto – becoming a waystation on the way to the Nazi Death Camps in Poland and Germany. There they had Jews [yellow badges], Homosexuals [pink badges], Gypsies [black badges], 7th Day Adventists [violet badges]. It was touted as a model Community for "the protection of the Jews" and they actually got the Red Cross to believe that for a time. I thought about the ressurgence of racism in America in the recent years. It sounds very similar to the Nazi version. Immigrants [Mexicans mostly] are bad. Homosexuals are bad. That’s how it started in Europe – and ultimately extrapolated to the "Final Solution."

It is reasonable for this country to get tough on Immigration. It is not reasonable for the level of racism that has flourished in the Bush years to be tolerated. It is reasonable for people to oppose abortion. It is not reasonable to blow up clinics. There’s nothing reasonable about persecuting Homosexuals. Looking at what happened in Europe up close and personal made me aware of how much racism and prejudice the Republicans and the Religious Right has perpetrated in these last six years. And it’s people like Tom Delay who have played this theme to the hilt.

America is built on an antiprejudicial creed – all men are created equal. Prejudice is our Achilles Heel. Right now, our Administration has thrown gasoline on that fire, even codifying it by renouncing the Geneva Conventions. The country is openly prejudiced against black americans, latino americans, arab americans, homosexual americans, and female americans. It’s time for some backlash about that. It’s a cancer that’s almost destroyed us several times.

And it’s time for Tom Delay to go to jail…

Powell tried to talk Bush out of war

THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.

“I tried to avoid this war,” Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. “I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.”

Powell has become increasingly outspoken about the level of violence in Iraq, which he believes is in a state of civil war. “The civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms,” he said. “It’s not going to be pretty to watch, but I don’t know any way to avoid it. It is happening now.”

He added: “It is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States.” All the military could do, Powell suggested, was put “a heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew”.

I’m trying to catch up and this one from the London Times really got me. I suppose that Colin Powell is the only member of the Bush Administration we  really respected. His completely fallacious U.N. speech was a disappointment to all. I was working full time when he made that speech, so I only saw highlights on the news and in the paper. I was disappointed in the flimsiness of the evidence, but at the time naively assumed that what he said was, at least, the truth. I, like the rest of us, had hoped that he had enough integrity to fully vet what he was saying. And by report, he did refuse to include a lot of things that were written in by Scooter Libby, like the Niger Forgeries. But still, he did make a speech to the U.N. that was simply not true [as in a "lie"]. Now he tells us he tried to talk Bush out of the war.

My first reaction was "Why didn’t you say this sooner?" – but I know the answer. He’s a good soldier, and a Republican. I guess he was grateful for the chance to serve, and loyal to his commander. I suppose there’s honor in that. Colin Powell was the highest ranking black American ever in our government. We don’t think about that part of it, but it’s an awesome responsibility. He knew what was right, but was in no position to act on what he knew. I guess I’m glad to know that he tried to talk to Bush about this war. There’s honor in that too. But frankly, the most honorable thing would be for him to join us now in trying to get this war stopped. He owes us that. He’s the one person among them we believed in, even those of us on the other side of the fence. He knew it was a mistake then. He knows a lot about how it happened, and he could open a few eyes with what he surely knows.

I see him as a tragic figure, but I guess in the end, I’m proud of him for having tried to talk to the boy king. I used to wonder if he would ever run for President – he seemed like Presidential material. I met an Army colleague and friend of his a few years back. He told me that Powell’s wife said flat out that he could not run for President. She felt that there’s still enough racism in America that he would be assasinated – and she wasn’t going to have that. I remember being confused that he became Secretary of State rather than Secretary of Defense. I now understand that as Bush and Cheney using his reputation, but not his expertise. It’s a shame. I’m pretty sure he would have never allowed Wolfowitz and Feith to operate as they did under Rumsfeld. And I expect he’d have run a better war [not that we needed this particular war, better or worse].

To me, Colin Powell is an important figure in American history. I find myself hoping that comments like the ones in this article are harbingers of more to come from him. And that seems to be the case. Here’s an interview from All Things Considered on NPR today. It’s worth a full read:

Powell: Thinning U.S. Resources Will Require Pullout

Over the past several weeks, former Secretary of State Colin Powell has spoken with increasing openness about the nature of the war in Iraq, about what went wrong, and about the limitations of the current strategy.

Some time ago, Powell apologized for presenting an inaccurate case to the United Nations on Iraqi weapons.

Powell does not support Congressional efforts to bring the troops home. But he tells Robert Siegel in an interview on Wednesday that troops will have to start coming home next year, because the military is stretched too thin.

…

Question: You’ve described a meeting in August 2002 with President Bush, two and a half hours where you outlined, as you saw them, the dangers of occupying an Arab country. On the other hand, when it was time to go to war in Iraq, you say you supported going to war. How do we get your role right? How do we best describe your position on the war?

Powell: Well, you’ve just described it. My job was to make sure the president took into consideration all of the issues that would be involved in a conflict in Iraq, and at that meeting, I laid out to him the problems we would face. We would have broken a civil government, and suddenly, we’re not only the liberators, we’re the occupiers, and under international law, we become the government, and that’s going to be expensive, it’s going to take a lot of our troops for a long period of time, and it would be a political burden for a number of years.

The president listened carefully. He asked me to brief his chief of staff and some others the next day, which I did, and he asked me how [we should] deal with this. And I said, let’s take it to the United Nations — they are the offended party…. And I said, this may well mean that we change the nature of the regime so it is not a threat to us anymore, but we don’t actually change the regime. Saddam Hussein might still be there…

He’s still unable to directly criticize Bush and Cheney. But maybe he’ll wake up in the night some time soon and realize that the loyalty of a good soldier is to the State and its Citizens, not to its Administrators…

So now Senator Inhofe [R-OK] is going on and on making a point. His point is that Terrorism is real and the Liberals don’t know it. He’s listing the Terrorist attacks around the world and making the false connection that the War in Iraq has something to do with that. He is saying that the War in Iraq means a lot to Osama Bin Laden. Duh! For four and a half years, we’ve listened to people like Inhofe say that we are not really aware of how dangerous the Terrorists are, that we are ignoring their threat, that we just don’t get something. It’s such tired silly logic.

He’s even going back to Reagan and talking about the Contras in Nicaragua fighting the Sandinistas and our role in fighting Communism there. I guess he hasn’t been reading about the current state of things in Nicaragua – where Daniel Ortega, Mr. Sandinista, has been elected President. I think Inhofe is a paradigm for using the old Cold War "fighting the Red Menace" logic in a world where it no longer applies. But the thing that got me writing about Inhofe was his use of the term "Liberals." He said, the "Liberals" don’t realize blah, blah, blah. The logic goes Liberals ignore Terrorism. Because we are opposed to further involvement in Iraq, we are ignoring Terrorism. It’s almost hard to even call it logic. If I thought we were actually fighting Terrorism in Iraq, I’d join up and fight myself. Our point [we "Liberals"] is that we’re not fighting Terrorism in Iraq. We’re causing it. Our point is that we were never fighting Terrorism in Iraq. We were hoping to get oil rights in the second richest oil fields in the world.

Our point is that this "fighting Terrorism" in Iraq was wrong from the start and is still wrong. There’s nothing Liberal about our argument. There’s not even anything Democrat about our argument. It’s pragmatic. The equation of Terrorism and Iraq is proven false – as false today as it was in 2002 when Bush first introduced it. When they say these things, I feel betrayed again. I wonder if this guy even believes what he’s saying. He still thinks the Iran-Contra deal was a good idea! 

In a while, I’ll post some wonderful pictures from Eastern Europe. My wife sees the world through the lens of a camera, so there are 3300 photos to look over before she picks out the keepers – thus a lag time. But in the interim, I want to mention again the most moving thing I saw there. In a Museum called the House of Terror in Budapest, built in a building used by both the Nazis and the Communists for secret police, they’ve collected newsreels and relics of the carnage of 20th century Hungary.

The Museum is filled with photographs and news footage of the Holocaust, the War, terrible statistics of the Horror of Hitler’s Nazis, of the Hungarian Nazis [Arrowcross], of the Stalinists – very hard to watch. But it was something I’d seen before. It was something I knew about. But I didn’t really know about the uprising in 1956. I remember it. I was 14 years old, and our papers were full of stories of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters. 14 year olds just don’t register the magnitude of such things – at least I didn’t. What happened was amazing. The Hungarian people in Budapest just rose up and smashed the Russians. Their 14 year old kids captured tanks and drove them down the streets. The people came out of their houses and started marching and shooting. For 12 days, Budapest was free. They cut the center [a hammer and sickle added by the Russians] out of their flags and paraded in the streets – toppling the Russian statues of Stalin. Then the Russians came. The Hungarian leader, Prime Minister Imre Nagy, got on the radio pleading to the West for help to no avail. The Russians retook Budapest and executed Nagy and many others. Of all the footage in that Museum, the ones that rendered me speechless were the proud looks on the faces of the Hungarians who had taken back their City. They thought we’d come and help them. One of our guides said, "but that was naive." I don’t know if it was naive or not. I know we were afraid of a Nuclear War if we fought the Russians directly.

But I’ve got to say that helping people who ask, and show their resolve sure beats the hell out of what we’re doing right now in Iraq. That same guide said that Hungarians see what a mess we’re in in Iraq, but that they know what it’s like to be living under dictators, implying some sympathy for our invasion. But then she added, "unless it is about the oil."

And it is…

The Chair recognizes Senator 1boringoldman:

Back in the early days before the War, I was told that Saddam Hussein backed al Qaeda in the 9/11 attack and that he was building Weapons of Mass Destruction to use against us. While I was skeptical, I had to accept that the President wouldn’t lie to us about such things. I saw those towers bombed like everyone else and felt an urgency to act. So I voted for the War and we summarily deposed Saddam Hussein. Then, I was told that there were no WMD’s. There were no ties between al Qaeda and Iraq. And there was still a War – against who knows what. At first it was touted to be Bathists; then they were called Insurgents; now they’re called al Qaeda. So finally, we had an Iraq Study Group of distinguished people who said "get out." Bush asked us for one more round – a "Surge" – to let the Iraqi government have time to … I forget what. I went along with that for a bit, thinking that maybe they needed time. But now, they’re all going on summer vacation, and our President is still saying we can win this unwinnable War and that we will need to be there for "years."

I call bullshit! Our President and Vice President are liars and have been from the start. They have lied to us. They’ve played on our patriotism, and conned us into supporting their misadventure long enough. We invaded Iraq for no valid reason that I can see. We’ve stayed in Iraq for no valid reason I can see. I’m ashamed that I went along with this folly. I’m sorry. I don’t care what does or does not happen with the "Surge." I don’t care because our cause is wrong. We let an Oil Executive and a weak, unprincipled, ineffectual President lead us into a War of Oil Field Acquisition that has failed – as it should have failed. We’ve thrown away billions of dollars, thousands of lives, our place in the world, and our Constitution for absolutely no reason. I didn’t know that earlier, because they didn’t tell us or I was afraid to vote my "hunch." But now I know. So I was wrong before. From this day forth, I’m obligated to do the right thing and vote against anything that prolongs this shameful blot on our history.

I’m voting against this War. And I’m hoping to have the opportunity to vote for impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney for betraying my trust and the trust of my constituents. We need a "Regime Change." The real issue on the table has nothing to do with Iraq. It has to do with America’s integrity. It’s time to reclaim it.

"You cannot know all of Medicine. It’s just too much to possibly learn. So, when you present your cases, I don’t want you to show off how smart you are. We all know you’re smart. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here. What I want to hear is two things. First, that you’ve really investigated your patient’s illness thoroughly. No matter how sleep deprived and underpaid you are, every case is important enough for you to understand deeply. We didn’t draft you into medical training. You chose to be here and I want you to be here fully for every case. The second thing I want to hear is what you don’t understand about your cases. If you don’t know what you don’t know, how will I know what to teach you? Most medical errors are made by acting as if you know what’s going on when you don’t. The only solid anchor in Medicine is knowing when you don’t know something. Then you can go look it up. A corollary is knowing when you’re wrong and admitting it. If you know you were wrong, you can change courses. If you don’t, you follow your mistake to somebody else’s grave."

I’m watching the Senate session on cspan where the Democrats are pulling an all-nighter in an attempt to force a vote on the amendment to set a timetable for Iraq withdrawal. The ever articulate Dianne Feinstein just argued that waiting until September to evaluate the "surge" is absurd. Her argument was based on the fact that the suirge is already a failure, that more will die, that more will be maimed, that there will be more Iraqi losses, etc. Now Lamar Alexander is waxing eloquent [and sarcastic] on the Democrat’s "stunt" of keeping the Senate debating all night.

As long as they’re going to go on and on, I thought I’d weigh in. The debate seems absurd to me – debating about the so-called "surge." The surge is something Bush made up in response to the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations that we withdraw. Remember? It was around the holidays. The Iraq Study Group proposed several exit strategies. Bush claimed he was going into contemplation – then announced this surge scheme of his, saying we’d re-evaluate in September. Within weeks, he begin to backpedal about the September deadline. Later, he talked about a long term presence in Iraq. The surge was just a delaying tactic – trying to get their oil agreement signed before we had to draw down our troops. It has all been malarky – all of it.

• Bush and his Administration came to office and ignored al Qaeda, in spite of adequate warnings.
• Bush and his Administration came to office dead set on "regime change" in Iraq – naively assuming that if they got rid of Hussein, we could access the oil stores in Iraq – what I call in my mind "The Cheney Plan."
• Bush and his Administration used the 911 attack by al Qaeda to justify the war in Iraq claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties with al Qaeda – claims they still make whenever possible. Both of these things are untrue.
• We invaded Iraq killing and capturing its leaders, banning them from government.
• Our invasion force was adequate to defeat Saddam but inadequate to quell the Sectarian violence.
• None of us think that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was to liberate the Iraqi people.

So, we shouldn’t have gone to war in the first place – not with Iraq. But, having done it, we should not have disenfranchised the Bathists. And we should have sent a massive army – drafting if necessary – to control the violence. It’s absurd for us to talk about what will happen if we leave. First, that’s not something we can control. Second, it’s none of our business. Third, we shouldn’t have gone in the first place and there’s nothing that we can ever do to undo that mistake. So, forget the surge is my conclusion. Come home because we’ve proven already that the Bush Doctrine is a failure, and we can’t make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear. At least have the integrity to say, "We blew it."

Well, we’re back from our trip – marred only by a cold virus that struck me down with a vengence in the Prague airport [that I expect will probably hit all my fellow passengers in a few days – my apologies]. Such trips are always personal epics and take a while to come in to focus. I looked forward to digesting the history and stories from the trip – coming to some new understanding of what feels like the modern Dark Ages of 20th Century Eastern Europe [a story from which they are recovering with a vengence]. One has the sense that the decaying Monarchies, the Nazis, and the Communists are  finally fading, and that they’re coming up for air.

• A car is a magic carpet until it falters. Then one thinks, Do I have gas? Do I have a flat? Is it overheating? etc.
• A computer is a tablet, or an easel, or a news service until it isn’t. Then it’s a quagmire of chips and modems and programs, etc.
• Lights come on in dark rooms until they don’t. Then, Is the power out? Do I need to change a bulb? Is the switch broken? 
• A family takes care of basic needs and the members flourish. When that’s not true, it’s composed of parents, children, mental illness, abuse, etc.

One thing we did was visit a small Franz Kafka Museum in Prague [I’d always pictured him in prewar Berlin, which was very wrong]. He spent his life in the Jewish Quarter of pre-WWI Prague. There, I bought and re-read his Letter to Father – a long letter he wrote to his dictatorial father in 1919 when he [Franz] was dying from Tuberculosis [his father never read it]. The thing that made Kafka Kafka-esque was his articulation of his sense of alienation and being trapped with no escape – trapped in the Jewish Quarter of Prague, trapped in his bureaucratic job, trapped in the deterioration of prewar Europe, trapped in the angst of his existence. In the letter to his father, one has the feeling that being trapped in the shadow of his oppressive father underlies all of the externals. His first novel, Amerika [never finished], was a story of a sixteen year old boy who escapes to America to avoid the dishonor of having been seduced by a housemaid. It’s a humorous story, but it’s about his being recurrently exploited in the land of glitz and promise – ending up captured in some scam in the Midwest. It’s little wonder that the novel was unfinished as there is no possible resolution. It’s more a statement than a story. But, I thought of it as I read the news of the last several weeks. For Kafka, Amerika is a derogatory slang term – a symbol of unfulfilled promise. A harbinger to Satre’s later No Exit.

I don’t believe that – that there’s no way out of this mess. But I do think that we Americans have alway believed that our system would save us from the dips into corruption and power politics that have plagued us from our beginnings – that our system is "self-correcting." I’m not so sure anymore that our system itself is self-correcting. I think our system was intended to allow us to be self-correcting, but it will only work if we rise rise to the challenge. Frankly, I don’t think we Liberal types are the only force that’s needed right now. We’re the ones making the noise, but the Administration has a strong track record of being able to block what we do and invalidate what we say. I think it’s in the hands of right-thinking Conservatives and Republicans [the people who put these fools into power] to throw in the towel. I just returned from a part of the world where they [the powerful] did not see this kind of writing on the wall; where they [the powerful] continued to support this kind of absurd abuse of power; and where they [the powerful] plunged their whole segment of the world into 80+ years of painful darkness.

America is only Amerika if we let it happen. Our Founding Fathers were not Hermann Kafka [Fanz’s dad]. And our history doesn’t have to be Kafka-esque [but it is, unfortunately, possible]…