Great video!!!!!!

Obama telephoned Dr. Bob Basso from the White House to discuss the fact that he
does not like this video which Dr. Basso made for YouTube. He invited him to
the White House to discuss this further with him. Dr. Basso was also told not
to go public with the phone conversation. Dr. Basso decided to go public with
it and Glenn Beck from Fox News and WABC 770 AM radio from New York is on top of
this as well. We are in the middle of an incoming dictatorship. We need to
stop it now.
The Second American Revolution
Please see this video and then pass it on to your friends and neighbors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeYscnFpEyA&feature=player_embedded
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeYscnFpEyA&feature=player_embedded>

--

This is a blog I wrote tonight in response to a forwarded video that a Dr. (dubious) Bob
posted on Utube which I will post next if I can.

     Are you kidding me ???  This is the GOP elephant afraid of the mouse
( well-named)  Dr. Bob's even dressed to make us think back 200 yrs.  Like the old Testament it is so sad & ridiculous to put much stock in his words when Dr. Bob hasn't learned from history.  We have now the greatest economic fiasco since the Great Depression with almost half as many unemployed and major Banks, Auto manufactures, Insurance companies & Mortgage companies who would be going into bankruptcy without the Feds via the President spending the money to keep them afloat and Rush and Beck and Dr. Bob are saying:  let 'em die.  Believe in Capitalism no matter what! That's major  BS!  BS!  Without controls, capitalism is a scourge upon our nation.
    With very little oversight or monitoring these crazy corporations dug there graves,  but  if they had gone down we would have had unemployment equal to to 1932!!!  Obama and his advisers have studied what happened then and are trying to amelirate (soften) the consequences . Congress with Reagan, Bush, Clinton & Bush II's Leadership ( ug!)  have put the Nation in this situation.  Dodgy Derivatives, Auto companies devoid of imagination, insuring insurance (AIG) &  real estate mortgages based upon nothing real have made all of us vulnerable.  The Perfect Economic Storm !!! 
      So comes along a realist, a pragmatist like Roosevelt who can actually galvinize the peoples of the Earth as well as Americans at a a moment in time when Global Warming is an even bigger problem and all the Conservatives can say is OH MY God, what can we do now, but go backwards.  As you well know,  Bush II spent billions last October on the economic crises (much to his chagrin) before leaving office.   At this point, all they ought to do is just shut up and listen to the first real Liberal president, the first one with a HEART, since Roosevelt.  He was made that way by his paralysis as you know.....Polio was his Teacher as to the pain of the people in the Thirties.  Obama's Teacher was his life as a minority and that pushed his empathy to be a better American and a better Earthling.  Why don't you see that!!!?????
     Why did Dr. Bob preempt the the meeting with Obama by going to the media.  Has he no class or patience or belief in his own ideas?  He could go there afterwards but since his chief advisers are probably Rush/Beck he became a a joke, a pawn to the Fox right-wing who love to fear-mongrel !!! On Fox they can spread it as easily as butter without pointing the finger at the real culprits.  I say we need a major overhaul of the Banking and Insurance & Mortgages businesses.   They need new rules and then they need major oversight!!!!!!!   Capitalism does not work in a vacuum!   HELLO!!
      BTW, dictatorships don't happen if there are elections.  Have the elections of 2010 and 2012 been cancelled?  (Over the top BS as usual!!!)

Bill

A few of my crazy undereducated friends have forwarded this letter

  
> > The Orange County California Newspaper
> >
> > This is a very good letter to the editor. This woman made
> > some good points. For some reason, people have difficulty structuring
> > their
> > arguments when arguing against supporting
> > the currently proposed immigration revisions. This lady made
> > the argument pretty simple. Not printed in the Orange County Paper.
> > Newspapers simply won't publish letters to the editor
> > which they either deem politically incorrect (read below) or
> > which does not agree with the philosophy they're pushing on
> > the public. This woman wrote a great letter to the editor that
> > should have been published; but, with your help it will get
> > published via cyberspace.
> >
> > From: 'David LaBonte'
> >
> > My wife, Rosemary, wrote a wonderful letter to the editor
> > of the OC Register which, of course, was not printed. So, I
> > decided to 'print' it myself by sending it out on the Internet.
> > Pass it along if you feel so inclined. Written in response to a
> > series of letters to the editor in theOrange County Register:
> >
> > Dear Editor:
> > So many letter writers have based their arguments on how
> > this land is made up of immigrants. Ernie Lujan for one,
> > suggests we should tear down the Statue of Liberty because
> > the people now in question aren't being treated the same as
> > those who passed through Ellis Island and other ports of entry.
> >
> > Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to
> > people like Mr. Lujan why today's American is not willing to
> > accept this new kind of immigrant any longer. Back in 1900
> > when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to
> > the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a
> > long line in New York and be documented. Some would even
> > get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They
> > made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new
> > country in good and bad times. They made learning English
> > a primary rule in their new American households and some
> > even changed their names to blend in with their new home.
> >
> > They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their
> > children a new life and did everything in their power to help
> > their children assimilate into one culture. Nothing was handed
> > to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect
> > them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought
> > with
> > them to trade for a future of prosperity.
> >
> > Most of their children came of age when World War II broke
> > out. My father fought along side men whose parents had come straight
> > over
> > from Germany, Italy, France and Japan. None
> > of these first generation Americans ever gave any thought
> > about what country their parents had come from. They were Americans
> > fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of
> > Japan. They were defending the United States of America as
> > one people.
> >
> > When we liberated France , no one in those villages was
> > looking for the French-American or the German-American
> > or the Irish-American. The people of France saw only
> > Americans. And we carried one flag that represented one
> > country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought
> > about picking up another country's flag and waving it to
> > represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to
> > their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants
> > truly
> > knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into
> > one
> > red, white and blue bowl.
> >
> > And here we are in 2008 with a new kind of immigrant who
> > wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve
> > it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the
> > entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their
> > mother country. I'm sorry, that's not what being an American
> > is all about. I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis
> > Island in the early 1900's deserve better than that for all the
> > toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to
> > create a land that has become a beacon for those legally
> > searching for a better life I think they would be appalled that
> > they are being used as an example by those waving foreign
> > country flags.
> >
> > And for that suggestion about taking down the Statue of
> > Liberty, it happens to mean a lot to the citizens who are
> > voting on the immigration bill. I wouldn't start talking
> > about dismantling the United States just yet.
> >
> > (signed) Rosemary LaBonte
> >
> > KEEP THIS LETTER MOVING. FOR THE WRONG THINGS TO PREVAIL THE RIGHTFUL
> > MAJORITY NEEDS TO REMAIN COMPLACENT AND QUIET. LET THIS NEVER HAPPEN.
> >
> > I sincerely hope this letter gets read by millions of people all across
> > the
> > nation.


This is my response:


In the paragraph that begins "they had waved goodbye......", I disagree with the government and this lady because those immigrants should have been given a hand up especially back before WWII. That 's my main problem with this letter. She acts as if giving no aid or direction was a good thing. Their skills could have been more easily blended into our lifestyle even to the point of being teachers or mentors. The other factor that she ignored was the obvious difference between our biased attitude towards Asian immigrants versus the favored European immigrants. Angel Island vs. Ellis Island.
This letter should have been published......with my response just below. The Daily Oklahoman probably avoids publication of any liberal letters every day in the name of their conservative philosophy. This is the problem with the Fourth Estate today. The demise of the Liberal point of view because of the Billionaires buying up hundreds of newspapers the last 40 years. Her husband should have sent that letter to 10 other newspapers to be published.
      BTW, very few Japanese actually fought for America in WWI or WWII because our government and most Americans do not trust them or are historically biased and/or were in shock over Pearl Harbor.


Bill

PS.  Perhaps if this couple were to go to an immigration center and meet and get to know some of these newest immigrants.  Somehow they seem to believe the immigrants who came in the years before WWII are better people than what we get nowadays.  I doubt that's the case.

Obama will have to clean up Bush's mess. He is a pragmatist. A clear-thinking down-to-earth guy who would have said "No" to going to VietNam. What did McBush do? He followed all those others right into a 7 yr war which most folks 30-40 years later know was unjustified & a waste of life and treasure! All of those servicemen did not know that we were lied to about our ship being attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Pentagon & LBJ's administration thought no one would find out the truth.  (See McNamara's autobiography) Happened again when we found no weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. But did you see thousands of military quit. No, because they couldn't. But the rate of re-upping went way down.

Do you realize how much this ridiculous 6 year war in Iraq has cost? Bush & his paranoid advisers keep ignoring the cost as if billions were not running out the door! Conservatives are dreamers without a stich of compassion!!!! How will McBush pay for it? He has no idea because he thinks our economy is fine except for the high cost of fuel which he thinks will be affected by drilling up 2000 acres (just over 3 sections) in NE corner of Alaska, even tho most experts think it would take 10 yrs to actually have a pipeline down and oil flowing.

How much has our reputation been injured? You might not think that what matters on the world's stage is our reputation, but it affects our diplomacy. The VP still thinks torture is OK, that what happened at that prison was inevitable but "very sorry the pics got out!"

What will McBush (McCain) done about global-warming? Not much, about the same as Bush and Clinton. This fact alone is why Obama gets my vote. If I am wrong and our stupid voters put McBush in the Whitehouse, I will seriously consider moving to Canada and work there as a landman for the rest of my life!


A masters in Political Science is usually 40-50 hours. I had over 40, but OU did not accept my overseas work. Mostly courses about History that should teach you how we the people get into unjustified wars by being followers and letting scare tactics take over. I could go on and on and tell you that some of these higher taxes are not gonna happen because the new Democrat-controlled Congress will not let it happen. But yes, really rich people and big corpoations are gonna finally pay their share after years and decades of squirming out of paying any taxes at all.
They are behind the lies Newhart sent you. Wouldn't you try to twist the truth if the changes will affect you?
Oil & Gas companies are still receiving subsidies? Obama & the congress should turn the tables on that first thing. It's only fair. Guess who I work for?

Billy

This is me answering some of my friend Tim's rants and worries over Barack Obama being our next President:

Tim,
How does that crow taste, me good paranoid brother? Stop trying to protect us. Stop trying to figure it all out. Pres. Obama will soon cure your judging soul with an agenda that does not include "Death to the White establishment", but I hope it just gives us a fairer taxation table (nobody should have to pay any federal or state income taxes if they make $15,000 or less), a pull-back from Iraq, more troops into Afganistan ('cause the Pentagon will always need a "war" to fight), universal health care for almost all Americans, a new initiative to find a settlement between Israel & the 3 million long-suffering Palestians (the real reason behind 911), a new emphasis on truth-telling in government, (say hello to the real UFOs and all the other cover-ups the government loves to hide ) and finally a way out of this recession that is mostly driven by this super high artificial oil price. It's speculation that has made it rise so far so fast. $80/barrel would be fairer to the world economy and a bargain compared to the fake $128 it stands at now!!!! ( 1/3 less than now and twice as much as 2 or 3 years ago). The big boys (Wall street & their counterparts in London & Tokyo & Geneva & Hong Kong & Saudi Arabia) saw this coming, the amazing growth of China's economy, the IT revolution in India, but the Russian Mafia may be the real culprit. I don't really know. But I do know this: The Right Wing has very few people with enough compassion in their hearts to get those things I mentioned above DONE.

So, Timmy here's the new enemy, the Russian Mafia! Just quit going after our dear sweet inspirational leader because he really loves you & the mobsters don't!
Got it!
The more talk like yours the more likely we will wake up to another assassination in my lifetime. I don't think my poor heart could take a
fifth one.

Peace, Bill

PS I didn't even mention the growth of daycare our families need with so many mother's working and so many one parent homes and how that effects all of us and the growth (I hope) of the Peace Cops and the AmeriCorps!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcT0Sn9obDo

"Aha" her song is about GAMES people play with Mother Earth. If you are green do green things. In your job or home or how you get around. That's why I admire my son, Cassidy, because he is NATURALLY GREEN!

This is a response to to a new friend that happens to be a Conservative in the California Entertainment business on why I am not RED or Blue--maybe Bluish Green!:

I like War just as much as you do. Which ain't much!
War In Kuwait and in Afganistan--YES, but not in phony wars such as Iraq or VietNam--NO! The main problem right now is there are too many generals and politicians with too much pride to leave Iraq (even tho they have a perfectly good unfinished war to go to in Afganistan.

And I would love lowering taxes ---for EVERYONE., not just the rich. Of course, with our daily outlay for this war being astronomical, we can't do it now.

My hopes for a win have been dashed so many times that I am even rooting for this economy to stay lousy until after the election. The main problem with the economy, besides the billions we throw at Iraq, is the many lenders who went sub-prime and lent to people who couldn't afford to buy a house. Greedy bankers!
Another thing Conservatives love to do is to get into people's bedroom or medical decisions. It's none of their business. We don't usually (unless we are mentally sick) need protection from ourselves.
I also want more regulation of big business especially the Insurance & Banking & Military & Petroleum industries. Conservatives want Less even tho we keep having scandal after scandal.
So go ahead be RED! I am really Green. Global warming made worse by over population and Bush's head in the sand is even a bigger problem.

Billy

Most of you have not seen this poem, but it holds a lot of wisdom. If only America's emphasis was on different priorities; how much happier the World would be, could be, should be. Unity Thought teaches not to use those words, but how else can I have hope that we will as a nation "Wake Up" to a prospective that allows more diplomacy and more love for so-called enemies, like Jesus, Buddha and Mohammad said and lived without "would be, could be or should be."

Powerful anti war poem, please take a minute to watch


The lyrics are beneath, but our vocalist wrote this poem and performed it at the MLK breakfast in SD, very very strong words moving video
youtube. com/watch?v=v3vRnG4gkT0

Definition of Patriotism
Prior to addressing the pressing,
depressing, stressing issue of war
There's one other issue I'd like to explore
And the fact that I don't hear the echo of a million voices still shouting complaints
Makes me faint, frustrates me
It's devastating to democracy
George W. Bush is not the president of America
Coup d'état
Post millennial hysteria
Stolen election
Now the demise of life is draped in the disguise of national protection
Using the media weapons of mass deception
To fuel the mass distraction
There will be massive repercussions for this war against weapons of mass destruction in a third world nation
But aren't we the ones with 10,000 nuclear bombs in the midst of an invasion
Hatred cannot counter hatred
Only love is that sacred
How many lives will be wasted because our "president's" impatient
Or to further our global imperialist reign
Raining iron and flames in the name of democracy
Branding another area with our American ideology
Replacing a regime with one where all are equal
We haven't mastered the first chapter so why rush to make a sequel
Did someone say oil
I heard thousands shout with passionate doubt "NO BLOOD FOR OIL"
No blood for oil!
No blood for oil!
No blood for oil!
This is the equation that makes my blood boil
Blood flooding foreign soil
As wealthy men collect the spoils of front line toils
But this is not the message seen on the TV screen
We are liberating people from an evil regime
Not decimating people with an evil regime
The web that they weave
We The People deceived
As the media bleeds and feeds the machine with paranoia and panic
Sweeping the land from pacific to Atlantic
Governed by the fear of a threat from out there

On that tragic day in mid-September
The bloodstain on my brain I'll forever remember
A nation united by catastrophe in bloom
The "industrial confetti" on screens in each and every room
The atmosphere of rubble that blocked out the New York moon
I cried that day with the rest of the nation and felt we were in tune
But soon after the disaster instead of asking why
We asked when, what, where, how and who would have to die
Who would be the example
What land would we trample
We would raise our fist towards terrorist
And drop our metallic mist on innocent kids
Away from our eyes
Out of sight out of mind
The gears of the war machine steadily grind
The wheels of time rapidly wind
I'm not willing to sacrifice my freedom and rights
I'll take to the streets both day and night
So hail to the thief that stole the election
For your first two years in office I felt disconnected
But now I know the role of your deceitful regime
You are the extreme that for so long we needed
The level one reaches before they open their eyes
Gather together and unveil the disguise
The first world silence of your third world violence has mobilized
thousands to take to the streets
Sending chills up my spine when I hear pleas for peace
I'll make mine with rhymes in the belly of this beast
When we march hand and hand I hold democracy
I hear it shake the ground with thunderous sounds
So, let us be heard cause our words have the power
Even more power then the nuclear shower
This land is ours, but not ours to devour
So move past the fist
I am a pacifist resisting this twisted militant system that I didn't enlist in
This war on terrorism depends on the scope and perspective of one's vision
We're the only nation to drop a nuclear bomb,
Small pox on blankets and Vietnam napalm,
Sponsored dictators from Pinochet to Saddam,
How do all our enemies acquire their arms
Bombed hotels and fleeing soldiers in Iraq,
Got inner city citizens addicted to crack,
Shot civilians in Panama,
Innocents in Afghanistan,
There's blood on our hands
Blood in the streets
Blood in this poem
Blood stains my dreams
How many will bleed before too many have bled
A war memorial cemetery,
Whole periphery dead
This nightmare is scary
I'm tired and weary
Tired of violence
Tired of silence
Tired with no rest
Ready to protest
Braid my voice with the voices of others
My sisters and brothers unite in the night
Know that words are the only weapons needed to fight
Who take pride in this country, but see its need for revision
This is my definition of patriotism

www. ahk23. com

America Loves Peace? Odd, Since We're Always at War
By David Michael Green
Posted on February 28, 2008, Printed on February 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/77827/
Americans love to think that we're a peaceful people and that we fight wars only when we must.

Unfortunately, you can count in nanoseconds how long those assertions hold up when exposed to such insidious commie dirty tricks as the application of logic or the examination of empirical history.

Sure, any war can be spun as some necessity against some Very Bad Person, preferably of brown skin, slanted eyes and/or differing deity. Not only can any war be so spun, probably every war there ever was has been, at least since the days when governments had to start offering some justification or another for their little foreign adventures.

But pick your barometer -- any one will work -- and you'll quickly see who the militant folks on the planet really are. For America, it turns out -- gulp -- to be that bloated, frightened meth-addict staring back at us in the mirror, not some overseas evil emperor du jour.

For example, suppose you wanted to measure comparative national warlike tendencies by simply counting wars. Since World War II, the United States has messed around, in ways big and small, in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Lebanon, Grenada, Iraq, Panama, Colombia, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Afghanistan again, and Iraq again. No country in the world can begin to match this record in the last half-century. And I'm not even listing here the covert operations (almost everywhere), including the ones that toppled democratically elected governments (Iran, Guatemala, Chile, etc.), the long-term occupations of Latin American countries by the U.S. military, the gunboat diplomacy of the American Navy around the world, the aiding and abetting of other killers (Saddam invading Iran, for example, apartheid South Africa or the Israeli occupation of Palestine), the militarization of the oceans and of space, or the myriad other ways in which the United States leads the planet in aggressive tendencies. (For a whole century's worth of overseas fun -- not even counting the big stuff -- Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow is highly recommended reading.)

Who has China been invading lately? Russia? Fidel? Those perfidious (and perfumed) French? Heck, even Saddam couldn't touch this record for aggression, especially once you account for the fact that the U.S. government assisted his foreign soiree into Iran (complete with the chemical weapons, of course) and likely green-lighted the one into Kuwait as well. And let's even grant that one or two of those American adventures had some measure of altruism associated with them, as perhaps the Balkan or Somalian affairs might have (I'd like to know the full story before making that judgment). Isn't the sheer volume of them -- especially relative to the number of wars other countries have fought -- a bit problematic for maintaining the pretense of America's pacific intent? My conservative (in both senses of the word) list above goes to nearly 20. Isn't that a bit much for a peace-loving country?

But scratch that measure if you must (perhaps it cuts too close to the bone). Maybe we can detect America's dislike for war in another metric, say military spending. Oops. Turns out that's going to be a bit problematic, too. I guess it won't be a huge surprise to anybody that the United States spends more on 'defense' than any other country in the world. But here's the truly scary part: The United States not only outspends every other country in the world on military goodies, it outspends ALL other countries of the world. Combined. That's right. Take all 190-plus countries out there and add together their defense budgets and you still won't equal America's alone. What's more, that doesn't even include the $100 billion or so that we're dropping each year in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor the additional costs in veterans' (so-called) care, munitions replacement and economic losses we have been hemorrhaging for those wars, which will continue, for decades to come, estimated to run up toward 2 trillion bucks total. (Oh, and did I mention that one-sixth of our population doesn't have healthcare coverage? Never mind. I'm sure those are completely unrelated facts.) Anyhow, does that sound like a peace-loving country to you? And think about this for a second: How absolutely disastrous does your diplomacy have to get so that you need to be able to fight off every other country of the world, all at once?!

OK, OK, so that one didn't work out so well either. The good news is that at least we don't make the world an uglier place by continually inventing new and more vicious weaponry. Not us peace-loving Americans! You know, like atom bombs, napalm, bunker-busters, cluster bombs, neutron bombs, space lasers, phosphorous bombs and stuff like that! Who would build such things? What kind of depraved mind would harness so much of its scientific and industrial establishment to such ends? Who would . er . um . Hey, wait a minute! What do you mean that we invented and manufactured all those things?!?! I thought we were the peace-loving people! Meanwhile, can I interest you in some depleted uranium at a very, very attractive price?

OK, but we must be good neighbors, really, because we're always the ones who are pushing for all sorts of international treaties to limit war, weapons and the worst practices of nasty governments. You know, for example, how we signed on to the United Nations Charter (which we more or less also wrote) and its requirement that states may use militarized aggression only in the case of self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council to do so in a collective security operation. Hey, sometimes we even comply with it! Or maybe you prefer the treaties against land mines, child soldiers or the weaponization of space, which we're pretty much the only folks not signing? The 'quaint' and 'obsolete' Geneva Conventions against torture and war crimes? How about the International Criminal Court, which John Bolton led the Bush administration into singlehandedly trying to destroy? Hmmm . Wonder why they would have wanted to get rid of that? Gee, I thought genocide and war crimes were bad things! America is the world leader in supporting human rights and seeking peace. So, remember, if you hear someone tell you that we've been abdicating, avoiding, ignoring and destroying all these (and myriad other) treaties that seek to end or prevent war, it's just the liberal America-hating media elites telling lies again, because they want us to lose our wars. (And why would they want that? That's easy! So some other country can march in, take away their enormously profitable media franchises, steal their mansions and yachts, and then hang them for treason and pillaging, of course. Who wouldn't trade their current set-up for that? Trust me, these guys know a good thing when they see it.)

Alright, alright, so it turns out that none of these measures of warlike tendencies turned out so very well. American is winning these contests about as often as is Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. And with about as much grace, too. But at least the rest of the world thinks of us as nice, peaceful neighbors, right? Well, actually, they sometimes do! Just not now. And just not when we're, uh, engaged in most of our wars, which has been about half the time between World War II and the present. Vietnam wasn't exactly appreciated out there in the global community, and that opinion hasn't changed a whole lot, even after we've established a lovely little trading relationship with that same communist country that we once argued would be so dangerous if it went . er, well, communist. You know, like China! That's why we don't trade with them now, or -- perish the thought -- make ourselves vulnerable by allowing them to finance our national binge borrowing. No sense aiding and abetting the enemy, eh?

Sorry -- I digress. Despite ourselves, America is in fact sometimes admired in world opinion. But not when we play our war games. They can't stand America's duplicity, hypocrisy and arrogance when it comes to so many aspects of international diplomacy, including the aforementioned treaties we've avoided when we're not trying to destroy them. Yet nothing has so inflamed world opinion as the gross transgression against international law and human morality that is Iraq. International polls show that even our allies believe that 'the United States contributes the most to world instability along with Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and North Korea,' and that the U.S. presence in Iraq is considered a greater threat to peace than Iran going nuclear. America's standing in world opinion isn't the only measure of how comparatively warlike we are, but it certainly is a valid one. When everybody else in the neighborhood hates you, or hates something you do, it's a moment for a little reflection and introspection, isn't it? Unless, of course, you're just an asshole. Then, why bother?

I don't want to give the wrong impression. Much as I'd like to be, I'm not a pacifist, because I realize that there are genuinely bad actors out there who can't be tamed by a Dick Cheney charm offensive, or beaten into submission by a Condoleeza Rice piano sonata. I'm glad the U.S. military was there to stomp Hitler. Maybe even Korea, Bosnia and Kosovo could be justified as a response to aggression, though here it gets murkier. But Vietnam? No way. Today's Iraq war? Utterly shameful. The Mexican War? Spanish-American War? Cuba? Nicaragua? Guatemala? Grenada? Be serious. Way too often America's pacific intentions are harder to find than the elusive Higgs Boson particle. Probably you'd need a massive supercollider and a bunch of expensive detection equipment to do it, too.

And god knows I'm not blaming the troops for this. Indeed, too often they're the second victims (the truth being the first) of policymakers like Lyndon Johnson, George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton, for whom war is a game and people are pawns. When Bush says things like 'This generation is rising to the challenge. We're looking at history, we understand our values, and we're laying that foundation of peace for generations to come,' smart countries run like hell. Others just laugh and cut mineral rights deals.

Because of these monsters and the record they've created, Americans have to face an ugly and unfortunate fact. Despite what your sixth-grade civics teacher told you, we're not the white hats of the world. Or at least not often enough. We just like to think we are.

But thinking and being are, alas, two different things, as we found out going into Iraq -- thinking we'd be greeted with chocolates and flowers.

We may get them yet, however. Perhaps they'll be handed to us at the exit ramp, as the next president extricates a sobered United States from the disaster of its latest example of bringing love, American-style, to the world.

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at www.regressiveantidote.net.