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AS THE WORLD SQUIRMS Sunday – December 17, 2006
ARCHIVE
“Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful
and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure
wind.” ~George Orwell~
  No Going Back Charley
Reese 12.15.06 (Excerpt) East of Atlanta, an outcropping of granite rises 863 feet above
the Georgia plateau. It is rounded and about five miles in circumference.
Today, Stone Mountain is owned by the state of Georgia, and there is an
amusement park. In earlier years, however, visitors who climbed to the top would
sometimes walk toward what they thought was the edge. Because of its rounded
shape, there was no edge; there was only an ever-receding illusion of an
edge. Sometimes people would realize too late they had walked too far and,
unable to go back, would fall to their deaths. I believe
we Americans have walked too far
from
our original constitutional
republic, and it's now impossible to
restore it. I say this because I like to profess my belief
in the early republic just to aggravate the
politically correct. But there is a big difference between what one
wants and what is possible. We are
stuck with a big central government with imperial ambitions abroad. There are
far too many Americans who benefit financially from government — from paychecks, purchases or subsidies — to muster the political will to trim it down to size. Moreover,
most Americans
have learned to love government. They are content for the only debate to be
about patronage and who gets it. They are content with national political
conventions that are nothing more than scripted TV shows without a scrap of
debate about issues or candidates.  About Face:
Soldiers Call for Iraq Withdrawal Marc
Cooper The
Nation 12.16.06 (Excerpt) An organized, robust
movement of active-duty US military personnel has publicly surfaced to oppose
a war in which they are serving. Those involved plan to petition Congress to
withdraw American troops from Iraq. Not since 1969, when some 1,300
active-duty military personnel signed an open letter in the New York Times
opposing the war in Vietnam, has there been such a dramatic barometer of
rising military dissent.  TBRNews.org 12.14.06 (Excerpt) Baghdad, 14 Dec 06: “ | ||||||
