Do you know where we are going, America?

[dweller]

By Nolan K. Anderson

August 23, 2005—Living in America these days is akin to riding in the back
seat of a car being driven by a learner who is attempting to convince the
passengers that he knows what he is doing, and knows where he is going.

In the back seat, the passengers have their eyes tightly closed because they
saw an unknown landscape flashing past at an alarming speed and the driver
taking risks that no sane driver would take. Our passengers thought they
saw American military and mercenary personnel torturing prisoners; they
thought they saw secret and not-so-secret gulags for purchased and
captured prisoners and Americans being held without trial or legal counsel for
indefinite periods.

This is our America today. We don't know where we are going, but there is a
maniac at the wheel who is apparently driving with his eyes closed at a
speed to be considered murderous and ruinous. We have already hit and
killed over 100,000 innocent bystanders; we have run over a virtually
defenseless country smashing its infrastructure, culture and society on this
driver's terrifying rampage. We are losing soldiers at a rate that Rumsfeld
says marks the final death throes of the enemy. As this logic goes, if we
lose enough soldiers, the enemy will be forced to give up.

Of course there has been a certain amount of collateral damage to our car.
We have had to place in harm's way some of our resources—500,000 troops
rotated into Iraq; 1,834 never to have the chance to become our future
leaders; another 13,000 wounded, many to suffer lifelong incapacitation and
trauma, and one billion dollars per week from the national treasury. (These
figures are Pentagon figures and have a very high margin of error. As an
example, Congress has been told that 103,000 soldiers have required
hospitalization.)

The police (our Congress) have closed even their already blinded eyes to the
carnage created by our driver. We (the passengers) now discover that our
lunatic driver is also on a crime spree and is robbing the victim country of its
natural resources. (Thus far, some $8.8 billion worth of Iraqi oil revenue has
disappeared into a lot of "black holes" within the former Coalition Provisional
Authority). Meanwhile, our driver's close friends (read largest contributors) are
busily (theoretically) repairing the damage he is causing while charging we,
the passengers, for the repairs. (Economics 101 did not equip me to
comment on this type of national economic cycle. Apparently Alan
Greenspan's economic education did not equip him to comment on this type
economic cycle, either.

What are the passengers to do in a situation like this? ...

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/082305Anderson/082305anderson.html

dp

[wli]

1. we're on a highway to Hell n/t

[shadowknows69]

2. knock the driver out cold and grab the wheel

and try to avoid the trees or other traffic

[Captain Hilts]

3. Where are we going? And why am I in this handbasket? (nt)