I'm still hoping it was a post aberration brought on by cold medicine. :D

Complicit Condi is little more than a catalyst inhibitor doing exactly what she's supposed to be doing for the 'good guys'; attempting to control the speed of unfolding events. I've read or listened to a few things in the last couple of days ... I'm trying to decide whether to believe my good sense ... or my lyin' eyes ... but I can't deny that I think it's all a scam. A confidence game in the most grand and despicable way you could imagine. It all fits. The Iraq war is a success in certain circles. Oil prices skyrocket, billons gone missing (but somebody has it), ME in turmoil ensuring the future of the war profiteers and ruling class grandkids. Dubai is hot this time of year.

Economic hit men working thru the WTO, IMF, World Bank ... using these same war profiteers ... and the black ops. The CIA? Forget them. The NSA is literally twice a huge, and way deeper undercover. It's all a scam. Democracy? Dead. Except for its usefulness to herd the masses. It's a ruse. George Washington warned us about standing armies. It has come to pass. The prophetic warning Eisnhower tried make clear to us ... his nightmare lives.

The problem is, the Empire is unsustainable. Make no mistake. This helps us, the common folk, not a whit. In fact, we've been paying for it, and will continue to pay for it. But change is coming. Big.

Best plan carefully for the next two decades. There are no 'sides'. Perhaps 'us' and 'them'. But that's not even a proper contest.

Want a taste of what I mean? Put the video I just posted together with the links below and tell me what you come up with. And sorry, platitudes about rule of law, homilies about self government, and philisophical recitations on the betterment of man won't cut it. The veil is being pulled off. Soon, it will be every man/woman for themselves (again), forced to operate the way it's really always been operating; if you want it, you have to take it.

No, its not just these couple interviews and reports that I point to now that leave me with these dire convictions. They are a piece of the whole. Still, listen to these. Be apprised, it will take more than five minutes:

• John Perkins on "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption"

• The Fallacy of Full Spectrum Dominance

Now, I'm just a guy. A family man with two young boys. There is no taking advantage of the situation for me. There is only the wish to protect them as best I can. Problem is, there is no future. People around me are droppin' like flies, losing their homes, their jobs, their health, their chance at an education. No relief in slight. The democrats? Heh. Same cloth, different pattern. There will be no calvary. There can't be. The crimes are so huge merely exposing them will cause political implosion. The inevitable slide toward oblivion will happen somewhat slowly for some, but a lot quicker, I think, than anybody is ready for. I'm talking about the disintegration of life as we know it. The wheels are coming off. All of them.

I'm also trying to find a reason for hope that the worst won't happen. Thing is, in many ways it already has. But not all the results are in. What it all devolves into I can only guess, and cringe.

Like I said, Iraq is a success. We're staying. The black prisons and torture are embarrassing world rulers, but that feeling will pass. Compared to what has already been going on for a long time it matters little. So, now we know. Like Bandar says,"So what?" In the end a few guys going to jail accomplishes nothing, if it even happens. Revolt? I don't see it, but that's like killing yourself because someone is trying to murder you. Not really a solution. It's over.

I apologize if I ruined your a day. And to those who would laugh it off as a tinfoil inspired rant I say FU and GL. Go to WalMart and buy your kid some Chinese manufactured birthday present and then tell him to join the Marines because serving your country is a noble thing to do.

Ya, I hope I get over it myself. I'm left to wonder how much denial I have me. And I'm really hoping someone smarter than me writes or says something intelligent that gives me a reason to hope that my boys have something to look forward to other than despair and a grim life here in the US. A bonus would be that the American 'experiment' isn't over. Mutual interest and benefit is the best I can come with. It ain't much to hang a hat on. Have a nice day.

and this one is.

Thanks.

I did inhale.

you would go all lasthorseman on us. ;-)

stuff like this comes to light eventually, but not until a respectable amount of time has passed, so we can say, but we aren't doing that any longer when in fact we are.

Which of the viable presidential candidates now running from either party would do anything to stop this? (aside from Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul and the fix is in against those guys). Hillary, Edwards, Obama, McCain, Romney, Giuliani or Fred Thompson?

So we will get more of the same until the laws of nature have their way with us and they will.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Lord have mercy.

Pray that one of these days, it isn't someone from your family that gets "rendered".

I did inhale.

... I've reached my tipping point. My 'last throes', as it were.

...warning about standing armies while he was creating one, you seem to hate an empire while decrying it's end.

Empires are built only by people who think having more power and money than anybody else is a worthy goal. There really, in absolute numbers, aren't all that many of them, but they scramble their way to the top and tend to have their way. When an empire is in ascendance, the empire's middle class tends to do well - it's really the same story as here, but emphasis on politics more than economics. So the middle class buys into empire. Once empire has reached it's peak, all the benefits accrue to the elites, but the narrative still sells and the middle class still backs it.

Empires end. They can end with a bang or a whimper. You can go down fighting vainly to the end for a cause manufactured out of nostalgia and patriotism, or you can put on your best shit-eating grin and get used to the fact that your days or living high off someone else's hog are over (if, in fact, you ever got to do so).

So there are a couple things you can do. Don't vote for anyone who wants to go macho in the face of the inevitable, and start practicing your shit-eating grin.