An old guy's view on the State of the Union.

At no time, certainly at no time in my life, since the very depths of the Nixon crisis with the Saturday night massacre has my country seemed so fragile and such easy prey for crooks and despots. The strongest factor that arrested the decay of civil authority and its proper role in a constitutional government on October 20 in 1973 was the integrity and allegiance to country of those fired and resigned appointees. This time around, the Republican Imperial Wannabe has had 6 years to apply what he learned from Nixon and has purged from government most who place the interests of nation and constitution above those of the Republican party in its desperate grab for all power civil and military. Six attorneys, at lower levels in government than those sacked by Nixon are the rag tag remnant of conscience that remained in office and stood in the way of the genteel but sweeping totalitarianism of Bush and his backers.

The state of the union is threatened by those who have blinded themselves or forgotten that:

• The party is NOT the government,
• The government is not the nation.
• This is NOT Stalinist Russia...the irony here is excruciating that cold warriors in search of an enemy have done more to become what they fought than they can ever see.

At no time in this country's history as I know it, have I had more justification for saying "I will defend this country but I may have to do so by removing its government". I am resolutely for the constitution, I may spend my last dollar and my last breath in support and praise for the people who have worked for generations to build the place I live and I am absolutely convinced that a genuine democracy of informed citizens has no peer or superior among the forms of government. We should try that in America.

Perhaps I dream. Perhaps there was never a time when it was a benign mistake to blur the distinctions between the government and the people of this nation. We are now dragged to a low point of adultered administration where further confusion of those two is as harmful as any sedition.

I have been and will be busy this week preparing for peace vigils so posting will be light and may continue in the rather screechy political vein it has taken on of late. Our efforts to end the wasting of lives and money seem dulled by an unresponsive government. I remind you who the architects of that national numbness are. One head that should roll is bald, fat and jowly...and not among the fired attorneys.