Sure beats the diatribes and personal vindictives one reads at too many sites!

Maybe we’re on to something?

I’m honored to think I may have precipitated such elevated discussion.

Thanks to all who took the time to write.

Jim, thanks for the most refreshing, most balmy, feedback I’ve had in 28 years!

Bozhidar, you’re right to take me to task for the phrase “Take back America.” When writing, one strives always for the original phrase, an encomium, maxim or trope. And, still, despite one’s best efforts, one occasionally falls back on the crutch of a bromide. Thanks for your expansive exposition.

Thanks, too, to Bruce Tyler Wick for reminding us of what true heroism means–the cost and sacrifice of it. If we must honor the soldiers who do the bidding of Empire, let us honor and never forget those brave, enlightened souls who have opposed Empire and its atrocities.

We are in for some very dark days and years ahead. Many of us with some vision have predicted this Collapse for years or decades. Many more have striven to pooh-pooh such predictions. We’d best pull together and row now. Thanks to Dissident Voice, and sites like it, for providing the wherewithal to build connections.

“Thank you, Gary and David.

And although I love Auden and Houseman, presently I bow down only to the master:

And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread
Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;
Heart mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love
And not those things that they were emblems of.

WB Yeats, The Circus Animals’ Desertion”

RE: KENT STATE and HEROISM

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Dear Mr. Corseri:

Finally, someone has made the link, not only between Kent State and Vietnam, but between protest and heroism!

Students called the noonday assembly that fateful day to consider the invasion and occupation of the Kent State campus by armed men, Ohio National Guardsmen, and more generally, to protest the condition of their lives.

Not all of course attended. Bill Schroeder, a ROTC Cadet, was shot dead on his way to a PT class. But in death Schroeder joins in sympathy, and even in interest, the others shot dead or wounded that day. Why? Because Governor Rhodes and University President White had made the decision at their firehouse meeting to keep the University open and functioning WITH the assistance of armed men (the Guardsmen)–AND to prevent or disperse all (unapproved) assemblies.

Yet, the common law duty of a presiding officer, in this case University President White, was to ADJOURN any meeting or assembly at which he could not guarantee the participants’ safety, and to send the participants safely home–not to try to carry on in the presence of soldiers armed to the teeth.

No one examining the photo of Bill Schroeder, which hangs in the Student Union, could fail to agree he belongs with the protesters. Bare chested, muscled yet pensive; Schroeder is fully engaged, open to life and to the world and ready for both. He plays the part assigned him in this drama wrought by the gods of war. Soldiering off to class as instructed, oblivious to his danger despite his training; Schroeder perseveres in his duty in the face of adversity and distraction, only to be murdered for his tenacity.

Thank you for again reminding me of history’s sometimes circular paths.

Respectfully,

BRUCE TYLER WICK
Cleveland, Ohio

Increases voter turnout, provides choices, keeps the campaigns focused on real issues, eliminates “spoiler” and eliminates the “calculus” of lesser of two evils, and the “winner” has broad support. Utterly changes the dynamics of politics in America with its one party of war and imperial pursuits.

Instant run off - it’s a beautiful thing!!

This is the most refreshing essay I have read in twenty-eight years. I still think that, properly regulated, instant runoff voting could end many of the evils we face today. Thanks.

Nicely done article.

Let me try to answer your primary question of “Must we…?”

It’s yes, sadly. Why? Most of us simply don’t live long enough to become wise enough to see what’s going on. If we do live long enough, we don’t have the wherewithal to do something about it. For when the light finally comes on, for most of us our spirit and hopes and dreams are ground down to nubs, our bodies are tired, and the “fear of the universe” spoken of by William James which has haunted us for so long in our brief lives has taken its toll.

A. E. Housman knew this and so he wrote:

And how am I to face the odds
Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.

Thanks.
David