The Public Sewer System – Oops…I meant School System – produced the "dim-witted and ignorant" audience that you speak of…and that is by design, Mr. Vidal.

The US is slipping toward Civil War as we speak…it's unavoidable at this point. So, yeah, a military dictatorship is inevitable.

The view that the outcomes of this presidency were predetermined before the election is utterly naive. Yes, in many of the most important ways Obama is a complete disappointment. But the fact remains that given our state of multi-crises, and given the amount of political capital Obama carried into office, it's clear that there was at least a real possibility for things to have been significantly better. There are still many very restrictive and essentially iron-clad constraints on the president's behavior, but even minor changes can have a huge impact when you're the worlds dominant military and economic power.

It seems to me like most of the people who paint the ruling class of this country as a single, completely homogeneous entity arrive at their views in order to satisfy a desire for the world to be simple. These people convince themselves that nothing they or anyone else can do matters, and then proceed to forfeit the little political role they have, knowing that they are safe from ever being responsible for the things that go wrong. They are secure in a level of certainty shared only by birthers, creationists and other such fundamentalists. These views are also partly based on an overestimation of the actual power of the president, since it's naturally difficult to grasp the kind of pressures that can be brought to bear on the worlds most important human actor. Or, in some cases, maybe they understand this but see it as a moot issue, since of course the president is part of the same amorphous blob and thus doesn't need to be influenced.

Currently, the president is reviewing Afghan policy and is reportedly unsure how to respond to the generals request for a dramatic escalation. I wonder how many of the people I'm talking about have bothered to try contacting the white house, or a senator, or writing a letter to the editor, or really done anything at all. Oh, it wont make a difference? Are you so sure it wont matter that you can't spend 60 seconds typing two or three sentences about the issue, considering that it will decide the fate of our country and 30 million afghanis? Maybe its the obsession with individualism that obscures the idea there could be utility to collective action. If so, its a real shame.

I know there are quite a few people who have views like what Im describing who aren't nearly so bone-headed about it, but in a disturbing number it looks a lot like a kind of intellectual cowardice.

do you think he needs to make a FORMAL DECLARATION?

shit. get real, will ya? I mean, this nation has been sliding into DICTATORSHIP for more than 46 goddamned years, culminating in this marionette and JACKASS who squats in the WHORE HOUSE NOW.

so Vidal, better you wake up and smell the TREASON. not a moment too soon, I hope!

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/OK/…

Bob is right – Vidal shoulda known that DemoThug or RepubloCon, they're just different wings of the same murderous bird of prey.