Reply #60: Honestly, I don't think that eliminating the * administration will do...

[markomalley]

...anything of substance. It goes deeper than that. When 50% (+ or -) of the American public supports him, that shows a deep sickness in the public that has to be dealt with. Our priorities are out of whack. The basic way we think as a country is simply wrong. If you want an explanation, see: http://www.catholicworker.org . We still have the fundamental greed and lust in our hearts that will cause us to accept this type of arrogance one way or another -- its not just * (although he is the most egregious example of this), it will exist even if Kerry is in office. A man like Kucinich is more closely aligned to the ideal I look for, but look at how he got blown away in the primaries -- he had no chance of winning.

How to undo it? I don't know. The temptations of a materialistic lifestyle are very lucrative. A message of voluntary sacrifice (not state-sponsored, but voluntary mind you) is a hard message to realize. Not many of us have the wisdom of Soloman to get it all and then realize how empty it is (see Ecclesiastes for details). We don't get much encouragement from the pulpit -- they are either greedy, self-serving bastards themselves or, if they do understand, don't have the chutzpah to say what they think...

You know, when I lived in the ME, I had a lot of friends from all economic strata. The poor ones had little but would give the shirts off their backs. They had barely enough food to feed themselves, but would make sacrifices to treat their guests well. The culture was different over there. Maybe there is something that we could learn from that -- not the entire culture, but maybe that one aspect of it.