Author and producer David Simon created the HBO serial ‘The Wire’ about life in Baltimore that ran from 2002-2008, a total of sixty episodes that many critics claim was the best television series ever aired.  His background was as a journalist covering the police beat of Baltimore, and his reportedly unerring eye looked into the depths of the personal lives of Baltimore’s residents as they interrelated with others and were bumped into the institutions and systems, both official and unofficial, of the city.

Simon said that the show was …"really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution they are committed to."

Nothing in the following post is intended to or can be read to suggest that any political organization or affiliations as exist in the United States of America are offshoots, related to, intentionally emulating or seeking to impose a fascist or communist system in this country. It just seems that way sometimes.

by trying to face facts.

This started as a comment elsewhere but I decided to nail it to the church door.

Of course I don't defend our system, who does? But I plead guilty to being defeatist about changing it. In all sincerity I'll wish good luck to those who try, but from the sidelines.

Not that I'm always there. I spent an hour yesterday with my state representative and days in November going door to door for another candidate. Despite all the things that are wrong with our system, I believe in try to fix things that I think can be fixed.

There are others here who could write this post a lot better than I could.  If I had the elementary technical skills to do so I'd paste in one of the iconic photographs of African American citizens being "pacified" or whatever Bull Connor thought he was doing with those fire hoses and police dogs.  If I were a cartoonist I'd figure out a way to substitute in for the folks on the receiving end of those assaults on their dignity and humanity any of the many subgroups of middle-class, or once middle-class, and poor fellow citizens who are getting hammered--impersonally, usually, but no less me

As we set here bandying about how the Republicans are decimating union and people's rights, how we should or should not support the current administration, hurl righteous brick-bats at the left and evangelical right and other amusing activities - we seem to forget one of the biggest reasons we are at each others throats these days.  That the policies of the last 50 years or so have set this situation up to a tee.

In the last decade, America has tried applying our individualistic narrative to the Middle East. Now, as the people in multiple countries there struggle to take greater control for themselves, we want to see our story play out in their efforts, and we worry that it won't.

Sheena Iyengar - CNN

Recognize that the last few generations of America's bipartisan leadership have ruined the domestic economy and brought us to war at every turn overseas.  Regarding what is to be done about the Muslim world, we should bend every effort to fix our oil problem and then adopt a non-interventionist foreign policy toward the Muslim world. What we want is Muslims killing Muslims, and Muslims killing Israelis. A pox on both their houses.

Michael Scheuer - Washington Post

"The Arab Spring is also a Western Winter." 

Roger Cohen - New York Times

"Do we really want to adopt another Muslim country?"

Patrick J. Buchanan

“To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal”.

Henry Kissinger

Once, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was told that the execrable dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo, was a S.O.B., he famously replied, "yes, but he is our S.O.B.".

I wonder if anyone but me has noticed that in the Middle East -- so well stocked with S.O.B.s of every type, size and condition -- it seems that only our S.O.B.s are losing their jobs. Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran are quiet and Qaddafi is showing little sign of going gracefully or even of going at all. No, it is the dictators called -- until the day before yesterday -- "moderates" whose thrones or whatever are seen to be shaky or up for grabs.... as Kissinger said, being an enemy of the USA can be dangerous for sure, but serving America's interests is worth bubkes when push comes to shove.

   THE NEW FACE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

    (And body type too!)

Karl Rove, one of the greatest political minds of our time, had this to say about Sarah Palin, one of the greatest helicopter moose hunters of our time:

         These are frenzied days in Washington DC. They are also particularly dangerous ones for publicly-supported institutions that Republican politicians happen to dislike. With the threat of a complete government shut-down as their ultimate weapon, House Republicans are entering this year’s budget round with some very clear targets in mind. High on that list of targets is the $445 million federal subsidy to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  The President’s 2011 budget proposed to increase that subsidy by a meager $6 million.