"Are We Still Broken ? How Broken Are We ?"

"To Sin by Silence, when they should protest makes Cowards out of men."
Abraham Lincoln

"Are we Still Broken ?" So I have a neighbor down the street that I run into walking the dog. An older fellow, WWII Vet who is wise, sarcastic and pissed. He makes me laugh, he makes think. His caustic wisdom is as insightful as it is painful. We have discussed everything from the GI Bill that was not good enough for McCain to Iraq to Oil to Hillary to Obama to Home Foreclosures to Fearmongering.Here is a smattering of some of his wisdom.

" I may be an old Fool, but I am old enough to know that I want Someone Young at the Helm. And I want someone that will tell me if the Bus Is Broken...which it is." He says this with a wrinkled smile.

"And you can bet this election those Damn Repug Fools will be trying to scare us with some kind of Terror Tomfoolery".

"Nixon would have called these Criminals Real Crooks".

So last weekend, he is out working on his yard and I eavesdropped on his conversation with his neighbor, the retired teacher, the Hillary supporter. He was making conversation with her as she took Hillary sign out of her yard. She was complaining that it was an Awful Process, and that she was going to put the sign back in her yard during the Denver Convention. And she told him that she was not going to vote.

He stopped what he was doing and stared at her jaw gaping, eyes huge.
"You are kidding me right?"

"No, I am not, I am not voting. I can not be part of this process any longer, so I just won't be. It was her Turn, Not His."

I watched him get flushed and he had stopped raking and was staring at her hard, I knew that he was going to have to say Something. I watched him take a deep breath and get ready to let her have a piece of his mind.

" Now I have to say. I have known you for some years, but you have me a bit confused. You mean to say when I went and fought the Evil Germans who destroyed their country and many other countries, I was not protecting Freedoms of ALL Americans ? Only Some Americans? And that I was not protecting People that Value the Right to Vote ? Or the People who believe in the Constitution ? And those poor kids over in Iraq right now, WHO is going to Vote to get them Home ? Because you know McCain will leave them there forever, because in his mind, this is NOT as bad as Vietnam. So in this America, that is "Our" America, it is only a partial thing, like sometimes you feel American and sometimes you don't ? And you can pretend that Other People, like me and kids in Iraq don't need your Vote or need you to care ? That is the most Selfish Thing I have ever heard."

He sighed and then finished, " When my nephew gets home from that Hellhole, I will be sure to tell him that not everyone wanted to help get him home."

He looked at her hard, put his rake against the tree and went inside , mumbling about his BP meds.She just stared at him. I continued picking up dog poo and would not look her in the eye, I figured she should be alone with what he said to her. She had been thoroughly schooled and his words hung heavy still in the air.

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John Cusack was on Countdown last week and he asked a really poignant question. He pointed out that if you are not an Activist now, when would you be ? It is a really good question. We are beyond Broken at this point, and we are not going to get infinite chances to fix any of this. The Bush Regime fearmongered us and warmongered us , meanwhile they have broken every single system that we need as a Nation to survive, from Foreign Diplomacy to Infrastructure, to Justice to Energy, to the Constitution to Healthcare.

We are so Broken that the Bigger Question is , is Our Collective Humanity Broken ? Is Our Vision Broken? Because Myoptic Apathy does Kill.....If you don't believe me, I have my Neighbor, The WWII Vet who will tell you about what Germany Looked like after Hitler created a nation of people who were not "involved". Admitting we are Broken is one thing, deciding to Do Something about that is Another.Our Future is in Our Hands.

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This video was on my mind the whole time I wrote this...."Come Undone" by Duran Duran...


The art is "The Homecoming" by Norman Rockwell. This post is crossposted over at Sirens Chronicles.