And I completely agree. This country has gone to hell and I doubt there is any mercy for it. People will still say, "We may have our problems but it is still the best damn country in the world!" To which I ask them, "Prove IT!!!" If these people think they live in the best country because they are "FREE" and have a Bill of Rights to protect that freedom they are so sadly mistaken. We have a Congressman that gave up his "seat in the House" so he can pursue and lock up the sick and dying! All because the highest court in the land has suddenly become medical experts. There is a WAR in this country and it ain't about drugs anymore. It is now about overthrowing Tyranny. These government Nazi's are using the "drug war" as a cover for the enslavery of all americans. If not actually behind bars you are enslaved to the system of tax and do as we say. How many voter initiatives in this country have been overturned by courts or declared unconstitutional. This is not democracy. Democracy is DEAD. We have a government by the government for the government. It lives off the perpetual labors of the people enslaved to it. I am seriously considering leaving this land for good. It has become the epitome of corruption and evil. I used to be proud to be an american. Now I am just scared. I have a job, a home, and live an average life, minding my own business etc. and the government can hardly wait to take it all away from me because I like to smoke a little pot occasionally instead of smoking its legal killer tobacco.

Speaking of tobacco and legal substances. I quit smoking cigs almost 2 years ago. Yippee! It was a $220 a month habit. That's about 2-3 packs a day and yes it was literally poisoning me to death. But hey its legal and the government gets its greedy little share with a smile. At that time I also smoked about $40 worth of pot every two months (street value). Well I figure that if I grow my own pot now, I won't contribute any more money to "street crime." Except that raising little plants in my own american(land of the imprisoned) backyard garden is a CRIME too!

Hell, if I was the president and wanted to drill for oil in my alaskan backyard where it is forbidden? I can just change the law and make it legal. Who is gonna stop me? The sheeple? LOL. Come on over Asa and John lets get blowjobs from interns and count our money!

Bush administration officials are voicing rising impatience with the concessions President Andrés Pastrana of Colombia has granted to leftist rebels in his country.

DESTROYING THE COUNTRY TO SAVE IT: THE U.S. WAR ON VIETNAM, 1960-1968
http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/fbb3.htm

from the link:
"For the RVN, the biggest crisis in 1963 was religious turmoil. The Ngo family had favored Catholics in administrative and military matters since 1954, and began to repress the majority Buddhists--which they saw, with reason, as a political enemy--more intensely in the spring, forbidding them from celebrating Buddha's birthday and even sending troops into their temples to attack and kill the faithful.

"Then, on 10 June, a monk named Quang Duc sat down in the middle of a busy Saigon street, doused himself with gasoline, and lit himself on fire to protest the Diemist repression of his people. The world's media, tipped off by the Buddhists, were there and Quang Duc's story and photo were front page news worldwide. Madame Nhu, ever tactful, referred to the immolation as a "Buddhist barbecue" and offered to supply fuel for the next one. For his part, Diem continued to strike at the Buddhists. After nearly a decade of supporting the RVN and the Ngos, it was finally clear that Diem and his brother were beyond rehabilitation. The United States, which had followed a policy of "sink or swim with Ngo Dinh Diem," finally accepted his overthrow on 1 November 1963 in a coup led by ARVN officers in which Diem and Nhu were both killed. Publicly, the Buddhist situation had become, so to speak, incendiary, and it was impossible to credibly claim that America was fighting for "democracy" in Vietnam so long as the Ngos were in power."

"There was, however, a private yet probably more important reason behind the U.S. abandonment of Diem. His brother Nhu, also aware that the regime's days were numbered, began to make overtures to the NLF about a negotiated settlement and the establishment of a coalition, neutral government in the south, with the Ngos and the Front both included.

Killing Buddhists may have been awfully distasteful, but going behind American backs to discuss an end to the civil war was unforgivable. Afraid that peace might break out short of victory, Kennedy reiterated the American commitment to Vietnam in late 1963. In interviews with TV anchormen Chet Huntley and Walter Cronkite shortly before his death, JFK insisted that Vietnam was "a very important struggle" and that withdrawal "only makes it easy for the Communists. I think we should stay."(9) Despite recognizing the laundry list of military and political shortcomings and barriers to success in the RVN, and sending 16,000 advisors and billions of dollars to that point with little noticeable improvement, JFK was not retreating from his commitment in Vietnam."

You can almost smell the napalm.

GOOD FREEKIN' GRIEF

>"The Americans expressed concern that the leading rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, is using a Switzerland- sized swath of territory it controls to learn bomb-making techniques from the Irish Republican Army and to operate dismal mobile prisons for captured police officers and other enemies. "<

Talk about a pile of unsubstantiated ,heresay bullshit!......My favorite line is
the "..dismal mobile prisons for captured police officers and other enemies. "
What a pile of raw propaganda CRAP!....What about the dismal American prisons
for captured Marijuana smokers,and other enemies?

This article is museum quality propaganda,written,and served up to the sheeple
by the best bullshitters your tax money can buy.........
..Which reminds me of another huge chunk of raw bullshit,,and that is the
term;"budget surplus",,,what a cruel joke on the masses!,,as if there was
some way that the government ended up with billions of extra dollars that
they innocently overcollected in taxes.....gimme a motherf****** Freekin break!

I'm gettin' really disgusted with this crap,,,it's way beyond out of control,,it's
raw,blatant,and absurd evil empire!....It's a world class wound in reality,and freedom,
that is unlikely to ever heal.......Lord have mercy,,,,He will need it!

dddd

I invite the curious to go here:
The Fall of Ngo Dinh Diem
http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~eemoise/viet6.html

and take a good long look at the parallels:

"Although public statements have been supportive of President Pastrana, a top State Department official, Marc Grossman, who is planning a fact-finding trip to Colombia next week, will discuss these concerns, officials said today."

From the provided link:

"The United States had been sending money, equipment, and a few men to Vietnam ever since the early 1950's. From 1960 to 1962, as the guerrilla war expanded, US aid increased. The US was not as yet willing to send in ground troops, although ARVN units going out on combat operations were often accompanied by US officers as advisors. US Air Force pilots, however, conducted direct combat operations in South Vietnam. Policy required that a Vietnamese go along on such flights, so the US could pretend that the missions were being carried out by the Vietnamese, with the Americans simply helping.

The top US officials in Vietnam tried to be optimistic, and tried to create the impression that Ngo Dinh Diem was a magnificent and popular leader who was winning the war. A few American reporters were saying that something was seriously wrong, but the US Embassy in Saigon did its best to discredit them. In 1963 it became apparent that the Embassy's optimistic view was not tenable. Diem's desire to avoid casualties was preventing the ARVN from taking the offensive in the countryside. The corruption and brutality of his officials were continuing to alienate the peasants. Diem was totally unresponsive to US suggestions that he reform his government.

And a little further on:

"The US government realized, in the summer of 1963, that the Diem government was hopeless. It was corrupt, incompetent, and dictatorial; hardly anyone in South Vietnam, even its own officers, liked or respected it very much. If the war against the Communists were to be won, Ngo Dinh Diem would have to go.

US officials in Saigon therefore began encouraging ARVN officers to overthrow Diem. Within a few months the officers were ready, and Diem was overthrown and shot. The Americans were distressed at his death--the US would have preferred to see Diem in exile, living off the tremendous wealth his family had accumulated in foreign bank accounts--but the officers who carried out the coup in November 1963 did not feel it would really be safe or desirable to leave Diem alive.

There were 'suggestions'. There were 'fact-finding missions'. There were 'high-level discussions'.

And when those soft strokes with the velvet glove weren't enough, down came the iron fist...with a fusillade of bullets. Scratch one reluctant US ally with delusions of equality with his de facto masters.