I think we have become so complacent in that we are the best nation in the world that we have been snookered by the powers. A large portion of us will never wake up, another portion of us refuse to believe it and any believers are thought to be crazy. Just like the power brokers want us to think. My whole perception has turned upside down and I don't see a way to make it better. It is very discouraging and makes me want to put my arms around my country and pull it in tight like a mother would do to her child--but that is protectionism which most believe is the wrong way to go. Thanks for the exchange.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat..."
Theodore Roosvelt excerpted from his speech at the Sorbonne April 23, 1910