quote:

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.

Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.

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ORIGINAL: christine1

i agree with this.  i don't know why i'm getting my ass taxed off for...what was it again?  the war?  the huge salaries of the idiotic government? we spend so much on foreign "interests", that building up our own infrastructure or guarding our borders is something that's thought of as overspending, or not in the budget.  well what the fuck is in the budget?  when will the budget be more geared towards the poor saps who actually fund it?  when did this stop being a government for the people? 

i'm not against helping other countries at all, but not at the expense of those who are funding it all.  it would go a long way if the government showed a little faith in what makes this country breathe at it's core, not just try to squeeze every last drop of life from it for its own benefit.

Level i adore you and your threads, but i have to stop at that and maybe finish on the other side.

*emphasis added to most important part *

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ORIGINAL: clodivs

Nation building?  I thought that was a job for William Walker.