I went to the local diner this weekend to have my usual breakfast. The spousal unit does not particularly care for breakfast, so I picked up the local rag to bide the time and potentially inform myself of current events. My main interest was in finding out how the local fight between Democracy, DKos, and the NRA was going in regards to the recall of two of Colorado's state senators, John Morse and Angela Giron.
DKos' readers surely know a thing or two about this issue and I wanted to make sure things were still going as well as reported against the Fascistic NRA and its numerous dups, dopes and dipshits in the Square State.
Before I could even browse the headlines or think about what I'd eat - the usual, duh! - the waitress noticed me looking at the newspaper and asked if there was any good news. Now, this is the cynical view of many, if not most, if not all news junkies, myself included. But her query had a more urgent tone. I could see the concern on her face and hear the nerves in her voice.
Her next pass by to take my order brought her statement the she and her fellow waitresses were discussing current events and possibility that the United States, at the behest of Nobel Laureate Obama, the Military-Industrial Complex, and some few, untainted leaders in our democracy, would release the dogs of war once again. It was quite obvious to me, without asking, that the wait staff was distinctly against yet another war in Southwest Asia and could only see the negative coming from American bombs killing innocent civilians in order to punish a government for killing its own innocent civilians.
Yeah, we used to have somewhat of a moral high ground, but that has long since been devalued. It is almost nil now, at the hands of what we all thought was going to be a peace-bearing, progressive-leaning president, and the gall of this nation calling on others to follow rules we have no intention of following is once again too much to bear.
I gave up on the dream of an enlightened, progressive president a few years into his first term. This is a sad enough reality. The staff at my friendly local diner were surely not as political or as well-informed as I, but showed the same concern for our policies and worry that our leaders would ignore the people as I do. I could also see they had the same feelings about war with Syria that would soon be my own conclusion.
If you want a more sophisticated and empirical analysis, check out Norman Solomon at FDL here.
But for me, the palpable fear in my host's demeanor told me everything I needed to know about whether the U.S. should invoke our Worldly Police Powers once again. We should not, and Democrats should do everything they can to fight this atavistic impulse in even our Nobel Peace Prized leaders.