How ironic that of all the spots on the planet war where the US could be at war, the vicinity of ancient Babylon is chosen.

Because as the US is to the world now, Babylon also was the world’s greatest superpower in its time.  The ancient and modern superpowers have much in common.  While ancient Babylon is perhaps mostly famous for its role in the book of Revelations, not much is said by clergy these days about how Babylon initiated the military/religious complex, banking, corporate commerce and bureaucratic commercial tedium as we know it.  Follow the money... to Babylon.

We are traveling south of the US, and visited a beach area frequented by Canadians.  Their antipathy towards US people has radically increased since - evidently - the Iran issue.  Because they have become noticeably colder in just three months.  Luckily the Mexican people are still mostly very sweet and friendly (with the exception of tourist destinations such as the one we visited).

So I’d like to know:  what other Americans abroad are experiencing in relation to other nationals?

It hinges on this:  by presidential declaration in 2001, the US is in a state of national emergency.  That presidential edict has not yet been rescinded.

What does it mean to write here?  I hope more will realize the responsibility and privilege we have here. Because it is now very much under fire. I would counter the gratutitous troll-rating games with this:  our times have changed.  We all take a risk for even writing in a public forum.  More info below.

How brainwashed are we in the US anyway?

After three months living in Mexico, we continue to marvel at what a mirror this culture is to our home.  Read on, let me share the some of the beauties of this country with you.  We have been surprised to find of ourselves that indeed we still really like people, and children in particular.  Children, after all, are perhaps the best measure of a society.

...building a giant limited-access "super highway" that will slice from the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas, through the heartland of the US, to Canada, just north of Duluth, MN...  Without any discussion or approval from Congress, and no public debate, the Bush administration foresees containers from the Far East - including China - entering the US from the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas aboard Mexican trucks. At Laredo the trucks will pick up what will be America's most modern limited-access "International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor" - described as four football fields wide, sporting ten lanes, as well as passenger and freight rail lines, bordered with gas and oiil lines running along its sides.

"I don't want to weaken the Patriot Act, I want to repeal it. What it does, it takes away your freedom ... and when you take away our freedoms, the terrorists have won," Tester said.

And who else is taking such a stand?

What happened to them?  Ask a combat veteran about terror:  dripping with adrenalin, terrified.  You don't just get over it.

This is one of many features of emerging Patriot Act legislation.  By making permanent our state of national emergency through the powers vested in the Patriot Act, this legislation would do an end run around around Posse Comitatus.

And thus should domestic arrests be made, this would allow the National Guard to do the dirty work... and allow them to man the civilian inmate labor facilities as well.

It's a horrible process, dying of PTSD-aggravated dementia.  Lock-up dementia care centers are arguably more disturbing to visit than a prison.  Then there's the question of justice for Mom, who just turned 88.  Her DOD benefits ceased when Dad died three years ago.  Her railroad widow's benefits don't cover the cost of her care.  A significant factor in her dementia is second-hand WWII PTSD from dealing with Dad, but the VA won't pick up that tab.

The musical soul of the US now stricken through New Orleans' tragedy, we grieve in ways it seems even music might dare not address.  But may I recommend Chopin's mazurkas as played by William Kapell.  The dark, dreamy harmonies of these Polish dance tunes mourn and embrace the tragic ironies of life with dignity.

Great art can be like narcolepsy, abducting the beholder into a near dream state, and so it is with Kapell's interpretations of Chopin's neglected works - the mazurkas, with their subtle harmonies seemingly borrowed from angels.  Not a few believed that until Kapell, no one really understood Chopin's intentions.  In 1995 when the recording series was finally released (42 years after Kapell`s death), all previous interpretations of the mazurkas were stood on their heads.

Following are excerpts from an article by Robert Higgs written shortly after 9/11, explain the principle whereby "...In national emergencies the Crisis Constitution overrides the Normal Constitution."  In other words, all our arguments about this or that being constitutional or not are irrelevant as long as our elected leaders, Supreme Court and we, the public, agree to remain in a state of National Emergency.

Dad knew that.  It helped make him insane.  It was disputable at the time, as he was a WWII lieutenant and a bombardier in the Army Air Corps, and as a soldier he certainly knew to some extent that he was expendable.  But do soldiers imagine that their imminent death will become fixed policy?  Or how could one keep fighting with feelings of loyalty?

I wanted to tell him, because I felt it would set him free of his core vexation and burden in life.  Others said no, don't present the government's betrayal for him to meditate upon in his last few hours alive.  That would be too bitter, because he already knows too much.

Dad hated anyone who loved war, and he saw the Bush machine coming.  His mind had degenerated by the time the Bush star rose to power, but he was alert enough to wax furious as all the dumb-down of the media came into place.  He ranted ceaselessly about it.  He told everyone he could corner that he wanted to sue the media  He even went so far as to campaign for the US presidency (naturally a public relations disaster).  It would be a platform to voice his objections to the emerging military-industrial-complex and the international corporate privateers who now run our country.

Mine is the information soldiers would tell the U.S. if only they would be allowed to return.  For the victors can suffer worse fates, in the end, than the vanquished.  I know this because Dad brought World War II home with him.  Mom and I still live with it even though Dad has died.