[James Brancheau]

I didn't read the article, John. I will later, as much as I don't want to. Biden is tied with Trump according to polling. Or Trump is one point ahead, according to some polls. I have no words for this. Except. I left the states in part because I couldn't deal with Bush jr and the bullshit back then. There were other issues, but I had trouble not getting into (often very aggressive) arguments. I think a good portion of Americans are willfully stupid. And another portion is actually stupid. Quietly, Biden has done quite a bit. Quietly, perhaps, is the problem. I'm not a flag waving fan, but, as Maher said, I'd rather Biden's brain be floating in a jar as president than Trump being elected again.

[John Riley]

This guy is holding up military promotions and pay raises because of some made-up abortion bs.

I wish I had left this place decades ago. Now my son is a Navy SEAL, which is almost more than I can think about. He's willing to do what he does for a country that may elect Trump again. If we'd left maybe he would have made a different decision.

The current move toward irrational, self-destructive politics isn't contained in the U.S. I think, this isn't original with me, that it is because of the widening gap between the few elite soon-to-be trillionaires and the vast majority of people who live in financial anxiety. As the gap grows and the anxiety increases it gets crazier and crazier. Marx may have said religion is the opiate of the people, but it is now the methamphetamine. The nature of most of the other madness is no more divorced from reality than the Book of Mormon or Hindu nationalism or any other religious fanaticism. This diverts attention. It's obvious. It is no coincidence that the figures most responsible for the madness that will eventually consume us all if it isn't stopped are billionaires such as Murdoch and now Elon Musk, who has now, true to form, gone anti-Semitic. When people's lives were less economically stressed there was more room for sanity. People are going nuts. And yes, their poor economic decisions add to the stress, but when you live in a society that values the car you drive to the extent you're willing to borrow all the equity in your home to buy an $80,000.00 pickup truck, how much can you blame people who are constantly bombarded with marketing? IMO, the 20th-century American writer who had the keenest eye on the suicide created by marketing and status was Philip K. Dick.

Sorry about the tirade. I'm no scholar but I have read and studied enough history and read enough literature to know when the world is marching toward disaster. I guess I sound nuts but if so explain to me why this isn't like the twenty years leading up to WWI? And no, not specifics but in the increasing derangement, or Europe before 1789. Check out the link below regarding the "Thucydides Trap" in the context of U.S.-China relations.

https://www.belfercenter.org/thucydi...hucydides-trap