Joel S. Hirschhorn

My anger has morphed into sadness, heartbreak actually. As the decade of zeros ends I see nothing but a tragic, historic and deadening American Disappointment, a terrible replacement for a once noble American Dream. The Great Recession was merely one symptom of the nation’s slide into slime, a quicksand created by the two-party plutocracy.

Free of delusion I have come to this sad reality: Once upon a time Americans could confidently believe that their nation was on the right track, getting better, offering most citizens a decent chance of living securely and proudly. Now, that view has been smashed by many years of undeniable evidence that our political system is frighteningly corrupt by forces that have ensured an economy serving the interests of the rich and powerful. Their pursuit of happiness enslaves ordinary Americans. America’s middle class is a disappearing and suffering set of distracted victims, slipping continually into the lower class of an inevitable two-class system. Most are oblivious to their fate, to the electoral tyranny that manipulates and consumes them as fuel to keep the corpocracy humming.

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by Len Hart The Existentialist Cowboy

I did not support Obama so that the US could continue Bush's criminal policies! I most certainly did not and do not support the commission of new war crimes, aggression, or atrocities! When one's own country is wrong, it is one's patriotic duty to protest. I had hoped Obama would not become the new LBJ --stuck with and blamed for GOP wars of aggression accompanied by heinous war crimes by the US military and the world's largest and best financed terrorist organization --THE CIA!

Three of the seven--George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden--were themselves involved, in one way or another, in planning, conducting, or covering up all manner of illegal actions, including torture, assassination, and illegal eavesdropping. In this light, the most transparent part of the letter may be the sentence in which they worry: "There is no reason to expect that the re-opened criminal investigation will remain narrowly focused."

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Mary Shaw

This is the time of year when everyone is making their New Year's resolutions. As far as I can tell, the White House has not released President Obama's list of resolutions for 2010. So I offer the following resolutions for him to consider, unlikely as they are to be adopted:

• Amend our policy in Afghanistan to cut our losses and bring our troops home by the end of 2010. This is where a flip-flop would be easily forgiven. Our tax dollars have been wasted on propping up the corrupt Karzai government for long enough.

• Follow up on the Copenhagen climate change conference using all your strength and diplomatic skills, and lead the way to establish a more effective international policy to address the threat of climate change.

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Stuart Littlewood

It is desperately sad to see the noble efforts of the Viva Palestina expedition turning sour in front of our eyes as the forces of darkness plot once again to derail humanitarian aid for Gaza.

Admittedly the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (joint organizers) are avoiding questions about whether or not they obtained clearance from Egypt for the route. This encourages speculation that convoy members were led up the garden path when they headed for Aqaba. The cost in time and expense (and lost pay, as many took time off work to make the trip) of having to re-trace their steps to Syrian, and divert to the port of Latakia, is an added burden they could have done without.

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