In 2002 I finally made the trip to Europe that I had wanted to do for decades.  My wife and I came with an old friend and his wife, and we spent some time in Paris, Amsterdam, and in the Bordeaux region.  It was such a wonderful trip and everyone was so nice that it has been doubly shaming to watch the great idiocy that overtaken this country.  In fact, I think that is too kind a description,  and that actually a malevolent arrogance in train with greed and ignorance has been the face we have shown to the world.  Our federal system favors a "two party" system that easily devolves into a meaningless set of postures that anguishes over meaningless and esoteric phony problems while systematically handing itself over to the highest bidder, which is in general corporate.

I think that a lot of people like myself failed to remain politically active after the 70's and did not see the rise of the right as clearly as we should have.  This is a big country and difficult to right quickly especially when our media is so corporate and bland.  The size of the country and our isolation and failure to travel coupled with a fair degree of innate self-satisfaction left us easy picking for knaves.  The destruction of the two buildings on Sept 11, 2001, infuriated and terrified us, and was a political blessing for a president who was already suspect.  Unbelievably, he threw away the great outpouring of sympathy and support offered by the great majority of the world and seemed to intentionally offend those same people.

But I suspect you mostly know all of that, and what I really want to say is that many of us respect the European peoples and admire the humane civilization you are trying to craft.  Thank you for your courtesy when I visited.  We are trying to do better here, so please wish us well.

"I said, 'Wait a minute, Chester, You know I'm a peaceful man...'" Robbie Robertson