At the 'crudest' level!

I know that we Americans are duty-bound obligated to see the cup as half full but that is not what I see. Or, what I feel.

The BP oil spill has a dystopian "Blade Runner" feel to it. America has become a corporatized, militarized nation where unfettered capitalism and "The Forever War" are repeatedly run-up the flagpole, and while we all mindlessly salute, our heritage is rewritten and our future subverted.

Author, Richard Russo observed, "Can it be that what provides for us is the very thing that poisons us? Who hasn't considered this terrible possibility?"

Most of us, that's who. We don't question authority. We seemingly either ignore events (cocoon) or listen to radio wackos wax idiotic about how if only we returned to the core "values" of our Founding Fathers all would once again be right in America. What simplistic blather. Such core values as blacks are three-fifths a human being or only propertied white men can vote? Since 1848, America has been on an imperialistic romp of historic proportions. Of all the wars of the 20th century, I would have participated in exactly one — WWII. The "Greatest Generation" got off easy in one regard — they actually fought in a war justified by events.

We pat ourselves on the back and say what wonderful fellas we Americans are. We're spreading the benefits of democracy and capitalism, don't-cha see. Tell that to the Vietnamese, Chileans, Guatemalans or Iraqis. And now, the Afghans. Tell it to the families of the tens of thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded Americans who died in the 20th century for what? So that local markets remain exploitable for the likes of a United Fruit Company?

This is what General George Washington "warned against" upon leaving the presidency in 1796: "Hence, likewise, they [America] will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican liberty."

This is what General Dwight Eisenhower "warned against" upon leaving the presidency in 1961: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Both generals nailed it cold. They called a spade a shovel and is it any wonder we have dug such a monstrous hole for the nation? We're burying ourselves! We've been sold out, folks. We've been handed an untrue bill of goods, that large national corporate interests are necessarily America's interests.

The BP (Big Polluter) oil spill was avoidable. If the interests of human beings and of the environment were of equal consideration to corporate profits, regulatory oversight would have been strict and enforced. They aren't equal. Understand that.

BP represents at the "crudest" level what America has become. Think of the oil plume that is consuming the Gulf as a metaphor for what corporate special interests are doing to our American republic.

And despair.