How many more lies must we listen to?

How many more political scandals must we endure?

How many more of our young people have to be grievously wounded or die in unnecessary and illegal wars, and how many more trillions of dollars in economic waste must we clean up before we are sickened enough to demand effective changes in our government?

Are we ready for a peaceful political "evolution" to safeguard our personal and economic freedoms in this country and to avoid committing war crimes against others?

In Washington’s Crossing, an excellent history of the near failure of the American Revolution in the winter of 1776, David Hackett Fischer concluded that neither Washington’s leadership nor the victories at Trenton and Princeton saved the revolution following his resounding defeat in New York City.

To the contrary, Washington’s victories resulted from the revival of spirit that arose among the ordinary people in the Delaware Valley as they began to read Thomas Paine’s American Crisis.

According to Fischer, "This great revival grew from defeat, not from victory. The awakening was a response to a disaster. Doctor Benjamin Rush, who had a major role in the event, believed that this was the way a free public would always work, and the American republic in particular. He thought it was a national habit of the American people (maybe all free people) not to deal with a difficult problem until it was nearly impossible."

Although we are calculating the cost in thousands of lives and billions of dollars, we cannot imagine the full extent of damage that will flow from our president’s having misled our nation into an illegal war with Iraq and our innocent troops into the commission of war crimes.

We are only beginning to get a glimpse of the devastation to the American economy caused by unrestrained deregulation and reckless Wall Street gambling, as our president threw away our hard-earned money, eliminated taxes for his wealthy friends, ran up debts for our children and grandchildren to pay in the future, tried to destroy our Social Security, encouraged the shipment of American jobs out of the country, and allowed the international value of our currency to depreciate.

All of us, liberals, conservatives and independents, are going to be increasingly harmed by the failures of our government and those we’ve allegedly elected to run it.

We must anticipate that there are more lies on their lips waiting to be told, even more ugly secrets waiting to be uncovered and even worse scandals yet to unfold.

The good news is that the American people remain the best, the bravest, and the brightest our human civilization has ever produced. America is the Promised Land, and Americans are an amalgamation of all races and all cultures on Earth.

The American genetic pool is the most robust and diverse of any society on earth, and the revolutionary spirit continues to run deep and true in the blood lines of all who yearn for freedom and the full fruits of their labor.

The American people will survive and, ultimately, we will achieve a government that better cares for us and is less threatening to the rest of the world.

The bad news is that we will have to go through hell to get there. So, how do we brave the flames?

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