Some 220-odd years ago, Ben Franklin observed the carving of the sun on the back of our newly elected first president's chair, and pondered if it was symbolically a rising or setting sun for America. He decided it was rising. Perhaps correct for a good many years, Ben it would seem is now owed our apology.

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1980 and 1984 elections of Ronald Reagan as President. Covert political and military interventions in South and Central America. Invasion of Grenada.  Iran-Contra. Rise of arrogant U.S. exceptionalism, trashing integrity for military posturing. Economic tipping point of the American middle-class.
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1988 election of George H.W. Bush as president. "Defense" of Kuwait. Attack on Iraq.
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1992 and 1996 elections Bill Clinton as president. Enactment of NAFTA. Nullification of Glass-Steagall Act. Ascent of bank - investment house power.
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2000 presidential election awarded to George W. Bush by the Supreme Court in disregard of highly suspicious handling of votes in Florida.

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Bush's appointee Attorney General John Ashcroft symbolically orders modesty drape over exposed torso of the statue of Justice, in prelude to the plastic values and the sense of priorities to come.
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9-11-2001: "Attack" on World Trade Center in New York, we are told caused by collisions of two passenger aircraft piloted by "terrorists." Three steel-structured skyscrapers collapse, each in their own footprint, each within seconds from top to bottom. Wreckage disappears prior to analysis. A third "terrorist piloted" plane crashes in rural Pennsylvania. Wreckage also disappears. Fourth "terrorist piloted" plane crashes into Pentagon. Wreckage also disappears.
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Nation advised that the United States is confronted by a treacherous international conspiracy named al-Qaeda, headed by an obscure robed figure named Osama ben Laden, hiding somewhere in the Middle East. Congress abrogates its constitutional power to declare or refuse war to George W. Bush. U.S. invades Afghanistan. Thousands slaughtered, including civilian women and children.
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Department of Homeland Security created. (From the German: das Heimatland?) Americans begin the submission to body searches and X-rays prior to being permitted to board aircraft. NSA vastly augments email and phone tapping. Cameras mounted in public places to surveil routine citizen behavior.
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Secretary of State Powel lies to United Nations that Iraq possesses threatening "weapons of mass destruction." U.S. invades Iraq. Multi-thousands more civilians slaughtered.
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U.S. citizen protestors for peace ignored, beaten back and jailed. "Support Our Troops" becomes the propaganda mantra. Airport security strictures become increasingly more difficult, intrusive and time consuming for civilians. The Bill of Rights is chipped away by the federal government "to protect the Homeland from terrorism."
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U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba set up to accommodate "extreme rendition" and torture of untried "terrorists" from the Middle East and elsewhere. Other foreign torture dens are established. Techniques include "waterboarding," naked humiliation, food deprivation, electrical shock, extreme hot and cold environments, prolonged posture constriction, beatings, etc.
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2004 presidential election goes to George W. Bush despite reports of considerable voting-machine irregularities in Ohio.

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Resurgence in government arrogance.

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The wars continue throughout the Bush reign. Estimates from Johns Hopkins U. run up to a million and a half slaughtered, mostly civilians.
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Federal reaction to devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina prioritizes military reaction over humanitarian response.
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Unregulated mortgage market surges in liars' loans, then bursts causing millions of foreclosures and massive homelessness.

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Investment bankers awarded trillions of the people's treasure in grants and fractional percent "loans" by the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Bank, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to "avert collapse of the economy,"
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2008 and 2012 elections of Barack Obama as president. Bush aides carried over into his administration, most significantly in Treasury and finance positions. Scholars estimate that unreported grants to banksters run higher than 20 trillion dollars.
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In his initial campaign, Obama promises to close down the Guantanamo torture facility. He lied -- it yet operates. All of the Bush restrictions to the Bill-of-Rights are re-enforced without announcement. Airport "security" becomes yet more onerous for civilian passengers. He appoints himself assassin-in-chief, including of both foreigners and U.S. citizens. Pilotless remotely controlled drone aircraft become the U.S. weapon of choice, employed against Afghanistan, neutral Pakistan and other Middle-Eastern countries, slaughtering more civilians than the intended targets.
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Osama bin Laden assassinated and dumped into the sea mafia-style rather than brought to the bar of justice.

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The international slaughter by the American military continues into its twelfth year with no true end in sight, and now threatens to expand to Iran, Africa and elsewhere, including in support of hostile actions taken by Israel, "our closest ally." An American military command, AFRICOM, has in fact been formed to "protect" the peoples and resources, as well as to provide military basing on and logistics routes across the Dark Continent, while we now have established an American military presence in 130 foreign countries.
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Unemployment hovers about an "official" eight percent for years, actually at twenty-odd percent counting those having exhausted benefits and those given up trying. Meanwhile the 400 richest Americans possess wealth equaling that of the combined 150 million lesser fortunate and opportunity-deprived citizens. Meanwhile, many highly profitable corporate giants nourished by military contracts pay no income tax, including giant General Electric which has paid no income tax for the past four consecutive years. While this appears to beggar the imagination, it got worse in January, 2011, when: "President Barack Obama named Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.'s chief executive officer, to head his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker." The gifting of the people's treasure to the banksters progresses with "loans" at zero-point-25 percent, with which they can turn about to purchase treasury notes or lend to us at 12 to 16 times that rate.

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The peace advocacy movement in America largely dissipates, some descending into major-party partisan political advocacy. And the citizens continue to mindlessly vote for their partisan choice of wretched leadership in what has become a terror-state to other peoples of the world and a fascist environment in "das Heimatland."
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Meanwhile, the wars go on while generals -- encrusted unprecidently with medals, badges and ribbons from their epaulettes down to their waists -- are called to "testify" before fawning congressfolk about the "progress" of the wars, then sent off with high praise to return to their commands, where one recently has been discovered to sexually abuse his female subordinates, while two others of the highest rank -- one of who is Director of the CIA -- cavort covertly with society bimbos and exchange voluminous intercontinental emails that are said to challenge the prurience of a XXX porn flic.

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And meanwhile, we go to our jobs (those fortunate to still have one) and sit in our homes (those fortunate to be still not foreclosed) and swallow network mouthings of news tailored by the warlords and federal greedster-service-agents both elected and appointed, perhaps then to go shopping, or participate witlessly in the local compulsively partisan political "meet-up," or attend an evening service at the Prince of Peace church, and then to witness the sun's descent down under the horizon, symbolic of the demise of the once "world's oldest democracy."

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But most telling and prescient of all: the slaughterous wars go on, and on, and on, and ..................

Authors Bio:
Leaving behind a treacherous government now addicted to perpetual war, its limitlessly greedy and power-lusting masters, as well as the retarded albeit smirky Republicans and their evermore clonish Democrat colleagues, a braindead electorate incapable of recognizing its own best interests, the hypocritical Christians who '"support our troops," and the tiresome, sloganeering and feckless activist-hobbyists, as well as those who profit from their plastic morality -- I now repair to my Jungle Home amidst the giant palmettos on a dirt road running east from the Gulf coast that neither the US Mail nor school buses dare assay, and there to gain the more decent and trustworthy company of the indigenous sand tortoises and rattlesnakes.