When Eisenhower issued his warning, Americans believed the hard times were over. It was the Happy Days- no Dust Bowls, no polio, no ration tickets, no A-Bombs. What a relief! It was time for Tiki Bars, daiquiris, bikinis and swinging. The horror of the sixties assassinations took us by surprise and commenced a national depression of the spirit which easily degenerated into widespread addiction to more and more substances, legal and illegal. It doesn't matter since the top holders in cigarettes, opium, sugar and alcohol are the same outfit. They are also the top of the arms dealing heap.

We were led astray with credit mongers who drove us mad with consumerism. Caught in the mousetrap! Now the stresses of daily existence are compounding for so much of American society that we are fighting little civil wars about every aspect of what kind of country this should be.

I forget who the person was who said we would be taken over from within. I feel certain this has happened completely, evidenced by the ongoing acts of organized financial terrorism which have caused masses of citizens to lose their homesteads, benefitis, pensions, and basic security. We are being attacked and depleted more rapidly than the DOJ can protect us.

All of us can't afford our surgeries we need and medicines, but I haven't heard much said yet about what happens when we can't afford the food anymore. I feel that once completely exploited of its resources the United States is slated to become the landfill for the rest of the world, another Haiti for the 700 Princes of Liechentstein. Perhaps the White House and certain resort locations will be preserved.

It figures a socialist country is the most peaceful and most likely one of the happiest!

I wonder, if the Global Peace Index included white collar crime....... in our case the banksters on Wall Street........ would the US have ended up 158th?

Criminal acts of financial fraud leading to loss of jobs, homes, and hard earned retirement savings....Mitt!..... are all QUITE VIOLENT to society as a whole. Certainly the prison population component of the index would skyrocket for the US if white collar criminals like Romney and Rick Scott actually served time.

I've heard it said, Romney violated no laws. For those who believe this, ask the victims what they think!

We tore out those very things that previous enabled the US to become the wealthiest nation with the least economic disparities -- a land where nearly everyone actually did have a chance - a very good chance - of building a middle class life. As we threw the poor overboard, and then began pushing the middle class into poverty, the US has rapidly, frighteningly, fallen far behind the modern nations in virtually every respect. America is no longer sustainable. As much as we ignore it, we have remained engaged in social/economic war against each other, and I really do think we've reached the point beyond repair. I think most of us know that. Unfortunately, we've surrendered all power to a political class that is frantically working to drain our money out of the nation, into the bank accounts of the few. We COULD stop it, but I don't think we will. This would require a nation-wide, united effort as powerful as the labor marches of the 1930s and the civil rights marches of the 1960s. But golly gee, how can we get the required protest permits? And could we fit everyone into the designated protest zones?

The US has been a warrior nation from it's inception. Our history is riddled with violent wars from our own hubris or greed wheather here there or anywhere else in any generation one could/can pull out of the hat. And rarely has it been for 'justifiable causes'.