Ma'am;... Just two little points... The winners in the previous election expected the losers to go along to get along just as the present winners expect... As the Clinton administration showed, those days in America are through... The left ought to play the game like the right until the whole sham, and edifice of government, crumbles... We are divided, and this division bought at great price should be made complete... The left cannot count on the right... The right counts on the left going along, as they have, giving even Lord Bush the war he craved to our ruin.... Will more troops help in Afghanistan??? Not in the least, and spreading the war beyond those borders will not work... All we do there will put off the moment of peace, and raise the price of failure... If we cannot afford health care, or fair wages, or consumer protections, or fair trade we will never be able to afford world conquest unless we deign to practice genocide... God knows that people should pick their fights... In fact, they ought to pick their battle grounds...If one chooses to fight in a slaughter house with guts, and blood and gore underfoot then they might end up as hamburger... We are not being beat there for lack of troops, but for lack of brains... We could have went back ten times for the price of staying once, and after the third time they might have recognized that we are serious... Staying there burns us for ever wanting to go back... What if we need to go back, and are burned on the idea??? Why not say that the enemy is there, but that it is his LZ, and always will be... We can only beat him when he is all in one place, and as long as we are they the enemy will remain scattered....The terrain is an enemy we cannot beat, but the brains of our leaders should be beat... They have clearly not learned the lessons of the ages in war... They should be retired to school, yellow bus and all... As for the rest of us; if we cannot get any cooperation from the other side we ought to call off the notion of this nation... We could never have been divided if we had had democracy, but plutocracy buys division and demogoguery... Will we some day look about and say: If we had only had a tyrant, a Caesar, or a Napoleon??? I think that day is not far off because re-publics are nothing without the public, and the government has lost the public no matter which party holds power...Those fools who talk of the need to protect the country when they will not even protect the people from their owners, and bankers, and exploiters have the ears of cornheads, but they have lost the people...The people have more brains, but they also suffer more ignorance and fear than our leaders, and in that fashion they are manipulated, and in turn, manipulate the course of government...It is easy enough to say: Do not be afraid... Where is the money in it???It is easy to say: Love and trust the instincts of your neighbor... Where is the money in it??? People on both sides for different reasons agree that the government does not work... But government, the manipulation of government through money or demoguery is the key to all wealth and power...Our unity has become a myth that everyone believes, but has not a bit of truth to it... We have gone our separate ways like Jacob and Jesse, the bright from the brutes....Thanks...Sweeney

There is a difference between left-associated violence and right-associated violence. It's one of degree and audacity. The right-wingers associated with violence really do kill people, and unlike the left, they don't generally limit their involvement to the context of a demonstration like the one you refer to in San Francisco that gets out of control, is easily joined by any criminal element interested, and thereby results in injuries or property damage. The right wingers don't fool around with that kid stuff. They blow up federal buildings, they harass law abiding citizens working at and using the services of abortion clinics (and proud of it, they will tell you), and most recently they even extracted the ultimate sacrifice from Dr. Tiller. They engage in hate crimes against gays, nonwhites, and even whites when they don't like their religion or politics. They also have a fascination with guns, and not just the little ones that shoot a few rounds and have to be reloaded or the ones you go hunting with. You see, they don't just talk the talk. You can try to rewrite history all you want and I'm sure you think it was just about twinkies, but those of us who were there in those days when Harvey Milk was murdered lived with an ongoing fear lurking just below the surface at every openly gay event that violence was right around the corner, and there were more than a few who would not come out because of that very threat. Dan White did not like gays and particularly did not like Harvey Milk, the epitome of rising gay power that threatened White to the core. As for your confusion about those two terrible wars, Bush got the disrespect he did because of the ongoing conviction that just becomes stronger with time that the Iraq war was fought on an unlawful and deceitful pretext. No one criticized him for Afghanistan, except when the time came for him to abandon it for the false terror target he tried to make Iraq. The mess we have today is still the same old one he made, and it's not an easy one to clean up. Your inability to own up to supporting that terrible failure of leadership doesn't help anything except your extended stay in the Land of Denial, and I don't mean Egypt.