Here’s the way this blog starts…on a cold sunny day in New York City in a country on the brink of war. Or perhaps "brink" is the wrong way to think about the current situation. When an embargo is imposed on a foreign country, its leaders characterized as evil while its civilians suffer the consequences, and bombing raids are conducted on a regular basis while troops monitor borders and maintain artillery on the ground in strategic positions, I think we have good reason to conclude that we’re at war.

All the while the government "promotes" democracy but doesn’t practice it. Its (former?) allies are opposed to its policies, but the government is undeterred and inflexible. "We don’t need anyone’s permission to go to war." The empire will be extended with or without their help. And while millions of citizens around the world organize in opposition to the war, their voices don’t seem to matter…at least for now.

"…where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on." — Samuel Beckett