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...they have permission to "shoot to kill" in the event of martial law...

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
Isn't that the present state of things?

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I think America's domestic policy has changed a lot in the last 25 years. the Feeling in corporate America, that combination of desperation & false heartiness, the drive to squeeze blood from a stone, has intensified.

Courtesy & neighborliness, a rare commodity.

I notice a coarsening of the culture, in terms of how people interact with each other, in San Francisco for example. having lived & visited there a few times over the last 30 years.

at the same time, the Police State ization of America is proceeding apace.

but that's internal, domestic.

Foreign policy ? I think America has always been pretty brutal. From wrenching the land away from the Indians, to the war of 1898 (Spanish-American war.) America has been killing cultures & civilians in large numbers since 1898 (200,000 Philipino people met their demise at American hands, according to Zinn in his People's History book.)

remembering Vietnam ... it SEEMS like the dichotomy (divergence ?) between what comes out of Condoleeza Rice's mouth (when she talks about democracy in the mideast, for example) and American actions (the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the non-investigation into 9-11), that divergence is growing.

so, to Summarize, i'm saying America's bellicosity on the world stage seems to have ratcheted up when Bush 43 came to office.