How to begin...

For any writer, the blank page is filled with the majesty of all that could be said, and is thus nothing short of abhorrent. After publishing the very first post, I've had a tendency to freeze, not wanting to say the wrong thing and spoil this beautiful piece of paper (er, web real estate).

But the tone of this blog is just going to have to sort itself out over time. We need to allay our fears, to abandon our urge to keep our reputations pristine, and step out into the void. Constant fear is one of the forces manipulating Americans to abandon our ideals in service of the interests of the powerful. If we as a nation don't free ourselves from the fear of this fear, we may never regain what we have lost. We who write here have to be pioneers in that effort.

Our writing may not often be Pulitzer-worthy, and we're sure to make errors (and have them glaringly pointed out ;-) but we refuse to cower. So here we go.

America In Exile

We barely noticed it at first. Most of us didn't recognize it for what it was. But now we can't help noticing. 2005: This is what happens when you take your time-honored democracy for granted.

Incredibly to most of us, we in the U.S. have been losing ours steadily, almost unnoticeably (though now with brazen rapidity) to the concerted efforts of drastically over-moneyed interests, fundamentalists pushing upon everyone religious ideas shared by few, and politicians and media outlets who cater to them both at the expense of We the people. Our own gullibility and semi-conscious willingness to indulge our baser instincts haven't helped.

As an ever-widening spectrum of books, articles, news stories, and blogs have been intoning and, by now, droning: America has left the United States.

The questions are: what's going on, and how do we regain the principles that for 200 years have made us a mostly shining example to the world?

How do we get America back?