America's not completely committed to the corruption of its core values yet so I think, hopefully, that truth and justice will win out in the end and Bush along with his co-conspirators will all go on trial for war crimes and treason. On the other hand Bush still has the support of his religio-fascist 'base' supporting his barbarities and he may feel he has sufficient support to hang on long past the time he should have gone. Since Bush has shown remarkably poor judgement so far, we can only expect remarkably poor judgement from him in the future, so we should be thinking about and planning for some of the logical extensions of current policies if Bush does manage to stay in power and continue to abuse it. The direction he's been taking America leads directly to a police state, so we can expect more and more police abuses, more prisons and prisoners, more shattered lives over even the most victimless of crimes. We can expect increasing tensions in the world as Bush pursues foreign excursions and more secret crimes coming to light. In the near term before the 2008 election or even after then but before the inauguration, we might even expect Bush to stage another false flag terrorist event like 9/11 to justify declaring martial law and suspending the Constitution. But I think if Bush does that the American people will revolt, at least I hope they would still have the spine to stand up for their Constitution.

The biggest issue we should be concerned about in the long term however is nuclear weapons, the worst offenders being America and Russia, followed by China, France, England, Israel, India, and a few more. Pakistan and North Korea have only a few nukes and they don't have good delivery systems yet, so they should not be major causes for concern to Americans right now, but they will be soon unless they too are stopped somehow (unstable Pakistan is not likely to remain an American ally for long). Iran is probably a few years away from building their own nukes but they will probably be smart enough to keep them secret and not use them. The problem if it is to be solved must address the worst offenders first, and those are the United States and Russia. If we are ever to expect to actually rid the world of these terrible weapons, we are not only going to have to disarm ourselves, but do it first. If we don't disarm ourselves of weapons of mass destruction we continue to risk their use, it's as simple as that, and it's just a game of chance we hope we never lose. We've been damn lucky so far. It isn't common knowledge how many times we have come close to nuclear war, the many times there have been great risks of a misunderstanding or of poor leadership pushing us over the edge, and if we keep playing nuclear roulette we must eventually experience a losing round. In that context, the most worrisome thing about George Bush Junior is that he has the ability to launch a nuclear war and kill maybe 3 billion people in an afternoon. All he's got to do is give the launch order, he is Commander In Chief and there is nobody who has the authority to say no. Anyone who's ever lived with an alcoholic, whether they were sober or not, should realize the great risk we are in of Bush feeling pissy after having one too many some night and deciding to show everybody what power he has. Remember his history of bad judgements and we find no reasons to expect better of him. He's already expressed the desire to build more nukes for 'bunker busting' (good thing Congress rejected that idea) and our militaries under the degrading civilian political leadership of the Bush administration now embrace the first use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. So we are getting much closer to the nuclear edge because that's clearly the direction it's going. If he starts throwing nukes around, George Bush may yet surpass mad Adolf's wildest dreams of mass murder.

Iris wrote her stirring anthem Wasteland of the Free well before George Bush Junior got voted President 5 to 4 in a tight election coup d'état (the culprits would like you to forget that the majority of American voters tried to elect the other guy). But Iris's timeless wisdom fully applies to today's America, because she speaks from her soul about American values and morality and integrity that seem to be getting as rare and endangered as spotted owls -- and for much the same reasons: greed, callousness, and stupidity. What is so wrong with people that we can be so easily propagandized, why the hell isn't everyone as fed up as Iris with our dangerously amoral leadership in politics, business, and religion? What about you... is your mind open to the evidence and do you care, or are you part of the problem?

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.