This started out as a reply to a person in one of the threads about Katrina saying that it was a defining moment for people and if we will just win in November they hope it will turn the tide.

I know it makes people feel better to think that and I guess depending on your point of view, maybe those people are the lucky ones because one of the things we get taught is to always be positive but one of the things that got defined for me was that the reason we get taught to be positive is so we will be like Barbara Bush that said oh well it is working out really good for them, and she was saying it about people that had lost their house and a bunch of them had relatives that had been killed and they took the ones who didn't die and put them in that other stadium and everybody was supposed to say oh good that stadium is so much better they have cots and bathrooms.

And that was supposed to make everybody agree with Barbara Bush etc. And I know there were some famous people who went but I think the more important thing is when regular people went and there were some who did, but when you think about ok what per cent was that compared to the per cent that said oh ok those people can just die because they are just low income people and most of them are black and immigrants and things and there were actually people I saw on other message boards saying it is about time New Orleans got cleaned up that Katrina was a blessing because now they can make it all nice like a place where you can take your family and it will be other people there we have more in common with etc.

And then there were a bunch of other people that started to feel guilty and said oh I will send a check to the Red Cross but then there were some articles asking some questions about how much the Red Cross was really helping the people that had the worst situations, like people who were already really low income to begin with, like people who couldn't really afford to live anywhere and the only reason they did was because it was their grandparents or somebody's house but now it was gone.

And even though there were all these articles talking about how it was a wake up call about how bad it has gotten with so many low income people like that all over the USA and they had gotten more and more far apart in their economic situation from what we would call normal, not even rich people, just people that aren't that worried about being homeless and we have computers and can mess around on the internet etc.

And a lot of people said yes it really is a problem but I don't think that some of them know it is an even worse problem than they think.

Because we all want to think that like the Democrats can fix it and there are lots of them that would like to but it has gotten to be just the kind of economy we have, and if you read about it you can see that any of them that even make suggestions will become not taken seriously and called extremists.

Even people who say that the minimum wage should be enough to keep people from being homeless! There is no way that anything like that is going to happen, even with Democrats. I mean we all like to pretend that will happen but when you read around you see that even something like health care like other countries have, the only thing they can say is that well it should be affordable, or let's give it to children.

But if you are low income the only thing affordable would cost zero and there are lots and lots of people like that, and that is health care. Stuff like apartments or the thing of having a minimum wage that would be enough for one is just considered to be playing the class war card and too extremist, and for the kind of economy we have they are right abot the second part.

I mean this is a really big problem that people either want to pretend isn't true or that the Democrats will fix it, because to think about how bad it really is is just too scary.

And it is also true that one of the reasons it is SO going to get worse is because the war on terror is so expensive but it goes back way before the war on terror. And it is the problem that is extremist. It is so big that even if we had Democrats in all the offices all passing programs and things, it would still not really help except to make people feel better.

Because it has just gotten too far out of hand. I am not saying I am against programs, and yes it is better to help a few people than zero people, but it is really so bad now that helping those few people is not going to change the big picture or make us a country where everybody that has a job can afford to live someplace and everybody that is sick can go to the doctor.

And then there are the people who will say we have to take baby steps but the problem with that is that we are not a baby any more and neither is the poverty problem.

It might make people feel better to say well those baby steps mean that we might have health care in 10 or 20 years. But the main people it makes feel better are the ones that can afford to go to the doctor THIS year. And it is the same with the minimum wage. The people who feel better when somebody says that in 10 pr 20 yrs, if you have a job you will be able to afford someplace to live are the people whose jobs pay enough for that NOW.

I know most people will not like this message because it is not positive, but I can't read and hear about people who a year after Katrina still don't have a place to live, and they have gone from being a Katrina victim to being just one more person who can't afford to live anywhere.

So anyway, I agree that Katrina was a wakeup call for a lot of people, but they hung up on it because really waking up would just be too scary.

I would just like to thank the people who give us the site, and all the people who post to it for being more of my education than I ever learned in a political science or world history class. Well the only world history class I ever had really sucked, so that is not as much of a compliment I guess but you know what I mean.

I started lurking here a long time ago but I was afraid to post very much because it looked like everybody was like some expert on everything, and I felt like I was too ignorant. But after a while I realized that there were lots of people who were just expressing opinions and you don't have to be an expert on the history of the Middle East to have an opinion, although one of the things I have learned from the people who do know a lot, and also those who just have opinions, is that your opinion will make more sense if you read some.

And so I started to read stuff about the Middle East, and what policies America has had all this time, and looking at how it is all working out, it does not look too good, or it is going just great, and which one depends on your point of view.

I also realized something that I should have realized a long time ago, you know how all of a sudden you are like well DUH and you wonder where your head has been. And with the Middle East, this realization was that it is just like any other region and the conflicts there are just like any other conflicts, and it all depends on your point of view.

For example, today somebody posted an article about how Hezbollah is getting popular in Iraq, and his point of view was that this is a really bad thing. And I think he thinks this way because they are fighting back against Israel, and that is considered to be one of the worst kinds of terrorism, to fight back against Israel, or to fight back against America, and there are Iraqis who are doing that. So it makes sense to me that Hezbollah would be popular in Iraq, because they have something in common. They are fighting back against the most powerful countries in the world, with the most sophisticated weapons and the most money.

So whether you think that is terrorism or whether you think that it sounds like what you would do if Sweden or Algeria or somewhere was bombing and occupying America, you have to agree that Hezbollah and the anti-American Iraqis have something in common. Now I don't agree with the author's point of view that it matters much, because America and Israel are so powerful, there is no way that Hezbollah or the Iraqis can hope to beat them in a war, and I don't agree with the author of the We Are Losing World War III article either, because America and Israel are killing more people, the people they want cleansed out are getting cleansed out, and the American and Israeli companies are making money.

Plus America is so powerful that they go all over the world and just grab people and take them off to secret prisons that no country can refuse to let them put one there. All other countries, even the allies are afraid of America and Israel. So they are definitely winning the war, from the point of view of the people who are running it.

But here is where the point of view thing comes in. Maybe sometimes authors of articles are just talking about public relations, which does not really mean much, if you think about it. If every country is so scared of you that they don't even dare to tell you not to put a secret prison, and you are totally killing way more people than the countries you are invading etc. then you are probably not going to care too much about public relations.

I don't think that anybody thinks that what Israel is hoping for is to become popular with like Palestinians or Lebanese people. But I think that people get confused, like when US troops duct tape up people's mouths in Iraq for saying anti-American slogans or put people in prison for it, and when Israel considers people who support anybody like Hezbollah that fights back to be just as much of a terrorist as somebody who actually is fighting back, and it is easy to think, well if anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment are such dangerous terrorist things, then they must want them to be in favor.

But that is not true. The reason the anti-USA/anti-Israel sentiment is punished the same as fighting back is because for one thing, it encourages people to fight back, and for another thing, they think the punishments teach people to not even think of fighting back. They are wrong about this, if they really do think it. All of the punishments just make people want to fight back more, and this would be true if it was any two countries.

Another thing I have learned about the Middle East, is that the leaders of the Pro American countries and the people who live there do not agree too much about the subject of being Pro American. And this is why America has to help the allies there with financial aid for crackdowns. Because without it, Hezbollah and anti-American Iraqis would probably not be the only ones fighting back, and I guess that would be more expensive than the crackdowns. And that is also why you don't hear Condi or Bush talk about spreading democracy on Saudi Arabia or Jordan. They spread some on Palestine and they elected a party that also has a group that fights back against Israel!

But even if the crackdowns are cheaper than having to bomb anti-Americans in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, they do show you that the war on terror is going to be even more expensive than anybody thought.

So like I said, I am still reading and learning about all this, but right now it seems like to me that the war on terror is going to be so expensive that it is going to mean a lot of changes for how most Americans live. I don't mean that Americans will not support it or don't have resolve, but it will be sad to see some of the changes because we will not have a lot of the things we have always taken for granted, and then there are the poor people, which is something that nobody likes to talk about because it is playing the class war card, but if you think it through the poor people in America are going to have to have a crackdown pretty soon. And that is going to be another expensive cost of the war on terror, and mean even more changes for the way we live.

And whether all that is good or bad will depend on your point of view, but either way America will still be winning the war.