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You are quite right, Cousin It, but that is only one half of the story. Life in America is rather like war: years of mind-numbing inaction punctuated by moments of terror and hysteria. The Boston Tea Party is a good example, since it initiated the cycles of hysteria which which have been so much a part of the American Experience.

The smuggling kingpin, the Mafioso of Boston, John Hancock, organized a mob of thugs to destroy the property of the East India Company because the tax on tea was too low! Hancock could no longer compete selling his smuggled tea from Holland, and he was facing financial ruin. The richest man in America was not going to stand for that! The rest is history ---- the history with which we are brainwashed in elementary school.

In recent times Americans have been suckered into anti-communist hysteria in the 50's, Vietnam hysteria in the 60's, 2001 hysteria recently, and here we go again!

[Linked Image from farm1.static.flickr.com]

This year so many people will be hurting, we will certainly slide into another period of frantic activity and wasted energy, punctuated by terror and confusion. Fasten your seatbelts; we're entering turbulence; it's going to be a rough ride!

I really wish Americans could find a happy medium between supine indifference and mindless hysteria!

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