very well-written and cogent.  I agree, they have always been with us and always will.  We just need to focus energies to work around them.

Thank you for this essay!

Thank you.

...tho, I'm less inclined to believe that I'm rolling that rock up the hill than to believe that I'm attempting to appeal to those who are currently of "the middle" yet ensnared in the prickly-sweet vapours of the effervescent, sparkly kool-aid served up by the Radical Right.

My missives, posts, diaries, rants, diatribes and expositions all attempt to evoke the core foundation of righteous indignation where it intersects firmly with reality, and cause the enraptured Middle to choke up the bad medicine and breath deeply the clean air of reality.

...still, it helps to have your post to reference and fall back upon as a justification for calling out so passionately to our busy yet distracted and dissatisfied fellow Americans as we invite them to step toward the light of reason and into the warm embrace of reality unfiltered...

;)

So thank you.

that this diary made it to the Diary Rescue list. I saw the title (and was intrigued) when you first posted, but didn't have time to read it.

Thanks so much for this thoughtful and insightful piece. Your middle third describes a lot of people I know "out there" in America, including some of my own family members. They really don't want to know, don't care, can't deal with the issues or the politics.

Go for the middle and the media. Yes.

Hydra, in Greek mythology, many-headed water serpent. When one of its heads was cut off, two new ones appeared. It was killed by Hercules, who burned the neck after decapitation.

The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

was killed by burning each stump when a head was cut off. Otherwise, two new heads would grow from the stump.

Kind of like the two-faced liars we have running our country right now?