I haven't felt like this since ... Kent State.
That we were all, as a country, staggering toward the edge of something no one wants to see.
The events in Wisconsin seem to stand for the nation as a whole. A war between the moneyed class and working people.
The Tea Party people seem to be unaware of the water they are carrying for the rich.
The shooting in Arizona seemed to spark something, an appetite for release.
I see people reaching for fairly desperate tactics -- recall movements, in Wisconsin. A friend online suggested it was time for liberals to arm themselves.
The president seems detached, perplexed. The Democrats seem frightened. The Republicans are caught between their own howling base and the oaths they have taken.
All it would take right now is some fresh spark that would justify a whole new wave of emotion and release.
A while back a man told me that the #1 rationale for violence -- whether in the home, in public, or between classes of people -- was the appetite for justice.
We will all feel justified if some outrage occurs, and we find ourselves behaving in a surprising way.
And maybe it is "right." But it's societal war, and it's crazy, and it's awfully hard, once we cross that line of reason, and declare ourselves with all the passion that is in us, to get back on the right side.