Most of us bitch about taxes and pay little attention to the fact that our nation is deeply mired in two wars. We refer to our military personnel as heroes (for fear of not seeming patriotic?) but want nothing to do with the consequences of those wars.

I agree with the author on some points and not on others. He speaks a realization that few of us want to face, for instance: the lie that we fight the terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here.

I also agree with this statement: we Americans have been living off the rest of the world's misery. We are stealing oil from the people of nations like Iraq and Nigeria. We know our toys, our electronic devices and our fancy name-brand running shoes are being made by people who cannot afford to buy them themselves. We know that for decades we have been overthrowing elected governments and propping up fascist dictatorships to keep the exploitation going so that we can buy cheap goods and extract cheap resources.