My dream is probably to get my sons to Canada,

[Hamlette]

25. Not me. This is where the fight is and I'll not let them take my country from me.

Here's the thing: right or wrong every other contry in the world is insignificant. So you get Canada to oppose a war or feed the sick. Good on you. But if you get America to do that, there will be no war and no hunger.

America needs a conscience and we are it. We need to work, and vote, and tut tut. If we all leave, or a significant number of us do, leaving the country, the most powerful and rich in the world to the likes of Romney and Cheney the world will be at constant war. There will be starving children everywhere. You can't escape it long term. Maybe you won't feel it but your sons will. Stay here and teach them how to fight and feel and care and vote.

Til the last dog dies.

(Yes, I did call every other country in the world insignificant. If you don't believe me I'll tell you a story. I was in college and went to stay with my sister who was living in the dorms at a universtiy in Denmark. The dorms had a better communal atmosphere and layout than dorms here and we'd get together with the local students to talk and eat a couple times a day. I didn't even know if Denmark still had a king but they knew the names of every cabinet member in the US and many Senators and some congresscritters. Even some governors. I asked them why that was and they told me "whatever the US does impacts all of us. Your wars, your economy, your production capacity, your reaction to the environment. All of it. Of course every educated European follows US politics." In Ireland we were talking to a history professor and he got tears in his eyes when he talked about Clinton. And in poland, the young man who gave us a tour of the salt mines compared Bush II to Lach Walesa. Unfavorably. He didn't like either. Both were too conservative and not very bright. He could quote both all day long. Change America you change the world. Run away, you change nothing.)