Simply outstanding. Not surprising, coming from you. But certainly the stuff of a great OP, in and of itself. Thank you so much!

Your first paragraph reminded me of Martin Luther King's most prophetic speak -- "A Time to Break Silence" (aka "Beyond Vietnam" from April 4, 1967 -- in which he warned that if our nation did not make serious changes, wars like Vietnam would continue in other places, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

King was attacked, not only by the hawks of the day, but even more painfuly, by too many of those who were too cowardly to grasp the Truth of his message, much less to act upon it. That included many from the Civil Rights movement, the social liberals who began the neoconservative movement at that exact time, and many, many others.

We are, of course, facing very similar problems today. And being called "disloyal," in an attempt to discredit any meaningful dissent from machine politics.