Reply #25: You've hit on a very profound issue here, Locrian.

[Cyrano]

Who gets to live like kings and who gets to live like peasants, or not at all?

Looking at the genicide in Dafur, the Sudan, and so much more of Africa, we already know that there are those whose existence is of no value to the local warlords, or most other people on the planet who don't even know what's taking place there.

We already know that the impoverished people who once lived, or are still living in New Orleans, are getting to live like peasants, if at all.

How long will it be before the American rust belt starts to look like the backwoods of the film "Deliverance?"

How long will it be before the lack of universal health care really, really turns us into a third-world country?

After 30 years of hell (Reagan through Bush Jr.) I wonder if even Obama can turn this around.

The most grotesque thing of all is that the Republicans are doing everything they possibly can to keep us in the dank, infected sewer they dug for us.