JWH, some insightful comments above indeed but before I go there let me first give great thanks for the bit of Joni (which admittedly, though a HUUUGE fan of hers, I'd never heard), as in takin a peek at her acapella version you linked to on youtube I was glancing down the side bar and found a Much Music show from 94 of hers that I thoroughly enjoyed as I slurped down my mornin joe. Amazing how sometimes "one thing, yeah one thing, leads to another". Here's a link in return to share to that bit of wonderfulness [www.youtube.com]

As an American I have always taken great pride in what our country contributed to the efforts in WWII and have often wondered if we had stayed on the sidelines of that fray what the world we know today would be like? Unfortunately that was also the last military venture our country ever undertook that was done so within the legal confines as defined under our Constitution, as well as the last time such an action lead to anything resembling victory once the dust settled.

My thoughts are that after WWII, we as a nation grew prosperous and then complacent with our success and we somehow lost our way for the most part since then. Eisenhowers exit speech when he left office was very portentous and should have been taken more seriously as it seems to have rung all too true in outlining the perils of the rise of the military-industrial complex.

I see Americas people and our government as almost in a constant state of diametrical opposition. As a nation of peoples we are open, caring, giving, and laissez faire, while the actions of our government itself are intensely secretive, divisive and meddlesome, both nationally and internationally.

Many of us, if not most, would prefer our government NOT be continually involved in all the conflicts around the world that ongoingly drain us of our blood and treasure. We view the international meddlings of our government as intrusive to the concept of world peace and harmony and the industrial abuses of others about the same. Basically what was once a democratic republic has slowly been turned into an military-industrial oligarchy.

The example you gave of ya'lls "outsider-turned-politician" and the inherent wrong doings and failure of that experiment is interesting but in the grand scope of things only shows one possibility of what could have occurred, not the only possible outcome.

To many of us Clinton embodies what is so absolutely wrong with our political system, and as such something we want to reject and move away from, not towards. She is the political devil we know, secretive, power hungry, conniving and willing to subvert our system of laws and governance in any way necessary to achieve her goals. I for one can never stand in support of that.

Trump on the other hand claims to want to usher in a different era of governance where it's returned to the idea where the people once more are more in control of our government, instead of the other way around. If he makes it tmarra, will that happen? That's indeed the $64,000 question, but after the last 50 yrs of governmental misdirection at least it sounds more promising than the bullshit Clinton wants