...is any remedy worthy of redemption in the face of the larger crime against the world? Politics is soul-consuming, and blinding to greater truths, greater crusades. The rhetoric filling these pages and countless others on countless [except for Google] sites, amount to little unless they foster change, and the only change I see is vitriolic in nature. Selfish, hate-filled, vitriol, intaglioed in bright red weals across the breadth of our nations soul... As well as our own. What good can come of it? What good, if neither side chooses to bend?

There is such a thing as right and wrong, and the ideals they represent are immutable, unchanging, and incorruptible. Motive, however-- it's purity --hangs over our every action much like the sword of Damocles, and the fear of that slender thread breaking keeps us from being the willow. What do we fear to lose? What do we hope to gain? The slightest doubt may break that thread, and sever us and our hopes and dreams from the company of our peers. What is wrong is suffered out of fear. What is right is ill defended out of fear. Liberal. Conservative. One is right, the other is not.

Can the leader of a party undermine the sacrifices of men and women fighting under the auspices of that party's approval? If Democrats voted to send these men and women to war can they now sit back with impugnity and call their soldiers terrorists? Incapable? Broken? Living hand to mouth, and no better than Hitler's SS, or Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge? When is the Rubicon, that line of decency, crossed? And once crossed, is there any turning back? There was no turning back for Caesar, who paid for his decision at the end of Brutus' knife. Are the die then cast for good or ill? Willows bend, while mightier trees are brought low; snapped and uprooted by storm-winds that always come, soon or late.

Can Howard Dean survive the winds coming? Can Kerry? Can the Democratic party? Or its complicit media? More importantly, will this nation survive? And in the grander scheme of things, is this just natures way of thinning the forest? What is more important? The useless debate of trees that will not bend? Or the greater good the trees were meant to serve?

Howard Dean and others in his party fear that hovering sword. They fear that perception of weakness though they advocate the same, and they stubbornly refuse to bend; to see what is the best direction for all the energy and effort they expend. Poverty, Hunger, Depravity-- These are the things that need attention; not the petty desire for power. The Treason of Inattention, is a greater sin than Treason to Country, but neither can or will be excused.

It is the paragon of paradox's-- Reach for one and lose the other. Surely, the only way to win this battle is to sacrifice personal desire to serve the needs of others. And only willows can see the truth of this.