Sometimes I wonder if hoping for change in this election...

is all a dream.

I see Americans dying in Gaza, and I immediately suspect the Likud's fine hand.

I read about Bush's evangelical Methodism being exploited by the Powerful, and I see us losing again.

I see the media being intimidated, and I lose faith that people's eyes will ever be opened to the truth.

I hear about how capable the electronic voting machines are of stealing this next election, and I know we can never win against the machines.

And then I think of that girl out in the water for so many hours after falling off the fishing boat. She saved her life by refusing to give up. They asked her how she knew what to do, even after she reached the drilling rig. She said she had watched a lot of movies.

There's the answer! We have to be like Tom Hanks's character in "Castaway." We have power over nothing. We have to just keep breathing. Ah! A happy ending! So, let's all just keep breathing. At least until next November! (Goodness, am I losing my mind? *sigh*)

...that attempts to work within the system became futile. It was the point of no return beyond which the only meaningful thing a single individual could do was to run to safety and bring along as many vicitms and potential victims with him as possible. Someone had to survive to pick up the pieces after the inevitable collapse.

If things continue in their current direction there may come a time when liberals will flock to escape across the nearest border into a safe country. Let's hope we haven't reached that point as yet, and that there is still time to work within the systems to stem the rising tide of absolutism and rescue democracy from those on the extreme right who seek to destroy it.