how did we get here? i feel by ‘delegation’ of our fates to politics—-‘my country, right or wrong’—-‘our Leader, right or wrong’, (prez, fuher, king, ‘race’, etc.), and ‘the love of $$$ over living things’. i advise reading that post responding to ‘dr. K—-an excellent treatment. then there’s the old truism—‘power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’—-seems our system of ‘checks & balances’ has become myth. we seem as a ‘co-dependent’ couple w/our guv—-not taking ‘responsibility-for-action’, passing it to another. bad in marriage or politics. as for China, the EU gobbling us up? well, after WWII we had the last surviving intact economy—-our nation was not in ruins, so for many years the globe was ours. to expect that situation as ‘immortal’? perhaps naive. even given the Chinese disasters from Mao (millions died from his ‘absolute power’, as Russians under Stalin’s paranoia), or a Europe blasted flat by war—-their recovery was only a matter of time—-and we continued to feel our ‘Ozzie & Harriet’ status would continue? unlikely. ‘how did we get in this mess?’—-it’s no easy thing to ‘watch what they do, not what they say’—-and think for ourselves. far easier to opt for our ‘co-dependent’ spouse or guv’s choice—-JFK tried killing Castro so many times—-and that is a felony—-by USA law—-and The Geneva Convention—-nice guy? like the Cuban Missile Crisis? 1st, Castro told the Soviets he wanted no part in Nukes in Cuba, 2nd, we had the Soviets surrounded by Nuke sites, 3rd, what of the Soviet ‘nuke-carrying’ subs, as ours? easily ‘parked’ in Cuban waters? as deadly as ‘land-based’ sites—-what a bunch of politico-crap—-and you wonder how we got here? same-‘ol, same ol”. JFK, as most presidents, while far from a God, as most yet feel—-his sex-romps made Clinton seem a piker, had decided to ‘get-out’ the Viet mess that Ike started —-but hard to docu LBJ as inheriting his problems—-LBJ sent 500,000 troops vs. the Viets, Not JFK.