I'm not sure why it is Bush's war on Iraq that finally fried all my synapses. U.S. imperialism has been involved in bloody crimes for all my life. I've been sensitive about that for decades. But the last few years have crossed many moral and political and religious boundaries for me. I'm moving to Canada with my family--we now have our place. It's complicated to move family and business, and it will take at least a year for everything. But we're gone. It's done.

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Two Abstract Positive Reasons--

1. To distance oneself from the taint of American war crimes. What that means and how to explain it can best be explored if one can sleep peacefully in a peaceful country.

2. To distance oneself from the bloat of American materialism and corrupt popular culture. See Alexander Solzhenitsyn's writing, or those of Pope John Paul II on western culture.

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We had my diary Nuclear Destruction of Washington and New York.

We had yesterday's diary Al Qaeda Claims to Have Nukes.

We have today's fright wig on Drudge FORMER HEAD OF CIA'S OSAMA BIN LADEN UNIT SAYS THE QAEDA LEADER HAS SECURED RELIGIOUS APPROVAL TO USE A NUCLEAR BOMB AGAINST AMERICANS.

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I try to scan every diary every day, and I don't recall seeing this topic. And I don't find it on a diary search.

One of my wingnut uncles sent around the following email today to everybody in the family:

Subject: Flu Vaccine

Why the shortage:

Almost half of the nation's flu vaccine will not be delivered this year.   Chiron, a major manufacturer of flu vaccine, will not be distributing any influenza vaccine this flu season. Chiron was to make 46-48 million doses vaccine for the United States.

Chiron is a British company. Recently British health officials stopped Chiron from distributing and making the vaccine when inspectors found unsanitary conditions in the labs. Some lots of the vaccine were recalled and destroyed.

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I'm learning I need to take little breaks from politics, or I'm going to stroke out. Just passed my 50th birthday, and bought new stereo speakers for the first time in over 20 years. Yesterday I got some new music, and I'm enjoying it no end, and I'm just wondering how many Kossacks like what I like.

Also got my first two DVDs--Fahrenheit 911 and Passion of the Christ. But that's another story.

One thing I've been griping about for years is the ubiquitous presence of the American flag in American churches. Many people think that cross and flag go together like chicken and dumplings, but I've always thought it was idolatrous, dangerous and stupid to combine the two symbols. My first allegiance is to God. My second allegiance is to all my fellow human beings around the world. (Jesus said that the entire law boils down to loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself.) One should also obey civil law, where it does not violate the conscience, and one should respect and love one's country; but these things are not of supreme importance.

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Some random thoughts. I have supported myself 100 percent since I was a teenager, and for decades I was very poor. Financially I'm doing better now.

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Short diary. Just had to fly this week to Kansas City for a funeral. Spent over six hours driving around through Kansas City in Missouri and also in the Kansas suburbs, especially Overland Park. On both sides of the river, I saw at least 5 and probably 10 or more times as many Kerry signs and bumper stickers.  I also saw a couple of pro-Kerry demonstrations on major roads in Kansas City--and this was in the middle of the work week. There were some blocks where there was a Kerry sign on almost every house, and I never saw anything at all like that for Bush...although there were some obnoxious women at the funeral wearing Bush/Cheney buttons. Based on what I saw, which of course doesn't amount to much, I'd bet that Kerry definitely takes Missouri, and may even have a shot at Kansas.

Pontificator had a great diary today called "If Bush wins -- what will YOU do?" In the rush of diaries, it will probably not get recommended, and it has sailed down past a 30-diary display. I posted a long response there, and I want to amplify it here.

If Bush somehow steals this election, once again, I think it's about 75 percent likely that my wife and I will relocate to Canada. We're definitely moving from our current home in any event. We've already done much research in that direction, including a trip a few months ago to Canada to find the proper town. There have been a few diaries here damning people who are thinking of expatriating as "cowards." I don't think so. I think it takes courage to move, and many people just cannot do it.

If I do move, I will continue to fight the fight
for Catholic social justice values (my preferred label to "progressive") to the best of my ability.

My main reason for moving is that I think the risk of nuclear attack, and subsequent socioeconomic collapse, is already extremely high. I think the risk right now is about 10 percent over the next 10 years that at least one major U.S. city, probably Washington or New York, gets nuked. There was a column by Nicholas Kristof in the N.Y. Times just a few weeks ago making the same point. ("The Nuclear Shadow," Op-Ed page, August 14, 2004, A15, col. 6; it now costs $2.95 to buy this one article from the New York Times.) I recollect that Kristof used just about the same probability numbers I have been talking about for several years.

I have a good friend who recently served in some very high-level U.S. government homeland security interagency brainstorming meetings, and the experts in government think the risk over 10 years is HIGHER than 10 percent! But nobody is talking about this!!! We get Kobe Asshole and Scott Peterson Asshole and la de da de da.

It is UNBELIEVABLE that nobody in government or media is talking publicly about this! We have danger from Soviet missing suitcase nukes. We have danger from North Korea. We have danger from Iran. We have HUGE danger from Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons AND submarines AND has a jihadist insurgency (led, in effect, by bin Laden and el-Zawahiri) that has tried to murder President Musharraf twice in recent weeks, and is supported by the bulk of the Pakistan security apparatus and military. It is CERTAIN that the jihadis will have the nuclear bombs in a few years, if not already.

CERTAIN! Think about that!

My work involves dangerous country conditions around the world, and I have been studying Osama bin Laden and other terrorists for over 10 years. In 2000, I moved my family 40 miles outside Washington, D.C., fearing a nuclear terrorist strike. I am really terrified now that I did not move far enough away. We love our current home, oh we love it, we have incredibly beautiful gardens and fields and orchards, it's an old farm.

But it's not far enough away from catastrophe. We would probably escape the nuclear fireball and fallout (since prevailing winds are from the northwest).

But society would collapse. There would be no food, no fuel, no electricity, no Internet, no good water, etc. There would be fights for resources, and the wingnuts with the guns would win most of them. I've had several terrifying dreams about this, and I'm strong on the psychic side.

In any event, I think the chance of really great disaster in this country is already intolerably high. If Bush gets four more years, it approaches certainty. I can wait it out in Canada. Fortunately, I have the means to do that. I have great worries about many of my family members and friends who are trapped and could not move.

Please comment on this! What do you think?

This is my first diary, I literally burned the bottom of my feet off today, and I've had six beers, so please don't stomp on me.

I'm just about to turn 50, I'm a dogooder lawyer, I've gotten extremely fat almost to Michael Moore territory, and this year has radicalized me beyond all telling. I'm regularly waking up from dreams in which I'm denouncing Bush and his crime family for their crimes. If he steals this election, I'm moving to Canada. I've already got my escape route plotted. (I'm an American PATRIOT! I have a picture of George Washington in my law office, along with many images of the Statue of Liberty!!)

So I just HAD to go to today's rally. I got up at 5:30 to make it by train. I could not BELIEVE the militarization along the way. SWAT teams with unmuzzled dogs at Union Station in D.C. and also at Penn Station in NYC. An INCREDIBLE number of cops, special SWAT cops with riot geer, RNC agents with guns, "Secret Service Police" guys with machine guns, tons and tons of national guard troops in full special ops mode--it was incredible. The inside of Penn Station in NYC was like 10 war movies at once. I saw at least 300 cops and soldiers, all heavily armed, just at Penn Station. I've been to lots of large crowds, and even got tear-gassed once in D.C., and I've never seen ANYTHING like this in this country.

On the train, there were flyers stating that all but two of the Penn Station entrances were blocked. In reality, it turned out that only one was open--at 7th Ave. and 34th. I went out that way, being helped along the way by soldiers showing the way with rifles (no shit!), and outside the march was going by only about 100 feet away. But there were barriers everywhere and THOUSANDS of cops. Helicopters overhead. Sharpshooters on building tops. It took me an 8 to 10 block hike to join the march--W to 8th Ave., N. to 36th, E. to 5th, down to 5th & 34th, a couple of detours along that way, wall to wall cops and barriers along every part of that way.

So I did the march 17 blocks from 5th & 34th down to Broadway & 17th at Union Square, and then back the whole way.
It was HOTTER THAN HELL and I'm REALLY FAT and oh boy damn did I suffer. I can hardly walk tonight, bottoms of both feet are worn off. But I've never
felt more right about my action. I've never been much of a public activist, although I've saved hundreds of people in my work...I felt "solidarity" today. Praise God.

On the way back, I had a minor disagreement with a man who blocked my path to Chris Matthew's outside Hardball studio. He was wearing a badge saying he was private RNC security. What's up with THAT?

Here's the point of this diary.  It was really hot in NYC today, some say hottest day of summer, I don't know, but it was scorching hot, all sun, and I was dehydrated and exhilirated and tired and limping from damaged feet. I was approaching Penn Station again (just as that green dragon was torched, which I witnessed).

I saw this counterprotester guy at a barricade on north side of 34th near 7th Ave. with a BIG sign saying:  "Bush [10 big black silouhettes of war machines, including planes, tanks, howitzers, aircraft carriers, etc.] Jesus."

I lost it. Remember, I was dehydrated and worried about being about to faint or have a heart attack. And I see THAT! I approached the guy and said, "Do you really think Jesus likes THAT stuff?" pointing at the weapons of death.  He said, "Of course, have you read Revelations, Jesus comes back with a SWORD!"  I thought, Holy Shit, what am I getting into, and I gave him a scornful look and said, "OK, sure" and walked away. And he started yelling at me about how all the lefty communist cowards like me were ruining the nation (bear in mind, I was not in the march at that time, and had no slogans or signs or buttons, and I was walking the other way down the sidewalk, with a Nova Scotia cap on)...and I FUCKING LOST IT and turned around and got back in this guy's face about 6 inches away, with my finger jabbing his nose, and we had an ugly yelling contest for about 2 minutes. One
of his choicest loud mouth arguments (with about five heavily armed cops RIGHT in front of him) was: "Do you think the COPS should have to GIVE UP THEIR WEAPONS!!! Would GOD approve of THAT!!!?"

I wish you could read some of my appellate briefs. I've taken 8 appeals so far, and I have never lost. I'm a careful thinker and writer, often praised for lucid and passionate writing. But I've spent all night (ridiculously) thinking of the things I should have told that asshole.

I don't know how many people there are like that, but I think it's probably more than a quarter of the population. A very serious problem. I'm a very religious Catholic. I go to Mass more than once a week (not much more, but a little). I pray often every day. My understanding is that Jesus is the King of Peace. .... This is weird stuff. I've been really interested in politics for decades. This Bush adminstration is different. I think he's an agent of Satan.

God help us all.