What that kind of a reputation brought to Panama way back when: the firestorm in El Chorrillo, in which about 600 Panamanians died. US Department of Defense photo by PFC Morland.
A politically connected gang running drugs to the USA and laundering the money here? What could possibly go wrong?
Not to say that the presumption of innocence should be discarded – but also not to be so naïve as to think that a flagrantly contrived finding that nothing was amiss will be accepted in the international community.
There can and probably will be undue partisan uses of it, bu the stain of San Miguelito gangsterism in this nation’s national institutions and party leadership will not be eradicated without full and transparent justice that allows special privileges for nobody.
The raw truth of the matter is that in the ordinary course of things the president of General Motors will have more influence on what happens in macro-economic terms than does the president of the United States. But at the kitchen table, and whether there IS a home with a kitchen, who gets elected to serve in Washington makes a big difference. Even if the president doesn’t get a magic wand.
Instead of all that…
Set aside the pop psychology. Set aside the obsession with polls. Set aside your base prejudices. Set aside any belief that something you saw on a television fiction show has much relationship to the realities of your life.
Listen to what the candidates and parties facing off for this year’s US elections have to say. Don’t be gullible, or closed-minded. Then cast your votes. You need to be registered, and if living outside the USA, to have ordered your ballots in time.
God help us all.
Bust of Marcus Tullius Cicero in Rome’s Capitoline Museums. Photo by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro.
Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.
Cicero
Bear in mind…
The best index to a person’s character is (a) how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can’t fight back.
Abigail Van Buren
The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.
Friedrich Nietzsche
It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.
Simone de Beauvoir
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