Here is the next video in the sequence of (promised) Saturday installments of Laurie Anderson’s private/public service announcements.

This one is exponentially more relevant now than it was when she made it.

Is anyone but me panicked about what the size of our national debt means for America’s future?

Notice the amount on the sign of United States public debt. It was approaching four trillion at the time, accruing about $8000 per second. She was concerned.

Well, it has more than doubled since then. According to the Treasury of the United States, on 8-2-07 the debt stood at $8,945,504,468,375.99.

Just so you’re aware. Are you aware?

We still haven’t heard an answer to the basic question: for what “noble cause” have we invaded Iraq?

Are we in Iraq just to secure the oil for the energy companies that get so much support of every kind from the US government?

Not to be a party pooper or anything, but what about the death and pain and chaos and suffering? What is the reason for the sacrifices of U.S. and other allied soldiers? What is the justification for the thousands killed on every side?

For what reason have we punched the hornet’s nest in Iraq?

For what are we going into further, almost unthinkable debt?

How much longer will we turn away from the reality?

Declare war, or cut executive powers of war.

Argue for oil interests, or stop killing for them. You can’t tell me that we don’t have permanent bases along the pipeline.

Don’t send thousands more Americans out there. How does that help anything at all?

I’m just waiting for the someone to start making comparisons between the executions of Saddam and Jesus. USA Pilate and Judas, all mixed into one. Yeah, we made him, and we’ll make sure he’s hung like a witch… start the taunting…

Look! Look at reality. This is not a movie.

Wake up, America. Your future is being stolen from you, too.

The thing I remember most vividly is the soldiers screaming in pain and crying out for their mothers. My mother went up and down the aisles holding their hands, stroking their brows, giving them sips of water. My sister helped light their cigarettes. Many of them were amputees. Some had no stomachs, some had no faces. …

I hope that when President Bush discusses sending more troops to Iraq, knowing that we will have to pull out sooner rather than later, that the conversation comes around to the human suffering. Does anyone at the table ask about the personal anguish, the long-term effects, emotional, psychological and financial, on the families of those killed, wounded or permanently disabled?

When I hear about the surge, all I can think of is those young soldiers on the plane to Texas. We have already lost more than 3,000 soldiers, and many more have been wounded and disabled.

We have three choices here. All three are immoral. We can keep the status quo and gradually pull out; we can surge; or we can pull out now. When I think about those young soldiers on that plane coming back from Japan years ago, I believe pulling out now is the least immoral choice.

from The Least Immoral Choice: Squander No More U.S. Lives in Iraq
By Sally Quinn
(Washington Post Tuesday, January 9, 2007; Page A15)
(Sally Quinn is a co-moderator of On Faith, an online conversation on religion.)

It is an extraordinary time.

• We borrow money from other countries so that rich people don’t have to pay taxes.
• We borrow money from other countries and let private corporations steal it.

And somehow, the American people seem to be all right with that.

If you want to live in the America you’ve heard about, you’ve got to start noticing what’s really happening. A democracy requires your attention and participation. Drollette has a few choice words for those who don’t understand that by many standard measures, we are a kind of banana republic. The comparisons have been made by others, with more facts and figures, but I like the wording here. The article is worth reading (actually the “Smirking Chimp” site, despite its dehumanizing name, has been picking up better and better articles over the last few months – check out the headlines on the right-hand menu).

The Mark Drolette: ‘What do you mean, it’s ‘like’ living in a Third World country?’ – Smirking Chimp

As the blistering is applied, one refrain is heard with regularity: “This is America, not some Third World country.”

Hmm. Well, when I think of a Third World country, I think of one where the already-filthy rich get much richer at the expense of the ever-poorer, where millions go without basic health care, where elections are fixed, where education becomes a privilege only for the privileged, where the environment is poisoned and plundered, where national debt is mega-astronomical, where women’s rights are under pressure, where government is corrupt and squarely in the filching hands of Big Business, where labor is vilified and oppressed, where civil liberties are stripped, where precious resources are thrown away on, oh, let’s say, bombs and tanks and ships and planes while its citizens go hungry…

And where the country’s leadership doesn’t care if its own people die. Not until, that is, the dying is done out in the open and is no longer out of the newspapers.

Some readers may know I’m planning to retire to Costa Rica next year, a country that carries Third World status. Costa Rica has national health care, a literacy rate in the mid-90s, clean water, safe food, a fine educational system, a quarter of its land dedicated to national parks, and no standing military. I’ve often mused how nice it would be if those things could be found in “advanced” America.

So who’s zooming who?

Many, if not most, of us who have been paying attention to America’s gradual (and intentional) dismantling over the last two decades, accelerating to warp-speed during King George’s reign, cannot be surprised at what’s happened in New Orleans and the Gulf States over the past week. Aghast, yes. Surprised, no.