Name-calling. That’s apparently what a political party does when it has largely abandoned the working class in order to feast on large corporate contributions. What else could we have done with $40 billion? This downpayment on this illegal war has cost each American taxpayer almost $300. What if we had given $1 Billion dollars to each of the 40 American cities that are most crime-ridden and/or lacking in education funds? There wasn’t even a God-damned debate about this largess to America’s biggest defense contractors. Most of us who have challenged this profligate spending for this extremely dangerous war have been called “Russian assets.” As if the apparent U.S. strategy of regime-change against Putin, a purported madman with thousands of nuclear missiles, doesn’t deserve sober debate. As though we have already forgotten how devastating it is to our own country to fight another undeclared war without any meaningful end game. That is the state of democracy in the modern day U.S. This is what passes for meaningful conversation. Name-calling.