"....if my happiness were based solely on the objective conditions of my particular life -- work, social relations, health, adventure, material comfort, etc. -- I could, without hesitation, say that I'm very happy. But I'm blessed/cursed with a social conscience that assails my tranquility. Reading the hundred varieties of daily horrors in my morning newspaper -- the cruelty of man, the cruelty of nature, the cruelty of chance -- I'm frozen in despair and anger. Often, what makes it hardest to take is that my own government, at home and abroad, directly and indirectly, is responsible for more of the misery than any other human agent. I would have been incredulous, during the first half of my life, to think that one day my own government would scare me so. But if I were a conservative, I could take great comfort, even happiness, in convincing myself that it's largely "the bad guys" who are being hurt and that all these horrors are for the purpose of extending democracy, freedom, and other joys to the dark corners of the world. And at a profit." - - - William Blum