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Good and evil leap from the headlines: “Egyptian planes pound ISIS in Libya in revenge for mass beheadings of Christians.”

It’s nonstop action for the American public. It’s the history of war compressed into a dozen words. It’s Fox News, but it could be just about any mainstream purveyor of current events.

Once again, I feel a cry of despair tear loose from my soul and spill into the void. Our politics are out of control. There’s no sanity left — no calmness of strategic assessment, no impulse control. At least none of that stuff is allowed into the mainstream conversation about national security, which amounts to: ISIS is bad. The more of them we (or our allies of the moment) kill, the better. USA! USA!

The president doesn’t “love” America?

Would that it were true. Would that Rudy Giuliani’s five-star Republican nightmare actually paced the Oval Office, pondering how to disarm, demilitarize . . . defang American exceptionalism.

Would that the president felt a responsibility to the global future and, at the same time, could summon our real past, grieve for its victims and vow with every fiber of his being to atone for our history of slavery and conquest: the “white terrorism” of manifest destiny. Would that the president didn’t “love” our myths but truly hated them and felt that his obligation to the future was to help lay these myths bare and, above all, stop perpetuating them.

“The actual process of lynching was morbid and incredibly violent. Lynching does not necessarily mean hanging. It often included humiliation, torture, burning, dismemberment and castration. Victims were beaten and whipped, many times in front of large crowds that sometimes numbered in the thousands. Coal tar was frequently used to douse the unfortunate victim prior to setting him afire.

Here's Time Magazine's David von Drehle: "The greatest threat that ISIS poses -- even to the poor souls living under ISIS rule -- is the unintended damage that might follow from the effort to eradicate the group. . . . As dangerous as it is to have a terrorist kingdom in the middle of the world's geopolitical tinderbox, ousting ISIS will be every bit as dangerous."

Most people in the United States have little contact with Iran or its culture. Iran comes up as a scary threat in the speeches of demagogues. A range of debate is offered between obliterate it and pressure it into compliance with our civilized norms, or at least the civilized norms of some other country that doesn't obliterate or pressure people.

So how do Americans view Iran? Many view it, like all governmental matters, through the lens of either the Democratic or the Republican Party. The Democratic President has come to be seen as on the side of preventing a war with Iran. The Republican Congress has come to be seen as pushing for that war. In this framework, something remarkable happens. Democrats begin recognizing all of the arguments against war that ought to be applied to every war.

“You can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me . . .”

Yeah, something had to happen. The cellphone video went public and the frat boys on the bus, who were just having a little politically incorrect fun, y’know, singing about Jim Crow exclusionary practices and, well, lynching, suddenly found themselves thrust into a national context, embarrassing the hell out of their fraternity and their school.

Something had to happen, but I don’t think it was “zero tolerance” — that is to say, the immediate shutting of the door on a shocking, humiliating revelation that some students have bad attitudes and haven’t learned the national lesson: overt, casual racism against African-Americans is wrong.

Last month, I attended the Ninth Annual Voting And Elections Summit in Washington, hosted by Fair Vote, The Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, US Vote Foundation, and Overseas Vote Foundation, each a progressive organization dedicated to the betterment of elections in the United States. The summit was indeed a gathering of very bright, motivated, devoted, and patriotic individuals and organizations, whose efforts I deeply appreciate.

It was undercut, however, by a tragic, widely shared blindspot regarding the core vulnerability of the American vote counting process, both in theory and in concrete political bottom-line fact. That process, in the computerized voting era, has become and remains unobservable, offering an open invitation to targeted manipulation sweeping in its cumulative effect.

If U.S. television and politicians started saying that Saudi Arabia should be bombed because it kills and tortures innocent people, within a week many millions of Americans would demand just that. And because those voices do say that about ISIS, many millions of Americans do favor a war on ISIS.

My point is not that bombs would be worse than the problem addressed and would make the problem itself worse as well, although that's all true. Rather, my point is that most people who favor wars do so in order to blindly support a nation, and in blindly supporting that nation they allow it to dictate which wars they will favor. Although war supporters will give you reasons for the wars they favor, they actually favor whichever wars they are told to favor, and no others. And they'll give you the reasons they are told to believe in as well.

Many people all over the world watch television series based on the commercials, promotional media hype, interviews that the cast members, promoters and sponsors give and, of course, by word of mouth.  Another way that people are influenced into watching a particular show is through the television content rating systems.

With more than 50 sports and events, including 14 Olympic sports, the 2015 Arnold Sports Festival presents fitness and fun for all ages March 5-8, 2015. The festival has expanded into the world’s largest multi-sport fitness weekend since its 1989 debut.  Over 18,000 athletes will compete at Greater Columbus Convention Center, Ohio Expo Center, Hilton Columbus Downtown, LC Pavilion, Hollywood Casino, Nationwide Arena, New Albany High School and Stars Indoor Sports. See ArnoldSportsFestival.com for all times and locations.

Powerlifter John C. Downing, coach of The Ohio State University powerlifting club level team, is going for a world record in his weight class at this year’s Arnold Sports Classic. Downing is 5’6 and 181 pounds. In his weight class, the record is 617 pounds for the squat, one of three weight-lifting moves in the sport of powerlifting. Thus, he’ll be attempting to lift more than three times his bodyweight.
  Competitive powerlifting is a global sport that has nine professional organizations, and is up for review by the Olympic committee to make it a medal sport. Competitors vie for first place by achieving the largest weight total possible for three separate lifts – the squat, bench press and deadlift (where the weight is on the ground and must be lifted to hip level).
  Downing has mostly trained six days a week, several hours a day, for the last 12 years to reach this level and be a relevant contender at the Arnold, which is considered one of the sport’s most prominent events. Last year he tied for third place. This year he wants to break the record and take first place.