Two Americas, a nation divided against itself cannot stand.

Brigid shared her thoughts about pie cutting and Ayn Rand. Many agree with her. Some disagree. And a few describe her as "arrogant" and "ignorant".

Such is life in the "Two Americas" of the workers and the greedy few. The Progressive movement is nothing new. Why anyone would associate its most recent orator, Sen. Obama, with hope and change escapes me. Sen. Obama hasn’t offered anything new. It is the same vagueness about government taking a little from the exploiters to close the gap between them and the exploited advanced for more than a century. It hasn't worked yet, and not for lack of trying.

The ignorant, arrogant journalists at the New York Times published an article Aug. 16, “Seeing Tougher Race, Allies ask Obama to make ‘Hope' specific.”

““I particularly hope he strengthens his economic message — even Senator Obama can speak more clearly and specifically about the kitchen-table, bread-and-butter issues like high energy costs,” said Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio. “It’s fine to tell people about hope and change, but you have to have plenty of concrete, pragmatic ideas that bring hope and change to life.”

Sen. Obama will tax the excessive, windfall profits of “Big Oil” and use some of the tribute money to give exploited Americans a $1,000 rebate. But he doesn’t address how he can force foreign-based corporations such as Dutch Royal Shell and the huge oil companies in Saudia Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Iran, and China that dwarf U.S.-based energy corporations to pay taxes. If he can collect them, how will he keep “Big Oil” from raising prices or exporting the oil to friendlier harbors?

Sen. Obama might turn out to be another Barbary pirate and be placed on trial at The Hague. At the very least, he will scramble when the Saudis and Chinese stop funding the national debt, cease propping up our inflated currency, and end trade with us.

Americans have also invested in “Big Oil” and perhaps don’t even know it. Are you paying into a pension fund, saving to send your children to college, pay life insurance premiums, have certificates of deposit with a bank, or have a 401K plan? If you do, you are a stakeholder in “Big Oil.”

Who do we expect to bail out financial institutions when they fail? Could it be the promise of a $1,000 rebate could keep us from retirement or our children from obtaining the American Dream?

Al Gore compared Sen. Obama to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, during the Democratic National Convention. Yet President Lincoln warned us that a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Progressives speak of fairness, a redistribution of wealth from greedy corporations and fat cats to those defined as exploited--Two Americas.

This is one nation. We imperil the republic to treat it otherwise.

Republicans sleep through economics and history courses, too, and that is why that party lost control of Congress in 2006.