What am I grateful for? This blog.

In 2003, this nation made one of the worst mistakes it has ever made. I spoke against it at the time, but my voice did not reach beyond the ears of those who knew me personally. A frustrating situation.

Now my country is repeating the same horror on a grander scale. The U.S. is using ISIS as an excuse to topple the legitimate government of Syria, we are aiding the barbaric Saudi invasion of Yemen, we launched a coup which brought Nazis to power in Ukraine, and we are needlessly re-igniting the Cold War. Worst of all, much of our media tells incessant lies about these matters of life and death. Every minute of every day, our well-paid pundits and pseudojournalists lie and lie and lie.

But 2003 is not 2016. Now, whenever I decry these outrages, thousands hear. Not millions -- not enough to make a difference. But an audience of a thousand people is a thousand more than I had back in 2003.

A small blog such as this one cannot do much to amplify a voice. My hope is that the readers of these words will do their own research, and then speak out wherever they can. Tell the truth in other corners of the web. On Facebook. At work. At family gatherings. If an impoverished, lonely oddball like yours truly can reach thousands, you can reach thousands. A thousand voices can become a million voices, and a million can become ten million.

One person is easy to ignore. A collective shout will be heard.

In their hearts, most Americans do not want war -- yet those who vocalize their opposition to war are always made to feel strange, eccentric, unpatriotic. Our culture demonizes anyone who refuses to think the way the teevee tells us to think.

Be brave. Say what needs to be said. Say it boldly, in mixed company. Defy the ill-informed dupes who believe the lies they hear on cable news. Your opponents, however misled, are not evil. People are suckers for the truth once they hear it.

Every time you decry the warmongers, you normalize the argument for peace.