Yep.

The events of that year were quite a wakeup call.

hasn't it. That was a bad year.

We've been fighting a losing battle ever since...largely because many didn't realize the size and scope of the forces on the other side.

Thought Nixon was the antichrist. Couldn't get worse.

Then fucking Reagan. Fear and loathing in the city on the hill. That's when the word "predator" entered the discourse. Couldn't possibly get worse.

Then, oh lord, George W. Bush.

And in between, we get increasingly Wall Street-captured, right-tilting Democrats, and it looks like we're in line to get another one. Hell, Nixon would probably be to the left of a lot of Democrats these days.

And the Republicans themselves, they just get more and more extreme. I think it'll keep them from winning a presidential election for the foreseeable future, but they also manage to block the federal government from effective action on many fronts.

Up until that point, I had always thought that the S.C. was an honest group. Now naive of me.

He gutted the transportation and education sectors, cut funding for mental health providers, cut medicaid funding, and made the government public enemy number one in the process. Gave all the money to his criminal friends, and allowed treason to happen. And yet the Republicans have all but canonized this man.

... who was in power when, and did little to oppose if not outright championed, the repeal of Glass-Stegall and he passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, both which set the stage for the bankster-led crippling of the economy we are experiencing now, NAFTA, free trade with no quid-pro-quo with China (remember how much that was going to help Americans?, I didn't buy it and it hasn't), round one of "bankruptcy reform", ending "welfare as we know it".

i could go on and on but get it please, it wasn't just Reagan or mostly Reagan that set up the mess we have right now. It was a beloved Dem acting in concert with the Republicans.

Where he believes when you're first elected president you're flown to New York and you meet with the people who really run the country. They then put you up in a room where a guy with a cigar says "roll tape". And it's footage of the Kennedy assassination from an angle that you've never seen before. And when the screen comes up the guy says "any questions?". "No just what my agenda is". "First we bomb Baghdad." "You got it.".

I'm sure it's true.

.... I've heard it. I've heard pretty much every thing Bill Hicks recorded and I love it all

And yes, I would not rule that scenario out at all.

most likely scenario. I mentioned something to that effect earlier today. It will take a lot to convince me otherwise.

graduated from high school in '68... and proceeded to get a real education of what this nation is really about.

I didn't realize the full depravity of American international politics until my own exposure to it in Vietnam.

my first "community of friends" ---> communal housemates --- in the summer of 68 with Vietnam Vets (along with Peace Corps volunteers/activists) who had just returned... as radical, politically active anti-war vets, aiming to get dishonorable discharges on principle.

You might imagine the radical "deprogramming" this experience was for me, having grown up in a military family (my dad was in-between two tours in 68)... rah rah U.S.A.

We elected a Democrat to the Presidency, and being outraged at lying, thieving, torturing and murdering became passe.

Goddam Trojan Horse.

I guess the new talking point of the day is, well, all he can do is call them out because the military is stronger than our highest elected officials.

only my disgust currently encompasses the entire world situation we're in right now.

Wars, rumors of wars, famines, plagues, etc....

Maybe we are experiencing a biblical-style End Times scenario that's of our own making.

If there is a God, perhaps God is saying: "But I tried to warn these morons not to let it get this bad, dammit...I tried gave them a really scary prophecy and everything. Fuck it...I'm not rapturing these assholes. The experiment failed. #yolohumanity"

we are suffering the affects of those who insist on the self-fulfilling prophesy, it has to happen or else.

See governments, corporations, religions, military, for instances of the axiom.

don't expect much "moral rehabilitation."

with much of the supposed 'leadership', as well as much of the 'intelligence' community.

I'm not disgusted with the nation, but I am disgusted.

We have corporate rulers.

disgruntled employees. In short, this nation is seriously fucked up when it come to being for "we the people."

and yet nothing happens to the criminals who perpetrated those atrocities.

but that's just me.

We've always had war and fraud but I think we're in overdrive now.

Hunter S.Thompson called it years ago, "...with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark." It's been a devolution with intermittent shock doctrine ratching downward to paleo- capitalism since the end of the 1960's.

On November 22, 1963..........JFK and Aldous Huxley...

I think I knew that once. a long time ago.

... and disappointed. Democracy seemed like such a good idea,

... but vulture capitalism seems to have devoured it.

I live in a nation made up of mostly good, decent, honest men and women who have lying, thieving, torturing, murdering leaders who misrepresent them and instead kowtow to lying, thieving, torturing, murdering industrialists and financiers.

Agree!

I live in California, where what is good about America still dominates the psychic landscape, where we have purged ourselves of Ronald Reagan.

Where are you that gives you such a downer?

Maybe it's just my neighborhood? Love being here. Fled the south 1990 years ago. It's a real downer living in red states. I feel for democrats who tough it out in such places.

Representative government, my ass.

because a nation IS what its leadership is. That is how the world sees it.

Those this nation has slaughtered and tortured and maimed for life and robbed of their natural resources, certainly would agree with the characterization 'lying, thieving' etc.

Since we're still doing it, and the people haven't stopped it, with more than half supporting it, and now more than half the OTHER half, trying to justify it, I will view it from the perspective of the VICTIMS.

I am doing fine, I live in a great place with great neighbors and friends etc. I suppose I could just look at my comfortable little world and pretend it represents the principles of this country.

But I would be wrong. Empires always had their comfortable communities, after all they benefit from the Empires' brutality and theft of other people's resources.

Pardon my French; I know French is forbidden here.

but prosecuting your average non-violent drug offenders (which last time I checked haven't killed a single person) could not be more striking.

Also, we KNOW the CIA spied on Congress...but would anyone here REALLY be surprised if they didn't check out the other two branches of govt as well?

Got to get control over the CIA or dissolve it and let DHS do their job. In these tough economic times...if people and companies have to compete for money...so should redundant abc agencies.

And those demands usually come down to "More money!"

Has been overrun by Capitalism

It takes us less time to admit our mistakes. We have never been perfect, but I think we are getting better.

-Laelth

All it would take to turn the entire thing around is a few prosecutions for the worst war crimes and conspiracies committed in our names by the criminal Bush admin.

Sadly, those criminals have got others watching their backs while pretending to not be criminals themselves.

We are in a mess and the worst part is that a majority seem to think that America is right at the top of everything.

I just check my "hope and change" supply, it's empty.

It's been nothing but a downward spiral ever since.

Last edited Sun Aug 3, 2014, 04:55 PM - Edit history (1)

They had an elaborate plan that went into motion as soon as the decision was handed down. I will not say what all I believe was included in that plan, my life is difficult enough without becoming a target.

When you consider the Bush clan, imagine the very worst.

It wasn't just a mere reporting fuck up. It was a coup that was very carefully planned by the BFEE to install Bush with a super majority and he could basically do whatever they wanted regardless of how evil it was. I can only think of what things would be like had Al Gore been elected.

That is Vice President Al Gore's proposal to armor up airline cockpit doors. He would have made that proposal in the late 1990s. I remember Vice President Gore being pilloried by Limbaugh for his proposal. Limbaugh said it would cost the airlines $300 per plane.

This is something TPTB would rather we forget, that Vice President Gore was privy to some very specific warnings pertaining to airliner vulnerability.

Imagine the worst.

The American people, no. Most of them are tops in every way.



But (Philip Jones Griffith's) camera also caught moments of compassion; here a group of US soldiers help a wounded Vietcong who had fought against them for three days, despite being badly wounded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/in_pictures_philip_jones_griffiths_/html/6.stm

Great people,nasty owners.
Nov.22,1963 was the start of a huge sea change we have never recovered from.

In case you missed these posts from when I attended "Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" at Duquesne University in October 2013:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024158313#post19

They keep chasing shadows here and the truth is right in front of them.
I am pretty sure we will never find out who all the string pullers are.

We were supposed to be the shining beacon of democracy. We certainly have had our great moments as a nation, but since Reagan we've pretty much been on the negative side of the ledger.

Add up JUST the top 102 (less than 1/4 of Congress) congresscritters' years served and you get 2400+ years.

Do the same with the top 25 senators (1/4) and you get 593 years.

Wrap those numbers around the names of your favorite senators and congresscritters. They haven't fixed anything. They haven't made anything better. They've fucked the country and the world up to holy hell, and most of them have made a mint doing it.

That's just ONE FOURTH of them. If those numbers alone aren't an argument for term limits I don't know what is... I can't hear it now though "Not MY congressman/woman. HE'S/SHE'S not the problem. Not MY senator, HE'S/SHE'S not the problem." Bullshit.

psychopaths get to be the leaders of countries, corporations, the military, wall street, the media? We got too busy to vote or protest, turned our heads, read Ayn Rand, decided that money is the root of all good, and believed them when they said war would solve all our problems and keep us safe. We have met the enemy and guess what?

That seemed to be the start of hate against other Americans. Hate for Unions, hate for regulations that protect all of us, hate for people struggling with mental illness or sickness.
He ruled only for money. Only to make the wealthy wealthier and the poorest left to the streets.
The only thing that ever trickled down from them wasn't money, it was ethics. A nation of people who saw you didn't have to create anything to make money, just take it from those who couldn't or were unable to defend themselves. Just put your money in the hands of Wall St & Chicago economists and we'll devastate every nation we can get our hands on to provide you with a comfortable retirement. Every tortured person, every unmarked grave, every military strike, every corpse providing a little extra funds for them and those who choose to join the profit without principles bonanza.