one gets the sense that all hell is about to break loose.

doesn't one? i don't have anything to compare it to at my advanced age, this feeling of dread in the air like a storm cloud. never lived through anything quite like it, and i'm really amazed at the intensity of it, but i can't kick it.

and with bush, it just builds and builds in strength, the tension, the suspense, it's killin' me. it's killng us literally, and killing thousands of innocent people just like you and me. death everywhere, salted with piracy and lunacy, and the dread, thick in the air.

crazy ain't it?

It's a lot worse than Nixon.

It's even worse than Cold War "drills" in elementary school, sitting cross-legged with our heads in our laps and our hands on our heads... in alphabetical order, as if anyone could ID us after a supposed Russian attack.

Not sure about Nixon because I was about 8 when he resigned.

And believe me - what i saw in the reagan years was bad. growing up in pittsburgh 24% unemployment was the norm in the mid-80s. the world was coming down around us and we knew it.

what is weird now is that the walls are crumbling around us, and many people are either too dumb or too distracted to notice.


btw - my mother was a cold war baby - she had her name in her undies... despite the fact that her mother was living a half block from the school and would have been incinerated along with her daughter... :crazy:

Sometimes I wonder if it is a self-fulfilling prophecy? But then, the little voice says, "don't kid yourself". I can never recall a time in my life when there was such constant turmoil and "lunacy". It is real. This is a real challenge for us and our nation, I am convinced. The fake "war on terror" is more frightening than the real "war on terror". Now, could you take off your shoes and bend over - you may have a bomb up your ass? That seems to be the direction we are headed?

think about it. we've had this armageddon shit in our heads for 2,000 years now, and this returning messiah end of the world mythology knocking around in there too. it's messed with our heads real bad.

and then they seize political power...

Something like a quasi- military/CIA coup. You got to think that those guys know that we can't take too many more weeks of Bu$h/Cheney. The US Congress won't do anything. The corporate-controlled media won't do anything. The lame electorate won't do anything. Who does that leave? The military (with the pissed-off CIA's help) or (heaven forbid) Red China and her allies. In fact, to keep the latter off of our ass someone must rid us of the entire BuSh regime, or China and Company will move to take advantage of the exponential increase of entropy in the Bu$h/PNAC system. This cabal has put us at extreme risk. They must be ousted.

quite awhile (not on this board, but in conversation) that if WE don't do something about this cabal of criminals that have seized our government, someone else will. Better for us to solve this problem. I am hoping that the system indeed WILL work, due to the criminal investigation into treason.

It MUST work!

on edit: and when we get through this, I believe that a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting siblings and heirs of sitting Presidents from qualifying for the Presidency for at least 20 years. Perhaps this will prevent the government from being taken over by dynasties where one generation in power has stacked the courts and governmental institutions so that the next can take power and continue to stack the courts with idealogical "lockstep" thinking tied into the power structure through $$ donations and services?

the president's spouse, the first generation lineal descendant of a president, the president's siblings, and the first generation decendants of the president's siblings would be prohibited from office

trade em hillary for jeb.

on the voters who brought us 8 years of the idiot son would be to require them to have to say "President Clinton" for at least four more years - meaning that we elect Hillary President. After all, if they can dump the "son" on us, we can certainly hit them back with the "wife."

Hillary, IMHO, would be an unfathomable improvement over the current pretender to the Presidency; but it would be "revenge" on them in the sense that the Freepers and Christo-Facists HATE her to the point of demonization.

But yes, a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting families from creating "elected" monarchies is in order.

of an idea. By the time this Bush disaster is all over, people might be very willing to think long and hard about such a legal option.

I always wondered why a nation that rejected GHWB for a second term -- and in a big way -- would even consider his son for prez when it was obvious he would be utilizing so many of the same people, backers, policy plans, and so on. And when W picked Dick Cheney for VP, I thought, "He doesn't stand a chance now."

Of course I hadn't taken into account the theft of an election.....

will tolerate our bullying. It's an aspect that the neocons/repukes/freepers/zealots have not thought about as they wallow in their 'we're the greatest nation on the planet' arrogance. I believe the rest of the world is sick & tired of that attitude & they will cheer when we fall, either on our own or if someone takes us down.

There are going to be millions of disillusioned Americans wondering what the hell happened without ever connecting the dots & realizing their role in our demise.

The bigger you are the harder you fall.

And I **SALUTE** ya if you are.

I understand why you would be thinking as you are ... and it's definitely food for thought. However, China is not a fully functional country that can step up to the plate and roll over the U.S. and the world, as many of us feared might happen as far back as -- well, Vietnam. That government, and those gazillion people, have their hands full with problems of every sort.

We'll be wise to keep a close eye on them for some time to come, of course, but I don't fear China as I used to. Sadly, it's the imploding that many civilizations or cultures tend to do just when they are at their peak that concerns me -- witness what's happening now at the highest seat of government in the land.

BUT we mustn't let fear and dread distract us from the practical tasks at hand. Retake the election process, that's an important step all right. And feasible, don't you think? Push our reluctant congresscritters to DO THEIR F'ing JOBS and straighten out this mess they've let slide for far too long -- nay, participated in -- in Washington. They know how, they are capable. We just have to show them their job security isn't assured, and we'll bygod find some representatives who WILL do their jobs and set things right in our government!

I've read so many good ideas here -- on this thread and here at DU since I arrived just a short while ago. (Wow, I guess it's only been about a week! Seems like I've been here longer ... I feel right at home.) America has the resilience and the talent to FIX this mess! We can't let depression and frustration undo us. There's a lot of work to be done! Nothing brings people out of depression like an important job they can do.

So let's DO IT!

And boy can we benefit from the wisdom of the Vietnam veterans in the battles to come. THAT's a resource few people have recognized yet! These guys can kick ass and take names when it comes to sorting out the wheat from the chaff in our government!

Hooah! And we've got a lot of other, younger veterans now who have seen the light, too.

Excellent line of thought, DemoTex! Thanks for your post.

I've been wondering the same thing for a couple of months now and had some sick little fantasy about it going down during Smirk's recent appearance at Fort Bragg. Say the military/CIA did stage and successfully execute this coup -- how could the Executive Branch and "democracy" be restored? That would certainly be some "special" election. LOL

I hadn't gotten as far as thinking of a coup d'etat, but what a concept. It's never happened before that I know of, unless you count the Kennedy assasination, which I understand Poppy was probably involved in. Maybe Poppy needs to have a little talk with Junior and we could avoid this mess.

It's his mafiaesque dealings with the Saudis that got us into this mess.

As far as i'm concerned, about the most useful thing he can do right now is to retire to a prison cell, and take all of his sad and pathetic offspring with him.

It is like not a thing is working right and we have the same people who made the mess running things. It is like a govt. of think and look the same. Same schools and same thinking. And they are saying if you look different or talk different by all means you need to have your back packed looked into.

The Multi-Corps control the Govt. and the Govt. makes the rules. The top 2% don't pay taxes and the rest of the population pays in money and lives. I have no answers for stopping the Machine that is grinding the non-wealthy down.

We were and I think we have lost our way. Things do not work you try a new way. We do not seem to want to do that any more. One thing is always for sure. Things will change and we usually hope for the better. I do not want to see Victoria's England back where 10,000 rich upper class run the place for them selfs.

In my opinion our arguments work better if we use facts. The top 1% pays about 34% of all income tax, so your statement about the top 2% is factually incorrect.

But there's no question about big business controlling the government. Untold thousands of lobbyists are running our lives at the bidding of the CEOs. And our congressmen are willing dupes.

...so I could be off base with my comments, BUT

Pointing out that the top 1% pay about 30-34% of federal income tax (FIT) can be a little misleading.

First, income share of the top 1% is between 15% and 19%. So though this group pays a lot, they also earn alot. FIT is meant to be a progressive tax, meaning those who most benefit -- and those with massive private property and investment most benefit from our neo-police-militarist state -- pay more.

Second, it does not take into account other tax changes that inordinately benefit the top tier. For example, the share of all federal revenues from corporate income tax has dropped from it's pre-80's norm of around 33% to under 10%. And to whom does this "freed" income flow? Mostly as income to the top 1% in the form of regal CEO benefit packages, increased income from dividends (take into account all the stock splits that occurred before saying dividend rates are 1-2%), and increased equity value. Look at net wealth growth for this group over the same period, it explodes! The tax break to corporations inordinately benefits that top 1% and dilutes the comparison of FIT share.

Meanwhile other forms of flat to regressive taxation have risen and inordinately burden the bottom half, everything from user fees to the Greenspan Commission tax hikes on FICA to local and state sales taxes. I recall a book by Michael Harrington from the late seventies, The Twilight of Capitalism, that showed a graph of net effective taxation by income percentile: The nation then paid in essence a flat effective tax (all taxes) of around 30% except for the bottom and top 5%, where both groups' effective taxation rate hovered near 35%. And this was years before the Reagan-GHWB-GWB decimation of progressivity and fairness in our tax policies.

Further, the USG under the Republican Presidents over the last 25 years have indulged in borrow-and-spend policies that have amassed a federal debt the likes of which have never been seen before. We were a net creditor nation when Reagan took office -- by the end of his second term we were the world's largest debtor. Federal debt climbed from under a $1 trillion to the $7 or $8 trillion we see now. The top 1% own a large share of the Federal Treasury Bonds used to finance this debt. To whom does the interest income flow? Well, a portion of course is in effect a FIT rebate to the wealthy investor, but a portion is appropriated from other taxpayers and flows into the investor's wallet. Further, the current investor has a huge claim against our children's and grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's future income.

I won't even get into what tax policy has done to middle- and lower-class labor opportunities. Note the top 1%, who inordinately benefit from investment income, make even greater profit when jobs move offshore and as a result wages stagnate or fall here.

In sum: No one should isolate the fact that the top 1% pay a large share of FIT without accounting for these and many other factors. Only then can we speak about "fair" and I claim that tax policy has been anything but fair since 1981. In fact, it's a downright crime and momentous tragedy.

I merely pointed out the incorrectness of his statement about the top 2% paying nothing. It was blatantly not true and I called him on it.

Current tax policy is grossly unfair for a number of reasons. I'm sure not gonna argue with you about that!

As for me, I'm just hoping to last long enough to get my kids thru college and then retire in some other country.

I went back to the post you were replying too and see what you were addressing. There are a handful of top 0.1%ers who pay no tax, but that is a red herring in any debate about tax policy.

And on your other point, about government being mostly bought and paid for by our corporate masters, I agree (but you're talking to a self-avowed anarcho-syndicalist here, not a libertarian). Hope you last and retire someplace nice.

Missile Crisis was a few days, World War II was 1,347 days, Vietnam was long but localized to a corner of the World. Every day I get up and immediately check to see what shitty things have happened while I was asleep. This is no way to live-my hatred of Bush and his ilk and my fear of the future are ruining any hope of drawing some enjoyment out of the limited number of years I have left.

Probably one of the worst aspects of this mess are the feelings of powerlessness and seething hostility toward fellow Americans who blithely drive their SUVs while we edge closer to disaster.

I used to enjoy getting up on Saturday mornings...

everyone else is hypnotized.

you just pegged my feelings and thoughts to a 't'. Plus I have to worry about my eleven year old son.

I cannot even count the scandals and whacked out crap that has gone on over the last five or six years.

Why even bother to get up in the morning!

most do by that age, you know why you get up in the morning.

But if I grow a prostate to have problems with DU will be the first to know!

I also have hostile feelings toward fellow Americans who live their lives with their heads in the sand. They are oblivious of their sense of entitlement & how it fuels the hatred the rest of the world feels toward us.

I took one of those 'how big a footprint does your lifestyle leave' quizzes & was shocked to see it would take 2.1 Earths to support my lifestyle. I forwarded it to several friends & was stunned to hear their ratings -- 4-5 was not uncommon & even someone over 7!!!! GASP!! And they all thought it was funny -- or perhaps it was 'pride' in their affluence.

In the meantime, I'm trying to find ways to minimize my footprint more.

Thank you for your post. I'm glad I am not alone with these feelings.

Sounds like something a lot of people I know would be willing to take, and it might open some eyes. If you can send it to me, would you?

I have to say I'm not nearly as gloomy as some on this thread have indicated they are. Not that there's not enough reason to be. I guess it's that I've always been a very optimistic person, and that's really surprising if you knew my life story! I was always the one expecting to find a pony at the bottom of the pile of sh*t -- and I did, I DID find a pony! More than once! ... though I had to put out some effort to make the pony dream happen, I admit.

Still, Americans have always been pragmatic, I think. When we find ourselves with a tubload of caca on our plate, we tend to start the process of dumping it and not look back. Think about the nightmare this country went through during the '60's and '70's: Vietnam, Watergate, civil rights unrest, initiation of the so-called drug war (I always designate it as a "so-called" drug war) ... the list is daunting. VP (Agnew) had to resign for corruption, prez and his crew of criminals were forced out of the WH, and we even survived that atrocity of a mismanaged war, Vietnam.

It's been a long road back, and then those MF'ing Republicans couldn't stand how well things were going under Clinton so they set out to destroy him and then steal a presidential election.

I never expected them to succeed, but they did. Twice! So there's only one thing left to do: expose them for the crooks and UN-American SOB's they are. I think so many people who trusted them are going to be quite subdued by what they see uncovered when the coverup is exposed and no one can continue to deny how badly they were duped.

Geez, I could speculate forever on this topic and the opportunity presented even in such a disaster. I'm still uneasy about what is yet to come before things get better, but I'm far from depressed. Of late I'm even feeling almost giddy with hope and have to keep a handle on my expectations. Reminds me of that line from Desiderata: "Everything is unfolding exactly as it should."

Guess it's clear I am an old heepie, eh? ;)

:hippie: :applause:

shilling for the repukes after all we know, then I'm ready to turn inward and live the rest of my life that way.

We do nothing to protect the election process. We do nothing to get the liberal point of view onto drive time radio and cable news.

We constantly cave when we should stand up and fight.

There is no real progressive movement.

Basically we are neutered. Only Dean seems to be doing something by talking out and his message gets heard even though it is trashed by the media.

We have no way of effectively countering the right's lies because the media uses them as just another valid political point of view and there never is any rebuttal to them.

I suspect we will lose more seats in 2006 because the right is working at this very moment to control the election process and we are sitting by doing nothing about it. Why don't we have infiltrators to let us know what they are doing?

We seem to be watching this go on as if it were a daytime drama or something. Even though *'s numbers are down it doesn't turn into election losses for the right.

Sometimes I think that this administration is so far over the top that people just don't believe the truth when it hits them over the head because they want to believe that the good old righteous U S of A still exists.

I assume. I agree fully. The complete failure by 'our side' to fight for truth and the American people is quite puzzling.

re:election, Someone such as myself is so convinced of the manifest and blatent election fraud that I am inclined to suspect leaders who ignore or dismiss these charges are complicit. In the least they are incompetent -and should be removed.

"leaders" get exactly the same benefits out of all this that the Repug leaders do. Most are wealthy, they like the power and prestige and deferral.

All they really have to do is stand on opposite sides of the aisle and give speeches about each other. And send us letters and emails asking for more money - like they actually fight for anything. There's token resistance now and again but in reality?

MBNA needs a bill passed covering bankruptcy? No problem

Big Oil wants to drill in the wilderness? Here ya go!

GE needs more military equipment contracts? We'll just throw you a little war over there to use up some of that existing inventory..and while you're at it, have your 'news' networks say good shit about us.

Simple fact of the matter is - none of them can relate to those of us who they supposedly represent. How many regular people are there in Congress now? How many AREN'T worth over a $1,000,000? When's the last time one of them actually had a real job?

We won't stop having a society leaning more and more to an aristocracy until we stop electing aristocrats.

No.

Clark actually is speaking to the ingrates. I'd venture to say he's in the battle of his life - trying to talk sense to the Faux hypnotized.

The way bush is operating we may not! (OK somewhat mellodramatic but one has to wonder)

tho I understand how you feel. There are very few who can live on the mountaintop. Even there, the flying monkeys will find you. I tried it--and got a big lesson in the fallacies of denial as a conscious strategy. We are caught in this turbulent place and time, and there are better strategies for survival.

Gee, if we could get someone to infiltrate who then could testify that elections have been/are being stolen, that would be really fabulous.

The thing is we have to figure out exactly what they have to infiltrate, as in we have to know at what node each election was stolen. Is that possible?

that happens to adjust this horrific period in our country is not needlessly violent.

The republican extremists have a stanglehold, seemingly, on the direction we are going.

We assume political cycles adjust by necessity in a way that steers us in the right direction. But this is not happening, and that's why the feeling of dread - that its going to be very hard to wrest power from this group.

The 2006 elections seem so far away.

Dumbya and Gang are shitting tacks right now. :)

any horrific atrocity will do

There. I said it. Call me stupid or paranoid. Al Queda doesn't have one and we have thousands. Boom goes Detroit. Boom goes LA.

I'd love to think this was a totally irrational thought but it remains in the back of my mind. These people are callous enough to do anything.

yes, this is how we think now in the shiny new 21st century

I worry that the cabal will do something drastic before Congress can vote on it. The Senate can't vote to remove Bush from office, if they've all been killed in a supposed terrorist attack on the Capitol.

So much for that theory.

.

in denial about what this gang of evil is capable of.

I completely agree, and I also feel like something monumentally horrible and earth shattering is about to happen.

Your graphics are great -- when it gets so doom & gloom -- your pics really "Pick-Me-Up" with laughs--

thanks

:toast:

:nopity: :hurts: :nopity:

With BushoCo shitting tacks, let's give 'em a spanking right now and imagine how THAT's gonna feel to 'em........... ooee

'Global Warming'. Too bad * doesn't believe it exists, and that it's a bunch of 'scientific hooey'.
:nuke: :scared:

That will be their new environmental policy.

:popcorn:

tried for war crimes -- right?

I first read that comment from one of your posts, I think you wrote "bush will be tried for war crimes at the Hague' - and it was the first time I really thought that that COULD happen - if enough of us have the courage to SAY that-- that it WILL happen.

BUSH WILL STAND TRIAL FOR WAR CRIMES AT THE HAGUE

BUSH WILL STAND TRIAL FOR WAR CRIMES AT THE HAGUE

BUSH WILL STAND TRIAL FOR WAR CRIMES AT THE HAGUE

Thanks, Swamp, you help me to believe in the future.

In any event, if we can pull that one off, we might as well throw in a crimes against humanity charge for his domestic policies amongst all the Iraq and Afghanistan -related charges.

if you aren't working in art or computer graphics, you should be.

Swamp Rat
:yourock:

but I'm certainly uneasy when I first turn on the TV news and click open the DU to see what happened in my country and in the world since I went to sleep last night. Such big developments could have occurred in just a few hours these days. It's a bit like watching a house of cards as several of the foundation cards start to lean....

And somehow I don't think any of us will feel comforted by chanting "I told you so's" as we watch terrible things happen to our nation and its people.

By the way, be sure and point out that this drunken imbecile is going on ANOTHER MONTH LONG VACATION. Is it too much to ask that at a time when he's got American servicemen fighting and dying on foreign soil that the Commander in Chief at least puts in normal business hours at his desk?

At least that's what Babs' boy told us!

Frankly, I think he takes all these extended vacations because there is something seriously wrong with him, physically speaking. The deterioration of his motor coordination and speech over the past ten years is alarming, though we shant expect anyone in the media to start posing questions. The only one I trust now is Helen Thomas.

"there is something seriously wrong with , physically speaking. The deterioration of his motor coordination and speech over the past ten years is alarming"

he has no motor coordination.

And I'm so glad to hear someone else is as p*ssed off as I am about his frequent and lengthy vacations!

Ever since he took office, he has seemed more interested in getting back to "the ranch" near Crawford than in doing a decent day's work at the WH or anywhere else. After growing accustomed to WJC's schedule, I can't help but be -- well, shocked is really the word -- at W's unwillingness to show up for work and really put his hand to the plow.

But then we saw this trait in him long before he ran for prez. Remember his ... uh, "difficulty" in keeping appointments while he was in the ANG during the Vietnam War? Had his flight certification yanked because he couldn't be bothered to show up for his regular physical. I wonder what his class attendance record at Yale was? We know what he "majored" in -- drink, drugs, and goils. I feel sure he didn't have to be reminded to be at the frat house a half-hour before the kegs arrived, but it's pretty easy to imagine as well that he had a hard time getting up on those numerous mornings-after to attend his *classes*. Bet he tried to get as many afternoon classes as he could when he set up his schedule every semester, too.



And I could be wrong, but to this day I swear I could see in his face on September 11, 2001, when Andy Card whispered in his ear at the grade school that the first and then the second WTC towers had been attacked, not just concern for our country and those killed, injured and terrorized, but a very real *reluctance* to break off the easy bit reading to grade schoolers to return to the biggest, hardest job assignment he would ever face.

Lazy assed sumbitch! :grr: :smoke: No one even knew where he WAS for awhile... and I don't quite believe the SS's version of events, that Air Force One had been directly threatened. I believe "*" as ya'll call him is a bloody wretched coward as well as a sluggardly bum; and all the form fussiness about beginning events on time and such is just fluff, not an indicator of real dedication and a strong work ethic.

I can only conclude, then, that as the smelly matter hits the industrial sized fans in the days to come, * will be doing his damnedest to avoid facing the music and to deflect any demands that he work harder than he ever has to dig himself out of this hole.

Someone with good graphics skills oughtta create an image of * clearing brush with a chain saw while his administration back at the WH is furiously trying to put out fires everywhere. The saddest aspect of this scenario is that it's OUR COUNTRY, it's us citizens AND in fact many people in other nations that must pay for some time to come for the nefarious misdeeds of this lazy, cheating corner-cutter when his charade is seen through and the fascade collapses. When the cover-up effort goes down in flames and the country suffers through that period too for lack of a steady hand at the tiller, I'm sure we can't look to * to put in any overtime in our behalf.

Which pretty much ensures that that whole administration is on their way out the door, then, does it not? I hope this isn't just a lot of wishful thinking on my part....

I love my country and I want it back! :patriot:

bad things to start to happen, POTUS is at the ranch, implement plans. Can't ever get the summer of 2001 out of my mind. Everything leading up to it, seems ominous now in retrospect and things are alligned similarly now.

Anybody remember?

Seriously a shit storm approaches.

Last night I went to the grocery, and bought rice, beans, and cans of soup. It was odd, I had originally gone to buy a few steaks and some potatoes, but I had a compelling feeling that I needed more. It was strange. I bought 2 1\2 carts full those items, and have no real idea why. I just felt like I had to do it, so I did. The cashier made a comment about all the can goods, and I shrugged it off. I very rarely ever get "strange" feelings, but last night I felt odd, and the only thing that made that "strange" feeling better was buying non perishables. Odd huh? It just made me feel better. I know it's nuts, but it made me feel better.

does one have the chance to get insights into the pain of others as is displayed in this very thread. Many of the post bordered on poetry as they earnestly poured out their thoughts for the rest of us.

It is obvious that the corruption at the heart of our Government is making us sick. The only cure would be for the Thugs in Power to be found out entirely and dealt with accordingly. If that happened, you would see massive emotional wellness flow to humans all over the planet. And hopefully, if this despotic evil is every thrown, the human race will be wiser and stronger.

I've always been an optimist, but what I see now is that progressives are terribly divided and Democratic leaders are largely cowed by the rabid right. What I see now is a rise of radical fundamentalism, not only in the Muslim world, but in the Christian world as well. These fundamentalist want to bring about destruction as a way of giving themselves martyrdom and proving their thesis that God is punishing the world for its liberal sins. Right now, I see no hope, but I keep on looking.

by those sent to Washington to supposedly represent us . . . with few exceptions, they instead are representing only their own selfish interests, and those of their corporate sponsors . . . the goal seems to exert American hegemony across the planet while controlling the American populace (that's us) in any and every way possible . . .

every senator and representative is fully aware of what BushCo is doing to us, our nation, and the planet . . . and they continue to refuse to acknowledge it, much less do anything to stop it . . . in the future (if there is one), their incestuous cowardice will be marked as a low point in American and world history, and they will not be easily forgiven for their crimes of complicity . . .

the people (us) no longer have control of our government (if we ever did) . . . it is now the property of the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower and others warned us about . . . and at this point, I don't see how we're going to get it back . . .

these are sad and scary times . . . for us, for our nation, and for the planet we all share . . . we can only keep working and pray that reasonable minds will come together at some point to stop the insanity that is the Bush administration and recover America for Americans . . .

and that this fact, this TRUTH, has been dawning on a great many U.S. citizens for some time. Witness the poll numbers about Americans' lack of trust in all those in Washington, not just the ones in the WH.

So as the Rove Leak Scandal plays out, exposing the Bush propaganda and coverup machine more than its ever been exposed, likewise the utter failure of both houses of congress to perform their respective duties in our democratic republic will be similarly revealed.

I'm not as pessimistic as Onlooker, but I do think we'll have some chaotic times to endure. I was extremely concerned when the Watergate coverup began to dissolve apace back in the early '70's that the country might descend into irreversible chaos as well. That occurred at a time when the war in Vietnam and the government policies regarding its handling had divided the nation to a disturbing degree and the civil rights struggle had done the same in that arena. Everywhere you turned, it was like a bad acid trip. Some of us thought the Kent State killings would signal nothing short of a revolution to be fought in American streets, that those streets might well run red with the blood of outraged citizens.

It seemed impossible that we could avoid disintegration on a massive scale when the Nixon administration was held to account at last.

Yet we survived it all! Barely, for sure. Some might say by the thinnest skin of our teeth. It was far from quick or easy, the mending of so many wounds, the repairing of so many systems. Congress then, as now, had sat by on their hands and allowed Nixon's mental illness to have free rein to bring an already struggling nation to its knees. I don't think Americans were oblivious to that fact.

But we're a strong nation still, I think, and I believe as well as hope that we can weather the storms ahead this time, too. One thing I sense as strongly as the impending "troubles" is the *awakening* of so many Americans who have either been duped or simply inattentive and a bit lazy in their own right to this point. Such an Awakening is a GOOD thing, right?

When a large number of people experience enlightenment at the same time, I would think amazing things could be accomplished.

I was a kid during the times you describe and even though I knew things were very F'd up I had forgotten about matters like Kent state and the race riots and whatever else.

Maybe there is hope after bushit because things were indeed pretty out of control then!

The have-not's of the world have grown weary of propping up the North's extravagant lifestyle with their resources and labor.

Either we give them their cut, or they're going to take it.

Marx - 101

Pass the popcorn!:popcorn:

You've said it mopaul...what I've been feeling since May. Some days are better than others...But the sense of impending doom is impossible to shake. It's not far fetched to believe that they will do whatever it takes to make this "Rove problem" go away...

:scared:

Who's with me? Huge march in DC, marches all over the country - I'm ready to stay in the fucking streets the whole month of October. Autumn is a great time for change. And which founding father said the government should be overthrown every 15 years?

I'd say we're overdue.

:patriot:

(Jackson Browne, The Fuse) It's hard to decide what to do these days, sometimes it feels like I'm an insect trying to sting a tank. Try as hard as I can nothing works, but, at least I'm doing something. Writing my letters to my scumbag nazi rep, and my senators, one a w.c. fields whiskey drunk, the other still in diapers seems so futile, as well as my letters to the papers and calls to the bitch line.

It's a scary time to be alive right now, and the sense of forboding and dread is so damn thick, that it makes it hard to act. There are times when I just want to throw up my hands and say fuck it, these people are bound and determined to kill everyone, let them.
Then there are those people who are living in a catatonic state that don't care, they'll take whatever comes.

It would be easy to join them, but I can't, so I'll keep throwing myself against the wall, and hopefully we can get enough people off their brains to get rid of the bastards, begore they kill us all.

But, back to the original question, yes, something is up.

one way.. the scales fall from the eyes of honest Republicans, follows impeachment, the Hague & imprisonment

the other.. mass detentions & disappearances, domestic chaos and a real, fighting war with the rest of the world.

Its the only thing that will work to distract Murkins from the clusterfuck that this country has become...its getting too obvious to hide anymore, even for the great unwashed.

I'm not sure Americans would tolerate another Bush Family War.

cramp myself under a desk to avoid the blast that we all expected from the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It seems there's a hideous, free-floating evil that sometimes seems to gather itself into one place and becomes an entity of sorts. A personified evil. This is where I think the concept of Satan comes from. And as someone upthread has said, it's making us sick, literally.

Bush is not the brains behind this evil, but he is the visible, public face of it. And what we see is someone who is certifiably mentally ill. You don't need a knowledge of the DSM to feel this on a visceral level. I think this is why so many of us are truly sickened by the very sight of him on TV. We know there's something terribly wrong.

We know he's sick, dangerous and, what's worse, he's in a position of power. (Because of the office he holds, not because he really makes any decisions.) Normally, someone in his mental state is in a protected environment. But he's out there wreaking terror on the world. That's enough to give anyone the screaming meemies.

The other sicko (mentally), IMO, is Rummy. Too much of a sexual component to the "humiliation" of the so-called detainees, and Rummy's right in the center of that. Paraphilia comes to mind. Add to that a combination of hangers-on, greedy bastards(Cheney), gangsters (Cheney), opportunitists, traitors etc. and you're looking into the face of evil.

Yeah, Mo, we're all feeling the craziness. :evilfrown:

Man this is one scary thread!

I thought it was just my OWN paranoia.

I think I need that bottle of jack in Mopaul's sign line :(

I want SOMETHING to happen. It's kinda like when you feel really nauseous and you really don't want to throw up, but then eventually you DO want to throw up so that hopefully you can start to feel better. Does that make any sense?

At least if things go really south than we can hopefully get rid of this horrible administration without as much of a fight from the right-wing cuckoos.

that's kinda the way I see it--like getting a big nasty growth excised...let it get big enough so people will have to see it. And then we can move on.

A mixture of glazed over stupefaction, crankiness, resignation and never any talk about an optimistic future. A daily message from every level of just getting by. meanwhile the freepers have gone around the bend with crazy talk, rationalizations and denial; we're wasted being angry, bummed and dreading, they've stripped naked and gone off into the briars howling.

No one's doin' good.

but I have to say there are so many thoughts and feelings expressed here that exactly match my own.

impeachment may be only thing to stop the mushroom cloud
leadership awol
republicans siding with traitors
bush madness evident
victims of our policies boiling over with rage

How much longer can things go on like they are? Who will stop the madness? How bad will things have to get before Republican leadership realizes they need to move to the "light" side and quit supporting insane, self-destructive, hateful, dangerous, people and policies?

Or, just change the channel and pretend there is nothing bad going on?

an undefined feeling of dread. It seems like EVERYTHING is fucked up under Bush. I honestly wonder sometimes if Bush is the anti Christ and the end times are near. But isn't everyone supposed to love the anti christ?

guided missiles to nuke this country? They themselves couldn't
"push the button"-- they'd have to direct whoever it is who does.

Would whoever it is who controls the actual launching do as they're
told???

Anything's possible but is it feasible??

I have no clue about these things. Prior to 2000, we've never had
to consider them, even in our wildest dreams.

Not from our government, anyway.

I can't believe I'm writing these things.

need us,they prefer to have full control over us and our money killing us would hurt their bottom line,and you know how these guys are about their bottom line when it comes to money.

But things appear to be coming to a head and I don't know what
that means for us-- "us" being the common, decent citizens of
this once-great country.

I just ordered two new bumper stickers:

got democracy?

got freedom?

of boundaries is not. Throughout Nature, the balance is maintained between the natural tendencies for individuals to obtain everything they want and those counter forces (boundaries) that keep that from happening.

If that is true, that what is the explanation of why the human race has been able to move into a culture of greed that has no boundaries?

Not to go into an inappropriate amount of detail, but the problem began during the agricultural revolution, that time with humans move away for being hunters and gathers and society became agrarian. For the first time, wealth could be accumulated allowing certain fortunate and/or resourceful individuals to acquire enough wealth so as to be able to enslave others in the work of acquiring even more wealth. At that point wealth was measure in terms of land and accumulated agricultural products.

Now wealth is represented by digital presentation within the memories of countless computer storage arrays, with the flexibility to move immense sums of money from anywhere to anywhere else with only a digitally recorded trail of the events. People are getting rich and poor, in an instant as stock prices fluctuate. But, those that are the principle owners of giant business establishments are able to ensconce themselves into secure position are attract money like magic. The money pours in and as it does, they take that advantage to hire others to be their slaves. Geography, distance are no obstacle. Only the bottom line counts. Need favorable legislation, buy a government. Need cheap labor, get it overseas where people are living in destitution. Somebody threatens the scam, assassinate them, call it suicide or an accident. No problem. They have resources that specialize in everything they need including "wet work".

Back to Nature. There are certain processes that Nature follows, sometimes erroneously referred to as laws. One of them is that Nature abhors imbalance. The laws of physic constantly dictate that all situations of imbalance will be in a state of fluctuation with the variation moving toward greater stability or as is called in some sciences, homeostasis. This process has never been know make itself known and it will eventually do so in the case of human greed, a condition of extreme instability, a situation that is grossly out of balance and therefore a prime target for natural adjustment.

But our time is largely measure in terms of our own life expectancy. We aren't totally comforted to think that perhaps the current Thugs in Charge might not be ousted from natural cause for a hundred years or so. Therefore, we may need to apply some ingenuity so as to assist Nature (no such thing really. But, it seems that way) or to put it another way, do what we can to kick the bastards out and put them in the prisons they so justly deserve. By mindful of the fact that the aforementioned "bastards" are not merely Bush and his hence men but the worst of the business fascist as well. I'm referring to Murdoch, Lay and others of their ilk, particularly those in the media and weapons businesses.

Our chances for success are not high. But, our chances of success otherwise are nil. We are involved in a global scheme to enslave everyone who is not part of wealthy elite and to plunder any and all natural resources with no regard for the future of the Planet or the human race. The idiots are in charge. That is not good and will end badly for us all.

selectively). Not much we can do about that. They have control of all the levers of power, including the nuke one, and a lapdog press.

So, what CAN we do? One very practical thing we can do is to try to retrieve our right to vote, and start electing real representatives. The power over election systems still resides at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have some say. We can address the actual mechanism by which the Bush Cartel retained power in 2004--their rightwing buds and major donors having direct ownership and control of the secret, proprietary software that tabulates all our votes. Two companies, Diebold and ES&S. We need to throw these companies out of our states and counties.

We need a paper ballot backup, strong auditing and security, and open source code for electronic voting. The best solution is to go back to paper ballots and hand counts at the precinct level, but the bipartisan corruption and entrenchment in the electronic voting industry makes that very hard to attain right now. We need to get the best election auditing procedures that we can, and work our way back to transparency and verifiability in our elections.

There is nothing we can do about prosecuting the Bush Cartel, or recreating our democracy, until we have recovered our right to vote. Fitzgerald may be trying to do something, and we can cheer him on--as we do other investigators, truth-tellers, whistleblowers and concerned, active citizens. And there are many, many things we can do EDUCATIONALLY--informing and heartening other people--media work, internet work, HUMOR (a wonderful refreshment!), meetings, presentations, mailings to email lists, street protests, and so on. Most people know something is very wrong and are very receptive to REAL information.

But I think doing something PRACTICAL--a long, steady campaign aimed specifically at the mechanism of gaining power, the vote, is the best thing to be doing right now. Don't panic. Think long term.

And here is what keeps me going:

58% of the American people opposed the Iraq war BEFORE the invasion--and before all the lies came out. I'll never forget that stat. February 2003.

and

63% of the American people oppose torture UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. May 2004.

That's the America I know and love. And we are the majority.

then we need to kick the damned corporations out of the whole process!

Honestly, corporate personhood is the most vile, albeit misinterpreted, ruling ever!

The best odds we have for regaining control of Democracy is to re-establish legitimate voting processes. The Coup d'etat of 2000 and 2004 were successful in that they were able to control just enough votes in Florida (2000) and Ohio (2004) to claim the elections. The voting problem is not uniform ally terrible all over the country, only in the swing states that are controlled by Republican Governors.

The coup worked because the had a marginal but adequate ability to change the votes in their favor. The Coup isn't final until that have irrevocable control of the voting process, a condition that I do not believe has happened as yet. Our last and maybe even only chance is to somehow re-legitimize the voting. Don't worry about Americans, there are well enough sane and informed Americans to kick the thugs out, given an honest voting process.

That's what has to happen. How we are going to do that, I'm not so sure. Personally, I've been in computer science for twenty years. From my vantage point, I can say with authority, we MUST NOT TRUST COMPUTERS TO ACCEPT AND/OR COUNT THE VOTES. MUST NOT!. Computer code is transient, powerful and totally manipulatable. Why do you think they call it "code" or a "program"? Because it instructs the machine to carry out the programmers order EXPLICITLY. Code can be present that cheats on the voting tallys and then erases itself before anyone can discover it's presence. The votes accepted and counted by hand. What does it matter that it might take a couple of weeks to count them? That is a small price to pay for the confidence that votes cast are the votes counted correctly.

I love this board. It's full of people who care about decency, integrity, their fellow man and America.

That'll reduce some tension.

These people deserve everything that comes to them. They are dishonest and they are about to be shown for what they are. Hopefully this does not mean we get another 9-11.

of that Harry Potter movie my kids watched recently.

They come to take life away. Just one or two at first, then more and more until the sky is full of them:


Yeah, yeah, I know: "a kids' movie," but the feeling is eerily similar with current conditions.

walking on and on in the cold and the rain. I saw that last week and cannot get the visual images and the feelings of dread and hopelessness they evoke out of my head.

I also feel the dread. I hope it's my imagination.

feeling would go away...but it hasn't.
The only way out is a distraction.
The question is..how big of a distraction are they going to throw us?

to take, what, 29 seats to regain power in the House. I can live with a Senate stalemate for a little while longer.

2008 looms a bit further out, but if we aren't pulling troops out of Iraq by 2006 the Repubs will be eating their own.

McCain's comments in Bob Herbert's 'Heads in the sand' article
www.spectrumz.com/z/fair_use/2004/09_04.html
about being stuck in Iraq for 'ten, twenty years, that's not so bad' is political kool-aid !

And Bush's destruction of the US economy, which the media won't touch, is creeping into the public's consciousness little by little, see
President Bush's Job Deficit
www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=736493
since no new 'net' job has been created since he took office !

by the leaders of this country.


Esp. with stuff like this.

From: http://billmon.org/archives/002051.html

Update 4:10 pm ET: I didn't realize when I wrote this
post that the American Conservative (dead tree version)
was reporting this:

"The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice
President Dick Chaney's office, has tasked the United
States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a
contingency plan to be employed in response to another
9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The
plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran
employing both conventional and tactical nuclear
weapons.

Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic
targets, including numerous suspected
nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the
targets are hardened or are deep underground and could
not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the
nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response
is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in
the act of terrorism directed against the United
States.

Several senior Air Force officers involved in the
planning are reportedly appalled at the implications
of what they are doing -- that Iran is being set up
for an unprovoked nuclear attack -- but no one is
prepared to damage his career by posing any objections."

bush is a terrorist.

the worst kind too - he kicks a hornets nest so that the pissed hornets swarm at people, and then he offers to 'protect' them.

sounds alot like a protection scam

what a fucker

The Medicaid co-pays, the counties not states have responsibility for funding care and services for their residents, unaffordable long term disability insurance. Welcome to the age of Republican euthanasia by neglect and evil intent. I don't even believe it's about letting the strongest pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They want us, mostly the poor and the disadvantaged, removed, from their bottom lines. They want to make working people grateful and obedient.

:yoiks:

Yes, these are very scary times, and it seems to me that the worse the situation becomes, the happier it makes Bush. He apparently thrives on turmoil and death. He's out touting the social security "fix" while he should be trying to work on a strategy for ending this bloody war of his. God help all of us.:mad: :crazy: :freak: :shrug: :cry: It just fills one with all kinds of emotions.

the business fascist and the Christian right wingers. They, along with the "insane man in charge" must be dealt with harshly.

Although our country is ripe for a correction/ change/ paradigm shift.

We sure can't continue on the way we have been. Whenever it happens, I like to think that the "correction" will ultimately produce positive results, although there could be plenty of upheaval in the process.

What's that old curse? "May you live in interesting times" ...

Thanks for posting. No, you ain't crazy, unless I'm crazy too.

of the 100 Senators

55 Rs, 44 Ds, and 1 I

of the 435 House of Reps

232 Rs, 203 Ds

so just 29 House seats changing hands to D's and 6 Senate seats changing hands to D's make life much easier and

THAT IS THE SEA-CHANGE NECESSARY in 2006 and 2008 if we don't get it in '06.

I just wanted the subj. line to be dramatic. :D

* I went to an employment counseling center and the receptionist told me that wife (or girlfriend, whatthefuckever) beatings have gone up a lot.

* At the same place, half the people there were idiot* supporters who still think "there's a job for everyone in this country". Maybe the CEOs offshoring our jobs ARE correct when they say we're too stupid and we need to study more and by studying they'll hire us instead (the latest Fortune magazine tells us this, in an article "The 97 pound weakling" complete with cartoons representing a strong buff chinese dude and a wimpy american whining about offshoring. (the same article goes into greater detail about Chinese and Indaian populations, ignores piracy rates over there, and is a bit lax on how much the Chinese and Indians make (and it's a HELL of a lot less than US workers so that joke of an article is anything BUT fair or balanced and I hid the magazines because that trough fodder isn't worth being bought by anybody except CEOs who live in their fantasy world)

* More people being careless/selfish in public; via driving or walking or even in supermarkets or elsewhere. They aren ot curteous. (Even I am starting to get vocal to these idiots though I'm not going to anymore because nothing will change and they're more important anyway.)

Our society is about to collapse. I say "good riddance". As my own health continues to decline (trust me, I don't think I have as long as I'd hoped for), I am preparing myself for my death. I only pity some of the living; most of which are DUers who are sadly in good health.

As Peace Patriot pointed out in #65: 58% of Americans opposed the
Iraq invasion before the war, and 63% oppose torture. Americans are
fundamentally decent, and if it weren't for the news blackouts on the
election and 9/11 they would be howling for Bush's head.

Next year is going to be the year of 9/11 truth with the five-year
retrospectives, and the truth of Bush's criminal negligence in failing
to respond to warnings from 11 foreign countries and three FBI field
offices is going to come out.

Mid-term elections in the second term of a regime typically go to the
opposition--add that factor to the wave of revulsion Americans will
be feeling about 9/11 and the cynical uses to which Bush put the
reaction and we'll see a Democratic sweep--that is, if the voting
machines will allow it.

The work is clear: work to get honest voting machines and learn all
you can about 9/11.

For the first, start at verifiedvoting.org and check the map to see if
your state has passed legislation yet to require verifiable paper
ballots. If not, get to work.

For 9/11 a good place to start is the 911truth website.

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050204100025495

Don't be duped by the loony conspiracy theories that are floating
around, but don't let them distract you either from learning the truth
about that day.

I'm bumping into some mighty fine folks at the DU ... and I'm not brought down even by a thread like this one. I'm buoyed up!

We gotta learn to enhance our confidence, don'tcha think? Maybe take a page from the military's book and learn that "HOOAH!" attitude! ;)

:patriot: :applause: :thumbsup: :bounce:

one friend in his mid 50's, his son (who is twenty) and me (somewhere in between). We all feel the same way; that a dam is about to break, and it's going to get ugly. I think it will be related to global warming, my friend and his son think that it will be related to terrorism (my friend said that he's had realistic dreams about Cheney suspending elections and calling for Martial law). Either way, I think we're all in for a rough ride. :-(

I am a Christian, and I have news for the Evangelicals
who falsely believe in a "pre-trib" evacuation.
It is NOT in the Bible.
SO- all you right wing nut cases who are lurking here, take note-
You will be here for the hell you have voted us into.
I pity you, because you are not spiritually prepared for
what is coming, for what you have helped come about
for all of us.
And Jesus will say to you:
"I never knew you."
BHN

BHN, I read in Tom Frank's book that some radical fringe Christians were
scheming on stirring up trouble between the Israelis and the
Palestinians because they thought this could bring about Armageddon and
get them raptured into heaven. Can this be true? Could this idea have
some connection to W's fixation on invading Babylon?

According to Evangelical FALSE scripture- the Jews
must all return to Israel in order for Jesus to return.
They interpret scripture in a literal sense, not the metaphysical
one in which santification occurs.
Discerment is only possible through the spirit-
a dimension that these people have no concept of
as witnessed by their fervent efforts to accumulate
treasure on Earth, not heaven, or spirit.
Welcome to DU btw,
BHN

So, he has no Christina convictions, any more than Hitler did when he was sucking up to the church people.

But I'm not sure what that feeling means. I just hope we get the majority in the Senate in 2006, because I do not trust this maladministration one bit! It's possible that the maladministration will collapse from within, too.

it takes lots of drugs