Those who have reached a "certain age" have been through three times of the Republican cycle. Nixon - Reagan/Bush - GW.

My basic question to those who have been through all this too many times before, is "How are you handling the 3rd Time Around?"

Here's some context, from my perspective. We seem to get caught in this dispiriting pattern whenever the GOP ascends to the White House. Each time it happens, we're introduced to a mix of a "new" cast of characters and the Return of the Holdovers. And we know they're Bad News.

Inevitably, things go wrong. We get over-reaching for power, foreign misadventures, a celebration of economic polarization, an increase in domestic social divisions, scandals, etc.....And we're forced to cope with simmering and growing resentment, anger and helplessness on the moderate-to-left side of the spectrum while the righties dance with the glow of power.

The one "bright spot" was perhaps the illusion of prosperity that existed for a few years under Reagan -- before the bubble burst in the late 80's/early 90's under Bush 1.

But otehrwise, we have had to endure economic dislocation, global tension and the arrogence of the "insiders" as they attempt to impose their rigid worldview on the entire dang nation and the globe. And things inevitably seem to unravel -- on them and on us as a nation.

This time it seems worse than ever. But in all honesty, it also seemed worse than ever under Nixon and eventually during Reagan/Bush 1.

All I know is that I'm getting real tired of this movie and it's sequals. It almost feels like getting calmer while sitting in a car that's skidding towards a tree yet again, and sighing "Been there, done that" yet again.

I`ve never, ever seen it this bad before.

I was an utter and total Watergate junkie. I was on leave from my job during the hearings, and I watched every minute. (:loveya: Barbara Jordan!) I was watching when Daniel Schorr read his own name on the WH enemies list. I was watching when Alexander Butterfield told the committee that everything said in the Oval Office was taped.

I've never, ever, ever seen anything this bad. Even with Watergate, the underlying crime was trivial.

How do I cope? I remember the utter disgrace that eventually fell on Nixon. I'm praying (and I'm not a praying person) that the whole mess comes out and the Repuglican party suffers for the rest of my lifetime.

What I think will happen, though, is that once we have this bunch of thugs out, whoever has to clean up will 1) get us out of Iraq and 2) raise taxes to save our country from bankruptcy. Then, in a few years, the troglodytes will start screaming "They lost a war we could have won!" and "They raised my taxes." Then, the whole damned cycle will start up again.

I honestly thought we'd learned something from Vietnam and Watergate. I'm appalled that we seem to have learned NOTHING.

I only hope that if the pendulum does swing back toward sanity, it'll stay there until I die. Honest.

junkie whilst a college boy at The University of Florida. Watched every session as my classes broke around both daily sessions. Hey, I know the name of Daniel Ellsburg's psychiatrist.... and John Dean's middle name.

Same as you said re Viet Nam and Watergate. I'm shocked about the right wing movement to re-fight the VN War. But, they're now going back and saying the 50's form of republicanism..... McCarthyism.... was really a good thing.

This treason in the WH is the worst, most un American action that's occurred in my lifetime.

and emerged in an alternate universe when they started 1) questioning evolution, 2) defending McCarthy, and 3) defending the Vietnam war. Even when I was a child, #1 and 2 were considered settled, case closed. It's truly frightening to me the number of people who can stare absolute truth in the face and swear the opposite is true.

How I wish we had Barbara Jordan back to talk some truth to the repugs in the House.

I don't remember John Dean's middle name, but I still can see his wife, Maureen, sitting behind him with her blonde hair pulled back from her face.

I was right then, and dammit, I still am!

they will crash the economy before the elections to totally overthrow the government.. they aren't letting go.

I became politically "Conscious" during the Christmas bombing of N Viet Nam, i had heard people in emphatic conversations at parties for years.. but was just getting loaded and trying to get layed.. suddenly i realized what they were talking about.. Congress was in recess, the president was hiding in his bunker in Santa Barbara and we were "Carpet Bombing" the capital of a foreign country..

I had kept hearing the intro on the news all day on the radio, Research laudatory work is very boring and every lab has a radio running..

it was in an emphatic kadence..."Today in HIGHLY UNPRECEDENTED BOMBING HANOI the Italian, Swiss, Russian, French..etc etc Embassies were destroyed by bombs dropped by B52's. every building in Hanoi larger than the Emporium in San Fransisco has been destroyed.. all bridges have been destroyed, all roads have been destroyed, hospitals.... :wow: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

then i remembered the director of the oil company research facility at his sons funeral getting together with all us hippies and telling us how the oil companies manipulated our lives and ripped us off..

I was never the same, when your thinking goes global, shifts to the "Others" in the world you can never go back... that is why Bu$hitCo keeps the negative the 'they are against ME going'.. they dont want to lose the haters that are their support base.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen. Nixon was nothing remotely close to this bad. Reagan/Bush was a "minor" scandal. This new stuff is fucking massive. It's tentacles reach so far, into so many aspects of life all around the world. There is nothing less than a wholesale takeover of our entire system going on now.

Those republicans who are always bashing the French, saying "We saved your ass in WWII!" may actually live to see France get to return the favor. We've fallen toward banana-republic status so rapidly, I think this will actually lead to a full-scale WWIII (IV?), and this time it will be the United States who will be bombed to bits by the order of world allies, in order to take out the madmen and restore freedom and democracy to our country.

Don't pooh-pooh it. Don't think it cannot happen. Read a history book. Our problem, as a population, is our instant-gratification complex. Since it hasn't happened already, we assume it either isn't really happening, or can't happen. But the rise and fall of Hitler took place over many, many years, with incredible suffering of millions before it was stopped. I hate to say it, I really do, but the same pattern is emerging here. A loyal following in the United States refuses to believe their leader is anything but benevolent. The will of the people is compeletely ignored. Leaders openly lie -- not normal little political lies; blatant, in your face, easily provable-but-we-don't-care lies.

I long for the days of petty office-building break-ins and "ememies lists." That stuff was child's play compared to what the BushCo is now undertaking. And they've invested so much time and effort, it's silly to think they're just going to roll over and allow a legitimate election to supplant their grip on power.

paid close attention to the Iran-Contra, BCCI scandal and was very disappointed that Clinton did not fully expose it when he came into office. It is and has been against the American people and the very foundations of our government. I study history, and this administration's MO of aggression and multiple scandals very much reminds me of Hitler. The staged media events, the "lock-step" media, the fear. Remember it took Hitler about six years to get to his "genocidal" phase. I think this country has more diversity so it won't play out the same, but the same methods are being implemented.

I'm 46. Is that really middle aged? Jesus...I was way into politics even as a teenager. I have pics somewhere of my bedroom wall, covered in cork as a giant 10' bulletin board, on which I hung the front pages declaring Nixon's downfall. Okay, so I'm a poli-geek, I admit.

But middle-aged? I don't feel like it! In fact, now that summer is over and beach volleyball is done, I'm waiting for the first snowfall so snowboarding can start!

Fuck that middle-aged shit!

:hippie:

Middle Aged was probably not the best term to use. But I couldn;t fit "Old enough to pay attention to the Nixon years."

unless you can count on living much beyond 92 years old:
(92 divided by 2 equals 46).
I'm 37. Twice that is 74, which is just about life expectancy in the U.S. for men. I guess I'm "middle-aged" as well!

My grandfather just died at 97, so I'm not quite there yet!

LOL!

Hey...young as you feel, eh? All I'm sayin' is, I'm going out kicking and screaming. Or soaring off the side of a big mountain, from fresh powder.

"Middle age" is so different now. No Sans A Belt slacks and Barca Loungers here, baby!

Here's my Barca lounger...Is it snowing yet?

I guess you're NOT quite there yet, no!
(And on the Sans A Belt and Barca Loungers, anyone else remember the "Middle Aged Man" skits with Mike Myers on SNL? (I found a couple pics on the web, but they are so tiny:)

yes, you are middle-aged. I don't feel 62, but I am and have to deal with that reality. Keep doing what you're doing though and enjoy the Hell out of yourself - you've got a good attitude toward age.

I was aware early but it was like it all of a sudden occured to me what was really happening. Your statement about "Others" is really important.

Between your post and Atmans you covered most all of what I would have said. Those things and the lack of critical thinking skills and knowledge of history of our population are what are killing us, why we keep repeating.

I don't think I want to live through this again. We have to keep working to make certain if we get rid of these guys it never happens again. Can we? I just don't know. I would have thought after Nixon/Reagan/Bush we would have learned something. Apparently not.

not a direct answer to your question, but I have been thinking about it since I've been through all three cycles.
Oh, and there's a mistake in the column -- Carter was elected in 1976, not 1980 as I wrote. It's being corrected.

www.cumberlink.com/articles/2005/10/20/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt

From your very good column:

"And that is especially true if Democrats continue to be the clueless opposition — too fearful to oppose Republican ideas and too confused to propose new ones."

That, unfotunately is also part of the cycle that seems to keep recurring.

what they are supposed to do. Nothing, just holding the seat of opposition so that nobody else gets in. The last thing these assholes want is for us to have a real choice. :grr:

Then I realized I had to pay $2.59/gal for gas, that woke me up.

But there are so many similarities to Nixon right now.
The only thing I hope is the ending is the same "Bu$h Resigns"

This time is also so much scarier than any of the other times and I was out of a job during the Reagan years.
Maybe it is because I have kids now and I really fear for their future and their kids future but this thing just seems like we have let it go too far.

I wasn't old enough to work at the time of Nixon so at least I wasn't paying him to screw things up. I was with Reagan and Bush I and certainly with Bush II. I think Republicans are horrible politicians for the most part and it always seems like Democrats have to come and clean up the enormous messes they leave when they leave power. Rather than going forward with this nation, it's always two steps forward (with Dems) and three or four steps back (with Repubs). With Bush Junior, it's more like a football field backward.

It's going to take a hell of an administration to restore this country to its former glory once we get that smelly Texas bunch the hell out of power! Basically, we need a good fumigation.

I really hope those who voted Bush just to vote party line deeply regret their actions and will actually check out the candidates next time before voting.

I also think that until we get Diebold and ES&S out of the picture, we're all screwed. Can't we get their contracts invalidated for documented cheating? Heaven knows, there is enough evidence!

And, I can't believe that these brazen politicians think they're going to be the one that gets away with the same old tricks!

My biggest regret is the lives lost and the money wasted. It's so frustrating. You just want to scream didn't you learn anything the last time we went through this?

I was raising a young family. Very difficult financial times for me. The * administration is a nightmare.

If you remember them as rough financial times, you knew in your gut that something was wrong.

I'm starting to get that 70's feeling, when there was a general feeling that the US was in a period of decline and stuck in an economic quagmire.

the republicans always campaign about how democrats destroy American and the republicans will save it

and too many people buy into it

and under Reagan and then with Gulf War I the propaganda the media hyped and way too many people bought: 'the shame of Vietnam ' (='losing a war') was wiped out

They get worse each time they appear. Eventually they will be immediately deadly, and they're close to that now.

Remember, it may have seemed worst each time the Rethugs got in power, but this time it seems like it with the memory of the other times too!

These people are like villains in a Greek tragedy. they are fatelly flawed. They will ALWAYS make the same mistakes, and make them worse each time. All they think about all they care about, all they are as beings, is greed and lust for power.

toxic levels

It's not WE who never learn--it's THEY who never learn.

Each incarnation is that much worse and tougher to get rid of than the one before..
Definitely viral.

seems to be the time that the current infection began. E.G:

Nixon's downfall was the organizing event...

Reagan's rise set in place the laws that lowered our defenses...

Bush II is the fatal infection.

The one thing I'm seeing when I study these guys is an amazing patience and an adherence to a plan.

That was the re-appearance of the fascist wing of the republican party in the guise of small government free market fundamentalism and quasi libertarianism.

Barry was crushed, but unlike the equivalent McGovern candidacy, which sent the progressive wing of the Democratic Party into a 25 year retreat, the Goldwater thrashing was the event the sent them back to the drawing table and started them on their long march to power.

of white Southern Baptists to offset the SCLC, and Rehnquist was an old Goldwater Republican.

I was focusing on the bad, old CIA (Scaife, Bush I et al) and their plans to overcome the Church committee reform laws and reemerge as the predominant power of the GOP.

What demoralizes me is not the Republicans -- they're predictable -- but the young people who don't know enough history to see the cycles or who are naive enough to think "it won't happen this time around."

The most absolutely depressing example was one of my young (mid-20's) co-workers who was, like me, a gay woman. Unlike me, however, she and her lover were enthusiastic Bush supporters for the 2000 election. Aside from all the obvious Republican me-first values that she evidently cherished, she also believed that Bush would be a gay-friendly president.

When I mentioned the Republican party's history of virulent homophobia, she just brushed that off as "that was then, this is now. Things have changed."

Yeah, right.

I haven't seen her in years, so I have no idea whether her views have changed any now that Virginia same-sex marriage prohibitions are in force and partner benefits have been outlawed in the state.

We tend to forget that things like the social freedom to be openly gay, or women having a place in the workforce as equals, and racial civil rights were hard won. The young assume that the things that are taken for granted is "just the way things are" I guess.

Gawd I sound like my mother and father when they say that about how our generation never experienced the Depression or WW 2. But it's true.

One of the things that really pissed me off this past election was the number of people who voted for Bush again so that-get this!-he would be forced to clean up his mess! What kind of idiotic rationale is that?!

"Hey! You really f*cked up your job! As punishment I'm going to rehire you!"

I was a young woman just starting out on my own during the Nixon years, and with only a high school diploma I easily found a decent-paying white collar job with benefits. I was able to live fairly comfortably on my own as long as I was careful with my discretionary funds. I couldn't afford a car then but public transportation was plentiful and affordable back then, and I had my own small 1-BR apartment without having to rely to roommates to share the rent.

Today my son and daughter are roughly the same age as I was in the mid-70s and they are not able to provide for themselves nearly as well. Fortunately both of them have some college (AA degrees), if they had only a HS diploma they'd be lucky to get a job flipping burgers for minimum wage. Their FT jobs do provide benefits (thank the gods) but their hourly wages do not support them as independently as mine did 30 years ago. They must share their apartments with others to afford the rent and utilities, they do own cars but struggle to pay their monthly bills with funds stretched to the breaking point. The good news is, neither have resorted to credit card debt to support themselves YET... but it could reach that point (at which time they will probably move back home with me to keep from going into debt just to LIVE).

Pitiful in the extreme, and it ain't getting better anytime soon.

Looking at the basic situation of average working people then and now.

Wehave more toys today, but it's much harder for peopel in the equivalent place today to cover the basics than it used to be for the same segments before.

I do think it seems MUCH WORSE because of all the 24/7 media, and the internet. All that wasn't available during the older Pub regiems, BUT we also didn't have an option like DU where similar thinkers could discuss, vent, and comiserate.

I really don't recall the open arrogance back then that you see now.

and belligerent if you disagreed with them. i now fear for my job, my home, my health..i live in total fear of total collapse of the economy and the very constitution our culture is built on

never forget..they hate our freedoms, and our pensions

Been threw all of them and idiot son is the worst. Outsourching will be the end to the middle class as we once new it. WARS, WARS, WARS will be the end to a all volunteer army. As my Sen. said on the radio the other day we are in a race to the bottom.

Good Luck our only hope to get back some sanity is 2006, 2008

Semper Fi

from Eisenhower and Nixon. While I was much more naive and didn't benefit from an internet at the time, both of these earlier R's seem to me to be authentically interested in international peace.

After Nixon, as the Democrats turned against their own historic interest in international interventionism, the whacko neocons seem to have gained ascendence in the R's and suddenly confrontation and the threat of the big stick became their international policy.

People who believe that power is the ultimate arbiter of competition are very dangerous. People who believe in global hegemonic power are the ultimate in danger.

things like whether Crusader Rabbit would escape his latest predicament or whether our team won the daily after school softball game.

So my political recollections of that era are rather foggy.:)

I didn't see much difference in the significance of any of them.

I've been politically active since 1963. I firmly believe that this country is in greater danger now than any time since the Civil War. This is much worse than Watergate. What worries me the most is that indictments and the Internets might not be sufficient to bring these guys to justice. What happens if there's a 21st century equivalent to the Saturday Night Massacre? Does the country rise up against this filth in the White House? I'm very worried that they will not.

Congress is a terrible disappointment. What can we do when we have garbage like Hillary in there carrying water for a war we all know should result in impeachment and removal from office for the whole cabal? We don't need compromise now. We need our representatives to unite and stand up for the Constitution which is being wrecked by these lunatics.

We need somebody with vision to take the reins and put the horse and buggy back on the road. This person must not only take on the lunatics in the opposition, but must take down the nay-sayers in his or her own party. We need a leader. There's nobody right now.

I'm sick to death about this situation. I am very scared that this may not work out very well for the USA.

Nixon's administration, where the cut their baby teeth. Nixon, the gift that keeps on giving.

I remember in 2001 when it was announced who was going to be running foreign policy.....Seemed like a setup for Iran Contra 2.

of this regime are much clearer...the elevation of corporatism free of any regulation and free of being sued, the desire to turn our wonderful country into a theocracy, and they're drive for world domination. These are the new fascists! Not exactly like the old ones, but a new, American breed.

I must say that much to my suprise, Bushco has actually far surpassed Nixon in terms of being the worst president of my generation, something I never thought I would see. For me, Nixon was always the low water mark of absolute sleaziness and criminality embodied in a President. But Nixon, though a crook, liar, madman, killer, etc. etc. at least had one redeeming feature, he was a brilliant diplomat. He opened up China, he slowed down the arms race with Russia, he even gave us the Endangered Species Act. BushII on the other hand has none of these redeeming qualities. He pisses people off where ever he goes, thus hurting our diplomatic efforts, and he is trying to repeal the Endangered Species act.

Reagan/BushI, while they were involved in criminal activities, were in many many ways merely setting the table for the current Bush. They had many of the same people in their corner, and set up much of the country, both economically and psychologically, for the xenophobic and jingoistic nationalism that we're now seeing wielded as a club against anybody who disagrees with Bushco.

Clinton, sadly, also helped set the table for this catastrophe known as Bush. What with his emphasis on outsourcing, monopolization, and shredding the social safety net, Clinton made many of the tools that Bushco is now beating us over the head with.

So in many ways, Bushco is simply the nadir of an ongoing movement towards corporate facism. And now that he and his handlers see the opportunity clear before them, they are going for it, consequences be damned. And sadly, we're the ones who will be paying the price for their folly for years and decades to come.

now are dealing with a Beast that's grown and profited to become the many tentacled horror it is now.

I had this gut feeling that when Ford pardoned Nixon it showed Americans that he "got off," and I noticed how the country changed after that. Somehow the "culture of greed" took over and we are now dealing with the fact that when the "big guys get off" it affects the whole moral compass of the rest of the country.

Water Gate and Iran Contra showed that you could get pardoned, serve time in jail even, and come back and have a Radio Show or head a Christian Fundie Ministry and do just great. You could even be a "Sainted President" when you have a crooked system with political insiders running the spin.

The same folks who were there with Nixon are still there. They don't seem to suffer illness and death like the average Americans. I think power must be something that keeps folks healthy given the girth and health problems some of them like Cheney have.

We Democrats were too easy, just to "go along" when we had power. We should have forced prosecutions to the max. Instead it was considered "better for the country to look the other way and allow the 'healing process' to begin. Instead there was no "healing process" there was the RISE of the Right wing with the College Republicans and Rove and Norquist and all the rest.

We should have rooted out the Corruption way back then. Called it IMMORAL what Nixon and the rest have done. And that way maybe we could have taken the issue of Morality away from the FUNDIES and REPUGS who used it to help us destroy our own party.

This is the worst that I ever remember because it's so huge and so vast and spans the globe that I think either it implodes now under it's own stinking corruption, or we are doomed. :-( We certainly can't go on like this without some kind of devastating financial collapse from the corruption in the Markets/Fed and Corporations along with the Government itself.

I agree that the sequels are getting worse. The boldness of their policies seem to be getting worse, they dont even try to hide it any longer. SS was a death issue for anyone who touched it. Bush didnt care and went on a tangent for months trying to brainwash the masses. He believes if you say something enough it becomes true. Luckily the people werent ready to accept his insanity quite yet. Give them another cycle and Im afraid they will. He pushes unknowns as facts. He pushes trickle down economics. We know from Reagan that this doesnt work but he still pushes it. He pushes tax cuts for the wealthy while it runs up world record deficits. He pushed a failed education policy that ruined Texas. He pushed us into war with known falsehoods.Its like they dont care anymore. Facts dont mean a thing. Perception is whats important.
Its gotten worse. They get bolder every cycle.

don't think any of this is WRONG. Is nothing illegal anymore...as long as you don't get caught? Or, is the thought that you wont get caught if you have enough friends in high places with hands in the government.

What's going on in our Corporations and Wall Street would seem to show that there's nothing that's too illegal not to at least try and get away with it. And, Martha goes to jail while every day there's a new story about "cooking the books," hedge funds imploding with billions not millions of losses. Major banks doing all kinds of book cooking and somehow they pay a fine or merge with another company and nothing happens.

And what about ENRON.....not a peep. Americans dont see White Collar Crime as Crime...or maybe we are all just to busy keeping our heads above water we just don't give a damn anymore. :shrug:

Thats it. Most people on the street dont even know who Dick Cheney is. Let alone his criminal doings. People are too busy working themselves to death so they can keep the shutoff notices from showing up in their mailboxes.

were well known congressmen (Rummy was even considered "moderate"), Bush Sr was head of the CIA, and Lott was a freshman on the house impeachment committee supporting Nixon.

I agree wholeheartedly that this is the absolute worst of the three. Before, I've always been convinced that we would return to power. I'm not at all sure of that this time.

We watched as a family and even if I might have been too young and just interested in rock & roll and Dick Clark, I watched my family's passion for the truth and love of country. We cheered when Nixon departed. We wanted our country back and out of the hands of crooks and criminals.

When little bush stole the elections and soon appointed old Nixon cronies, my family said 'they're back.' My family knew that our country would be facing worse crimes, and the old criminals have learned better techniques of hiding their crimes. Criminals don't have many places to hide and can't keep secrets. Sooner or later the rule of law bites them in the ass.

I'm done. I once was a progressive idealist. Now I'm a cynical, embittered asshole and I really don't give a fuck anymore. As purely fucking criminal and evil as the bushgang are, America and Americans deserve worse.

I've learned three key lessons:

1. Truth is irrelevant. Americans care only about their own superficial "prosperity" (as measured by big-screen TVs and other meaningless transitory doodads. In large numbers, they are too ignorant and, well, stupid, to see the pattern of decadence, corruption and destruction that you describe. They fall for the same lies over and over and over. Each time, the lies get bigger and more and more obvious, yet, as the three criminal administrations (Nixon, Reagan-Bush I, Bush II) have unfolded, more and more Americans have adopted these lies as the perverse cornerstones of their world view.

2. There is no justice. America is not about justice. It is about money and power, which is almost inevitably antithetical to justice.

3. There is no "American Way." The wealthy control everything. They own the corporations that are the tools of their criminal exploitation of the Earth. Elections are illusory--there is no "democracy." We are exactly as "free" as they want us to believe we are, which has become less with each RW regime.

but it's never enough to keep up."
on the bright side- i get fewer and fewer nervous looks when i say that there is a shadow government, and the president, (starting with rr), is a puppet. these days, i can even get away with saying that the elections are a sham!

I do know that things that areaccepted as conventional wisdom today would have seemed outrageous 30 years ago.

Things like claiming that sending American jobs and industries overseas is good for the economy would have seemed like a line from a bad nightclub comic.

I've voted for nearly 50 years and I've never seen an administration like this one. I saw more depressed people after the 2004 election than I've EVER seen--me included. There wasn't even a tiny feeling of hope that we could hang onto. So many were devastated, so many were heart broken. So, who voted for them? Everwhere I looked, people were down in the mouth. In fact, during a political discussion last Christmas, I apologized to my kids and grandkids for the mess I would be leaving them to straighten out. I was ashamed then, I'm even more ashamed now.

The last election was the first time most of my grandkids were able to vote, and two of them spent the summer working for the Kerry campaign. They were SO excited and were positive that all their hard work was going to mean the end of the Republican stronghold. They broke down and cried when they saw the results.

When they are home from college, we discuss the political situation and it is difficult to convince them the political scene hasn't always been this way. They can't understand why Republicans are going against everything they were taught as children and setting such poor examples of good citizenship. Mine are bright enough to know this administration's corruption is wrong, but what about young adults/teens who are easily swayed? Will they look at this administration and decide they can lie and cheat, too, even if they profess to be Christians? That it's OK to twist facts to get what you want...to bully your friends and neighbors...to commit crimes and just get your hands slapped? This administration's antics have made a mockery of the morals and discipline they have learned. There are no role models in the White House.

The other thing they are disappointed in is the Democratic Party. Where are they? Why did Kerry take the loss of the election sitting down? It was as though he was threatened with something vile if he even thought about fighting the sleazy methods the Republicans used. Now, the kids don't think they have ANY party they can back. Certainly not the Republicans and they are dearly disappointed in the Democrats. What do they do?

I would like to see the last 5 years wiped off the record. I am SO ashamed of what our country's history will show, I don't even want to see it in black and white. We are a joke to the young people and all of the world. How much lower do we have to go before we all stand up and say, "Enough is enough! We want our country back!"?

of embarrassment, depression and grief at the outcome of the 2004 election - I can so relate! I had so much hope that Kerry would win wtih a small but comfortable lead and we could begin to reverse the horrible consequences of the previous Bush administration's disastrous, murderous policies. I was devastated when it went to the most undeserving president in the history of the United States, but I maintained my surface cool until the next day when Kerry conceded. My co-workers (HUGE Bush supporters) erupted in cheers at the news, and for the rest of the work day it was an ongoing party with other well-wishers dropping by to gloat over Kerry's defeat. I had to slip away for a private cry in the ladies room until I could re-join the office in a calmer albeit sad mood.

I'm still mourning the election outcome to this day.

I was very depressed after the election and I pealed off my Kerry sticker as soon as he conceded.

I remember after Nixon won in '68, we were angry, but neither pessimistic nor forlorn. And in '72, when it seemed inevitable the Trickster would snake oil his way back in, the activism gave us hope and strength. I felt that despite the tragic results (so many killed for nothing, just to re-elect the s.o.b.), we could make the system work. Watergate seemed a justification not only of our principles but of our faith in the Constitution and the electoral process. (I remember the sense of solemnity on both sides of the aisle, how Senators Baker and Ervin helped us see Nixon's actions not as partisan "politics as usual" but as a betrayal of America and of both parties. So many of us saw, thanks to the way Congress handled the impeachment, that a commitment to probity, transparency and the concept of democracy - accountability to the people - transcended different perspectives, even different principles. There were principled Republicans then, across their spectrum.

Reagan I resulted, frankly, from some Democratic incompetence. And Reagan himself, despite the manifest flaws of many of his subordinates, had the grace to listen, or at least appear to listen, to the other side. (These are generalizations, I know, but time and all that.) Bush I, on the other hand, even as VP, always appeared to be slimy, as if he had something to hide. "Read my lips" was a joke, because he had no resolve. (If I recall correctly, Saddam initially invaded Kuwait because he had received, if not explicit, at least implicit permission from Bush I.

But with Reagan, who had the popularity of Ike, I felt, at least, that his ascendancy was just part of a normal political cycle. And Bush I simply proved that occasionally even slippery icky things can cling to coattails (provided they've got hatchet men behind them).

None of them, though, stole elections. And even Nixon at his worst - he who earned the name Tricky Dick - destroyed the personal lives of his opponents with the viciousness, the vindictiveness of Shrub. Nixon was nasty, but he also had a bit of an inferiority complex that let him occasionally look at things from a broader perspective - history and legacy and all that. Shrub, on his way up, cared for nothing. It was all personal, part of the viciousness of the intolerant, an intolerance endemic to the so-called "Christian Right," which is neither.

In 2000 I was teaching freshman English and used the debates as a tool - how to organize, present your ideas logically, persuade the audience, that sort of thing. At the time, though I disliked and distrusted Bush, I did not yet know how despicable he is. What happened after Election Day made me disgusted - at the blatant cheat-to-win activities, the immoral, self-serving justifications, the corruptible Supreme Court. I felt most that the students had been cheated - let all the votes be counted and then whoever wins, has truly won. Opposition can and should then come from within the system. But if the election is rigged, we have no democracy.

In 2004, the day after the election, my advanced comp students, all but one, were seriously in need of anti-depressants. And so was I. (That one student, made uncomfortable, wrote a letter to the class that was classic - on the surface well done, but a complete misreading of facts and issues.) That night I had discovered DU and from here (and a few other sites) watched how the election was stolen. My fellow professors were equally depressed. We saw then that what had been prevented in 68-73 by student and other activism, namely, a step-wise move to autocracy or dictatorship, with a pretense of elections, had triumphed. MTV and internet porn, as one colleague put it.

No, Shrub is much worse, in part because he believes himself. Nixon wanted power, but he didn't think himself infallible. He was afraid of his mistakes. (Perhaps that's what separates good leaders - they're not afraid of their mistakes.) Shrub is evil.

a news report that came out in 1998 or 1999, announcing that GW was running for President and telling of the millions and millions of dollars they had already collected for his campaign. I was floored! Why would anyone donate $5, let alone millions for that egotistical, spoiled brat? It was no joke. However, we still didn't take it seriously, because the common sense of the electorate would set everything straight. Right!

I can only hope that our democratic system isn't permanently damaged and that we can, once again, hold elections that are authentic. This may be a good lesson for our young people and one which will make them more alert to the tactics of a corrupt candidate. They've witnessed the worst in the history of the U.S.A.

than the Nixon era that it's hard to articulate to anyone not around then.

First off, go to a library and pull issues of Time, Life, or Newsweek for 1970 or '71, and you'll see that by today's standards Nixon was practically a liberal. He gave us OSHA, among other things. Despite that, I never trusted him.

I was living in the DC area during the entire Watergate thing, working at National Airport as a ticket agent. It gave an interesting perspective to some things. The evening he resigned, the entire airport came to a halt in a way I never saw before or since. I believe planes may have stayed at the gate while passengers and crew watched his speech. And let me tell you, that despite good rumors that he would resign, I was afraid he'd say he was not a quitter and he'd stay in office. Even now, whenever I watch the speech again, I'm afraid it will turn out differently.

The real difference is that the Nixon crew were not hell-bent on destroying the middle class, of dismantling the entire social contract. They didn't work to eliminate social security, to cut taxes for the rich while increasing those for everyone else. As bad as they were, they were infinitely better than those in power now.

There are two important reasons for why it's so different now. One is that 30 years ago it was not possible to steal elections with impunity as is the case now. The other is that the so-called mainstream news media, most especially Fox, willingly perpetuate the lies of the administration, and too many people believe that those lies are the truth. A corollary to that is that most people do not realize how bad things really are.

I often like to compare this era with Germany in the 30s, and most of the time when I say that I'm told that I'm completely wrong, that after all no one is trying to kill of an entire group of people (as Germany did with the Jes). That misses the entire point of the comparison. For one thing, it wasn't until the middle of WWII that the "Final Solution" came about, the deliberate intent to kill all Jews. It started almost benignly, as here with such things as the Patriot Act.

The only thing that gives me any hope of all is that such things as DU stay in business, but that could probably end any time. I hope not.

"I often like to compare this era with Germany in the 30s, and most of the time when I say that I'm told that I'm completely wrong, that after all no one is trying to kill of an entire group of people (as Germany did with the Jes). That misses the entire point of the comparison. For one thing, it wasn't until the middle of WWII that the "Final Solution" came about, the deliberate intent to kill all Jews. It started almost benignly, as here with such things as the Patriot Act."

This administration is trying to wipe out an entire group of people. However, it is not near as overt as what the third reich tried to accomplish.

With all that we saw during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the proposed cuts Medicaid, and safety net programs for the elderly & disabled, the current administration is trying to destroy poor people of all races. Out of control energy prices will contribute to this too...I can see a good number of poor, elderly people who will freeze to death this winter b/c they can't afford to heat their homes, or they will burn to death trying to save on heating by using dangerous space heaters. Believe me, they intend to wipe out the poor, but the masses will never think it's true because they're not going to death camps like was the case in Germany.

Keep in mind, I've been making the comparison since shortly after 9/11, and in my defense Hurricane Katrina happened quite recently. Although certainly there's been a concerted war on anyone not rich, so I may well bring up exactly what you've pointed out next time I'm having this conversation with anyone.

especially when trying to debate with freepers.

Let them know that there definitely is class warfare going on in our country. I'd say after our period of post-WW2 prosperity that it started during the Reagan years. The poor, working class, and the middle class were not the first to fire, and also they are the ones who are collectively getting their asses kicked while the rich laugh all the way to the bank.

Nixon's gang was greedy, this crowd is evil.....

As incredible as it may seem, despite Watergate and White House officials resigning after being implicated in crimes against the U.S., and being convicted left and right, many of them landing behind bars, and a President resigning in disgrace, Gerald Ford nearly defeated "Southern Baptist, painfully honest, military veteran with a degree in nuclear physics"... Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Nixon chose Ford as his VP (after Agnew was forced to resign) as "insurance" against impeachment, believing no one would impeach him knowing that it would result in making Ford President.

And on top of the entire Watergate scandal, there was a war in Vietnam that was over a decade old with tens of thousands of dead American soldiers with no end in sight. Upon becoming President, Ford pardoned Nixon to avoid prosecution, and an oil embargo resulted in "skyrocketing gas prices", gas lines and fuel shortages. Interest rates were going through the roof and the economy was in the toilet.

California Governor Ronald Reagan (his VP pick, Bob Dole, was also FORD's VP!!!) challanged Ford in the 1976 election, siphoning away only just over 1 thousand votes, but the Party-split helped prevent Ford from winning re-election.

http://www.presidentelect.org/e1976.html

American's have long turned a blind eye to disasterous Republican policies because of their "talk tough" pro-war agenda. Americans seem to love anyone that's "pro war".

I don't know what this means for the future. Heaven help us.

I never thought I'd see an American government this openly, blatantly, proudly corrupt.

I never thought I'd see churches in America so eagerly entering into every Faustian proposition that comes their way to get in on the government money.

I never thought I'd see an American president this woefully inadequate to the job and gleefully appointing people who are even less adequate than he.

I never thought I'd see a congress so openly on the take as to ignore the people that consented to put them into power. I never thought I'd see a congress so clearly uninterested in the integrity of the voting system.

We never should have let them get away with the Kennedy assassinations. That's when they got the idea they could grab it all.

Today I'm totally down. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I'm no leader; so I'm waiting for one to emerge.

The Republican Party needs to be fumigated, since they are infested and riddled with the Neocon parasite.

The "DLC" Dems who have gotten a dose of this parasite need to be quarantined.

As for the particulars on how to do it, well, they're not fit to be mentioned here. Sorry.


:nuke:

Democrats and by the American public.

I was really hopeful in the late 1970s, despite the economic problems--Watergate was behind us, the Church hearings in the Senate gave me hope that America would mend its foreign interventionist ways, and we had a president who understood the threats to the environment. Having lived through the 1960s and 1970s as a news junkie from an early age, I thought there was nowhere to go but up.

Reagan's election was my first wake-up call. The American people chose to believe a spinner of myths about ever-abundant energy and America as savior of the world. That alone was deeply disillusioning! To top it off, Reagan's initiatives were barely opposed by the Senate and Congressional Democrats, even though they had a majority. (If there is any "do over" I'd like to see in our nation's history, it would be the Democrats of 1981-84 fighting Reagan's agenda and passing their own far-sighted agenda with veto-proof majorities. Sad to say, this was when the DLC came to prominence, precisely the wrong movement at the wrong time.)

The popular reactions to the invasion of Grenada and the Gulf War were further blows, as I saw how easy it was to hoodwink the public. I had access to Canadian radio during Grenada, and to Japanese television during the Gulf War, and I could see clearly that the American media were working side-by-side with the administration in a propaganda campaign, and no one seemed to care.

I banged my head against the wall at the incredibly inept campaigns of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. I wondered then, and I wonder to this day, whether the Democrats (or at least powerful figures within the party) deliberately threw those elections. The subsequent behavior of the Dem establishment has only strengthened my suspicions.

I never liked Clinton, but his election gave me some hope that the Reagan-Bush era was over and we could start rebuliding the America that the reformers of the 1960s and 1970s dreamed of. But no, Clinton caved to Republican pressure again and again and pushed two bits of legislation that alienated the poor and working class, NAFTA and welfare reform, while being so willing to compromise on health care that we ended up with the worst of both worlds, an expensive non-system that rations care.

I was so disgusted with the Democrats that I briefly considered voting for Nader, although I decided not to in the last couple of days before the election, because I figured that Gore would be no worse than Clinton and Bush would be a disaster, although I didn't quite realize how much.

In 2004, I was overjoyed (to tears, literally) to hear Dennis Kucinich raising so many issues that had been neglected for the past 24 years and proposing solutions for them (not always the solutions I wanted, but at least he'd given the issues some thought). I saw how he could move a crowd.

But working on his campaign (in a very minor role), I saw how hard it was to get media coverage for a candidate whom the media had predesignated as "fringe" before a single primary vote had been cast. I saw him get only half the time of the other candidates at the debates. I saw local party officials at my precinct caucus tell the record number of assembled voters that any primary vote other than for Kerry was "wasted." I saw how, unlike other presidentail contenders, Kucinich was further dissed by being asked to speak in the slot *just before* national TV coverage began.

I banged my head against the wall as Kerry also failed to pull off a cheat-proof margin of victory against the worst candidate ever to run for president.

Meanwhile, large numbers of the American people continue to believe everything they hear on Fox News. I applaud the wisdom of African-Americans in giving Bush a 98% disapproval rating, and I wonder why that's not true across all races.

Even people who profess lip service to Democratic ideals still blithely go around doing environmentally horrible things like building trophy houses in exurbs and driving their gas guzzlers 1/2 mile to the store. It's as if no one will notice that the country is circling the drain until the shopping mall closes and pro sports go off the air. They'll hold bake sales if the school threatens to drop sports, but not if it threatens to drop art, music, and drama or cancel its plans to institute AP courses.

I'm now living in the area where I grew up, and as I wrote on another thread, I remember when Minneapolis had an excellent public school system, an excellent rail transit system, libraries open six days a week, lots of independently owned local retailers, well-maintained parks, and a low crime rate. No more, and no one seems to respond except by moving farther into the exurbs.

The Democratic party continues to ignore the real jewels among its own people. Instead of sending Lieberman and Biden to the talk shows, it should be sending Barbara Boxer and the members of the Progressive Caucus. It continues to stand by clueless while the Republicans implode, convinced that voters will flock to them, and not even considering the possibility that voters might choose to avoid voting in even greater numbers than they do now. It continues to ask its grassroots only for money and not for ideas. It continues to operate on the recommendations of the same Beltway "experts" who have brought it to this state of impotence.

I'm beyond disgusted. Some of the DLC types will come after me asking why I don't criticize the Republicans as harshly as I do the Democrats, but that's like asking a sheep why it doesn't criticize the wolf who killed one of its fellow sheep instead of criticizing the sheep dog who was supposed to drive the wolf away but was standing by hoping that the wolf would toss it a leg of mutton.

If I didn't have aged and frail elders and if I were younger, I would leave the country. I could find a job in Japan with little trouble, and I could live in a country that, despite its economic problems, is merely corrupt, not mean, and is seriously thinking about the future on a national level. But that's just not feasible now.

As it is, I'm tempted toward what the East Germans called "inner migration." There's still some hope in Minnesota for an activist takeover of the party, but otherwise I'm extremely discouraged at all the empty suits who are talking about running for president in 2008.

I dunno. Seems to me the crimes inside the US are uglier than ever before. The current goings on make Watergate look like a tea party in comparison. This is, literally, treason IF it can ever be proved at the level required under our system. It's a mighty high bar legally, and I have no idea what evidence really IS out there. We can spend all day speculating on it--but it still is nothing more than speculation for now.

I think the one thing that gives me a LOT of hope for the nation right now, is the outrage that I'm hearing privately from normally GOP folks. There has been a lack of comfort there for a long time, but it had kept on getting worse. The true conservatives are not happy with the deficit spending and the exportation of jobs that has spun out of control in this administration. I'm seeing some very real signs that the GOP rank and file are ready to make a return to the day when responsible spending WAS the hallmark of that party.

For all the huff and bluster that we do on here about our ideals and our vision for the nation, the rubber meets the road where BOTH sides want a nation that is prosperous and safe. We differ on how to get there, but our goals are the same. The neo-con bunch that is in there right now, is not sharing that goal and it is making us ALL feel sick.

Frankly, I expect the GOP to have a purge of sorts. I seriously think they will clean this mess up (with time) and I think we'll go back to the days of fighting about welfare reforms and what exactly the national government's role should be in the states. I think the neo-cons' star is waning.


Laura

I've many years of 12-step recovery, so I use those principles: Work for what I can change and accept my powerlessness over the rest.

In all honesty, it's been difficult. I get so incredibly angry at times that it's simply not healthy. I've wanted to run cars with Bush bumper stickers off the road. I've wanted to throw a brick through my television set. I've wanted to burn newspaper stands.

But then I remember what a wise friend of mine once said: "Carrying around anger and resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick." George Bush, Bill O'Reilly, and Judy Miller could care less about me, so why should I torture myself thinking about them?

Look: We've made it through before, and we'll make it through again this time. I hated Nixon. But we had wonderful Jimmy Carter after Nixon. I hated Reagan. But then we got wonderful Bill Clinton.

Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I believe that this country has an instinctual ability preventing it from traveling too far down the path we're on right now; and I believe that the level of dissatisfaction with Bush and the Iraq war is proof of that.

But, if I'm wrong, I'll probably just go buy an assault weapon and join the resistance. :)

then you know exactly how it feels. Robbed of everything. In shock with no direction.

This is not just politics of the Executive office.

This is is systemic theft of the Treasury by every representative in the House and Senate who have voted and continue to vote on legislation that takes away from the citizens of this country.

Unaccounted.
Massive Debts.
We will not know the full damages done until they have been removed.
Who would want to run for office?

Some would like to compare this to the fall of the Soviet Union. That was nothing.

We will be left with no recovery, industry has abandoned the U.S.

Who would ever enlist in the military?

Taxes from every source federal, state, local will make it unbearable to begin a recovery.

Social Security? As baby boomer are about to retire?
(We see the first wave working as greeters at Walmart because today they cannot survive.)

Just as Katrina was not "another storm"
these 5 years have not been another "political storm".

Category 5.

and followed it closely mostly in the pages of Rolling Stone (remember when it was a great magazine - but I date myself). I watched Nixon resign sitting in the living room with my dad, who had never trusted old Tricksy any farther than he could have thrown him.

In retrospect, Watergate was peanuts. Not to say that it wasn't a significant scandal, because it was. But ultimately Watergate was all about Nixon personally - only he was paranoid enough to try to steal an election he already had in the bag.

This is different by unimaginable orders of magnitude. The PNACers, headed by UnKKKa DicKKK and Rumsfeld, had a Brain-like scheme to TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD and render it subservient to the interests of the American corporate thugocracy and certain Israeli interests (cough >Likudniks< cough). And they have taken a great many strides down the road of making it happen. Like most megalomaniacs, they actually believed they could rule the world. Where Napoleon and Hitler failed, they thought they would succeed. The main reason that the cabal got as far as it did is that it has been fortifying itself for the last 25 years with "think tanks" (a/k/a propaganda writers), hate radio, the media, and general infrastructure. They also coopted the religiously insane. The fundy loonies plus the gigantic Republican Noise Machine (to which the Corporate Media has bowed in sycophancy since around 1994) simply carried the message and scared the hell out of many in the middle. Nixon never had any of thexse advantages, and faced a truly independent and principled press. The taming of the media removed this impediment. The Selection of His Chimperial Majesty and 9/11 (LIHOP, IMO, just read the PNAC mission statement) accelerated all the avalanche of slime in a big way.

But hubris has a funny way of turning on those who possess it. Dreams of omnipotence eventually abandon any connection with reality. The swaggerers begin to think they really are unaccountable. They overreach, they get careless, the mask comes off and reveals the monster underneath. That is exactly what they have done once again.

This administration always comes down to Cheney - the huge, bloated spider sitting at the center of a poisoned web with his pal Rummy at his side. DicKKK is at the center of every bit of evil done by this cabal. When the objective history is written he will go down as America's own homegrown Mussolini.

Whether Democrats will remember to remind the sheeple of the calumny and odium of this gang of freebooting fascists remains to be seen. Perhaps we will have learned something by nearly losing the country.

Properly defeating the GOP will require a political bloodbath. It will involve the forcible dismantling of the GOP’s political machine, its funding sources, its traditions and legacy. A lot of wealthy, powerful people will be ruined and barred from politics forever. It will change America. This isn’t pleasant work, most sitting Democrats would rather just “go along to get along” and therein lies the problem. They have to be as ruthless and cruel as those we face to cauterize the gaping national wound that is the GOP, and the stomach for this sort of work just doesn’t exist with most of the Democratic leadership. In fact, most are close friends with the GOP despite all that Republicans have done to them and our country. Think about that.

Until the strength to face this situation materializes, this problem won’t go away. In the meantime, we will have to remain dependant on rogue Republicans like Patrick Fitzgerald to fix our problems for us.

It’s shameful to depend on your opposition for salvation, isn’t it?

I originally posted this to another thread here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2169018&mesg_id=2170176

Now as to how I feel about this? I feel like the Dem party establishment are like a donkey that's been chained to a grinding stone all it's life, walking in a circle turning corn to meal. Whenever it's let free.. it still keeps walking in the same, sad circle... never knowing how to do anything else.

Getting rid of the corruption that has been institutionalized by the Republicans for the last 35 years would entail something like the de-Nazification of Germany after WWII. Cutting this out root and branch would fill the prisons. It could be done if a Dem congress and pres were elected but only if they had spines of steel. The kleptocratic kakistocracy will not go down without a bloody fight. Personally, I think that the French revolutionaries had an excellent way for dealing with rich, corrupt parasites. I think some of our "elite" should make her acquaintance:

with these criminals up to their greedy little eyeballs. It isn't about repug & dem, it is about ruling class & the people that don't count (us).

We need another Huey Long

:banghead:

The dems saw a potentially troublesome media star rising and stole his message. I think the country benefited greatly from his rabble rousing. The country was already in a state of rebellion and FDR saved the union.

We were gleeful at the Nixon resignation
(college students at the time)
and excited about haveing a true intellectual (Carter)
...especially at hs focus on our energy future

the day Ronald Reagan won the white house
I shut down and didn't even think about politics for 8 years

Clinton let us down with his personal antics
but was a good president..did many good things for this country...

The day the Supreme Court awarded this guy the presidency
I decided to stay and fight, as it were
I keep fully informed on the details
of everything that has happened, including the formation
and deployment of plans by PNAC

it is sickening, but important not to hide your head in the sand
this is SO MUCH WORSE than anythng we've seen before

and beware
because THIS bunch is not going to go away quietly

deep dark despair.

for a number of reasons.

1. because repeat of a repeat

2. because of weakness of spineless dems in congress, because of complicity of media, because of overwhelming power of corporations, because of rightwing religious nuts. the weaknesses of some and the corresponding strength of the others has grown in the last few decades.

3. because i am getting older and more worried about how i and my child will fare. i was so much more capable of optimism when i was younger.

4. because i have been disappointed so many times!

I am really worried about our country becoming a third world banana republic ruled by a dictator and an elite class, who wage constant war so that they don't have to govern or account for their corruption. I never worried about that before because I felt the foundation of our country was strong, but I don't feel that anymore.

I feel that if we overthrow this consortium of fascists, we just can't sit back anymore and say that the system works. That's what they said after Nixon that the system works after all. What no one realized then, was that for the system to work Nixon had to honor it, which he did.

The problem with the Bushistas is that they are gutting the safeguards of our Constitution rendering it a quaint but ineffectual document. We need to bring our Constitution up to date for the future so what has occurred in the last decade can never happen again. For starters, we need an ammendment defining what the role of the Supreme Court really is and what it isn't. We want no more Supreme Court selected Presidents in the future.

I'm not middle aged but on the cutting edge of elderly, so I hope I can sneak in. :-)

and had a Republican father who thought he was great, so I pretty much bypassed that whole trauma, but Reagan....it was bad. I worked in a steel mill and watched my hometown turn into a slum zone under Reaganomics. Still, I was young and hopeful. Bush is certainly the worst, ever. It's depressing because I thought by now we would have evolved past all this right-wing bullshit. Money walks, I guess and it's walked right into the 21st century and taken control. Still, I have hope. I do what I can to change things and then live my life and try to be happy. Bad times come and go, people live through them all the time. If I go to my grave before the fight against fascism is over, well, I'll be proud that I fought for what was right when I was here. We live in "interesting" times. Be proud you're on the right side of the fight but live your life and be happy for what you have. Otherwise, you've let them win.

I am 41, am I middle aged? I don't think of myself that way, but if I look at the average life expectancy (for women) I suppose I am?

Now to address the question. LOL

I was 10 when Nixon resigned, so too young to really understand the nuts and bolts.

Iran-Contra was a disgrace, I am still amazed Reagan wasn't impeached and Bush 1 re-elected. In hindsight I can believe Reagan was out of it, he was probably in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's.

I've never seen anything like what we are living though now. This is the first time I can recall that the press has been so complicit in the crimes.

MHO, I think that is huge difference, the media lost their independence and we suffered for it.

But for the purposes of this discussion, "middle aged" is anyone old enough to have been paying adult level attention to the world when Nixon was first elected.

I didn;t want to use that equally dreaded term "Baby Boomer." :)

I was just being a little silly.

Waiting for indictments is making me punchy.

And, I'm damned tired of voting for "the lesser of two evils". I was a kid during the stifling Eisenhower years. Kennedy was a ray of hope. LBJ snuffed out that hope. Nixon compounded it. Ford was a nonentity. Carter was good man but was overpowered by Washington and the insiders.
Reagan was a disaster. Bush pere introduced the nation to fratboy politics. Clinton gave us the DLC and triangulation which translated to a sellout of liberalism. Now, we have the nincompoop as Mencken foresaw.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." H.L. Mencken

Reagan and his cronies got away with it. I'm guessing Bush will get away with it also, but the Country's mood for inaction (Katrina, oil, inflation) will allow the Democrats to make some gains.

will shake this country apart.

and hope. Keeps me going, actually.

But, I agree that the Cabal is the worst ever. Their PR sophistication has been a real challenge to counter -- even as we deal with their utter incompetence in governing.

Hang in there. We need to put some mendacious butt in the pokey. :hi:

This is by far the worst. Everyday is a fresh outrage and they have brought us perilously close to the destruction of our country. How am I handling it? Ask me that same question after next week, if Fitzmas doesn't come and take the whole crime family down and restore our government, I'm not going to be handling it very well. These are the biggest bunch of crooks, liars, and murderers to come along in a century if not ever. Their ability to do damage to the American people and the citizens of the world is staggering. They MUST be stopped.

The short answer to the most direct question in your post, "How are you handling the 3rd Time Around?" is that, like most other "middle-agers" here (I'm 50, so I guess I qualify) I'm absolutely mortified. The situation we find ourselves in after five short years is worse than I've ever seen. My mom who turns 78 soon, agrees, and she remembers the Depression.

I hated Richard Nixon so passionately that I ran through a crowded department store naked with a friend screaming "Nixon's Been Impeached" at the top of our lungs. Yet, as you all know, he was not and never was.

This was in July 1974, just a few weeks before he resigned in disgrace.

It was palpable then; people believed us and we made the local newspaper with our antics but got away with it. Our point was to call attention to the sublime (impeachment, which everyone was thinking) with the ridiculous (two naked white guys violating social norms to draw attention.)

When Reagan and Iran-Contra came along, I was in my thirties and just as outraged, but I found the world to be a very different place by then. No one outside a few seemed bothered by the fact that our government was exposed, through Oliver North and the congressional hearings, as being complicit in secret wars and shady arms deals with guys like Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Laden. This new American indifference was stunning to me. No one cared.

I was one of the nine percent or so of Americans opposed to the Persian Gulf War, AKA Poppy's Big Adventure. I still saw things throught the prism of the 60's and '70's. Again, hardly anyone seemed to care. Guys like Bill Bennett, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson, the Radical Clerics of Amerika became accepted and Rush Limbaugh saw his glory days. I still can't believe how Poppy's administraion, with Invisible Dick Cheney as Sec Def could sucker people. Now as a parent, I saw how school funding cuts and the undervaluation of education affected my kids.

The Clinton years brought frankly little respite. The economy got better for sure. Universal healthcare was shot down right out of the box. Then 1994 and the Republicans took the House. It has been an unmitigated disaster ver since, and Bill Clinton fell right into the trap of endorsing NAFTA and GATT, ensuring the destruction of the American economy from the point of view of the worker. The DLCers just went right along. I left the Democrats for the first time in my life and went Green. Nader managed to suck all the life out of the progressive movement, Al Gore had the election stolen and refused to fight back, so here we are.

Now, I'm underemployed, making half of what I made just three years ago, and I have no idea how to pay for my son's college education (he's a senior in high school) and I want to help the Democratic Party get back to the populist roots it once had with FDR and the New Deal, Truman and the Fair Deal, Kennedy with the Space Age, Johnson's War on Poverty and civil rights, Jimmy Carter with restoring honesty and decency to government, and Clinton's failed attempt at health care for all Americans.

We have a long way to go, but I'm still young enough that I won't give up. Now I'm fighting not just for my future, but that of my descendants. I'm tired, but it keeps me going.

NGU.

As for prosperity, I have had the misfortune of starting new businesses under each of the repug reigns. Each time, things were really starting to take off and in comes the rethug with a handout for the giants to make life miserable for me.
It's still too early for a verdict on round three from me. I have put everything that Clinton didn't steal into this business and I've declared a personal bankruptcy to protect my house and business. It will help somewhat. The real question is whether my clients (mostly upper middle class) will still have the disposable $ to keep me around. So far it ain't looking to good.

.....It would be a refreshing change if we actually learned something from all this.

So I haven't given up hope, and I'm only half cynical. I guess what will make the difference is if our side wakes the hell up enough to help the reasonably bright people on the fence or otehr side wake up.

We -- Democrats, liberals, progressives, moderates -- have to stop enabling the path to power for the GOP wingers. That means offering people a real alternative, and systemic reform to counter the perennial drive towards corporate fascism.

And if we do manage to wudge our way back into power -- or at least political parity -- we've got to actively do something, to show people that there are otehr answers than the siren song of ultra-conservativism and corporate power.

Here's hoping.

This is the most serious situation I have ever seen. Watergate was the most horrific thing to hit the news in the television era at the time, Iran-Contra SHOULD have gotten more play than it did, but this situation, full of secret government stuff, treasonous behavior, the insertion of "fuck you" politics into our national security strategy, well, this takes the cake.

Dumbya always had a need to be top dog...and it looks like he has gotten his wish. He is related to TWO lousy Presidents, GHW and Franklin Pierce, and he beats them both by a mile--must be all that running that he likes to do that earned him the top spot!

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

No time compares to this. I think if we really knew the shady dealings around Iran-contra and our dealings in Central America in the 80's we'd be horrified...but so many of the players are part of this.

But it's not just lazy Americans or Dems in congress that allowed this. The bush gang got away with things they never would or could have if not for 9/11, that event was essential for this to evolve (devolve) this way. It had to be something HUGE and HORRIBLE and something we could see over and over and over...burnt into our brains, shifting our sense of reality.

Fear and uncertainty was the perfect setting to blind people with waving flags and God bless America. People hungered to feel safe again, protected. bush is not a good actor but the pseudo-cowboy protector was good enough to fool those hungry for the illusion of security and the revengeful god was just what they called for to protect us.

Then their plan could unfold...and it had to be planned. Did they really write the hundred of pages of the perfect acronym PATRIOT act in just a couple weeks?
And why this?
Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732484/site/newsweek/

And would the people approve by such a majority or Congress vote to authorize so easily or the press be so unquestioning about the war on Iraq if this fear factor frenzy was not still so alive?

This is the most chillingly dangerous administration...but they needed 9/11 to be able to get so far with it before a larger number started noticing how bad they were.

I can't explain 2004 elections unless there was fraud because by then the shriveled cowboy was clearly naked. But even if Kerry really got more votes, don't know why so many still voted bush. I knew some smart moderate people who said they were voting for him so they didn't have to buy a gun to protect their families or some other stupid safety thing.

When bush was named president in 2000 I didn't guess he would be the worst. I thought he'd be stumbling, ineffective one term president and saw the worst danger as the Supreme Court.

I never ever thought I would see America becoming this. This would not even be a believable novel. We really won't survive three more years of this and it is going to take a lot to begin to undo the damage. We could use a miracle...but not from their false god.

you nailed it

Hey,

My first vote was for McGovern, and I watched the Watergate hearings avidly the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college. The simplest way to pinpoint the disastrous change in the news is to look at what Bob Woodward was in 1973 and what is he is now. Writ large, that's the story of what we've lost in print and broadcast media in the last 30 years.

I fear that even if Democrats can win both houses of Congress and the White House in the next 3 years, the media will suddenly become remorseful for their years of incompetence and sycophancy-- just in time to relentlessly hound Democratic politicians over nothing, until the public votes in another Republican government even stupider, more corrupt and evil than this gang. Then the knee pads will come out again.

CYD

they were beginning to strongly question BushI policies; like maybe they regretted giving Reagan a teflon pass

they immediately started in on Clinton....he did not have the so called honeymoon

I've sometimes wondered if many of the press saw all the stories about Clinton's sexual escapades during the campaign and wanted him elected so they could break their own Watergate story; they maybe thought there was greater potential for 'good' stories with Clinton than with Bush I

And I hate to admit it but I've been through four republican administrations, although I was wetting myself on a regular basis for the first one :-)

I've given this a lot of thought lately and I have to admit, IMO It was worse under Nixon. Toward the end Nixon was obviously unstable (Bush may also be unstable but it's not as apparent yet), and in 1974 I honestly got nervous whenever I heard helicopters overhead (living in Washington, DC). Vietnam was a mess, thousands of kids dying, a nation divided over the war - far worse than today, discrimination against Blacks was still blatant, women were still fighting to get any respect in the workplace, and gays got bashed (literally) regularly and no one (except gays) cared. The inner cities were seething, and frequently erupted. Hatred toward liberals was just as bad as it is now, The big difference is that the Christian churches back then were generally a progressive force, while today the most powerful Christian organizations support the fascism of the Republican party.

Nixon was also smarter and a more savvy politician than Bush. In fact Bush and his henchmen and the Republican party are so overtly slimy, avaricious bullies that it was just a matter of time before the majority of Americans caught on and turned against them. If it hadn't been for the 9/11 attacks, Bush would have been toast already.

IMO, in the long run, Bush is the best thing that could have happened to our party and our country. Let's face it, the Democrats needed a kick in the ass! I'm so glad we got kicked by incompetent greedy assholes like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, than some slick, savvy political team who were able to convince Americans to shrink government and drown it in the bathtub.

Nixon was worse in some ways, but not as bad in others.

He was slimy but he at least recognized that he had to give lip service to the liberal side of America, so he allowed some progress on things like the environment. It was probably pure pragmatic politics on his part, but at least he realized that he had to deal with the full spectrum of America to some degree.

But the GOP -- and maybe America -- has degenerated to the point where the CONservatives in charge don't give a rat's patootie what a majority of America thinks of them, as long as they've got the freepers, the fundies and the "haves" on their side, and can keep the fence straddlers in fear of whatever bogeymen they can cook up.

I'm 47, so I've remember well the dark years of shrub sr. and reagan. They both gave us bad economic policies, military excursions that killed any number of innocent people, and the inevitable White House scandals. I never let them get me down and every time a new outrage occurred I became more determined to do what I could to speak against them and apply my energy to opposing them. I'm just one person, a working class hero among millions of others, but I took some comfort in my activism and in standing up for progressive causes over the years.
Is it worse this time around, but my response is the same. To fight back, to speak out, and to encourage others to do the same. When my kids or my wife become upset over the latest political outrage I tell them...it's important that you fight back. Speak up. Get involved. Winning is great, but it's more important that you stay in the fight, win or lose.

But seriously, you're right. This is our 3rd time around as functioning adults, and I want to get OFF this Republican vomit comet!

Nixon and Watergate were bad enough, the Reagan Era was painful but tolerable, but nothing is the same in the Bush years. The country we all grew up in is a shadow of its former self, the future looks bleak, and the present is just too darned painful on a day to day basis as the assaults just keep coming, hitting everything and everyone we hold dear.

If this latest political tsunami doesn't wreck BushCo for good and all, I don't know How we're going to remain sane in the next three years.

How to deal with it? Get as involved as possible and hang on tight. Rest a lot, be with loved ones a lot to recharge. Stay informed and keep those LTTEs coming!

And when you can, if you can, run for local office.

To come of age under Nixon, to start a family under Reagan, to watch marriage die under Bush, and now watch America die under his biggest mistake ever, it's just too much of a downer, and I can't keep fighting the GOP and have to fight for the rest of my life, too.

All of them concerned me, but all the previous ones, I felt that the pendulum would swing back before any irreversible harm was done. THIS cycle, in my view, threatens everything we know in an domestic economic "scorched earth" policy, an atrophying of meaningful diplomacy with enemies and even with former allies, and a march towards hegemony that threatens to "reshape" countries that have oil we want. I have seen hubris, greed, and arrogance the likes of which I have never before witnessed. At least in previous cycles, they made an attempt to appear competent, concerned about the country and solicitious of allies.

Was I more naive back then, being younger? or am I more cynical now being older? Were the previous cycles equally as bad but I never noticed?

hard to say.

I WILL point out that what was good about previous cycles was that MAD was a plausible deterrent to even THINKING about using nukes. When USSR fell under its own weight (Reagan had crap-nothing to do with it), that MAD tension evaporated, and the crazy neocons began salivating, in their utter depravity, of making NEW nukes, and using them.

For that reason, I say we are in much greater danger than we have ever been before.

and, to a great extent, I see it as irreversible.

For example, I cannot see, no matter if we elected someone better than Clinton and Carter and JFK as president, that former allies would or should ever trust us again. I cannot see how the muslim world could ever view as anything but the Great Satan. I cannot see how we could act as equals in matters of diplomacy at the UN, ever again.

This current crop of "republicans' have shat where WE eat, and they simply don't care.

I think it's possible for a legitimate adminisytration to undo some of the damage done by this crew. But I do think we've lost our leadership status once and for all.

For a bunch of macho, posturing he-men and he-women, this administration has managed to accomplish the exact opposite of what they set out to do.

Instead of making America more powerful, they have made us weaker in both fact and perception. We are well on our way to losing our status as the world's economic leader, and through their military misadventures, that have made the US LESS scary to the rest of the world. Iraq shows us to be a paper tiger.

Maybe we'll adjust to being a second-rate nation. Maybe it'll even be good for us. But it's amazing how those who have tried to make us arrogent have accomplished just the opposite.

What's even scarier, I've lost respect for the Office of President.

in my lifetime <58>.

nothing will get better until that changes.

don't recall them.

However, I wanted to point out I think it's interesting, in a "what a bunch of fucking criminals" kind of way, that a lot of the big guys in the bush the lesser administration, were also in the bush the elder administration, the raygun administration, AND even going as far back as Ford.

There should be a new, unwritten rule: no one with the bush last name or even remotely related can achieve elected office and no one even a tiny bit associated with any of those administrations should ever be in a position of power again, and we will be rid of them when the last of them draws their last breath.

They're all a scourge on us and seriously, I think they hate this country. No rhetoric, I really do. I think they hate it hate it hate it. All the REAL American ideas. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, etc. The pure ideas. They hate them all. Clearly.

be, and then Ronald Reagan came along. When Reagan died, my first reaction was "who would have thought we would have a worse president," and of course I meant Bush.

Now I refuse to think Bush is the worst president this country will ever have. There will be other, even worse ones out there, assuming our country gets through this fascistic period.

the operative word being "illusion."

It never ended folks. That WAS the beginning of the insane level of propaganda we are currently swimming in. Drowning in.

Only a couple people on this thread mentioned media. THAT is a huge difference between then and now-- the consolidation of media power.

And what of the people? Why do people here accuse the American public of being so stupid and gullible-- the public is US.

Like the man said, the people get the government they deserve.

:patriot:

In the 80's and 90's the media kept telling people either ghow great they were doing or how great they COULD be doing in the wonderful economy if they just worked a little harder and invested a little more.

That created the self-identification many people had with the rich, and why they were convinced to overlook te real interests of the class they were actually in.

meanwhile in the real world, factories were shutting down, people saw their wages go down while the cost of things like housing were going up. But in a wonderful economy, the message from the media and the corporate politicians was that if you weren;ty doing well it was all yourn fault. You just weren't picking up the gold nuggets that lay in the streets.

wat a great liberal he turned out to be


Have faith take back the House in 2006. Then impeach the swine. Then fix the mess....


http://www.cegelisforcongress.org/

over this crap Administration. What's really unnerving is that they refuse to listen to FACTS...it's scary!!!!

As others have suggested, two keys to their success has been that they've gained almost total control of the media and they are well on their way to controlling/gutting public education.

We let it happen. We are in the process of letting it get worse.

The one bright spot in the media for all of us has been the internet. But our freedom here is under constant attack.

If we don't get a grip on the factors critical to the neocons' successes, the now-growing reaction against Bush et al. may be little more than an upward blip in an overall downward spiral.

But we CAN get a grip on those factors -- we KNOW what the main ones are and we KNOW what we need to do:

1. Rollback the consolidation of media ownership;
2. Restore public education (including critical thinking, history and an understanding of why checks & balances and other restraints on government power matter); and
3. Election reform.

Below are some action items re- 1. and 3. above (sorry if any of the following is a bit dated).

PLEASE WRITE YOUR REPS IN SUPPORT OF THESE BILLS RE- ELECTION REFORM:

VerifiedVoting.org strongly endorses:
H.R.550, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005
S.330, the Voting Integrity and Verification Act of 2005

Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005 H.R.550 No companion bill
Voting Integrity and Verification Act of 2005 (VIVA 2005) H.R.704 S.330

PLEASE WRITE YOUR REPS IN SUPPORT OF THIS BILL RE- RE-REGULATION OF MEDIA:

(From http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x21930 :)

Democrats Move to Re-Regulate Media

This will be good if it can get some legs in the General Population.

Do not expect the LMSM to report on this

<snip>
Two liberal House members who recently have been critical of what they view as attempts by conservative Republicans to take over America’s mass media and public broadcasting have now introduced a sweeping bill that would re-regulate radio and TV back to the days before the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The Media Ownership Reform Act of 2005 (MORA) is co-sponsored by Reps. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y. and Diane Watson, D-Calif. In a written announcement, MORA is described as legislation “that seeks to undo the massive consolidation of the media that has been ongoing for nearly 20 years.”

The measure would restore the Fairness doctrine, reinstate a national cap on radio ownership and lower the number of radio stations a company can own in a local market. It also reinstates a 25% national television ownership cap and requires stations to submit regular public interest reports to the Federal Communications Commission.
<end of snip>

http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/189

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS TO RESPOND TO (commentary below is not mine, but I concur that there is reason for concern):

FBI to get veto power over PC software?
The Federal Communications Commission thinks you have the right to use software on your computer only if the FBI approves.

In an obscure "policy" document <http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fhraunfoss.fcc.gov%2Fedocs_public%2Fattachmatch%2FFCC-05-151A1.pdf&siteId=3&oId=2061-10804_3-5884130&ontId=10784&lop=nl.ex> released around 9 p.m. ET last Friday, the FCC announced this remarkable decision.

According to the three-page document, to preserve the openness that characterizes today's Internet, "consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement." Read the last seven words again.

The FCC didn't offer much in the way of clarification. But the clearest reading of the pronouncement is that some unelected bureaucrats at the commission have decreeed that Americans don't have the right to use software such as Skype or PGPfone if it doesn't support mandatory backdoors for wiretapping. (That interpretation was confirmed by an FCC spokesman on Monday, who asked not to be identified by name. Also, the announcement came at the same time as the FCC posted its wiretapping rules <http://news.com.com/Wiretap+rules+for+VoIP%2C+broadband+coming+in+2007/2100-7352_3-5883032.html?tag=nl> for Internet telephony.)

Nowhere does the commission say how it jibes this official pronouncement with, say, the First Amendment's right to speak freely, not to mention the limited powers <http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cato.org%2Fccs%2Fenum-powers.html&siteId=3&oId=/Wiretap+rules+for+VoIP%2C+broadband+coming+in+2007/2100-7352_3-5883032.html&ontId=10784&lop=nl.ex> granted the federal government by the U.S. Constitution.

What's also worth noting is that the FCC's pronunciamento almost tracks the language of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Almost.

But where federal law states <http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww4.law.cornell.edu%2Fuscode%2Fhtml%2Fuscode47%2Fusc_sec_47_00000230----000-.html&siteId=3&oId=/Wiretap+rules+for+VoIP%2C+broadband+coming+in+2007/2100-7352_3-5883032.html&ontId=10784&lop=nl.ex> that it is the policy of the United States to preserve a free market for Internet services "unfettered by federal or state regulation," the bureaucrats have adroitly interpreted that to mean precisely the opposite of Congress said.
________

20 congressjerks who want the Broadcast Flag -- give 'em a call and give 'em what for <http://www.boingboing.net/2005/10/02/20_congressjerks_who.html>
Cory Doctorow: Twenty suicidal congresscritters are calling for the speedy adoption of a broadcast flag, trying to unmake the work that the courts did this past May when they killed the initiative. The broadcast flag says that all digital TV technology has to be approved by Hollywood's bought-and-paid-for regulators, and the rubric for it is that if we don't give Hollywood this unprecedented veto, they'll stop making stuff available for digital TV. Note that no one in Hollywood has ever promised that they will produce DTV high-def content if they get this dumb rule -- this isn't even very convincing blackmail.
Is your congressjerk on the list below? Give her or him a call, and let it be known that elected lawmakers who break their constituents' televisions don't get re-elected.
John Shadegg <http://johnshadegg.house.gov/contact/> , R-AZ, (202) 225-3361 
Mary Bono <http://www.house.gov/bono/contact.html> , R-CA, (202) 225-5330 
George Radanovich <http://www.radanovich.house.gov/Contact.htm> , R-CA, (202) 225-4540 
John Shimkus <http://www.house.gov/shimkus/contact.shtml> , R-IL (202) 225-5271 
Bobby Rush <http://www.house.gov/rush/contact.shtml> , D-IL, (202) 225-4372 
Ed Whitfield <http://whitfield.house.gov/contact/> , R-KY, (202) 225-3115 
Albert Wynn <http://wynn.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=wynn> , D-MD, (202) 225-8699 
Charles Pickering <http://www.house.gov/pickering/Form.htm> , R-MS, (202) 225-5031 
Lee Terry <http://leeterry.house.gov/staff_contact.cfm> , R-NE, (202) 225-4155 
Charles Bass <http://www.house.gov/bass/writeorvisit.html> , R-NH, (202) 225-5206 
Mike Ferguson <http://www.house.gov/ferguson/get_address2.shtml> , R-NJ, (202) 225-5361 
Frank Pallone <http://www.house.gov/pallone/washington-office.shtml> , D-NJ, (202) 225-4671 
Eliot Engel <http://www.house.gov/engel/contact.htm> , D-NY, (202) 225-2464 
Vito Fossella <http://www.house.gov/fossella/> , R-NY, (202) 225-3371 
Edolphus Towns <http://www.house.gov/towns/offices.shtm> , D-NY, (202) 225-5936 
John Sullivan <http://sullivan.house.gov/contact.shtml> , R-OK, (202) 225-2211 
Michael Doyle <http://www.house.gov/doyle/contact.shtml> , D-PA, (202) 225-2135 
Marsha Blackburn <http://www.house.gov/blackburn/> , R-TN, (202) 225-2811 
Bart Gordon <http://www.house.gov/gordon/contact/index.shtml> , D-TN, (202) 225-4231 
Charles Gonzalez <http://gonzalez.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=gonzalez> , D-TX, (202) 225-3236
I know, I know. We keep killing this thing, and it keeps on coming back. But the important thing is that we keep killing it. Us. They put tens of millions of bucks into this bid to make technology subservient to the superstitious fantasies of venal film execs, and we killed it by sending thousands and thousands and thousands of letters, calls, and faxes to DC. We made it happen. We'll make it happen again. They're not going to win this one, EVER. Link <http://beta.news.com.com/Politicians+want+to+raise+broadcast+flag/2100-1028_3-5886722.html> (via Copyfight <http://www.corante.com/copyfight/> )

"We let it happen. We are in the process of letting it get worse."

With all the experience and perspective expressed, for example, on this thread..... in 10 months on DU no one has been able to tell me why the hell we stood by and watched our nation being disassembled, watched the media and Big Business consolidate, watched our civil liberties dissolve in republican acid rain-- and now there's all this energy and awareness and groovy ways to UNDO IT?

Do we really have to let it "get this bad" or WORSE :puke: before speaking up?

The notion that letting it get worse is positive is revolting.

and his fellow sociopaths. Traitorgate/Iraqgate will make Watergate look like a day at the circus.

This is by far the Worst administration in my lifetime, and it is truly frightening to think that so many people have drunk the kool-aid and actually voted for this criminal a second time around. In a normal world he would have had no more than 30% of the vote.

the turd coming into full bloom. But this time the bloom will fade and wilt and what is going to be left is merely "turd".

:eyes:

They just set out to murder reputations- to dehumanize and demonize good women and men who just happen to disagree with them. And it's working because we have no media accountability.

I swear, I would be so ashamed to work in news right now. Journalists are DOING THEIR JOBS when people are educated and kept up to speed on what's happening.

People are currently mostly clueless. (Except about that cute white chick missing in Aruba.)

Like Chimpy Bunnypants, reporters don't want to actually WORK for a living. It must be above them now, to relate to us commoners. SO they just make up shit or read something Rove sent them this morning.

And then they go to all these cool parties with Jenna and the Other One.

Anyway, the third time around is more frightening, and I can't explain why, except that we have lost the World Trade Center, our soldiers, our budget, our reputation, our Constitution and in New Orleans, 10,000 beloved people and their beloved city as they knew it.

Nixon and Reagan were not as addicted to death as the Bushistas are. The latter will be remembered with the Hitlers and the Mussolinis of the world for their notorious warmongering and lust for blood and death.

anything I've ever lived through. Reading all the previous post's, most all point's have been made. Nixon, Reagan, even Bush I - had at least one positive point. * and this whole administration has none, I feel pure evil. For the first time in my life, I'm afraid - I feel fear because I know they can and will resort to anything, just to hold power.

I couldn't believe any leader of this country would ever sell out our national security, commit real treason. Trash the Geneva Convention because of an agenda. Lie us into war...always knew it was a lie, and kill our children and poor without a conscience.

Also, for the first time in my life - I wish I could take my children and move to another country. Don't feel my small grandchildren have a future ahead of them. In my heart, I do feel like it's Germany in the 30's. I don't want my grandchildren indoctrinated into some evil empire and never know what freedom really was.

For me, the only thing keeping me going is Fitz - if he doesn't come through, I'm not sure I can find my way back. The future of this country and my children, grandchildren - rest's on his shoulder's.
That is a heavy burden for him to carry...our last chance for justice. If he can make some central indictment's, enough to make me believe in my country again. That corruption does not rule...

My hopes for Kerry were dashed too, I'm praying for Fitz every day.
FGS - somebody please stop this madness, before it's too late.

(Fighting thought's in my head, that it already is.) <sigh>:scared:

I remind them of the over-reaching and how they eventually fall apart. I tell them that a party that doesn't believe in government can't rule for that long. It's amazing the number of blank stares that I get from people my age and older. It's like they've never even bothered to think about history in thier own lifetimes.

I remind them of the over-reaching and how they eventually fall apart. I tell them that a party that doesn't believe in government can't rule for that long. It's amazing the number of blank stares that I get from people my age and older. It's like they've never even bothered to think about history in thier own lifetimes.

Our future is bleak, whether they go or stay.

Great! I'll see it again...I wonder if the
McCarthy period was the beginning of what
was to come later.

I started school in the late '60s. So I cannot really judge Nixon. But GWB seems to be the worst of the three to me. I have never seen such arrogance & incompetence. And this is the first time in my life that I have actually feared that my country will collapse. This is the first time that I regularly think of my own country as a villain on the world stage. We torture people & burn corpses. It's disgusting. We are supposed to be an example, a *good* example, to the world. Bush has completely destroyed this image. I just hate this.

Tammy