Does it ever get any easier?

This last election was the first one that I invested in mind, body and soul.

Those who've been through this more than once: does it get any easier?

I still can't look back at the hope I felt leading up to the election without feeling like crying.

Might be part of my attachment to Kerry, all these months later (aside from the fact that he reminds me of my deceased dad, who was also Navy). I keep thinking about how much better it would be right now if he were president instead of Bush.

Sometimes I think that what's happening had to happen so that people would wake up. Bush's numbers tell me that's starting to happen.

But when I think about the smug arrogance of people who claim that they won because they're children of God, I could just heave. I don't think these people would know Jesus if he walked up behind them, biffed them upside the head, and said "Howdy." For one thing, Jesus rather cared about the poor.

I just wish I didn't have these periodic crying jags. Damned inconvienient.

...so I don't have much to add. But since it's late I'll just say "we're right here with you" and hope that the assurance that some people keep their head in the air instead of up their own posterior cheers you up a bit.

if the election robbing Junta was to be held accountable, and brought to justice even on some of their crimes, the next one might be kind of "easier" than the last one. Though I agree with you for President Kerry's first term would be much better, and to think his 6 months' withdrawal plan from Iraq would be completed by now...

*sigh*

I thought that I could never feel more sadness for this country than I did in 1968. We lost Martin that year too.

I was wrong. I feel more sadness for our country now. I suppose it's because that along with my youth, my naivete is gone. Nothing shocks me anymore, but it doesn't get any easier.

It's like I took the red pill, and now I can't be a sheeple anymore.

Damn, ignorance was bliss.

Yes it was.

Can't imagaine turning back now. Never was a sheeple myself, just never paid attention. Armed with knowledge how can you deny the mess we are in and not care.

Chin up, Little Clarkie! This too shall pass.

:loveya:

I saw the Matrix and I know exactly what you mean.

Some days are better than others. Mostly when I feel I have been able to do something, anything to make a difference.

Have you signed up for the DU Activist Corps yet? DU Activist Corps is kind of a "get your feet wet" type of thing that helps take the edge off without sucking you in farther than you might be ready.

I've been one of those who sporadically will do the letter writing and such when people shout out for it, but the idea of DU Activist is to get regular attention and focus going.

I signed up even though personally I have visions of getting all 70,000 DU Members up off our collective asses and out to DC, but there's hopefully time for that. (I'm going 9/24-26/05)

Still, each and every one of us could be "the ONE" who is able to SEE the MATRIX for what it is and break through - cause the system wide meltdown of the false reality.

I read John Conyer's book, "What Went Wrong in Ohio?" and it made me really mad and also what I took from it is that in the REALITY OUTSIDE the rethuglican's koolaid world MORE PEOPLE VOTED FOR KERRY than B***.

B*** is an IMPOSTER in the White House. He's a poster boy for AWOL. Kerry IS the rightful President and B*** is just a pResident. I for one AM NOT going to GET OVER IT. I'm going to OVER COME IT and see the day when that ape is impeached along with all his other goons.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“And if there’s a message, I guess this is it. The truth isn’t easy. The easy part’s shit.”
- Todd Rundgren

NGU.

I really do.

as far as the religion grabbing hold. might just be a time in our history when we have to experience the very worst of what christianity is.

there is a higher and lower in all things

sometimes we have to experience the lower vibration for our greatest lesson. maybe this is the time people awaken and truly learn to love

but right now, around me, it is worse

at the same time. I absolutely agree with your post here and I thank you for saying it. I have had a hard time even trying to articulate what I feel. The last election (the last two elections rather) were such shams! I am so naive I thought it would actually be a fair election in Nov.'04. Hmmm. I sobbed when Kerry/Edwards conceded. A horrible wailing as in mourning cry. It's been traumatic. It's not that my guy lost. It's that, but it's beyond that. It's that Satan himself is in the Whitehouse...again. It's that the election was stolen...again. It's the suffering of the poor, the working poor, and the middle class while the rich get richer. "Let them eat cake" is the behavior of this evil administration and its cohorts. Look, I don't think you can compare this last election to the normal cycle of election feelings. It's different. The experience in a normal cycle, even if your invested and overextended in the process, it feels different to win when it's fair. Hell, it feels different to lose when it's fair. I don't know how I feel now. I don't know how I feel about the whole process. Anyway, thanks so much for your thoughtful and thought provoking post. Peace.

Today especially was terrible for me. I don't know, I think it was something in the air for Kerry supporters. Anniversary thoughts of the convention last summer? I'm not sure. Just when I think I'm finally over the last of the worst pain--it comes back. Like grief. Which is what it is. It was Kierkegaard who wrote that the most painful state of being is imagining the future you didn't get to--and cannot--have. I'm mourning the future that was supposed to be, not so much with Kerry's should-have-been ascension in '04, but with Gore's election in 2000. The world we were supposed to get starting with the Gore presidency is going to be very different because he has not yet been inside the White House. (I'm a Gore optimist; a perverse part of me says it can still happen.)

I don't have an answer to your original question exactly, but the truth is, I'm not sure it can get any worse for people who want America to be healthy, good and prosperous again. Bush and this last election have done a PILE of damage.

The first time I was old enough to vote, it was McGovern. I knew he didn't have a prayer and I knew Nixon was a criminal by then, so it was frustrating. But this is different.

I wake up every morning wondering if things have been so totally corrupted that we'll never get democracy back. Even when I was wondering if Nixon was going to declare martial law, I don't recall thinking that we'd never get our country back, or even that we'd really lost it. Even when Reagan was decimating so many progressive programs, and frankly, Democrats were making me crazy by not knowing how to respond to him, I never thought we were heading to totalitarianism.

I've voted for more losing candidates than I can remember. Been down and disappointed so much. Saw the assasinations of the people who had given us so much hope for the future.

I never shed so many tears or felt so much despair over an election as I did in 2004. Actually, the closest thing I can compare my feelings when Bush got his second term to, is my feelings in the aftermath of 911. Both were unprecendented disasters in my lifetime.

I wish I could be more cheerful and tell you it gets easier. It would, if we were in any kind of normal times. I just don't know where we're going from here.

...making us think our cause is hopeless. Ignore that. We SHALL overcome. We always have throughout history.

NGU.

And 1994 was much more painful.

W is just the culmination of where we have been heading for 30 years as a country.

The fact is this: Democrats have been doing poorly in elections since 1972. We've only one three presidential elections since then and none of them "comfortably." Nixon crushed McGovern. Carter eeked out a victory over an incompetent leading a humiliated party. Reagan crushed Carter and then Mondale. Bush crushed Dukakis. Clinton was a respite but he never got 50 percent of the vote. Bush-Gore was essentially a tie that we lost on a stupid technicality. And W beat Kerry.

In the meantime, we've steadily lost ground in the House, Senate, and state levels.

If anything, W is an indication that we can at least make presidential elections close.

The Reagan years were worse because that's when the scope of the problem for the Left came into view. The unions were exposed as powerless. The Christian Right proved that it was a force. The Republicans showed that they could play dirty and get away with it. The South was lost as the FDR coalition finally ended. And the Dems were just left with identity politics. Those were bad years.

to be under for this particularly ugly criminal:



that is really difficult to understand. I don't get it. I really don't.

:eyes: :thumbsdown: :grr:

:shrug:

edited to add the thumbsdown, the grr, and the shrug icons...

I think without 9/11, we could have crushed Bush. I still remember when I fully realized that this administration and many in the Republican Party looked at that tragedy and thought "We could use that politically." I mean, good God!

Vigilance is the responsibility citizens must bear--and that's part of the problem--too many have taken for granted that others will keep watch.

Another alternative is to become part of the political process and fight from within--not an acceptable decision for most of us for many reasons.

Educate the young and the not-so-young; don't let revisionist crap become mainstream. Celebrate reason and diversity always; continually reaffirm what you believe the good life to be. Fighting the good fight is not one individual's responsibility, but as a collective we may yet preserve the best of what we hope America is all about.

This shit will pass, just be here when it does. My $0.02

NoFederales

There is always reason to hope--otherwise none of us would bother.

Here's an old one:
Keep the faith.

:-)

Understand what? About me?

And thanks. I appreciate it.

I too invested my heart and soul into getting John Kerry elected. I was proud that day as I voted for a better tomorrow, but ignorance, hatred, and greed won the day.

But we should NEVER let down the gauntlet. We must remain vigilant. Don’t forget those who came before us…Don’t forget the abolitionists who risked life and limb for 3/5 of a person. Don’t forget the laborers who fought against the industrial deaths and basic slavery and exploitation to give workers some modicum of rights. Don’t forget those who fought to bring suffrage to females in this nation, the people who truly can build a great land. Don’t forget those who fought against jim Crow and segregation, who got pelted by thug/racist police departments. Don’t forget the countless innocent black people and civil rights workers who were persecuted, beaten, or out-right killed because they were doing what was right.

Don’t forget Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King, who literally took bullets. Don’t complain about it not getting easier. It never has and never will. There is too much power and wealth at stake for the aristocracy to submit to a bunch of wild-eyed Liberals.

We must continue to pound their asses in anyway we can. LTTE, phone calls, political activism, and personal vigilance must be part of our every being. We not only owe it to ourselves, but we owe it to generations not even born yet….and we also owe it to those who walked before us, who shed blood, who lost lives and livelihoods.

We must never submit no matter how hard we may think it gets. To capitulate is to be doing the bidding of the thugs who presently are running (into the shitter) our entire planet.

i'm still pissed over Mcgovern, so get used to it.:shrug:

Pissed would be easier. I'm heartbroken. Are you still going off on little crying jags over it?

and then get pissed:mad:

But nothing worth battling for is ever "easy."

Unfortunately, corporate-driven journalists and the MSM are NOT going to do our work and research for us. It's up to grassroots activists - - of all stripes and ideologies - - to work cohesively to combat media sensationalism.

Because if we don't do it, no one else will. :(

It's an endless cycle. Power never goes away, it just changes shape. Power will always try to centralize and consolidate. It may not accomplish it all the time, but it never stops trying.

"Sometimes I think that what's happening had to happen so that people would wake up."

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

""You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don't want to "go out of your way to make trouble." Why not? - Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty."

There will always (in our lifetimes) be evildoers like bush, cheney, leiberman, feinstein, rove, et' all. The anti-humane corporations will still be trying to get all of the power and leave humans with no power. Capitalism will always help a very small minority to become super-rich at the expense of the vast majority of humans on earth.

This has always been and always will be so (in our short lifetimes). We will suffer many defeats and savor few victories.

I get through it by accepting that I will never see Nirvana in this world in my lifetime. I will never see the entire earth operating as it could and should.

But if I don't work as hard as I can for a world without these evils, it will NEVER ARRIVE. It's my duty, responsibility and pleasure in life to work as hard as I can, to speak the truth to the best of my ability and to be as kind as I can to my friends, family and even my enemies.

Find serenity by accepting those things that one can't change, and by changing those things one can change and by developing the wisdom to know the difference.

Peace to you...

I'm feeling better today. And ready to fight again.

is a peace that can only be found on the other side of war."