Do you consider yourself smarter than the people who believed

this would work? I think most people here knew in 1999 when the media started ramming * down our throats that having him "in charge" would be a disaster. And sure enough, it's been one calamity after another for 5 years. How were we able to discern what was happening, while 50 million Americans bought what the MSM was selling? Maybe a DU member will will confess to voting for Smirk in Y2K can explain WTF you were thinking?

And he is working hard to vindicate me every day.

I loathed his smarmy ass the minute I laid eyes on him.

I wish I had been wrong, this country has been through hell, and it gets worse by the day.

..all over the place that the GOP was going to screw this country like a
bad dream and (of course) the Repugs thought I was being "Over-zealous".

During the 2000 primaries, I kept urging the GOP members I know - people who never in a million years would vote Dem - to go for Bush. I thought I was being clever. I thought McCain would be harder to beat. Dubya? Never occurred to me for a nanosecond he stood a chance.

Doh!

I consider myself more responsible because I paid attention to the outside world and the politics which so many feel does not affect them.

I think that many of us just paid more attention to politics and government in general. I believe that most of the people that voted for Bush didn't really look too deeply at him. They were basically uneducated about politics and/or hardcore Republicans AND a lot of them bought into how evil Clinton was.


(side note, I have a friend who cheated on their spouse, whom they shortly thereafter divorced. This friend was "appalled" at Clinton fooling around with Monica. I bit my tongue in retorting about their own affair - (it wasn't worth the possible loss of friendship)(this person is finally seeing the light, thank God))

I knew he'd go EXTREME right and that all the fools who thought he'd be a "moderate" were going to be disappointed. He reminded me of Poppy in the debate with Geraldine Ferraro years ago, lying through his teeth ("kinder, gentler" MY ASS!). I knew he'd show his true colors once he was settled on his throne, sneer and say "fooled ya!".

......this country. After Reagan and Bush #41 it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this idiot would be worse than all of them put together.:wtf: Then came 2000 and I knew we were in big time trouble.:rant:

hold myself personally responsible for not dropping everything on Nov. 5 and heading from California to Florida to confront the brownshirts sent by James Baker to defy the will of the people (of Florida and of the U.S.).

I got seriously committed in October, 2001, when * made his response to a "crime against humanity" committing another "crime against humanity" (bombing and invading Afghanistan). I've been committed ever since, vigiling twice a week in Los Angeles, attending numerous mass demonstrations, working for a progressive primary challenger to Jane Harman, etc. But nothing I do now can totally remove the stain on my honor for not having done more in Nov. 2000.

But I'm not sure that intelligence has a lot to do with it in many cases. Many people fool themselves for emotional reasons, and sometimes the most intelligent people use that intelligence to rationalize absurd things to themselves.

And they run the gamut of intelligence.

I remember being on vacation in Florida during the 2000 election (I'd voted absentee), and seeing a woman standing outside a polling place with a sign reading: "W Stands For Women." (barf!) Even back then, when I knew very little about politics, I knew *that* was bullshit.

.....it doesn't take stupidity to follow blindly.....just ignorance. I consider myself more aware of what happened and is still happening than they do.

I know smart people who support(ed) Bush. Not many, but some...

......were mislead by the diatribe of THEIR dictator!!

religious. Let's face it, the Christian right had a lot to do with Bush being elected(?) in 2000 and again is 2004. I can excuse people their vote in 2000; who could have imagined anyone could have screwed up as badly as Bush did. I can't think of any excuses for those who voted for him in 2004 after they had seen just what a train wreck he was.

and what was happening to them....but of course all that would have penetrated their brain was no state tax....not worse schools, worse pollution and most executions....

and saying that I think Bush needs to get elected "so America can learn a lesson."

I didn't know it would be such a hard, hard lesson. :(

and that was the materially best time this country has ever had. It was also a time in which a lot of conservative and right wing people were desperately angry at the way the country- the culture, the society- was slipping away from the bitter and vain and 'Christian'/white-centered and economically tiered way they liked it. There was so much rage and violated ego under the surface and out in public over Blowjobgate, so much of a belief that Bill Clinton and the tech-job elite was getting the country to leave them and their stupid "morality" and all their gripes about things past behind.

It couldn't ever work out. The Pubbies always pretended they had a plan for the future, but conservatives don't have that and can't live that. Conservatives only relive their Past and opportunistically make shit up to justify it. It was always intellectually bankrupt. They always have immoralists championing "morality" and 'fiscal conservatives' who see government as the best way to steal. The 2000 Republicans were a pirate ship piloted by Nixon people on its last big foray, and everybody knew it.

I'm torn about the people who tipped the elections to Republicans. Exit polling and interviewing says, at least for the 2004 elections, that the swing voters were ashamed and knew they were voting for crap. Rather the same for 2002, where '9/11' was an excuse to behave badly and vote for warmongers. I think the Supreme Court Justices who decided the '00 elections knew they were voting for the crap and lies too. Individually they were just morally contemptible, these voters and Justices. But as groups, in retrospect they really responded quite accurately to the amount of social/psychological pressure each side could exert.

We've spent five years reliving the Past via all kinds of proxies and, on the Pubbie end, trying to revise it. Under Bush we've relived crap starting with the late Fifties like abuses of black voting rights in Florida and the Gary Powers affair, then the Cuba crises and their terror, Vietnam, the civil rights efforts for gays and women, Roe v Wade, and so on. Now we're up to the failed CIA, stagflating crap, corporate failure, Cold War angst, nuclear arms squabblings, and anger at the Iranian mullahs of around 1979.

I don't know about being smarter in 2000. Al Gore was not a man of the moral courage needed for acting on the social justice problems cropping up everywhere. Those were the elephants in the room of Democratic politics that the whole leadership denied. Nader was even worse about real social justice. But the masses of cheering, hate-filled, uncritical Bible-abusing morons that made up Bush rallies and the lies Bush and Cheney pushed brazenly were just an insult to all intellect, integrity, and real moral and spiritual sensibilities.

telling a friend: Do not vote for Bush 'cause he's gonna start a war in Iraq. I wish I wasn't right.

If that turd gets elected, we'll be at war with Iraq qithin six months.

I also said he'd be a one term wonder.

I never imagined ANYbody could fuck things up like he has.

But yeah, I consider myself a charter member of the "I Fucking Told You" club

For example, I told my husband that we would be at war with Iraq within a year. I was right. Lots of family and friends are making money off of the stock market based on my recommendations (oil, gas, security services).

Unfortunately, I lost a dear childhood (Marine) friend in *'s boondoggle, and very early. God, that hurt.

I, too, said he would be a one-term wonder. But then I found out about Diebold, ES&S, etc. :-(

on edit: acronyms need to be accurate (subject line)

Because the pigboys like Rush were going oh-lah-lah over him. I was surprised however that he has turned out substantially worse than Reagen. Who incidentally, I don't think should have got a state funeral. Freedom bringer, Cheney's ass!

unless you count that when * was installed, I immediately told family members to invest in oil, gas, and international security services for their retirement plans. And no, I was not joking. For the record, they have done well.

Sad, isn't it?

As an ex-Republican familiar with the crowd * keeps, and who battled them over the years as they grabbed control of my once-proud party (using every trick upon liberal and moderate Republicans that they now use upon the nation as a whole), I was not expecting anything positive from them.

I should have known they'd make a frontal assault on American democracy. But I don't think that at the time I wanted to consciously imagine that anything *this* bad would occur.

maybe. in 2000 my son mentioned he might enlist and i said, "at least wait til after the election because if bush wins he's going to throw a war," and i was right. not that he won, but that he threw a war. but what difference does it make? because a terrible tragic thing was predictable. if it means i'm smarter then it does. that won't save a single life. the question to me is how can it be that this administration has so much power that they have just about succeeded in stripping our nation of its very democracy, and all the smarts in the world have not as of yet been successful in stemming the tide. how can so many people from illiterate and downright stupid to erudite and even brilliant support war? ignore what their government is doing?! after the first gulf war i went on out of the loop for a long time. i always voted, but i didn't pay attention to much of the news. then bush strongarmed an election. then my daughter was murdered. less than 2 months later 9-11 happened, and in spite of the overwhelming grief i struggled with i could no longer ignore what was happening to my country tis of thee. remember, the one of, for, and by the people? remember that USA?

what's the point of the question? my answer is yes.