'If we don't win in '08, it's all over'

No offense to those who adhere to this idea, but I'm beginning to wonder about it.

Yes, it's true that we have gotten into an unnecessary war that's cost us over two thousand lives and bundles of money. It's also true that Habeas Corpus, privacy, the right to a speedy trial and the right to confront one's accuser have taken serious hits. That's true, and it's also quite disturbing.

I think, though, that Pres. Dumbass could be a special case. His post-9/11 activities have strongly indicated arrogance, thought disorder, and the unwillingness to admit that he's wrong. Despite what other people here might say, however, I highly doubt that the Republican party as a whole suffers from those problems also. That's like saying that all Democrats are like Dean or agree with Michael Moore.

The pendulum always swings. There was actually a time when we amended the Constitution to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol. It was a stupid and unconstitutional law that was rightfully struck down years later.

Consider also that after the 1980s, which were completely dominated by Republicans in the White House, we enjoyed a Democratic President (despite his poor personal choices) for eight entire years!

It may not completely swing in our favor this election cycle. Maybe it will. But I'm not so sure anymore that a Republican President in 2008 will mean the destruction of our country as a whole.

There's a reason for us to be hopeful; the American people were given a visible sign of Duh-bya's incompetency during the "Katrina crisis" last year. The Abramoff scandal has not been good for the Republicans (though I don't think that Democrats have necessarily benefitted politically either). Even the Patriot Act is being called into question now. That's a very good sign, though many Americans are still buying into the fear manipulation.

If it's true that Duh-bya's a special case, and that Republicans in the aggregate (to pull out a fancy word from macroeconomics) are not as supremely arrogant and stubborn as Duh-bya, then just getting Duh-bya, Cheney, and the others out of the White House - out of power - will be a huge success for our country.

The 1950s were very similar to our current political status, except that in that era, Americans were paranoid about "Commies" - not terrorists. Notice, though, that that RW, paranoid, fear-mongering era eventually led to an era of liberalism in the 1960s and 1970s. If we get Duh-bya out of the White House, either by indicting his ass or allowing his reign to reach its end (assuming that Duh-bya doesn't try to pull some kind of 'America needs to let me serve another term in office. Otherwise, the terrorists will win' trick), we may have another era with Democratic Presidents and more liberal policies.

But I don't necessarily think that Democrats suffering large losses in 2006 or 2008 will lead to the downfall of our party or our country. In fact, that may be the same kind of fear-mongering that Duh-bya and other "establishment Republicans" have been employing since 9/11. It's a cop-out.

The pendulum always swings. Even if the era where Democrats lead the country doesn't come later this year in 2008, it will come eventually - considering how RW everything has become in our country. That's my opinion.

Agree? Disagree? I'd love to hear from you.
Ringo

Then they can stop Bush's agenda of terror and fear against America. We can investigate all of the shit that has happened and expose the GOP for the shit that they are.
The GOP can do alot more Damage in 2 years.

Winning in 2006 will be the key to winning in 2008.

The key there is BUSH'S agenda. As I said, I doubt that the entire Republican party is responsible for the unamerican stuff we've seen.



Laws can always be overtured. In my opinion, bad laws are meant to be ignored and stricken from the law books.



I agree. It's not that I don't want a Democrat to win in 2008. I'm just saying that I am doubting the "we 've GOT to win or we're all dead" stuff.
Ringo

The Democratic Leadership will not. That's the difference. A vote for any Repug is a vote for GOP leadership who control the agenda.

A vote for Democrats will bring about Democratic leaders who will not allow such votes.

See the other threads on this post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1487891&mesg_id=1488055

In the 50's it took brave journalists who spoke the truth, and that unfortunately is a fact the neocons duly noted and have addressed. Colin Powells son Michael earned his paycheck well gutting the regulations on media ownership.

I think the pendulum has swung far enough, enough have died, suffered, enough environmental devastation, enough basic rights taken away, enough enough enough. Remember those 3 branches, legislative executive judicial that were supposed to be checks and balances? Gone. If the Dems don't regain some power in the gvt, it will only get worse. I anticipate them taking away more and more from the people, placing more and more power in the richest corporations. Death? Destruction? Slavery (of a sort, even economic)? It may go further yet, as nothing says the USA constitution has to stand forever.

Edited to add, this happens everywhere at some time, some places more often. It is the USA's turn now for dark times I fear. How to slow it down is regain some control over 1 of those 3 branches.

It absolutely has. I'm not sure that it can even swing more towards their side. It's already as far to the right as it can go.



The Democrats can stop it. They will, eventually. Democracy can't stand up when its foundations have been eliminated.
Ringo

but I can't. If that were true, then why aren't more republicans standing up for what's right now? Why are they all loyal to the party rather than to the people? Despite any association with bush being poison to them, they continue to support the administration's moronic ideas. Despite the fact that there is public outcry - from AMERICANS - not just democrats or republicans - they continue to hold the party line.

This is war. If we want our country back, this is absolute war. We CANNOT trust a republican to do what's right, because they're not doing it now. They have a unified democratic body to stand with to do what's right, but still they would rather tote bush's rotten plans than stand united with their fellow Americans, because they're dems.

No, we MUST win in 06, in 08, and every election year until the republicans get their party back from those who hijacked it.

I was expecting someone to say this. And it is a good point: why aren't more Republicans standing up to Duh-bya? Party loyalty? I'm not sure. They're the ones who have to live with their consciences.

You later say that the Republican party has been hijacked. That's true; it's been hijacked by neocons and RW fundies. That may explain the silence from many of the better Republicans.
Ringo

the very best time for them to speak up and stand against the tyranny would be right now. Bush's approval rate is low 30's (lower in reality, if you ask me), and Americans are PISSED. If ever there was a time for a republican to come out against his/her party, now is the time. Yet they don't.

And they call DEMS cowards.

I heard that one of the Republican congressmen who supports the war in Iraq still criticized Bush, in a way. He said that Bush has no game plan for the war, just stupid slogans. The congressman still doesn't completely get it, but it's a start. At least he was one Republican who sort-of stood up to Bush.

Does anyone know who this congressman is? I didn't have a lot of time to read the newspaper (I was on a break at work). I think Hillary or Pelosi also said that Bush has slogans, but not ideas.

Tammy

at some point the GOP can -- and will -- be dislodged from power. But as with the Nazis, the question is: at what cost? And to how many?

What if global warming becomes irreversible -- in its biosphere-ending capabilities (if it hasn't already) -- before they're gone? What if they get their "limited" nuclear wars and martial law clampdowns?

How much blood will they allow to flow in their crazed pathological search for armageddon before sane people everywhere rise up and send them into the prisons and loonybins where they belong?

I don't know. I would hope at the least amount of cost to the least amount of people possible. But it may be as simple as getting Duh-bya out of the White House. I don't think (this is an unlearned opinion. That is, I don't hold a degree in history or sociology) that it will lead to a revolution necessarily. It hasn't gotten to that point yet, in my opinion.

Just because it doesn't happen this year and in 2008, however, doesn't mean it won't happen.
Ringo

If for no other reason than their mismanagement of resources and the ecosystem will eventually bring down the social and economic systems.

But I hope it doesn't get that far, either.

I wish I could be more convinced it won't.

but how is a constitutional ammendment unconstitutional? the fact that alcohol was banned in the constitution itself by very defenition makes it constitutional. Just because a law seems unjust doesn't mean its against the constitution.

Sorry about that. Stupidity on my part.
Ringo

Was it going to swing back without extraordinary measures?

Just because something has happened a certain way before does not necessarily mean it will continue to cycle the same way.
Maybe, just maybe, enough of our civil rights are eroded and the media and elections and courts and congress controlled just enough to make it impossible to swing the pendulum back.

Apples and orange. Things have gotten bad here, but not that bad. And I think that the American people are still smart enough to not allow it to happen.



Maybe it could have. But things got out of hand.
Ringo

exactly.

and all during that time too people tried to write off the Republican party. Now The Dems had the WH for 8-years (93-01) and the GOP will have it for 8-years (01-09), if the Dems fail to win the WH in '08 it will be bad for the country but it doesn't mean that the democrats will disappear. After all from 1861-1933--72 years--the Republicans controlled the WH for all but 16 years (the two Cleveland and two Wilson terms).

How can the party be written off?
'92--Dems win
'96--Dems win
'00--GOP is awarded presidency by one-vote majority of Supreme Court and Gore won popular vote.
'04--GOP won (or did they?) but hardly a mandate--Bush took popular vote by only 51-48 percent.
'08--? in all probability it will be a close election for whichever party wins.

Exactly. Of course we won't disappear. It's not that this election isn't important.
Ringo

and tied it up to a pole on their side?

Impossible. For every trend, there's a counter-trend. Even as someone who has not studied history and sociology formally (ie: college), that's pretty obvious. Nobody rules forever.
Ringo

tend to take a lot of innocent people down with them when they go.

that I see a lot, regarding your Prohibition comment.

Prohibition was a Constitutional Amendment. An Amendment becomes a part of the Constitution, and by definition, cannot be "unconstitutional", because it IS the Constitution. It was later repealed by another amendment. It was not "struck down". Not even the Supreme Court can strike down an amendment to the constitution. Their job is to uphold and interpret whatever it is that that piece of paper says. That is why the process of passing a constitutional amendment is so diffiult.

A lot of people here have been saying that a marriage amendment would be unconstitutional. Sorry, but if such an amendment is passed, it becomes constitutional. The only way to get rid of it is to pass another amendment repealing it.

Hi, Pinknose! Welcome to DU!

Somebody else pointed that out. Sorry. Stupidity on my part.
Ringo

I've been around a while, just don't post much. I wasn't ragging on you, but I see this type of comment a lot. It's kind of a pet peeve, so I just had to pipe in, more for general consumption.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Did I say it wrong? Sorry.
Ringo

Any student of history will tell you that despotic tyranny is the most stable form of a society once it's established. Whether you look at the Egyptian dynasties, the Roman Empire, or the whole of Chinese history ancient to current, once tyrants take over, humans just sort of accept it.

Representative democracy and universal voting rights are just a blip on the radar as far as history is concerned. We're dealing with a corporate oligarchy in the making, the latest version of the old "divine right of kings." Forget 2008 and a "swinging pendulum." The people behind Reagan & Bush and Clinton's pushing of "the global economy" are laying the groundwork for their linage becoming the new Kings of the World.

By 2020 we'll be taking about a return to feudalism, and our Masters will be talking of putting down "peasant revolts."

Well, I admit that I'm not a historian or a sociologist. But I have to disagree.

Maybe societies get into ruts, but they get out of them eventually. "For every trend there's a counter-trend" is a truism that fits in this case.

And I don't really think that Americans will be happy with any "lineage". They'll see through that quickly and vote against that candidate, unless they're staunch. In fact, I've heard that if Jeb runs in 2008, he may not get much of a following because people are so sick of Duh-bya. People are tired of a "Bush" in the White House (you can take that two ways).
Ringo

How can the "pendulum" swing if the nazis control the majority of the voting machines?

A continuation of the current policies will mean economic downfall, loss of what remaining stature we have in the world and a gap between the rich and poor so wide we'll resemble a third world country. Then there's the theocracy thing. If there's a pendulum, Rove is trying to snag it and lop it off.

It's OK if you disagree; very little (if any) of what I say is absolute truth. I welcome your input.

No question that our current policies, continued, would be disastrous for us on many fronts. But we don't really know for sure that a Republican President in 2008 would adopt such policies as his own. I am also convinced that conditions in our country will eventually be overturned. Of course, that doesn't excuse the Patriot Act or the other unprecedented power grabs.

I have to disagree about Rove also. I despise him too, but I don't think that it's within his power to stop the inevitable overturning of current trends. It seems to be a constant trend in human history, and I'm not convinced that Rove, Duh-bya, or anyone else has the power to stop it. I hope that I'm right. There's no guarantee that I am.
Ringo

...empires always fall as well.

Empires built on the forceful domination of others, fall especially fast. And what a bloody history of that we have as well. Starting with the slaughter and genocide of the Native Americans who occupied the land before us. Segue into manifest destiny throughout the westward expansion, where we fought pitched wars with other European empires such as the Spaniards, who were conquering and expanding out here as well. Later we continued our hegemony to distant shores.

The Spanish-American war where we “liberated” the Philippines from Spain, and afterward refusing to leave. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. Pick a date in history, and see where we have bullied our way to world domination.

Our history is packed with expansionism, war, and empire building. And just like every other empire in history, it will either get changed from within by Liberals such as us, or implode from it's sheer bloated weight.

It's our choice...

I'm not convinced.

-The supreme court. The "liberal era" of the 60s and 70s was largely helped by liberal decisions by the Supreme Court. From abortion to race to limiting police powers. If the GOP keeps the white house for one or two more elections, they'll probably be able to solidify a young right-wing bloc that will rule the court for 15-30 more years. Right now, Roberts, Alito and Thomas are all extreme right and under 60. If they replace JP Stevens and Ruth Ginsburg, they would give them 5 right-wingers with plenty of years to go. Scalia is also there, but he's older.

-The national debt has gone waaaay up. So it won't be as easy as before to institute economic reforms. We will eventually have to either cut the budget, raise taxes or both.

-Corporate power over the media, and even over the left-of-centre party is very high, a lot higher than ever before.

That's just a few points, I don't think you can call this just a normal swing to the right.

And excellent points. I would be inclined to agree, except for one thing: I think you may not appreciate the deep disgust, fear, anger, and distrust regarding the Republican Party that the Bush regime has caused for many of us. Never beofre have I spent so much time daydreaming about leaving this country as I have the past few years. The Republicans need to pay -- big time -- for all the harm they have caused this country. If that doesn't come about, what then?

BTW, why is mine the only recommendation for this thread?