What's "really" on your mind ??

Are you concerned that the Republicans will still find a way to win the next election? That, after all the evidence of incompetence and criminality and law-breaking, we will still end up with these same people in charge? Is that something you think about?

Are you concerned that the Democrats will still find themselves unable to persuade enough voters that they could do a better job than those presently in power? And are you fearful of where our country may be headed if that happens? In the end, the people will decide. They obviously decided wrong in 2000 and 2004 but they have decided wrong many times in the past, in many of our opinions. Can we survive one more "wrong" decision?

I may sound defeatist, but I've gotten my hopes up and had them subsequently dashed too many times before. I've been sure that people are finally opening their eyes and wising up to the repug party, but then they continue to vote against their best interests. I don't know why it would change in November. I'll pray as I always do, but I won't hold my breath for spectacular changes.

let's say we win a bare majority in the house and narrow the banana republican majority in the senate.

this might be great for posturing, but as a practical matter, the banana republicans still hold all the cards, can still deal the pork, and can still twist the arms of a small number of our more conservative democrats, enough to still win passage of any crazy bill they want.

certainly, without only one house, democrats lack the power to actually reverse any damage -- we can't get our own bills into law by any stretch.

worst of all, democratic control of the house becomes an excuse the banana republicans can use to blame EVERYTHING on. if they failed to do ANYTHING, it must be because democrats in the house prevented it....


we have a LONG slog ahead, and the election of 2006 is only ONE small step....

...what they want? Any progressive legislation ever passed was watered down or passed out of necessity to preventing rebellion, much like the New Deal of FDR, imo...

I think this election term is this country's last chance to make a turn back to it's constitutional democracy.

Many folks are thinking of playing out this last hand before leaving the game, I think?

everything I can to make a difference but I really see trouble if this election is not successful. I'm also watching the surveillance issues very very closely both on the congressional side as well as the legal side. This could solidfy a new type of governance in America difficult to reverse by nearly any means. I then have to do what is best for my family.

I'm rebuilding a sailboat for my escape even though I know I can't
because I'm on SSI disability which would stop if I left the country
and am dependant on the pain meds my doctor has me on.

I know they've got this one rigged too.

Ah, so many evil criminal plutocrats
so few bullets

Do you see them at any time working to get rid of it? Or do you think they will keep in place. I haven't researched it.

The way I see it, if they stop SSI
the poor will hit the streets
and start causing a ruckus

In many ways the Bush years have functioned as a sort of "Revenge of the Nudges"--that roughly one third of the population who are so unthinking they still support Bush, and are still highly susceptible to manipulation by Rovian tactics. Filled with resentment and crippled by low self-esteem, these people love patriotism in the form of being told they are better than the foreigners they know nothing about. They love being given a scape-goat to hate, and an enemy to project their fears onto.

The empowerment of this section of the population has been the current administrations most brilliant move. We blanche at the idiocy spouted by the likes of Anne Coulter and Glen Beck, but the very things Coulter and Beck now get away with saying in public have been a huge affirmation to those whose minds follow the same paths. Those people now feel that their own ignorance, prejudice, and small mindedness doesn't mean their opinions aren't just as good as some snotty know-it-all like Dan Rather. Hell, they're better! With the handy device of labeling everything you don't like as "Liberal Media", the reality that some information is better than other information, because it is true or has been provided by those who actually know something about the topic, is a thing of the past.

Conservatives in general have also been encouraged to see themselves as victims, victims of Liberals and the Democrats. Once you decide you have been victimized, you no longer feel the obligation to play fairly. (I saw this recently here on DU when someone posted a video of Coulter stomping off the air because she wasn't happy with people interrupting her. During the same broadcast, Sean Hannity never shut his mouth, talking over the opposition constantly. It's okay when he does it, right Anne?) That the Republicans have mostly been in power for the last 40 years means nothing to those wallowing in victimization. (I believe the corruption of elections is deeply rooted in this sense of victimization. They don't have to win fairly--they've been victimized!)

We can get rid of Bushco. But what are we going to do with the monsters let out of their cages in the form of Religious Totalitarians, would be Brownshirts, and Empire-building warmongers?

...the sinking feeling that the people running the Democratic Party really don't want to win? That, in fact, they are really supportive of what the Republicans are doing, they just wish they were doing it themselves?

And the fact that many of the biggest Democrats wear pink tutus, including one guy that a lot of people here are supporting for a second failed run at the Presidency?


"Of course, we're proud to run against our good friend Dubya!"

And why, if people disagree with this situation in the Democratic Party, why they don't raise a stink and throw these rascals out on their ballet slippers?

advisors and consultants.. I think they need to come out swinging and saying it like it really is... It is about time we spoke up for our freedoms and our country....

but, our government is as ambivalent and apathetic as the folks they're expected to serve.

There will always be those folks and organizations who roam the halls of Congress with their obstruction and influence-peddling schemes. The key to 'good' government is our constant participation, in the election campaigns and beyond, if we are to effect the change we intend with our votes and advocacy. Too often we pull back from our responsibility to vigilance, as Lincoln phrased it, and leave the deliberations of the disposition of our contributions to the theives and muckrakers. There will never be an end to these corrupting influences. We can only hope to manage them with our participation in every instigation of democracy available to us.

As my old friend and coworker, Guy Washington, used to say, "good always leaves, but, bad comes to stay."

I waht to have hope but when i look at the big picture and all that is wrong in every aspect of life in the US then my hopes are crushed . I hope we win so i can at least have some hope to see some change for the good . if the dems win enough seats I don't know if they can make immediate changes but at least things won't get worse . I don't know if they can end this occupation in Iraq , not that they wouldn't try but with bush still there who knows how much power they will have . Shit we have soooooo many problems to solve .

they'll roll over for Bush. I'm worried that they won't fight, that they won't stand up and set the country on a new direction. I'm afraid it will be "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". At least with "our" side out of control, we continue to gain momentum but if they take the reigns and do nothing with it, we're just as screwed as we are now. I want accountability, not cover-ups and I don't think the party is ready for that fight yet. I'd rather see America wrecked by Republicans than left to die by our party.

Our only option would be to do the same thing to them that the people in CT did to Joe Lieberman, I guess? one by one...

(and I'm not saying I don't agree with you) is that battle could last a decade. We really don't have that kind of time. We need a Democrt caucus that goes on the offensive and wins decisive victories. To get mired in in-fighting will expend a lot of energy and time, all the while, our country and our world will continue to spiral into darkness. I know we don't have much choice in the matter but the OP asked what I was worried about and this is it.

If we don't get climate change, and overpopulation, under control, I'm worried there will be hundreds of millions homeless and starving in many parts of the world - and the developed world will get vicious in its attempt to defend what it already has. Think Rwanda, rather than Iraq.

Very, very few people in the developed world have faced up to what we have done to the Earth's climate, and what we ought to do to soften the consequences. If any major politicans have done it, they haven't said so in public.

Can we get overpopulation and climate change "under control" without political involvement?