I hope americans of middle age and older realize that life will never be

like it was before the 2000 coup d'etat.

the neo cons killed the economy with deregulation, fraud, greed, criminality.

during all of that, climate change was rolling on, causing all kinds of destruction to economies here and around the world.

Obama and team can and have stopped the neo con economic destruction but it is impossible to get back to where we were before 2000.

we have to live with and deal with the here and now and be prepared for further economic destruction caused by climate change. which includes the destruction of human health. health IS the bottom line. providing health care IS what is important to living life.

the pre 2000 'good times' are over.

young americans either know this and/or sense this. and are living lives of flexibility.

you can't be flexible while sick or injured. health care is equal to food supply, and clean water supply. all 3 must go together into the flexible future.

we can have a flexible future if we are smart about it. and the smart of the world are working together to do just that.

Things changed for a long while until people forgot and put the repukes back in office. Only for them to destroy things again.

rinse and repeat.

There is our overarching bubble mentality.

Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things. Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.Elect a Dem. Fix things. Forget everything. Elect a repuke. Destroy things.

but we can't survive repeating that cycle again.:scared:

it will only continue as long as there is a means to fix the current problem.

As much as I like Obama, I still don't believe things are "fixed", it will be a number of years before we know the answer to that. What I fear, however, is that the repukes will once again destroy things before the various fixes take hold and show results.

Then we will be in gigantic trouble.

got a backbone, or were more like a$$holes like the Repigs.

I am doing what I can for my kids' futures. I think we must be the rebuilders.

I was running around with my hair on fire during the 2000 campaign trying to warn people what would happen if Bush got the White House. Number 1 on my list of dire predictions was the final destruction of the working class.

It will never be the same as before JFK was killed..

It will never be the same as before the Viet Nam war..

It will never be the same as before Nixon was impeached..

It will never be the same as before the end of the cold war..

It will never be the same as before 9/11 and our current wars..

It will never be the same after the last election..


What sane older people know is that change is always constant.

All you can ever hope to do is try make sure it is change for the better, and even those of best intentions cannot always see the consequences of the changes they help create.

People need to shove their negativity down the republicans' toilet. And I know I have a fair amount of flushing to do too.

the assassination of Grover Cleveland.

things aren't even the same today as they were yesterday.

and tomorrow will be different from today.

"All you can ever hope to do is try make sure it is change for the better, and even those of best intentions cannot always see the consequences of the changes they help create."

That's not all you can do, when the level of hypocrisy and propaganda is blatant as it was with Reagan, it's time to push back, not :boring:



(Nixon wasn't actually impeached -- left office to avoid being impeached.)

A man who has been in office is somehow responsible for the collapse of the economy and all of the other problems we have??? I am not sure how that is possible as we have been heading into this ditch for years. Obama is trying to fix bush's mess!! grr!

hell the destruction of the middle class started in the mid 70`s and they finally succeeded.

The nature of existence is change. Most of us oldies recognize that just as most of us realize that our golden memories are not the reality of the time we remember.

I gave you a K&R, but the problem is bigger than you think.

"The neo cons killed the economy with deregulation, fraud, greed, criminality."

That is certainly true, but "Greed is Good" started under Reagan in the 80s.
Deregulation, privatization, conglomeration, corporatization, the concentration of Wealth & Power into fewer hands, and the unchecked corruption of Washington accelerated under the Clinton administration and the economic policies of the "Centrist" Democrats.


"we can have a flexible future if we are smart about it. and the smart of the world are working together to do just that."

Further entrenching a system of Employer Based Health Insurance is a step away from
flexibility (HR 3200). No other developed country in the World does it like that.

until that is dismantled piece by piece, nothing will change.

We may get a new shiny veneer but the under lying causes will still be there.

finished the decline.

I'm talking about a flexible future which includes health care for all, food for all and clean water for all.

climate change is the poison in the mixture so that is why flexibility will be what saves us.

It's been "Devil Take the Hindmost", "Welfare reform", "bootstraps", "free trade", "deregulation", etc. etc. since I have been involved in Politics.

This country has raised two or three generations now who have no direct experience with the sort of idealism you speak of... :shrug:

many stupid people and their tea bags to deal with. First you have to get to them and convert them to the truth and I have found that is like trying to change spots on the proverbial leopard.

That might be a better place to try to make some changes. :thumbsup:

trying to educated the unsmart wastes time. making the school kids smart should be a priority.

when it comes to climate change we are down to one TICK of the clock.

That includes the Clinton administration and the Obama Clinton administration with many of the same players and many of the same policies, including fiscal.

If people were "smart about it" they would never have allowed this trainwreck to cruise down the tracks for 30 years.

that have destroyed the middle and working classes if Gore had gotten the White House. I felt it was our last chance to start rebuilding a system that could work for the average person.

:thumbsdown: were all fatal errors.

end of WWII--are gone with the wind. Forever. Those halcyon days are NEVER coming back.

The American "century" lasted from 1945 till about 1970-75.

the only constant survivors are flexible. How do you define these 'lives of flexibility' you speak of? What are the elements that make up such a lifestyle?

not sure where you are going with your semi-attack on "middle-aged" and "older" people -- anyone who has been around a few decades and had to provide for themselves, instead of living in a basement sucking on paxil while daddy pays the bills (as too many YOUNG people are doing these days) is well aware that life is CHANGE

life is never the same even from year to year, much less from decade to decade

if you live to be middle-aged and don't shoot yourself you already know that much, i know, we old people look funny but it doesn't mean we're all stoopit

one day you'll be middle-aged or, gasp, even older yourself, and you'll realize how silly your lecture looks

tell the kindergarten kid, guess what, life is change and expect it to be news...the middle aged person already knows that life is change and that REAL incomes/wealth have been declining since the 1960s

They lose!

nt

FDR welcomes his opponents' hatred.

Obama is just a milquetoast.

How did you get so smart?

From Paul Ehrlich to the insanity of Vietnam and the rise of the wingnuts from Barry Goldwater onward, who couldn't foresee this?

First time I heard Goldwater speak, I thought....uh oh.
and it just got worse from there.
When Ronnie was elected, I knew the pendulum was swinging to the right for a long time.
told my kids so.

good news....some of us "older" folks won't have to make too many severe adjustments. We've been living poor all our lives, and know how to survive on very little. Our grandparents and parents went through the Depression, and passed a lot of skills down to some of us.

whatall you said after the Geritol kicks in.

and it took me so long I done actually went and scratched my head. Can you believe it.

they are a complete shift in the way economic game works.

Unfortunately, "we the people" aren't invited to play. I think the future is dark indeed--worse than some cyberpunk nightmare from the 80's. .

Nor were the economic crises that preceded it.

There are serious cycles in history, but we have been generally progressing throughout it. We have learned so much; and our capabilities to use technology, if we will use it right, are phenominal. We have serious problems, but the only thing in the way of countering them and not only surviving, but having an even better life, is the fight within our own societies. The fight between those who see life as a selfish pursuit and those who see life as being about community and the betterment of all.

We are in a "down cycle" and we could lose that fight, just as we could have lost the world during the cold war, but we could also persevere and still make even better societies. I believe it is still as possible as it ever was.

screwed American society up with all the selfish greedy live for today way of thinking. :-(

I could just as easily start talking about all of the young adults I know that think everything is about them, personally - that everything has to be fun or they could just give a shit, that showing up to class/work/appointments on time is optional, that their mere presence is somehow a gift and any actual effort is to be met with exaltations of gratitude, that complete sentences and a minimum of effort warrant an A, etc.

post-war. we (the vietnam generation) said the same in the 60s. the reagan youth said the same in the 80s.

yet here we are.

each generation thinks history begins with them; no one ever knew what they know, no one ever saw as far as they see; their elders are deluded, compromised fools.

"tomorrow belongs to me!?"

thinks that the younger generation is headed for hell in a hand basket. With the 50s, it was the beatniks and rock 'n' roll and Elvis. With the 60s it was the hippies and rock 'n' roll and The Beatles.

Somehow we manage to keep plodding along, and extraordinary individuals like Steve Jobs (and Wozniak) and Bill Gates and Barack Obama pop up, and the world gets better and better.

We need to keep reminding ourselves of that or we will be awash in a sea of depressing despair.

There's hope out there. It's always darkest just before the dawn.

Of course it will never be the same. Who'd want it to be? THESE are the good old days (whether you believe it or not).

thinks history began with them.

and it's true.

And not if they listen to their parents. My parents lived through the Great Depression with a child to raise. I listened, and listened good, and have never been sorry.

I never thought history began with me, and I'm sure that my (twenty-something) progeny, being a student of history, doesn't, either.

It is true that every generation tends to decry the actions (or inactions) of the next, but somehow, those young'uns pull themselves together and march forward.

i'm not. just pointing out a truism.

studying history is no remedy for the syndrome i describe.

I don't believe that's a "truism," based on my own experience (and that of my family). And it does sound like a decrying of the thoughts of youth, if not their actions.

I always respected my parents. I never considered them deluded OR compromised OR fools. My father became the sole breadwinner of his family (his mother and three siblings) at the age of fourteen. Then his married sister's husband left her and she came home with three children and he took care of them, too. It would never have occurred to me to feel anything but admiration and respect for him.

Do you think he considered his elders as "deluded, compromised fools"? Do you think he thought history began with him? No. He knew better. So did I.

human nature at work again.

I wouldn't trust the government to wipe it's own ass, let alone give another ten trillion dollars to our corporate overlords over the next ten years.

The US Congress (regardless of who is in the majority) does not equal progressive, or even good for America. They are all shoveling the money into their districts by selling their votes. We could have had affordable universal health care a long time ago, but all we got was pork.

http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/passionate-plea-from-asia-35424


We are now the laughing stock of Asia. Our dollars are no longer respected; our ambitions, no longer mimicked.

Our way of life, often based on consuming far beyond our means, is being flat-out rejected.

I can’t even exchange a $100 bill on the street here anymore: Most of the street money changers will take euros, Singapore dollars, even Chinese yuan. But fearful of losing their shirt with sinking exchange rates, they don’t want U.S. dollars.

Not long ago, I never traveled without my American Express card. Now, it sits in my office safe. Many in Asia no longer accept the card anymore. MasterCard and Visa are still OK, but they’re also losing market share to locally grown cards like Aeon.

The running joke in Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur is that the U.S. is the place where even your pet could get a credit card or a home mortgage.

So to Asians, the crisis we’re going through is our own fault. And although it was also caused by blunders in Western Europe and other regions, truth be told, they are mostly right.



Bottom line:

Even assuming they can save 5 percent of their income year after year … and even assuming every single penny of their savings is thrown into the pot … in order to pay off the U.S. government’s debts and obligations, each American family — and descendents — would have to toil for the next 429 years.

Problem is, we haven’t borrowed all that money from ourselves. We’ve borrowed more than half of the outstanding national debt from overseas investors, who now fund fully 50 percent of our debt addiction.

But now …

America’s foreign creditors are haunted by the spectacle of Washington’s spending binge and are starting to recoil in horror.

That’s why in April, U.S. bond purchases by foreign central banks plunged 41 percent from the month before, while purchases by foreign private investors dropped 7 percent. All in a single month!

Life is largely what you make of it. I decided a long time ago that it's too short for me to spend it dwelling on some fantasy about how things could have, should have, would have been. Particularly about things over which I have no control.

young americans either know this and/or sense this. and are living lives of flexibility.

As has always been true, youth is wasted on the young.

:kick:

Sorry, but I consider all of this as a PRIME opportunity for several things:

1) A sea change AGAINST all things corporate and building the economy from the ground up. We can make corporate American so out of favor that it becomes obsolete and we recognize it for the pariah that it is.

2) We've been WAY too greedy with virtual unlimited wealth and consumption. It's long been time to cut back on our naked and unfettered consumerism and get back to rebuilding, reusing and recycling.

3) Hopefully, enough people will become disgusted with BOTH corporate parties and start looking at alternatives.

4) Maybe, just maybe, it will force us to engage in more conservation as we can no longer buy new stuff when the old stuff breaks down.

5) We can get back to neighborhood-based community, helping each other when there is need instead of looking for some charitable or government or corporate entity to come and save us.

6) I still believe America has the world's greatest minds because we have the richness of so many different cultures which means different ideas and perspectives. We haven't lost our innovation, it's just been buried by corporatism and we've allowed that to happen. Americans have always been able to build a better mouse trap so to speak and I don't believe we've lost that ability. We just became lazy for awhile.

Instead of gnashing our teeth and whining, "Oh, woah is me, things ain't what they used to be" maybe we can ask ourselves, "What am I doing to help in the rebuilding?"

I don't think I've ever lived in a world things were all that great...

But you're right about about the flexibility thing. It's just not the same as it was when I was in my twenties.