Is this what it's like to live in a totalitarian regime?

[Poiuyt]

I've been trying to sort through my feelings the last few days. When Bush came out with his arrogant press conference the other day claiming that he felt he earned "political capital," I started to think, is this what it was like to live in Stalin's Russia? As long as he controls both houses of Congress (and they will rubber stamp everything he asks for) as well as the Supreme Court, what can we do? He doesn't have to worry about being re-elected so he doesn't have to think about his popularity. He will push through his agenda without any thought whatsoever to bipartisanship. It's like he is finally getting the dictatorship that he's always wanted.

I am consoled by the fact that the mood of the people and the government always swings like a pendulum. It may be far to the conservative side right now, but who knows where it will be in four years. I feel by that time there will be a reaction to the right wing ideologues and people will want a change. It's too early for us to talk about making the Democratic Party more moderate or more liberal, because we don't know what the mood of the country will be like. I'm guessing that it will be significantly different than right now.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. You are correct.

The mood will be quite different. By 2006.

[2Design]

2. they will vote in a change that allows a president to run many more

terms - now that they control the government

[Maat]

3. My thoughts exactly.

(P.S. I may have gone a little overboard in my e-mail to my pro-Bush in-laws today - hope my hubby of 20+ doesn't divorce me - just kidding, I think).

It is hard to control the sad and angry feelings.

[teryang]

4. Yes n/t

[Nimrod]

5. Read or watch "Animal Farm"

The similarites to current times in America will make your stomach turn. You can draw parallels to almost every sentence.

[glitch]

6. Not yet - we're still in it's infancy. This is what it's like to be the

parents of Ted Bundy at age 5. He's at the killing the neighborhood pets, and we're thinking of getting concerned.

[puddycat]

15. and while were inside that analogy--think of * as Bundy

[glitch]

19. oh trust me - I do! nt

[FloridaPat]

16. I agree. I went to Russia after the collapse of communism.

People had to travel with their passport everywhere, even to the next town. People that critized the government went to Siberia. Actually not a bad place. Art and archetecture were boring. State sponsored TV with good things for you.

We probably won't get the chance. I have a feeling the rest of the world is going to butt in and stop supporting our dollar. You are better off comparing this to Germany before WW2 when their economy collapsed.

[glitch]

20. Absolutely agreed. I was also in Russia after the collapse of communism

It'll be Germany 30s here very soon. The promise of Kerry was the one small bandage we had to prevent the hemorrhage, and we just ripped it off.

[bulls9999]

7. So much for uniting the parties in bipartisanship

I don't understand why the 'great uniter' theme wasn't brought out more in the election...wasn't that one of Bush's campaign themes, that he'd heal and unite the parties because 'that's what he did in Texas' when he was governor? What a sham. And his current claim of 'political capital' wreaks of dictating policy to all. By the way, did anyone see the news conference where he talked about 'political capital'? It almost reminds me of one where he was asked to explain 'sovereignty'..."you know, a country has sovereignty because...its...its...sovereign".

[gordianot]

8. It started with a George and has now ended with a George.

I see no hope we can all "Rest in War". Wonder how you become one of the Republican elite? Would not want to be just a voter, but a member of the ruling elite.

Could almost be sympathetic to Quisling.......Sarcasm off

[kittenpants]

9. no, we wouldn't be able to discuss this

or do anything about it. We CAN do something about it by getting the word out into the remaining press the dubya doesn't yet own.

[gordianot]

18. I think you are there now.

They do not have enough of the electorate to enforce blatant violent repression (yet). There is safety in numbers. Know how much it costs to house a body humanely. The prisons are full now of real criminals. Concentration camps just are not yet feasible. Bush made himself clear what he thought of his opponents when he reached out at his news conference. You think you or your Democratic legislator has a chance in the New Washington. Think again. They cannot make concentration camps that big. We know there are at least 50 million of us all told.

Probably the funniest aspect to this was Berliners in the 1930's and 1940's actually supported Hitler. Our current thugs have problems with the population in D.C.. They are outnumbered.

[Blecht]

10. It doesn't matter what the mood of the country is

As long as we do not have a free, adversarial press in our country, the opposition to corporatism, no matter how large it may become, will be ignored.

Millions can march in cities all over the country. It will make as much of a difference as the millions who marched against the war did. We will be pooh-poohed on TV and in the print media.

If a miracle happened and we somehow managed to become too effective, and we started to scare the corporatists who now have a firm grasp on the country, they would label us enemy combatants and squash us like bugs.

This isn't the normal swinging of a pendulum -- believing that is like believing in the tooth fairy. We are living in a corporatist state, and it's only going to get worse.

[gordianot]

22. I had just about abandoned DU.

No matter how disgusting it gets I find that many of the people here are part of the "reality based world" as defined by the neocons (This is the only contribution I appreciate from the neocons). You sir or madam sound to me like a "realist".

This is not the normal swing.

Just when I was about to give up on DU.

[LTRS]

11. No, no, no!

"It's too early for us to talk about making the Democratic Party more moderate or more liberal, because we don't know what the mood of the country will be like."

Why, oh why do we think we have to flit and flutter with every changing political wind that blows? The problem with the party is that it seems to think it should change, change, change everytime a new fad comes along. Bullshit. Our job is to set out our core principles, stick to them, and develop a message that brings people to the party. This idea that we should mimick the current fashion is precisely why folks don't vote for dems in massive numbers like they would if we stuck to our principles.

[Spiffarino]

12. Yes

The votes don't count unless you actually count the votes.

The Repubs have rigged the system. Democracy in the U.S. is over.

[wtmusic]

13. Not yet--but hubris grows like a weed

we need to pull it out by the roots

[PATRICK]

14. In a soft stage way

In other countries someone, some paper, some mob rages. The troops go go out. The thugs. In ours it is marked by befuddled cowardice and inanity.

Lukewarm totalitarianism with a dumb and lazy dictator.

The UPS Teamsters, unlike our union can strike. They are not as unlikely to strike as we are because they have too good to sacrifice. They go through the motions. Come close. Maybe a partial strike.

All the resistance in this nation has the life and thought sapped out of it. We have decent committed people all the way up sunk in inertia and can't imagine doing anything. The level of speeches and bluster at best. There are no worthy national forums, specialized smaller ones, drowning too in inertia compared to their counterparts in other nations.

In Germany they got around to going after you. Shutting you down. Making you wear uniforms, inform on each other, indoctrinate your children, march to war. It will increase lazily here because their fear is letting this fallow field breed resistance. They will scorch the land of rights and liberties. They will enslave bodies and minds. They have to no matter even what they say or think now- even though as dictators go they are fairly lazy and bland as well. Believe me, more deadly and ambitious scorpions are watching this debacle too.

[JanMichael]

17. Funny you should ask!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2617378

[Crunchy Frog]

21. It isn't yet. He hasn't really gotten started yet

But I'm convinced that it will begin to feel more and more that way over the next several months as he begins to really move on his agenda.

He was held in check somewhat before (and look what he did when he was still held in check), by the fact that he didn't have a popular mandate, he had more opposition in Congress, and he had to worry about his reelection. He has none of those things now. We just barely have the numbers in Congress to stop some of his worst plans, but I doubt enough of them will have the backbone to stand up to him.

We're going to see some really scarey shit going down over the next four years, some of which we probably can't even imagine. These people are totalitarians in their basic outlook.