We're still living in the dark ages.

[Cyrano]

Every once in a while a da Vinci, a Mozart, a Newton, an Einstein, or a Fermi comes along and fools us into thinking mankind has advanced. But it's a sham. Humanity has never left the dark ages.

Look around at those who control "The greatest country in the history of the world." It's being run by barbarians and thieves who who don't believe in stem cell research, contraception, privacy, individual rights, or liberty. They specialize in corruption and war and they squander wealth on weaponry. They believe in torture, murder and keeping the peasants living in terror.

Edmund Burke said, "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." I believe most people are good, yet we have done almost nothing. (Our enemies couldn't care less about petitions, phone barrages, faxes, marches, or rallies. Like Mao, they believe that "Power comes out of the barrel of a gun.")

One thing we can all do is be sure to vote this November. And if they steal it again, it will be necessary that we do even more.

(edited for grammar)

[sam sarrha]

1. that is why the Buddhists call it "Samsara", world of suffering, it never

changes.. it is what was, what is, and what will always be.. the Noble Eight Fold Path is the way out of suffering: rebirth, old age, suffering and death,..rebirth, etc, etc, etc....

[genie_weenie]

2. When can we bury the mantra, 'Your vote matters!' because it doesn't

You even admit as much in your post. On the Federal and even State level your vote doesn't mean anything. (I will grant community/local level one person can have a large impact.)

One thing we can all do is be sure to vote this November. And if they steal it again, it will be necessary that we do even more.

Do even more what? Those in power will always find ways to retain power, sure nowadays it's more fraud and less outright murder of citizens, but those in government will ensure they remain in power.

Who controls the voting? Who sets the conditions? Who tailors the results? Who has decided the outcome before the first ballot is cast?

If men are good, then they need no rulers. If men are bad, then governments of men, composed of men, will also be bad - and probably worse, due to the State's amplification of coercive power.

[bdamomma]

3. non violent action to a point but

when it comes to us and they do threatened our lives, I believe the non violent stance must be abandoned.

[Gregorian]

4. I believe humans are a medium.

I like your post. Sometimes I wonder if anyone but us on this forum ever think of anything but themselves. Reading a post about Rove, I think he and those like him never see anything past their own noses. Whether it's torture, or just being greedy while there are people they could be helping with our hard earned tax money.

Each person is a medium for whatever they choose. Good or evil. Anyone can be anything. Hitler wanted to be an art student. I honestly think that we are affected by each other, and that each human has their limit. In retrospect, it is impossible to think Hitler was anything but evil. But I think that his path could have been very different. And not unlike his evil, once people like Cheney go over to the other side, it's like any habit, they get hooked. We all start out good. How we end up is our own responsibility. But our experiences do shape us to the degree to which we can be independent of them.

Evil is still the same evil it was from the very first day we arrived here. Throwing Christians to lions is the same as waterboarding an Iraqi civilian.

I also believe that each act is connected. This is a double edged sword. And it is also what we must resist, if it is bad. Had Hitler resisted the invitation to speak at those meetings, he might not have felt the surge of success that led him down the road to murder. But where this is leading my post here is that today we are facing something new. There is a new phenomenon. Our numbers. In the 1800's there were a billion people. Forests were still forests, not factories. There were no asphalt roads with cars. We are now seven billion, and combined with that we have increased our interactions through communication technologies and high energy generation. The communications have brought us together. But the use of resources has repelled us.

Let me just say this- Try to find a peaceful place on this planet. This is something that I think is going to cause more people to turn into evil people. That's all. As we depart from a natural world, a quiet world, we will see more problems. It will be more difficult to resist sliding into the evil reality.

We have introduced a new phenomenon into this equation. Now we are only 100 years into it. And look where we are.

[Jim Warren]

5. Pretty much right on

Free thought is suspect, science is under siege, the constitution in shreds and ideas of beauty itself twisted into ugliness.

The thought occurred to me last night that bushco's tanking poll numbers probably doesn't register a rat's ass with these thugs. I remember that shit when junior supposedly told that person "nobody cares what you think" and they are lameduck coasting downhill all the way to the end of the term.
Shit, they probably feel they can do anything and no one can stop them.

[mrcheerful]

6. The problem isn't that good people are doing nothing, good people are

fighting them every day but no one listens to the good man when the rich man pulls the pug on the microphone. We are living in times where the children and grand children of those who watched the pukes sink this great land into the greatest depression of all times refused to believe what those who lived in the 20's and 30's said about pukes and they bought into the puke lie machine. If you are old enough to remember the Nixon running platform you would have seen how Nixon and MSM mislead the country by blaming the anti war protesters on dems. Look how Nixon used the Chicago police riot to lunch his law and order BS speech.

Fear and scare tactics have been used by pukes for a long time, remember it was a Dem that said "we have nothing to fear but fear itself". Those days are long gone, the 50's and 60's all we heard was the commies are going to invade america, so we put god into the pledge and on the money to stop commies from invading. :sarcasm: Its not about good people anymore its about people living in fear thats allowing this to happen.