I can't take it any more. The United States no longer exists.

[Pryderi]

[GrumpyGreg]

1. Calm down !

[toymachines]

2. not in the form it once was

but then again, what lasts forever...

[SpiralHawk]

3. Yes, but Turtle Island is still here

And will remain. Rooted deeply. Ready for the healing.

[SpiralHawk]

9. Coyote and Earthmaker

Coyote and Earthmaker were blowing around in the swirl of things. Coyote finally had enough of this aimlessness and said "Earthmaker, find us a world!" Earthmaker tried to get out of it, tried to excuse himself, because he knew that a world can only mean trouble.

"But Coyote nagged him into trying. So leaning over the surface of the vast waters, Earthmaker called up Turtle. After a long time Turtle surfaced, and Earthmaker said "Turtle, can you get me a bit of mud? Coyote wants a world."

"A world" said Turtle, "Why bother. Oh well." And down she dived. She went down and down and down, to the bottom of the sea. She took a great gob of mud, and started swimming toward the surface. As she spiraled and paddled upward, the streaming water washed the mud from the sides of her mouth, from the back of her mouth—and by the time she reached the surface (the trip took six years) nothing was left but one grain of dirt between the tips of her beak.

"That’ll be enough!" said Earthmaker, taking it in his hands and giving it a pat like a tortilla. Suddenly Coyote and Earthmaker were standing on a piece of ground as big as a tarp. Then Earthmaker stamped his feet, and they were standing on a flat wide plain of mud. The ocean was gone. They stood on the land. They stood on Turtle Island.

(Gary Snyder, 1995, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, Sessions, ed.)

[Jara sang]

14. What is "Turtle Island"?

[SpiralHawk]

21. North America

From Panama on down to Tierra del Fuego is it different, known another way: Tsywatsunyo.

[Jara sang]

23. That's interesting.

The ancient Hawaiians saw the earth as a turtle. Their word for "earth" is Honua; "sea turtle" is honu.

[MrBenchley]

4. Good news.

I looked out the window. It's still here.

[ClintonTyree]

6. Hey, MrBenchley.

How you doing? How's Bob?

[MrBenchley]

7. Bob is drying out in the woods....

He should be giving us another dose of "jenius" sometime soon.

[ClintonTyree]

10. I pity the woods.........

I'm looking forward to his next "sighting" with bated breath. Take care! :hi:

[MrBenchley]

13. LOL!

[ClintonTyree]

5. The Corporate States of America............

pretty much sums it up.

[Pryderi]

8. "The best defense of democracy is an informed electorate."

- Thomas Jefferson

It ain't workin'.

[ClintonTyree]

11. We're screwed..........

the average Americans exposure to the "news" is a 10 second sound-byte. Our citizens are woefully ignorant of what's going on in our country. :cry:

[Peace Patriot]

20. I don't agree. I'm convinced Americans are fairly well informed and are

not "sheeple." The issue polls over the last several years reveal a great progressive American majority that disagrees with every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70% range. You name it. The Iraq war (58% opposed it, in Feb. 03, before the invasion--even before all the lies were exposed--so they didn't trust Bush even then.) Torturing prisoners (63% opposed "under any circumstances"--a very strong position, despite all the fear-mongering). The deficit (90%!). Social Security. Women's rights. Etc.

And this is not even to mention Bush's approval ratings--so low before the election that Zoggy said he couldn't win--and running at 40% or less for most the years since the 2004 "election."

Ergo: What we have here is NOT a stupid, uninformed majority. What we have is a demoralized, disempowered, and, above all, DISENFRANCHISED majority.

On only two things has this great progressive American majority been successfully fooled or brainwashed:

1) Many of them don't know they are the majority--because TV, radio and print news & comment are giving a Big Trumpet to the rightwing, way out of proportion to their numbers. The progressive majority HAS succumbed to that ILLUSION of rightwing hegemony.

2) They don't know that two Bushite corporations are controlling nearly all vote tabulation in the country, using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Again, it's the corporate news monopolies--who have black-holed this story, so that it's taking a long, word-of-mouth (and internet) campaign to get people informed. The Democratic leadership is also at fault--there are many corrupt Dem election officials who have bought into the $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle (appropriated by Tom Delay's Congress).

It is VERY IMPORTANT to progressive strategy to CORRECTLY DIAGNOSE the problem. This kneejerk cry of pain that Americans are ignorant or are "sheeple" is not very helpful. Those who utter this cry are THEMSELVES succumbing to the corporate news media illusion. SOME Americans are ignorant. And some are sheep. But the overwhelming evidence is that the majority are neither thing. And getting that majority RE-enfranchised--that is, getting these Bushite corporations out of our election system, and restoring election TRANSPARENCY--should be our first priority.

[Peace Patriot]

22. On "The United States no longer exists." The democratic ideals of the

United States will continue to exist as long as the people of the United States believe in them. WE are the sovereign power in this country--not Bush or any president, not Congress, not the courts, nor the police nor the military nor anyone else. We, the People. Our vote is the mechanism of our sovereignty. That mechanism for exercising our sovereignty has been taken away--by deliberate design of the Bush junta, and by the corruption or complicity of many of our election officials and elected representatives.

We have a window of opportunity in the next several years, to get it back. Power over election systems still resides with state/local jurisdictions, where ordinary people still have some influence. There are strong grass roots movements, now, in many states, to throw these Bushite electronic voting systems out, and recover election transparency and our right to vote--and there have been victories in Florida, Calif, New York, New Mexico, North Carolina, Washington state and other places.

The reality of 2004 election fraud is now hitting even Republican commentators. Check out this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x181974

And here's an amazing transcript of recent doings at a San Fernando Valley (Calif) Dem meeting--a rebellion against electronic voting:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x409746

Some resources:

www.votersunite.org
www.verfiedvoting.org
www.UScountvotes.org
www.freepress.org
www.TruthIsAll.net
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml

Form a picture in your mind of an old black woman, who has seen a lot in her life, and is nobody's fool, standing in line for five hours in Ohio to vote-- on a Bushite-controlled electronic voting machine that changes her vote from Kerry to Bush. She knows Bush is a fascist. She knows that he wants to use her children and grandchildren as cannon fodder. She knows why she can't pay her medical bills and her gas heating oil bills, and can't ever get ahead. She even knows that elections are probably rigged. But she doesn't know how they do it--that it is SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code run by Bushites--and that, with enough pressure on local officials, the mechanism of her disenfranchisement can be CHANGED. It can be overthrown. The answer is right in front of her--but she doesn't know.

Do it for HER. Spread the word. Join the election reform movement. Educate the public. Pressure public officials. Americans are not ignorant. They are not stupid. They are DISENFRANCHISED. And many have yet to learn HOW that happened. Tell them! DO something about it!

And once we have restored transparent elections in this country, you will see a revolution like we have never seen before.

[RagingInMiami]

12. Things have to get worse for them to get better

It's the only way for our country to progress. We're a young country so growing pains are expected. Unfortunately, we're the generation that is dealing with it.

It might take a few years, but one day the general masses are going to snap, and we will undergo a political revolution. I'm not saying it will be violent, but it will surely ensure that our political system goes through a serious renovation.

I think we need to go through this before the general masses understand the importance of national health care, the irrationality of banning gay marriage and the dangers of giving corporations too much power.

So don't give up because history is going to show there were those that accepted the repression and those that stood up and fought.

[Pryderi]

15. I don't know what I'll do if Repugs run all 3 branches for 4 more years

[RagingInMiami]

18. Fight, but fight smart

Try to avoid getting sent to Guantanamo.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

16. Okay, sit down.

Get a paper bag and breathe into it. Then get some ice cream or something. You need carbs!

Next, turn on Sponge Bob.

Then don't watch any news for two weeks.

[Lexingtonian]

17. not true

But yes, the Right half of the political spectrum has finally gone over from living and preaching a perverted, Confederatized, version of the Constitution to a Crisis Of Faith.

What's so perceptible at the moment is the political bottom falling out of the social center for 30-some years, the moderate Republicans. They're paralyzed and chickenhearted now, stuck between the fear of Change (aka The Terrorists and Social Equality) and inviability/dissolution of continuing the Rightist corruption of governance and Constitution.

[endarkenment]

19. Sorry but the OP is correct.

We now live in a facade of a constitutional republic. The reality is that the republic is dead and we have in its place a one party system. The Bush Cabal has gained control over all three branches of the government. They have, through a corrupt alliance with various large corporations, gained control over mass media. They have learned how to manipulate national elections to assure that they will not lose control over either the executive of legislative branches. Finally, they have announced, through the vehicle of the purposefully revealed NSA domestic spying scandal, that, in our permanent war on terror, the executive branch is above all laws and beyond constitutional restraints.

We can pretend that this is not so, but we do so by living in a state of denial. Our republic is gone, replaced by a corporate kleptocracy, a new modern fascism welding together religious intolerance and corporate corruption and using skillful mass media propaganda, rather than brute force, to keep us confused and pacified. Until we accept reality, until we deal with the situation as it is, we will not be successful.