Rant time....watched Inconvenient Truth last night - this will be convoluted, but...

[NRaleighLiberal]

Bear with me - the last 6 years has certainly been surreal. Having not really taken an interest in politics until the * election theft, this is all sort of new to me - how to discuss what are very personal, hard-to-clarify and organize thoughts on what I've observed over that time span. I've posted quite a lot here, but much of it is fairly brief, various responses to others' excellent posts. So bear with me - there is a big, scary picture forming that I just have to get out - so here goes...

We watched most of Inconvenient Truth last night (we stopped it due to exhaustion, just got back from a business trip, can't wait to return to it tonight - as a scientist myself, I found it just incredibly gripping and terrifying). A few impressions - that Al Gore is a good man, a very bright and caring man, and the way that the movie portrayed the election theft made us just incredibly sad for him, and, especially, our country - and the world. My wife and I are 50-ish - we've been fortunate to live a life where kids could be kids, where we could play outside all day and evening, our moms could call down the street to gather us for dinner. We've had 26 years of a wonderful friendship and marriage - we are each other's best friends, we have great hobbies - I worry about our two 20-ish daughters and what the world looks like to them today, and what it will look like, using so many parmeters, the environment being only one of our many concerns.

OK - so I juxtaposed the images from that movie with what I've seen in the news recently as to the behavior of our misleader, his reaction to the report, the way that the media and various talking heads are continually forgetting things that happened just yesterday, covering for the ineptitude and criminality of the misadministration. How can we possibly be talking about how he just could be the worst president in history - how can we hear Lee Hamilton state that Iraq could be utterly lost in not months, but perhaps weeks or days - then the idiot says that he needs to process other reports, we will hear back next month, etc - sure it is arrogance, but much worse than that - it is utter disrespect for humanity. There is more outrage, sure - but how possibly can this man be allowed to preside over our country with such clear and obvious failure, blood on his hands, with no hope for anything but more and more blood as we continue with the failure that was the irresponsible decision to go there in the first place?

Then that took me to the fact that if this is indeed happening, there just must be other factors involved, other forces that are keeping him there - this is not tin foil hat time, it is just inconceiveable that an 8 year utter disaster in all respects was allowed to, and will continue to be allowed to, unfold and create the kind of damage that it is doing.....

Can anyone at all make any sense at all of what we are seeing, if we take a big step back and consider the big picture?????? I certainly cannot.

Thanks for "listening" ...can't say I feel any better, but one must go on.

[SutaUvaca]

1. There is a "bigness" about the picture, I agree.

And hello from the far end of NC to you in Raleigh. I have also been aware for some time of that sense that the big picture, (including Chumpster and gang, their ineptitude, their criminal enterprises, their callous bloody playing with lives all over the world, and including all that Al Gore's film depicts), the big picture seems like a tide at times. Something coming that can't be stopped. The mid term elections provide a glimpse of hope. But I do have a nagging sense that some monumental forces are pushed beyond what can or will be recovered significantly, and so that tide will be released. Some days I can live in the moment, and within my smaller sphere, and spend 24 hours with only delight. But often I return to that sense of foreboding. I do what I can to spread delight (art and music) but I stock up in case of calamity.

[sam sarrha]

2. Occam's raxzor... he "Hears the VOICES".. literally.. he hears voices, he is insane and others are

making a lot of money off his insanity.. he is removing the restrictions on LEAD pollution in the air.. he has removed every environmental law restricting pollution since the 60's.. he is buying support for his insanity..

he 'HEARS VOICES' ..gOD told him to invade Iraq, he must stay the course to appease gOD.. remember when he was a Wet Brain Drunken Alcoholic Drug Addict during a DT hallucination he made a deal with gOD, that is why he cant back down on Iraq or invading Iran-syria..etc etc. it is gods will and he will rather die than fail his gOD.

he will do ANYTHING to continue doing what the 'Voices' have told him, and the Fascist Corporate system is milking him dry ..

and as for the stolen elections.. well, i am afraid that if we fix the machines and the process they will just start assassinating the opposition again like in the past, Bobby Kennedy was assinated so Nixon would be president and continue the war. if we dont get control of the media and make it actually fair an ballanced... we are lost, we will all have numbers tattooed on our arms.. or chips in our neck

[jwirr]

5. I think that *ss was the old order taking a last gasping breathe.

As to the future, I think we have our work cut out for us. There are some areas where things have gone too far and will change the world no matter what we do but in that change we have choices to make and they need to be made with the advice and consent of the people or they will not work. So we start doing what can be done with only the house and senate in our hands and we educate the people. Al Gore is doing much of that for us. We need to make sure the movie is seen by as many as possible.

I have had that bad feeling ever since I read a history on the rise of Hitler and realized that some of the same tactics were being used by *ss & Co. After the 06 election the feeling is lightening. There are things we can do to move this country in the right direction: end the media monopoly, fix the voting process, investigate the fraud, support renewable energy and restore our constitution to it's per-*ss glory.

I refuse to give up but like many I am stocking up for that emergency.

[solara]

3. I am glad you spoke up and shared your feelings here

You are not alone. I have a similar history to yours and I agree with your points. And yes, one must go on.

But the "big picture" looms and it is inexplicable how this maladjusted and possibly psychotic 'Leader of the Free World" has remained in his position of power so long.

Everytime I step back and take a look I am filled with a terrible sense of fatalism. I know that the tide is turning, but it is going to take so very much to undo all the damage the Bush cabal has perpetrated.

What really confuses me is how the 'conservatives', the neo-cons, the pundits, and the RW radical psycho-phants can continue to enable Bush II knowing FULL WELL the harm they are doing to the world and to themselves and especially to the future of their children and grandchildren. It cannot be that we progressives have some kind of supernatural vision, that we somehow see things that conservatives cannot see.

What ARE they thinking?

[KoKo]

4. You've come to the realization like many of us

that there is a "power behind the powers" that are responsible for this.

You've realized that your lifelong hope and belief that there were Republicans and Democrats with intergrity who would always "safeguard" us against abuses and corruption has now been totally dashed because NO ONE has stopped these people.

You've realized that something has been wrong in America for a long time to have allowed this all to culminate in the mis-administration of Bush II. You've realized that our Media has enabled this...that Corporations have somehow gone wild and are writing our laws and dismantling safeguards that were put in place over decades to protect us from abuses.

You wonder why more folks don't see this.... And, sometimes it's just overwhelming trying to find an answer.

Yep....know exactly what you say....