Many Older Dems who are on DU...thought we could be here and Make Progress

[KoKo]

Instead it seems we are in "Rewind" of our lives...us oldies who lived through that disgusting POS WAR in Vietnam!

We look on our life as one GREAT STRIVING for RIGHTS...African American Rights, Women's Rights, Children's Rights, Environmental Rights, Truth in Lending, Children's Television to be Educating more than Entertainment, Clean Water, Clean Air and Truth in Advertising.

In my lifetime I've seen EVERYTHING that WE AS YOUNG FOLKS SUPPORTED ...TRASHED! By Reagan, Poppy I and (Status Quo with bad stuff from Clinton) and now the "Screaming Chimp" who has more Psychological Problems with his Past than Freud had time to do Research.

Some of us hoped to "pass on the torch" to others...but the Repug Criminals like a gang of thugs took the torch from us as they knifed us in the back...and we still waited thinking the Bulk of WHAT WE TRIED TO DO...WOULD STAND...LEGALLY,MORALLY and FINANCIALLY.

It's hard to see what our Life's work was...start to go to ASHES/DUST....BLOWN AWAY!

I think of Bruce Springsteen's "BLOWN AWAY" as to what many of us older Dems are feeling these days.

It's Blown AWAY!

Respectfully, Koko

-------------------

LYRICS to "BLOWN AWAY!"

MY OKLAHOMA HOME©
Album's version

When they opened up the strip I was young and full of zip
I wanted some place to call my home
And so I made the race and I staked me out a place
And settled down along the Cimarron

It blowed away (blown away), it blowed away (blown away)
My Oklahoma home, it blown away
Well it looked so green and fair when I built my shanty there
My Oklahoma home, it blown away

Well I planted wheats and oats, got some chickens and some shoats
Aimed to have some ham and eggs to feed my face
Got a mule to pull the plow, I got an old red muley cow
And I also got a fancy mortgage on this place

Well it blowed away (blown away), it blowed away (blown away)
All the crops that I've planted blown away
Well you can't grow any grain if you ain't got any rain
Everything except my mortgage blown away

Come on!

Well it looked so green and fair when I built my shanty there
I figured I was all set for life
I put on my Sunday best with my fancy scalloped vest
Then I went to town to pick me out a wife

She blowed away (blown away), she blowed away (blown away)
My Oklahoma woman blown away
Mr as I bent to kiss her, she was picked up by a twister
My Oklahoma woman blown away

Well then I was left alone just listening to the moan
Of the wind around the corners of my shack
So I took off down the road, yeah, when the south wind blowed
I traveled with the wind upon my back

I blowed away (blown away), I blowed away (blown away)
Chasin' that dust cloud up ahead
Well once it looked so green and fair and now it's up in the air
My Oklahoma farm is over head

Come on!

And now I'm always close to home, it don't matter where I roam
For Oklahoma dust is everywhere
Makes no difference where I'm walkin', I can hear my chickens squawkin'
I can hear my wife a-talking in the air

It blowed away (blown away), it blowed away (blown away)
Yeah my Oklahoma home is blown away
But my home Sir, is always near, it's up here in the atmosphere
My Oklahoma home is blown away

Come on!

Well I'm a roam'n Oklahoman but I'm always close to home
And I'll never get homesick until I die
'Cause no matter where I'm found, my home's all around
My Oklahoma home is in the sky

It blowed away (blown away), it blowed away (blownd away)
And my farm down on Cimarron
But now all around the world wherever the dust is swirled
There is some from my Oklahoma home

It blowed away (blown away), it blowed away (blown away)
Yeah my Oklahoma home is blown away
Yeah it's up there in the sky in that dust cloud over n' by
My Oklahoma home is blown away

Yeah!

Let me see that horn now, thank you!

Come on one more time!

Well it's blown away (blown away), blown away (blown away)
Oh my Oklahoma home is blown away
Yeah it's up there in the sky in that dust cloud over n' by
My Oklahoma home is the sky

Yeah!
http://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics/m/myoklahomahome.php

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. history repeating itself

except the present population of the USA is generally apathetic. At least in the old days people didn't seem to swallow it all. Perhaps it is the problem of the media these days?

[superkia]

14. America needs a president that will speak the truth of whats going on.

Even if the congress were to fight what that president was about, I believe an honest president speaking FOR the people would fight the apathy and people would stand up again. If we continue to elect the same type of career politicians that don't speak for us, America will continue to ignore the system and let the cards fall where ever the government puts them. I think that Americans need a voice to get them excited and willing to try, the way the career politicians spin everything to sound like its in our benefit and then go support the wealthy and corporations, just seems to destroy everyones hope.

Until we adjust our thinking and how and who we vote for, the career politicians will continue to do what they have been doing and destroy our country while preserving their way of life. If a candidate is more interested in talking points instead of hitting the issues straight on, I don't believe that they are strong enough to stand against the corruption and speak for Americans.

A vote for the lesser of the evils is a vote for evil. Everyone knows that Americans will be voting in a democrat but its up to everyone to find the candidate that is our voice. We need representation more than anything else.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

50. I wish we could find a President that would represent us

[Skidmore]

59. America needs citizens who will get off their collective asses and elect

people who represent them. Those people get into office because the majority of Americans DO NOT VOTE. They do not participate. And those who opt to play the game. We've seen it here.

[sandnsea]

2. And then there's Jena

Yeah, what have we accomplished really.

:shrug:

[BrklynLiberal]

3. The ring of truth.....

:cry:

[GoneOffShore]

4. You have expressed my frustration exactly!

I look at the current crop of Dem congress critters and Presidential candidates and see very few who have the interests of the country at heart. They aren't concerned with the welfare of citizens, but the welfare of corporations. Of course, most of the residents of this country aren't really concerned with the common weal but rather with consumer goods.

It's time we begin to concentrate on being citizens and stop focusing on being consumers.

Citizens do, consumers consume.

[KharmaTrain]

5. What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

Despite it all...we're still standing and still fighting. Who says they have the last word...if anything we're on the verge of coming back stronger than ever. While things are a "shit sandwich" now, consider where we've been and the larger and larger numbers that stand for all the issues we do. Just think of how big of a hole we were in a couple years ago...where the country is then and now.

We still have big battles to wage, but our targets are getting smaller. It's a corporate media that lives in a fishbowl and is disconnected with the people it attempts to profit from. It's a vocal minority that is now fighting a rear-guard action...losing the "hearts and minds" of the majority in this country...a true SILENT MAJORITY, that will make its voices heard in ballot boxes next year. Our job is to keep the faith and take the next step forward.

Cheers...

[bobbolink]

12. Yup. Never mind the dead.

:crazy:

[KoKo]

21. Kharma...maybe I'm a "glass half empty" type but that "split sandwich is molding" with the Repug

Rats eating more than their "fair share." :-(

[Raven]

6. I can't beieve that we allowed this to happen...awful, awful. awful!

With all we know...all we have experienced, how did we get to this? I never thought I might leave this world worse off than I found it. But that's how it's shaping up.

Edit for my crappy typing and spelling.

[KoKo]

22. What we failed to realize is that it was BEYOND anything WE could have Done...

and that we were just a "Blip in Time" and will go done in history books as a "movement" that "ultimately wasn't succesful." Sorry to be so very gloomy...but I'm very gloomy...having watched this for soooooolong....soooooolong.

[bobbolink]

7. Why is it that on all these lists, POVERTY isn't included?

Really, I REALLY want to know why that slips everyone's mind.

Can you please tell me?

[Cleita]

8. Right on.

Poverty should be at the top of everyone's list. We are only as good and as strong as the least among us. This is probably why we are in the fix we are in today. We ignored those least among us years ago and let the same people trample on them that are trampling on the rest of us today.

[bobbolink]

11. Thanks, Cleita. Yet, I doubt I'll get an answer.

We aren't even important enough to reply to.

[KoKo]

16. Because what so many of us grew up with would be Poverty in today's times!

Do you know what it was like to grow up without a dishwaher, Washer and Dryer...no TV but just a radio...and you didn't have a "checking account" much less some plastic credit card. You had a Sunday Best or Temple Best outfit you wore to those occasions and you had underwear (if you were female) bought at Woolworth's 5&10 cents store that was stamped and color coordinated to "Sunday thru Friday."

Your life was whatever Mom or Granma put on the table and you ate it and didn't complain. You made do...wore it out and figured that life would be better if you did your homework...

I don't want to sound like some Freeper E-Mail here...but I was just trying to say what so many of us grew up with. And, it's also not that many of us didn't grow up like Frat Boys and Sorority Girls with lots of privileges...but what were "privileges" back then were mostly family and not that you had a McMansion and a Plasma TV, an Ipod/I-Phone and a Credit Card to the Max with a leased Lexus.

There were just fewer STUFF we could get into! It was mostly SOCIAL as to which side of the Railroad Tracks you grew up on...whether you had an old "roller Dryer for your clothes" or had a Maid who Washed and Hand Rung them...or you Wrung out Your OWN! ...and whether the Maid washed your dishesor You washed them in the porcelain sink with Mom or Grandma while you talked with each other.

There's A LOT THAT'S COME FAST....

[bobbolink]

18. What a crazy defense for ignoring poverty!!

Really, that just about beats it all.

When you've been homeless for two years, and then find that "progressives" and "liberals" can't even think of POVERTY as important, then get back to me with your rant.

Until then, try to have a bit of compassion.

[truedelphi]

31. But it was a secure poverty - even in the situationyou describe

It would not be unusual for one of the parents to have one fourth their yearly income put aside in savings.

Cannot do that now - the reason people had savings then was that their income was so minimal that the government did not really tax it. In teh early 1950's, my dad saved one fourth of his yearly salary - I estimate he made like $ 5,500 a year and the tax tables let you off for under $ 350 on that.

Nowadays to have the same two bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood , you'd ahve to m,ake $ 70,000. The tax tables should have been re-configured inlight of inflation. But since that hasn't ahppened, that family with $ 70K is paying 33% to income tax, Soc Sec, MediCaid etc.

That is why they have no savings. ANd then to make up for how shitty they feel because they know they are not really making it, they feel a need to buy some fancy gizmo to assure themselves that they are okay.

And back then, everyone who had a job felt that their job was secure. They were not going to get a pink slip tomorrow telling them that their company is now moving its research labs to Singapore.

[Greyhound]

37. This reply is, at once, the problem and the answer to your question.

I don't mean to attack you, but that a person that can write the OP, and then respond with this, is exactly what happened.

There is an utter disregard, even a refusal to acknowledge, that the poor here are really POOR. As in old-timey no house, no food, no hope, destitution. People point to some government program and say, or think, "see, it isn't really that bad", but, having never been in the situation, you don't realize that those programs are nearly impossible to even get in, and even if you do it is insufficient for survival. For example, the California maximum cash benefit is (as of 2002) $254 a month, and it is next to impossible to get even that. That is barely enough to keep a person from starving, and leaves nothing for clothing and shelter. Thanks to Bill Clinton's inhuman "reform" even that paltry scrap is soon withheld.

Do you really believe that all those people living in filth on the street are there because they want to? Because they're simply not willing to work? Because they just really enjoy camping? WTF?
:wtf:

Are you aware of the vicious circle of homelessness? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get off the streets once you are there? Do you know how many people are DYING on the streets every day in America. Do you know how many of these people end up as slaves in corporate prisons because they had the audacity to be impoverished, and poverty is being criminalized all across the country? Ever heard of sit/lay laws? Three strikes?

This callous indifference just outrages me.

I'm telling you, if we continue to ignore this, there will be a price paid.

[kineneb]

52. vicious cycle of healthcare-induced poverty

Where else in the world is one forced to chose between being employed but uninsured, or be on the dole and have healthcare? Once one falls into the poverty-level healthcare programs, one is forced to stay poor to continue to be covered.

Here is what happened:
Hubby was heading for kidney failure, and because we had no income, I took a job. Mind you, it paid well for the area, $10/hr. But, it had no benefits: no insurance, no sick days, no vacation days. Because Hubby was sick but not yet "disabled", he had no coverage. So to get him care, we originally had a $700+/mo. share-of-cost! It was then I learned that the system does not reward those who try to earn a living, instead it penalizes them. It made no sense to earn more than the $934/mo. living allowance, because it would have to be paid out for medical care.

We are still battling the system. Hubby's SSDI pays $1238/mo.; he has Medicare and Medicaid because he has End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), and we have no other income. But because I am between 18 and 65, I am forced onto a different program, the one Hubby was on before. So because of me, we now have a $280/mo. share-of-cost. I rarely run up that much, so in essence, I have no medical coverage, and my medicine cost comes out of my pocket.

When Hubby dies, which, alas, will be in the next several years, I will not be able to officially earn more than $600/mo. If I do, I will have a share-of-cost paydown to that amount. The likelyhood that I will find employment that offers any kind of benefits is quite low, so I am looking at a future of living in poverty until I turn 67 (when I would qualify for Medicare and Medicaid, should they still exist).

[Greyhound]

58. This just makes me sick. Every time I hear one "our" candidates

talk about pouring even more billions of our tax dollars into the pockets of the insurance industry to "help us", instead of fixing this kind of obscenity, that exists only because of, and to avoid competing with, the "health care" industry, my blood boils.

I'm so sorry for your situation, I wish there were something I could do. :grouphug:

[bobbolink]

63. Many people are becoming homeless because of "health care" in this country.

People still want to believe that people are homeless because they "choose" to be, or because of alcoholism, etc, but many are becoming homeless because of the state of health care.

Your story is so sad, and I don't know how you keep putting one foot in front of the other. Yet, where is the outrage here? Where are the "liberals" in all this? Just drifting along, believing the same old RAygun propaganda as the rest of the country...

:nuke:

:hug: kineneb

:hug: for kineneb's hubby

[kineneb]

73. thank you

it is very difficult to go on, but go on we must, just living one day at a time.

:hug: bobbolink

[bobbolink]

77. You're now in my thoughts. It doesn't help much, but... I do care.

Somehow, we're all in this together.

Please give a hug to your hubby.... I can only imagine how he must be hurting... :hug:

I just don't know what it will take to become a more human society..... :cry:

This is so unspeakably unjust!

[bobbolink]

62. "This callous indifference just outrages me."

Yet, when another election goes bad, there will be another round of blaming poor people because they "didn't vote" (which is false) or "voted against their own best interests" (another falsity), or some other blame of poor people.

There is STILL TIME to make a huge impact among poor people, by LISTENING to us, and hearing WHAT WE NEED AND WANT, and including us in the process.

But, no.... it's so much easier to dismiss us.

And, you're right... there will be a price paid.

Thank you so much for your words of wisdom, even though it will be ignored.

:cry:

[tnlefty]

35. May I try to explain?

I'm at the younger end of the boomer generation. I've witnessed my oldest brother and my mother sweating out his lottery number during Nam. I've watched a transition into cut-throat capitalism by both of my older siblings, my mother, etc. I even had my brother tell me during the course of a heated argument about Iraq and he mentioned the 'war on poverty'; and I threw back that Nam ended any hope of dealing with poverty.

I know way too many boomers who sold out their ideals and who are just as callous, if not more so, than what they were rebelling against. I also know a few older boomers who still attend protests, etc. in my community, but they are few and far between. These boomers still care about poverty, as I do, but it's a struggle to get people to care.

[Whisp]

36. it's connected to poverty of minds.

'hey, I'm doing okay, so if anyone else is suffering, What's The Problem. I cannot Relate, dude. What Are You Doing Wrong? pull up them bootstraps why don't you.'

let us not forget that the elite could not possibly exist without an underclass.
class war, always been. and the smattering of the so called helpers in the system means shit all in the end.
I'm so sick of this all too.

[bobbolink]

64. And people want to blame the RWers when it's also "liberals" saying all those things you've quoted!

The attitude is right here at DU. "I don't have time" "Gotta end the war first" "THere's plenty of help out there, if people will only help themselves", etc.

ALL RIGHT HERE AT DU.

So the suffering goes on and people die, and it's all a big yawn.

[bobbolink]

66. Right. Look how few even respond to this issue of poverty on this thread.

Yet, when the next election comes around, there will be ranting and raving about all those poor folk who "didn't vote". Which, of course, isn't true, but it's so easy to blame us for their lack of concern.

[kineneb]

56. It certainly is on my mind

I am sorry about your living situation, having been altogether too close to being there; but I don't think you would want to change places with me.

Our physical situation is stable, and we will not become homeless, but that is about it for good news. We live on Hubby's SSDI, which is almost adequate, but he is slowly dying from renal failure and congestive heart failure. I am looking at a future of living at the poverty level, so I can qualify for county healthcare coverage. Even assuming I were able to get a decent-paying job, it probably will not have any benefits. The cut off for share-of-cost for a single adult is $600/mo, a sum I find insane. Just one of my medications is $100, which I now must pay out of pocket. If my doc didn't give me free samples, I would be out over $300/month.

Speaking of insane, if I don't take my meds, that is what I would be. I am in therapy and have a shrink and a case worker. Even with that assistance, I am barely holding on, trying not to slip into depression and total uselessness. The stress of caring for Hubby, on top of my underlying mental health issues is just too much. And yet, the disability system thinks I am capable of working and earning enough to support myself. I am appealing their decision, but the attorney isn't too positive. The problem is- they assume if you are crazy, you are also stupid. If one has a B.A. and almost an M.A., they think one must be able to function just fine. All I can say is that some of the brightest people are often the craziest.

[bobbolink]

65. "some of the brightest people are often the craziest."

:applause:

And that includes some shrinks and "therapists", too. :hi:

This is all so nutz, and DU itself should be up in arms about this, but....

..............

......................

crickets.................

[madrchsod]

9. we took our eye off the sparrow....

if there is one lesson the young have to learn from these times is never, ever take your eye off of these young republicans in your schools. never think that it can not happen again.

take heart my friend it is not blown away when we have people like ava and tens of thousands like her saying -no this is`t the country we want to grow up in...

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

10. When it was announced...

That Dear Leader was selected, back in 2000, I was filled with the deepest, most parylizing dread I have ever felt. Something well beyond that run of the mill, plain old dread we have every day. I was just stock still for a while, in a fugue state. It was like I knew what was going to happen: war, economic upheaval, corruption. I saw it all.

And then I thought: Fuck me. Not twice in one life.

[zeemike]

13. I hear ya Koko

And I never thought it would be like this after all the conflict of the 60s and 70s. There was a time when i had great hope that I would spend my golden years in a more enlightened society and actually believed that major world conflict was over.
Especially after the Berlin wall fell and the threat of another world war seemed imposable.
But instead of joining hands with our former enemies we allowed our leadership to just exploit the situation for there own gain. What a tragedy of missed opportunity.
But the song that comes to my mind is "Won't Get Fooled Again"And the words are from memory...

I tip my hat to the new revolution
Take a vow for the new constitution
I ain't free
Chains all around
Get up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
And I get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again.

I move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I get all my papers and smile
For I know that the hypnotized never lies

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

[KoKo]

19. You know my Parents and Parents..In-Law were part of what Browkaw called Greatist Generation!

because they grew up during the Depression, fought in WWII and their wives took jobs or took care of the kids in the WAR EFFORT.

They had their golden years being Appreciated and loved...and lived when it wasn't too expensive to travel and SS gave them some extra on top of their Pensions to give to their kids.

I won't have any of THAT LEGACY to leave to my kids. I will have nothing but failed policy...Vietnam and now Iraq II with killing and death for no reason on my conscience, and Downsizing and Outsourcing has cause me and hubby to move all around the East Coast in search of jobs and affordable housing...and we've been caught up in Politics that have WHIPSAWED US BACK AND FORTH...and while we are Okay...we have to work to pay the $20,000 in health insurance a year because we are both "self-employed after working for Fortune 500 Companies for years...but missed that BIG PENSION THINGY...and there's NO WAY we can RETIRE..and have anything like what my Beloved Parents and Hubby's Parents of the Greatist Generation had in their twilight years....

Bush II has BLOWN IT AWAY! Repugs have BLOWN IT AWAY! There's not much left for our kids or ourselves in the years to come...and we DID WORK VERY HARD FOR CHANGE. It's just that we lived in a different time from the GREATIST GENERATION where America and the WORLD went into GROWTH CYCLE after the NAZI'S TORE EVERYTHING UP!

Many of us don't have TIME LEFT for BUSH NAZI'S who've TORN IT ALL UP to wait for the RECOVERY...but we care so much about our Constitution and what WE FOUGHT FOR...WE CAN'T GIVE UP!

But...it eats our guts out...what these Spineless Dems who are now in power are doing to us...eating our souls and making us "laughing stock" for a Repug Party that's 29% in favor and that's probably a generous poll.

[zeemike]

53. I can see now the relevance of Blown Away to you

At some point I hope someone will write a complete and accurate history of the last half of the 20th century.
All we have individually is our own personal experience to draw on.
My father was borne in 1898 and was a Marine in WW1 and wounded in the battle of Bellue Woods I was born when he was 45 in 1943 and had 2 brothers serve in ww2 and so I was an observer from the beginning starting with the beatniks. I served in the Navy during the early part of the Vietnam War but never went there.
The Hippies I knew by 1980 for the most part had settled down to raise their kids and a few went to the Rainbow family or became Dead Heads.
Most of the anti war leadership who were mostly from the upper class became money market managers and I am sure did quite well at it.
But the results was that we lost the sense of community that gave us the strength to oppose the system. And from there it went down hill pretty fast.
Yep Blown Away fits quite well.

[goodgd_yall]

67. I also thought

the changes of the 60s and 70s were here to stay. Reagan was the beginning of the backlash.

I have to say though, I did not think the tearing down of the Berlin Wall was a defining moment---or the fall of communism in the U.S.S.R. The Cold War was a trumped up hysteria fed by hardline capitalists and corporations. I thought it naive that there was an expectattion that a free market economy would change the lives of the Russian people for the better.

[Riktor]

15. Maybe you could offer some perspective...

... to the younger DU regulars.

If I understand history correctly, and I would like to think that I do, a good portion of the Vietnam protests were directed at Lyndon B. Johnson and his fellow anti-communist "hardliners". So, this brings me to a few questions:

1- What eventually made a portion of the '60s generation get behind the Democrats? Is it a kind of more mature, middle-aged approach to the progressive movement in the 1960s, or is a kind of "lesser of two evils"?

2- What in the name of God convinced so many drug-using, free-loving, hippies and yippies of the '60s generation to fall in line behind the Republicans? I realize people change over time, but to go from Abbie Hoffman to Ronald Reagan in period of twenty years seems a little...well, extreme.

I'm not looking for answers for a history lesson. I'm just interested in the perspectives of those who survived the Vietnam era and stayed liberal.

[bobbolink]

20. One part of one answer to your number 2....

There were two distinct groups.... the Hippies, and the Politicos.

You have described hippies, who were more self-absorbed. That may very well account for those who later became so absorbed in their own self-interest that they became RW.

Not to say some of the Politicos didn't... some did. But many of us are just sickened to see what the hell has happened.

The one thing I can say about Politicos, and it took me *years* to figure this out.... after 4 assassinations, Kent State, etc., the wind was taken out of our sails. I really think those deaths did something to our hearts and souls that we haven't been able to heal.

And one last thing that you "young whippersnappers" can learn from.... We didn't go far enough with creating community. ONe thing that is different with a lot of European peace groups is that they KNOW they have to have strong bonds in order to stay with it for the long haul. IN the US, it's all, "Well, if something comes up that you can't participate, so long, and get back to us when you can." We aren't committed to each other, we don't help each other. Hell, now I've seen people get arrested, and nobody even thinks to get a name, and follow up to see what happens to that person. We just aren't involved with each other as people, and it doesn't work that way.

[Greyhound]

43. That's how I saw it, except my parents proudly called themselves hippies,

and the people you've identified as hippies, they called day-trippers.

There is an old "tin-foil hat" term for the strategy that you've described, it is "consolidation and isolation" and it has worked very well, as witnessed by this thread and a million other examples. Put the sheep in a small, easily controlled area (i.e. cities), and them isolate them from one another.

I know that you now where this ends up.

[OnionPatch]

25. What I see in my personal life,

is the hippies I knew of in the sixties are the more liberal Baby-Boomers I know of today. I can't think of any of them who changed over to being Republican. None that I knew voted for Reagan. (Well, maybe one or two, but they were borderline hippies to start with.) Most of the Baby-Boomer aged Republicans I know today were not hippies back in the sixties at all but were what we called "square". They were definitely not "drug-using" or "free-loving". Sure, a lot of the hippies hung up their tie-dye and cut their hair, but I just don't believe that many of them are Reagan-loving Republicans today. It seemed to me that the younger generation, the one just after the Baby-Boomers, had more support for Reagan. This has been my observation, anyway. :shrug:

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

17. Kick. Watching this play out again has been really stressful on those of us who share

your historical experience.

Yet, it's reawakened the passion....




:kick: MKJ

[KoKo]

23. Oh...I think many of us will go to our DEATHS...trying to BEAT THIS BACK..

but what makes me sad is that I didn't think I'd live my last years trying to be a MARTYR! I wasn't looking to be a Saint whose time would be a blip and wouldn't matter because my voice couldn't be HEARD by THOSE who SHOULD HAVE HEARD IT! Those WE WORKED FOR! THOSE WE PUT OUR TRUST IN! I didn't think it would come to this. I feel like I was really "taken for a ride." And, while I was a willing passenger and even took steering wheel here and there along the ride...it was all pre-ordained to be a drive driven by Supply Side, Corrupt Think Tanks and Globilization Corporatists who allowed me to "steer that wheel" for awhile but took me on "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" into Hell.

Yeah...alot of hyperbole here...but damn it...this is a bad week for Dems and I'm pissed! :grr: when I don't want to :cry:

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

26. Yeah, those golden years are not going to contain much shuffleboard.

:hug: KoKo01. :hug: MKJ

[KoKo]

28. HA,....Definitely No Shuffleboard or Cruises through the Grecian Isles

or Bingo at the Church...are all those great "commonality fun things" that were there...just some years ago where Joy...of community and fun...was something to look forward to...

Sheesh...it's a damned Gloomy prospect.....Ugh!

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

32. Maybe we can look forward to whiling away our days at the Purple Haze rest home.

:-) MKJ

[KoKo]

38. No! I will requisition one of those 15,000 sq.ft Mansions and bring in My Own Health Care!

None of us is "goin' down easy." We aren't going into the "Pruple Haze Rest Home! :D It will be different...we will make it so.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

24. I am sorry you feel your sacrifice is for naught BUT YOU ARE WRONG.

You are just,...wrong.

You are dismissing all the awareness gathered over the last several decades.

You are allowing those assholes far more progress than what they have really made, in terms of influence and inspiration and, well, power over humanity.

Do NOT underestimate or UNDER-VALUE or disrespect all those who have advanced this nation,...led the world,...towards a BETTER human existence.

I accept your frustration. But, dayum, you have "been there, done that",...AND SURVIVED! Why diminish that?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

27. also dismissing us younger DUers who

gain courage from their struggles. They have been our teachers. :)

[KoKo]

30. Where was I dismissing younger DU'ers...? Without you where would we pass

that failing torch? My point was we thought what we worked for would be SO STRONG that there would BE MANY FIGHTING FOR THAT TORCH!

That's what I'm trying to say....:shrug: And GOOD ON YOU..aren't you here as a torch bearer....but...look at how thin our troops are....it should have been more...so many more. We worked hard as we could.. Don't want folks to think we didn't try..but it's sort of the Meme to say that our generation gave UP and just went into GREED and McMansions. Not the Older Curve..of Boomers...and many Boomers...it's just that not everyone saw what we saw was wrong with the world and tried to fix it. Many saw the world as their oyster and profited and made the rules that brought the Income Disparity to what it is today.... We were a split generation. It's only now apparent how split we were but how much REAL CHANGE was made by some...with the support of a middle. But it was the Gingrich/Rove Outsiders who were the ones who WON...in the end. They bided their time and built their RW Coalition.

That's the problem...

[Viva_La_Revolution]

40. well, you didn't mention how you had inspired and taught us...

I thought maybe you didn't know. :hug:

[KoKo]

45. There are so many good folks...I hope don't get disillusioned by this...

I didn't want this to seem like some Vanity Wallowing post... just saying...it was a bad week after many ...and false hopes. I was just unwinding and figured some in my shoes or fellow travelers with older and younger shoes walking might want a vent...about past and discouragement and maybe talking about it...helps for renewal of spirit.

:hug:

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

42. I think you are being too hard on yourself,...and, perhaps, too responsible,...

,...for the health of humanity.

I appreciate how much you care about the well-being of humanity. You are willing to sacrifice so much of yourself to contribute to the whole of us while there are those in power who only sacrifice in order to take from any one vulnerable enough to be prey.

Let go.

You can care without allowing human predators to control HOW you expend your energy.

Re-define "the problem". The problem is: allowing assholes to divert our energy to their agenda rather than ours.

Does that make sense to you. :hug:

If WE stay focused, that heartless, power-mongering RW coalition will die and they ARE DYING the slow death they deserve being the greed-driven pigs that they are!!!

Let go.

[KoKo]

44. Yes...some of us are of a "guilt generation" sort of born to serve...

and tried to...it's bad when it doesn't work. Playing Golf and ripping off our fellow workers would maybe have worked better....but who could do that when one has a conscience and was raised to leave the world better for the generations coming down the road behind us.

It's a damned burden...but it seemed a fine one...but we didn't know how hard it would be... There are folks following us...that need to know...have some fun along the way...don't DEVOTE ALL to causes that can vanish in the wind...Blown Away. Increments of Change should be the focus...and feel good about the little things.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

33. I say look out when this generation gets ready to rumble. Their parents have their backs.

MKJ

[KoKo]

47. They say things skip a generation...I'm hearing good stuff about the "My Face" kids...

we had some parents of young My Facers who were all into supporting the Jenna 5 and wore all black in support. And, this is in my Red State! Parents were really supportive of their kids. It gives me hope that Britanny isn't an obsession that the M$M makes it out to be with all those under 18 today!

[goodgd_yall]

69. Putting things in perspective

You are right...there actually is progress that has lasted and made a profound difference. I'm thinking now of the Women's movement. I can't begin to tell you how significant a difference equal opportunities for women has made. People today actually do believe women are capable and at least equal in their abilities as men.

And race relations as far as the breakdown of institutionalized discrimination and acceptance between different races has greatly improved.

Thank you for another perspective.

[BlackVelvet04]

29. I think many of us tried to pass the torch.....

but somehow the younger generation just didn't want to take it up. Some days I can fight and some days I'm just too damn weary.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

34. It is history repeating itself, and I don't just mean Vietnam & we are up shits creek..

And I feel helpless and at this point hopeless.

[KoKo]

39. It's bad days... that's for sure...a "bait and switch" after all those letters, faxes, phones and

dollars...all that walking the streets to organize our neighborhoods that were filled with Repugs and didn't want to hear any Dems ringing their doorbells and going to all those Town Hall Meetings to hear that wonderful voice of Howard Dean who got "Blown Away...Blown Away..."

It does seem it's been a bad time when we thought maybe we'd one back a small piece of things...after all that effort...it's time to do some reflection and a little griping and grumbling and some downright despairing...... AT LEAST... that's just me..trying to be healthy in expressing anger, angst and the rest...for a bit...of reflection.

[Blue_In_AK]

41. You've got that right, Koko01....

I never dreamed we'd be fighting these same battles over and over and over again.

[H2O Man]

46. Very good.

Thank you.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

48. Me too! Great post. I NEVER expected that we could go backwards

I thought once you gained the ground, it could not be lost.

We knew all about rejecting materialism, alternative energy sources, war machines, corrupt politics, whole foods, media bias, civil rights, tolerance, worker rights,

We lived it once, already. In the sixties and seventies. We had a brief golden age. It has been extinguished.

And now it's 1939 all over again.

[KoKo]

49. It's like a peverse Time Warp...ReWinding...of some old movie over and over!

Even many the damned cast of characters (those nemesis demons of my youth) are Back in Power Behind the Scenes! It's Scary! Like some kind of psyops torture!

[Indy65]

55. Your right KoKoOl

My husband and I are in our late Sixties and feel the same way you do.

[msedano]

51. if you gotta find meaning in oldies...

go back a little further

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
****
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.


Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music
http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/times.html


i sympathize with your longing.

mvs

http://www.readraza.com/hawk/index.htm

http://labloga.blogspot.com

[Breeze54]

54. I don't believe any of the RW MSM spin and neither should you!!

And who are you calling "old"?? :rofl:

:hug:

Honk That Horn!!








;)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

57. I miss the optimism of the 1960s and early 1970s

Things seemed to be getting better every year, with better living conditions, serious attempts to eliminate poverty, people of color fighting for their rights and even winning some of the battles, women questioning the social order, gay men and lesbians starting to come out of the closet, the founding of the Peace Corps and VISTA, Head Start... (The music and movies were of generally high quality, too.)

The Vietnam War was a dark spot, but we felt optimistic about ending it and figuring out a way to live in peace with the rest of the world.

I do believe, as one of the posters upthread said, that the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, coming only 2 months apart, robbed the reform movements of two of their most charismatic leaders.

I really believed that I would spend my fifties living in some North American Scandinavia, but instead, I'm living in some North American early 1930s Germany.

[KoKo]

60. Optimism.....I sure miss that! . After 2000

stolen election many who are now here were so angry we got back involved because the Internet was starting to take off for the common people and finally we could communicate with like minded folks all over the country. Many of us living in deep Red States didn't have anyone we could talk to about that stolen election and even those in Blue States had a hard time finding like minded people.

When BuzzFlash, BartCop, Media Whores Online and Dem Underground started up it gave a burst of energy that maybe we could undo the Bushies...(prove Gore Won) andwin back House and Senate in 2002 Mid-terms. When we didn't manage that we focused on 2004 and getting a Dem President elected. The energy of the "Meet Ups" for Dean and the Precinct organizing and working on research about Election Fraud took up our time...and we were very optimistic the Bush Bums would be out.... Then it was downhill and discouragement after Dean for many and then optimism about Kerry and Edwards where we put our differences behind us and walked the streets and organized with OPTIMISM that Bush and his criminal enterprise would be "out the door" come election day.

Since then...it's been Up and Down...Up and Down...we win back the House and Senate and then we get "We don't have the votes," which isn't technically true...but we are told that over and over and now we are Censured. And, what's been accomplished. Some of the Crime Family have resigned...others are being installed and investigations roll on while the Bomb Iran Campaign goes into full swing.

Our country is in bad shape...infrastructure crumbling, children in poverty with no health insurance, hard working people with no hope of every moving up the ladder in Service Jobs going without health care and working two and three jobs. Others giving up...while CNBC drones on about "Freemarket Economy...Ain't it Great." Crap Media/Crap Movies ....no real funding for the Arts like there was in years past during Carter and even some during Reagan before the Fundies took control...and the rest of us are left in somekind of endless political struggle to take back our Country without many tools left..

Anyway...just ranting pessimism here...but wanted to hear what others thought.

[MuseRider]

61. It is pretty hard to live over again.

We watched it all happen in slo-mo it seems and never once thought it could be brought down. Shame on us I guess, I know I never thought this could happen until the day of the selection. As bad as things had gotten I never foresaw this.

Bad educational system that does not reward those in charge of the learning. No or little teaching of Civics or Government. A society that does not reward the people who look beyond themselves in order to make others lives better. Remember the push for enlightenment? Personal betterment? What happened to all of that? Did we stop with the personal part?

I do lay a lot of the blame on us, we let it go. Were we just tired of the stress of fighting the system or did we just cave in with the pitiful excuse that we thought it would only get better from there? I almost wish I had those years to live over again. I am always happy when I find out that DUers are young and already working for peace and fairness. Every now and then I meet a young person who is doing it. Not often enough but they are out there.

Sometimes I just want to say screw it all and hide out here on my little farm and live out the life that I used to think I wanted to go on forever.

Great post KoKo.

[KoKo]

72. Teaching of Civics and Government...

so crucial...but would seem to fall flat in Reagan years through Poppy. Then our great hope of Clinton...he came from poorest background...had grounding in the Agriculteral South and knew what Civil Rights MEANT because he SAW IT...it was in his roots. Yet something happened with him. :shrug: He was a great hope for another FDR... We failed with Carter (whose a great person...but just couldn't govern against the old Nixon RW who wanted revenge) and we thought Clinton could bring a "New Deal & Fresh ideas to Government...(yeah...I was a DLC Cheerleader way back...). It didn't work. DLC got in bed with folks that they shouldn't have forgetting the populist wing of the party...the civil rights wing of the party. Clinton could have done so much more...that its even more depressing the legacy he left us Dems. Something went wrong there beyond the Mellon-Scaife Attack Machine. WHY DID HE LET THEM DO IT???

That's what I see now that I didn't then...because I was so busy defending him...I didn't see that he had weaknesses that didn't allow him to Defend Himself. ...Maybe one day historians will sort out the Clinton Presidency and find things those of us who lived through it and saw him inaugurated with such HIGH HOPES...that we never couldn't give up on him when so many things he did seemed so wrong. :shrug:

[BlooInBloo]

68. (shrug) Wish the older folks would've taught their kids better.

[Buns_of_Fire]

70. In the clearing stands a boxer...

And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that's laid him out
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame,
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains... -- Paul Simon, The Boxer

Can't give up yet. We've got (at least) one more battle to fight. Though the blade be rusty -- and it now takes two hands to manage it where one used to suffice -- wield it we must. And we will. And I know there are many good people here, of all generations, who will be standing side by side.

Fighters we were born, and fighters we remain.

[KoKo]

71. Simon's "The Boxer" thanks for that...

I remember listening to the "Sounds of Silence" over and over....which is an earlier album...but seems to ring true in dark times...which was the Vietnam war then.

The Boxer has more spark and is uplifting. I'd forgotten about that one...in my nostalgia. Thanks...!

[followthemoney]

74. America is smelling bad again. It's time to take out the garbage. nt

[Cleita]

75. Yes, and we need to finish the house cleaning job we

started in Congress.

[Gloria]

76. It's depressing as hell...to have gone through the 60's-70's shit and then

having to go through this. It's like half my adult life has been lived under lies. But this is much worse now, I think. There is no courage in the opposition party...they are enablers.

It's like there is is NO WHERE TO TURN!

As far as I'm concerned there is no longer any country; what's left is a SHAM!