I knew it was going to happen, but it still hurts like hell to watch it in slow motion.

[tom_paine]

NOTE: To anyone who feels that their morale may be damaged by an unvarnished assessment of reality these last eight to twenty-five years may not wish to read any further. Everyone from Polyannas to Coincidence Theorists, please find another thread to soil.

Anyone who would like to converse civilly is most welcome.

NOTE: Neither should this thread be construed as an advocation of giving up or not voting. I will be out in November pulling the lever for Obama and I would hope every other DUer would, as well. And to all those who are working for Obama as I have worked in elections recently passed, thank you for your efforts this time around.

It's like a slow motion car accident unraveling before one's eyes, bodies crumpled and mangled flying out windows at breakneck speed in agonizing detail. Or maybe it's like watching a bad reality show or maybe WWE wrestling again and again and again, one with the same outcome no matter what nonsensical plot twists get us to the preordained ending.

But the outcome is never in doubt, and if we look at what passes for "elections" in Bushie Amerika or Putinist Russia, which are almost identically governed by Inverted Totalitarianism as well as having identically trustworthy "elections", we can see that computerized wholesale Bushie election fraud, which may or may not exist, may not even be necessary whether it exists or not.

I have said it before and I have said it again: What the Bushies have done to our media, our institutions and our National Psyche as expressed in our National Dialogue, is psychologically similar, deeply similar, to what the Nazis did to Germany, and the Stalinists to Russia, as absolute and as irrevocable. At least it is not yet physically dangerous, as per the kinder and gentler methodologies of Bush and Putin's Inverted Totalitarianism as compared to Hitler and Stalin's brand of brutal Classical Totalitarianism.

Does wholesale electronic Bushie electoral fraud exist? Probably. But for the purposes of this discussion, let us assume that which is not 100% proven does not exist and so for the purposes of this discussion, wholesale electronic Bushie electoral fraud does not exist.

Does it even need to? In this nation of drugged-out, TV-zombied-up sheep, of which we are all a part what is essentially a vast artificial marketing scheme which has replaced objective reality, a National Hologram, to borrow Joe Bageant's term for it, do the Bushies even need wholesale election fraud to get their way?

At least a year ago, I knew that McCain would be our next Emperor, probably holding the throne for Jeb, but who knows. American Tyranny is a bit more inclusive than familial monarchies and dictatorships of the past, like the Roman Emperors didn't have to be members of the Caesar family, eventually.

No one can predict the details of the future, only that the Bushie Summer Propaganda Offensive would come in some form, using all the power of The State to advance it's goals.

When the Bushies, probably through Randy Scheunemann, greenlighted Georgia for or perhaps ordered it to begin it's August 2008 "Bushie Bounce" invasion of Georgia, the same way the Israelis coincidentally did the same things for their Bushie Masters in August 2006 in pursuit of the same Bushie electoral goals, they knew their mass psychology.

Instant McCain bounce. Add to it the framing of the National Dialogue through the Bushie M$M as restarting the Cold War, and the certainty of the knee-jerk statistical reaction is frighteningly predictable and accurate.

Six percentage points, plus or minus three, for our next Emperor McCain. This would probably not be the case if the Bushies hadn't long ago bent the media to it's will through corporate consolidation and a dozen other sub-strategies including Bill Parcells "working the ref", and all have been staggeringly successful to the point where the Bushie M$M is now pretty much where all discussions are leveled from the start by using a Bushie Linguistic Frame.

Language is power, any marketer will tell you that, and the Bushies took over the language over two decades without anyone really even raising a voice in protest.

So, it's knotted now. :puke: And I believe that, in the current restructuring and Gleichschaltung the Bushies have carried out on our "National Nervous System", every facet of it, it simply is not possible for Obama to GAIN in the polls.

As impossible as it was for whoever Medvedev's opposition patsy, his "Obama", was in our Sister Nation and fellow Inverted Totalitarianism, Putin's Russia, and THEIR "election" (which, if we are assuming no Bushie electoral fraud, then we MUSt also assume no Putinist United Russia electoral fraud and thus Medvedev's "election" victory was indeed 66-33% as advertised) to gain in the polls.

It makes me laugh. Nothing left to do but laugh about it now. The Bushies, in their kinder and gentler way, have us in a grip as absolute as the Nazis has over Germany.

If there are any left who can scoff at this quite reasonable notion in the face of the last eight years, and I have no doubt that even now most will...even NOW, when it is tragically obvious to the point of insulting the intelligence of the few members of the Reality-Based Community left, then just wait until November.

First, the October Surprise is still yet to come, though it may not even be necessary...whatever it is, it will be at least as shocking to the National Nervous System as the Georgian Invasion of Ossetia that was likely instigated by the Bushies for McCain.

Then, the usual boring "Surprise McCain Upset Victory Show" coming a few days later. Boring. I've seen it before and they could at least come up with a new plot.

Can't you see it? Can't you smell it? Doesn't that tingle of deja vu tells you it's coming?

And the sad truth is, it simply doesn't matter what is right and wrong, what is true and what are lies, or how obvious and shameless upfront Bushie villainy is.

At the end of the day, it's going to be a "surprise upset win". Sorry, I don't want that any more than you do. But reality is reality. Don't hate the messenger because reality is what it is.

Just get ready, because in just a few more weeks...eight to be precise, we are all going to be schooled on just how powerless we are to stop the systemic and structural changes the Bushies have wrought to every aspect of our once-free, once proud society. And it doesn't matter who pulls what levers...even if there ISN'T wholesale Bushie manual and electronic election fraud occurring, which probably IS also occurring.

For a few of us realists, this will be no surprise. We knew where this ride was ending (50-1 chance) before it started. That is the way of Totalitarian Nations, and even though ours is the kindest, gentlest, newest, most modern form of it, our Inverted Totalitarianism is still totalitarianism.

All hail Emperor McBush :puke:

[robinlynne]

1. Yes, wholesale electoral fraud is 100% proven. don't know why you would say otherwise.

[tom_paine]

6. For the sake of argument I said that. I happen to agree with you and said so further down my OP.

My point is, with their marketing abilities, as well as the double-standard and totalitarian infrastructure they have literally hardwired into our nation as they have hardwired their biggest lies into our National "Conventional Wisdom", the Bushies don't even need much in the way of electoral theft to tilt the scales in their favor.

This limits their chances of getting caught.

The Bushies, as they famously told Ron Suskind, do indeed bend and create new realities.

Something else the varioua totalitarianisms and autocracies throughout history have tried to exercise upon their hapless subjects, but never and I mean NEVER has science understood the human mind and how to manipulate it so well be several orders of magntiude.

And NEVER with such a delivery system for their propaganda as the modern media-saturated Imperial Amerika. What could Hitler or Stalin have done with a nation mind so wired together and media-saturated? One shudders to think. Scary enough to think what the Bushies are going to do to all of us before their through.

Our new National Motto should be that old line from "A Clockwork Orange", Did you ever notice how nothing seems real until you viddy it on the screen?

That was my point, not that I disbelieved in wholesale Bushie electoral fraud. I agree, there is a massive preponderance of evidence such that, if it isn't 100% proven, it is so close to 100% and it is public knowledge where more than a few of the electoral "bodies are buried" that a little vigorous investigation would knock the whole house of cards over.

Though I woudn't hold my breath for that...such reform movement do not usually happen in decaying toalitarianisms like our Empire...

[robinlynne]

19. yes, but we're working on it.... as hard as we can.

[tom_paine]

30. Thank you and God bless you for your efforts.

:patriot:

[Pete2069]

78. Our democrats hold a lot of blame for this corrupted electronic voting

Unless blind and deaf they should know of the thief of own
elections.   It happen in 2000 , 2002 , 2004  and 2006 right
in plain site , and they have done nothing but increase the
number of criminally corrupted machine.
I complain to Senator Barbara Mikulski when they first thought
of buying the machine (this also was a tax burden on the tax
payers)which has already had proven corrupted by deleting and
switching votes.
Look at the problems we had with the corporate republican
electronic voting machines in the 2006 election.   Now , due
to the destruction of our country by corporate CEO's Bush and
Cheney the governor claims we do not have the funds to replace
them with honest and dependable voting machines.
Our corrupted governor Robert Ehrlich because that is one of
the main duties of a republican's to take any and all actions
to support their destruction of American voting process , so
the republicans can delete , switch , add or take whatever
action necessary to steal the elections.
Again if these actions where taken by a democrat or any person
as far as that goes,, then the whole d... country would
explode and there would be in a lock down until they changed
it and corrected the problem no matter what the cost.
Maryland has the funds to give welfare to illegal immigrants
but not for making our fundamental process of keeping our
democracy (""VOTING"") process uncorrupted
and open to everyone so every vote to be counted corrected
correctly, with a backup to check any discrepancy.
There is more going on in the country with our government then
our senators and House of Representatives are telling us...

 

[Janeite]

112. Pete, forget Mikulski

I live in MD too and gave up on her a long time ago.

Tom_Paine, the writer of this post, articulates exactly how I feel: scared to hope, and terrified not to.
Yes, we must all work hard in this election and do what we can in terms of donating, phonebanking, GOTV efforts, and pollwatching. That sinking futile feeling I am starting to get in my gut and I suspect many of us have now, is probably the result of all of us being Rovian psy-opped for 8 plus years, plus being part of the "reality-based community" who know what is really going on. But we keep going and keep working because we have to.

[toadzilla]

177. yes, they have been entirely complacent.

they are still members of the wealthy class that will retain their lifestyles and power no matter what happens to us underlings.

[BonnieJW]

256. But don't you have a dem governor now?

And wasn't Erlich trying to get paper machines in place but was voted down by the MD legislature?

[ohioINC]

296. DEM's swept Ohio in 06

The Governor and all executive positions are now in the hands of DEM's........The election should be fair and transparent again.

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. McPalin. I won't be surprised.

x(

[AuntPatsy]

3. We waited too long..but I still have hope...I refuse to give that up yet..

[deutsey]

63. You're fooling yourself...

We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes...

Oh, there I go bringing class into it...

(apologies to Monty Python)

[tom_paine]

66. Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!

[deutsey]

70. Bloody peasant!

:evilgrin:

[FiveGoodMen]

74. OH! Did you hear that? That's what I'm on about!

I live in the Twin Cities.

Last week we saw the violence inherent in the system.

[deutsey]

76. That line crossed my mind when I heard reports of the anti-democracy crackdown there

[tom_paine]

79. "You mean you rule because some watery tart gave you a knife?"

Unfortunately, the human society hasn't been invented in which their wasn't some or a lot of "violence inherent in they system".

From where I am standing, at the probable pinnacle of the material achievements of the human species, it doesn't seem likely that we'll figure that one out in the brief few millenia we have left (if that).

[Cid_B]

176. Watery Tart...

What a great screen name for a female...

[Moistened Bint]

273. Watery Tart

How about mine?

[tom_paine]

276. LOL! I'd forgotten that one.

Boy those laughs are welcome.

"Moistened Bint" :rofl:

Gotta love those Python British colloquialisms that make great comedy even greater!

Ever hear this one? It's from one of Michael Palin's "Ripping Yarns".

To translate, it basically means "you cheeky young bastard", so it isn;t sexism or anything like that, so far as I know.

In one of the shows, the School Bully Character calls Michael Palin's character a "snotty little oik". :rofl:

Don't know why, but like "moistened bint" that phrase itself just tickles my funnybone.

[snappyturtle]

126. I lived in Mn for 15 years before moving 22 months ago....and I

still miss it! MN isn't my home state but I love it more and always thought of it as being so progressive and well, just wonderful. It's a state with a variety of people, positions, culture and beauty...aw the lakes and TREES, how I miss the trees. SO it is with great regret I saw what I did in the law enforcement department last week although I wasn't totally surprised. I saw it coming there. I think last week was just practice and a test to see how much the people will tolerate! I am in Texas because of my husband and there's a lot to like (& hate) here but God forbid if anything happened to my dear husband, I would return to the forests and lakes of MN. Stay strong. My daughter and son, 30 & 32 respectively are still there. They have kept me even more abreast of the law enforcement crackdown of last week...I could go on and on...obviously, but won't. Stay safe and be our eyes for us!

[FiveGoodMen]

131. "I think last week was ... a test to see how much the people will tolerate"

What really set me off were the reader responses in City Pages to the report of their own people getting roughed up.

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2008/09/breaking_tensio.php#comments

Apparently, people will tolerate -- and actually encourage -- a lot!

[snappyturtle]

135. I read a bit of the comments section....boy oh boy!

The one respondent saying he would help club his fellow citizens for not marching to the tune of the enforcers instructions....that's scary. Thanks for the link....just can't read it all right now....I will though. Stay safe. I hope the rancor of the police subsides.

[fudge stripe cookays]

136. Unbelievable, isn't it?

And of course you have the "Don't they have jobs?" contingent. Like they are the only ones who get to take a vacation day or two.

I'm glad these fuckers weren't around at the time of the Boston Tea Party.

[snappyturtle]

207. Yes, it's totally unbelieveable! What do these naysayers think

free speech is?

[kenfrequed]

241. Actually that would make for a fun faux-article

Someone should write and article in olde english with torries writing letters to the editor.

[GoneOffShore]

232. Comments section is 4 to 1 in favor of the protestors

And the 'wingnuts'? Slapped down at every opportunity.

Don't give up on people yet.

Republicans. They think you're stupid.

[keroro gunsou]

133. did you hear him

repressing me?

:D

[Stanchetalarooni]

4. Is there an RU - Realist Underground website available for me to peruse?

I think that DU is the best available at this time.

[Doctor_J]

5. Rec - spot on, tom

I always enjoy your posts from the South. I am listening to hartmann talk to terrorist David Horowitz and conservatism is a mental illness which is epidemic and needs to be cut out of the collective American body. I've almost stopped watching any TV and listening to the radio and reading the "news", because it's like a nightmare. I will vote and learn to survive under The Spotty Dirt Bag and Gidget until I can get a job in Old Europe.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

7. if you do want Obama to get elected

you wouldn't post "pep-talks" like this. It'd be like Tom Coughlin telling the NY Giants, "Hey guys, we're not going to beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. C'mon, they're undefeated, they got Tom Brady and Randy Moss, it's just not going to happen. But hey, let's go out there and try anyway."

Seriously, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. Posts like this do zero to help Obama, and in fact, only dilute his grassroots supporters excitement and enthusiasm. This hurts Obama's chances.

I know your kind. You would rather lower your expectations than raise your hopes in case they get dashed. There are lot of people like that on DU and in the world and hey, I get like that from time to time. But we all need to change our attitude. Do what you can. Do all you can to get Obama elected. Then at least if we lose, which I don't think will happen, you can say you did all you possibly could. How many friends have you converted from McCain to Obama? How many family members? How many strangers? I have a few notches on my belt, how about you friend?

We can bitch in November. But all this kvetching and hand-wringing about those sneaky Republicans has no fucking place in September or October.

Get back on our side friend. We need you.

[seemslikeadream]

8. Bullshit

He is on "our" side


He is just wide awake and sees what is REALITY

[Scriptor Ignotus]

13. reality? Like Hillary Clinton will be our Democratic nominee?

granted, that reality was from a year ago. Things change, money talks, bullshit walks, etc. Obama ran a damn fine campaign and is doing so again. It won't all be roses, so get used to some bumps here and there.

Can't you understand that the doom and gloom in threads like this are the antithesis of Obama's message of hope and new politics? Is it a naive message? Not when you've proven you can beat an established political machine like the Clintons. Not when you can out fund-raise your Republican opponents.

Do you think this thread helps Obama get elected?

If you and him are "wide awake" why don't you do us all a favor and go back to sleep until November 5th. I'd love to hear how smart you all were about the Bushies nefarious plots at that point, but today you're not helping anyone.

[tom_paine]

18. It wouldn't have mattered if it was Hillary or Jesus Christ.

With the Bushies iron grip on our National Psyche and the National Hologram, I have long maintained and still maintained that they could run a ham sandwich against Jesus Christ and win by their usual 0.05-3%.

It would have been the same with Hillary, as it was the same with Gore and Kerry. The details and calumnies change slightly, but the overall template is remarkably similar.

And it works. Every time. Reality doesn't stand a chance.

Jesus Christ is soft on crime.

Jesus Christ is a flip-flopper who will say anything to win.

Jesus Christ is unprincipled.

Jesus Christ doesn't have experience.

Jesus Christ is a socialist.

Jesus Christ consorts with prostitutes.

Jesus Christ has been linked with the villain Judas Iscariot.

It'd be all over for that weak-on-terror hippie socialist Jesus before you could blink, and Bushie vote thefts could be kept small and restriucted to minority communities, where no one cares, apparently not even the communities themselves, or are intimidated into silence by the Bushie DOJ.

Again, the hows and nuts and bolts of the operation no longer really matter. What matter are the RESULTS.

[live love laugh]

83. "...they could run a ham sandwich against Jesus Christ and win by their usual 0.05-3%."

That's what bothers me more than anything.

EVERY election is thisclose. That is not fucking normal and people keep overlooking this as though the media's claims that people are "split" and "divided" are actually true.

America has changed absolutely in the past 8 years and that change would be reflected in the vote--if the vote were real. But just as we are told that unemployment and inflation are 1/3 as bad as they actually are, we are told that people are still "divided." It's not posible.

I, too, have lost all hope in America's salvation. Obama isn't the answer. Sadly, there isn't an answer--at least one that will not result in serious consequences even loss of life or a long stay at Gitmo.

[leftchick]

104. and like clockwork every fucking election The Democrats CAVE

like they don't know it was stolen. It truly makes me feel sick, alone and helpless.

:(

[amborin]

183. it's

stolen more by media control and manipulation than by election fraud

not saying it's not occurring

but it's not even necessary

[liberal N proud]

208. I agree, the media plays the biggest role in our elections

They decide who the candidates are, what stories are going to bring down a candidate and what trivial bullshit they will use to prop up another.
This point guard bullshit and the PTA are good examples of the propping up while using the lipstick on a pig to drag the other candidate down.

It is all bullshit and we are stuck with what the media wants us to eat.

[leftchick]

224. election fraud could not exist without the media complicity for sure

but I do disagree about necessity. Fixed machines, phone banking, disenfranchisement, purging voter rolls have been happening with increased frequency since 2000 worked so well.

Just ask Greg.....http://www.gregpalast.com/



Obama Doesn't Sweat. He should.

by Greg Palast

Listen to the report on the Air America Radio's Thom Hartmann


In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color.

In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives – overwhelming Black voters.

In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.

In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.

My investigations partner spoke directly to Barack Obama about it. (When your partner is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., candidates take your phone call.) The cool, cool Senator Obama told Kennedy he was “concerned” about the integrity of the vote in the Southwest in particular. (Show me more...)

[glinda]

252. KEEP WORKING!!!!!!!!

KEEP WORKING KEEP WORKING KEEP WORKING. CONTACT CAMPAIGNS FOR SUGGESTIONS, PUT OUT SIGNS, VOLUNTEER, PRINT OFF FACTS AND HAND THEM OUT TO UNDECIDEDS, TAKE NOTES AT POLL PLACES IF YOU NOTICE ANYTHING STRANGE, DO WHAT YOU CAN. IF YOU SIT AND DO NOTHING, EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW THERE WILL BE HUGH OBSTACLES, THEN WE ARE LOSERS IN AN EVEN BIGGER WAY. KEEP WORKING!!!!!!!!!!! EVERY STEP, EVEN THE SMALLEST, IS SOMETHING.

[Stand and Fight]

153. I agree. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

186. I lived in totalitarian systems

I recognize what is going on... and it ain't pretty

So here is my question WHAT ARE YOU PREPARED TO DO WHEN THAT REALITY HITS YOU OVER THE HEAD?

Good....

There is a military saying that applies in this case

Prepare for the worst (yes they steal it), and plan for the best (we are full of it and Obama sweeps all fifty states... which is just a dream)

As to hope... it does not reside in one person... it resides in you

And if you are prepared you can better react and make that reality you hope for, actually happen

ed for spelling... I hate it when I do those stoopid mistakes

[kayell]

205. "if you are prepared you can better react and make that reality you hope for"

Good message. Don't cry gloom and doom without remedy.

DO SOMETHING

Added: http://electiondefensealliance.org/what_you_can_do_defend_election_08

[Scriptor Ignotus]

260. hoping for sunshine, preparing for rain

sounds fine to me.

[redqueen]

261. ...

:thumbsup:

[Orsino]

226. Except for the lack of hope stuff, maybe.

The OP sees an aspect of reality, at least, but we should never mistake a small-t truth for the capitalized whole.

Yeah, Teh Man is trying to saddle us with fascists, but our voices far outnumber his, and I don't see the same inevitability as the OP does.

I think we're going to trump the corporations with the sheer weight of numbers, and buy ourselves more time, at least, for the descent into out-and-out fascism.

[tom_paine]

12. I knew someone somewhere would post something like this. It's OK. Really.

This is no pep talk, with or without quotations, and I am not the Tom Coughlin of DU. Nor would I want to be. I'm an Eagles fan. :evilgrin: But I'm not the Andy Reid of DU, either.

I'm just a guy who is posting his observations. Do I wish I had better observations to post? You better believe it. But being a member of the Reality-Based Community means don't sugarcoat it.

I have always thought well of you, Scriptor, and I have and will always be on your side, on the side of DU.

But reality is what reality is. I am sorry that I could no longer contain myself and unleashed this rant. I agree, it's not good for morale, for those who are one the front lines. That is why I have been recently largely absent from DU, to preserve morale by keeping my observatiosn to myself. And I do apologize, but I could contain it no more.

Watching the same media dumbshow as 2000 and 2004 (and 2002 and 2006 and 2998 and 1996 and 1994 and 1992, for that matter...) now that it has advanced to the, what do screen writers call it, the pivot, the turn of the tide, the peak of the story arc, I can keep silent no longer and so, like Ginsburg in a prose sort of a way must HOWL.

I tried to apologize in advance, Scriptor. I tried to warn you not to read it if you though you would be affected.

But you read onward, anyway.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

20. it was a slow car crash reading your post, lol

I couldn't turn away!

You're letting the idiots get to you. The idiots in the media and in the electorate.

I just subscribed to the Economist and they have a great quote on the inside cover:

First published in September 1843 to take part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress."


Not sure if that quote was from 1843 too, but I think it's safe to say it's been a long "contest" with its fair share of gains and losses. We're smack in the middle of it right now, that's for sure.

We don't need to and should not sugarcoat the reality of our current struggle. But you mentioned the importance of language earlier, so I assume you're familiar with Lakoff. We can use positive language on DU and in campaigning that encourages our side, even while touching on many of the real threats that we face from Bush, Diebold, the media, etc etc.

Well, let me finish with my own pep talk: soon enough McCain will debate Obama and Biden will debate Palin. On the issues. On live TV. If that don't make you smile, I don't know what will.

[tom_paine]

25. Oh, we probably don't want to talk about the debates and what they mean (or don't mean)

in this degenerate time in this degenerate nation unable to sustain it's own liberty or national dignity and sanity, for that matter.

The idiots get to me? Not really, that would be like saying breathing oxygen gets to me. They are a part of the landscape, the environment. Their vileness pours from every media orifice, be it print, radio, TV or Internet.

It is the toxic soup of unreality in which we all swim, which filters through our mental "gills" 24/7 like a pernicious advertising jingle.

The idiots themselves...they merely are, almost like a force of nature. They have always been with us and they always will be. As are the sociopaths who repeatedly harness them throughout history for their own nefarious ends, power, "glory" and base thievery. They were when they were murdering and burning my people by the millions in the Middle Ages, they were when they were industrially killing us by the millions in Eastern Europe 60 years ago... they are now that my people are now the ones mudering and destroying the lives of tens of thousands, if not more, today in Gaza and the West Bank.

I shouldn't say anymore. Let us agree to disagree and let me say I hope I am wrong and you are right. In that event, I hope to see you here at DU the day after election, where I will be suitably penitent and ready to eat a nice big plate of crow.

Best plate of crow I WILL ever have et, as we all bask in the Obama victory! (I can still dream too, if I wish)

ON EDIT: Tell me if you can see what is badly wrong with this picture that is probably one of the most subtle and powerful propaganda/advertising/PR coups ever. It is so brilliant in the way it bypasses the conscious mind yet goes so powerfully and directly to the subconscious. This one picture, more accurately what it represents psychologically, changed more votes than all the hours of questions and answers combined, by the immutable axioms of psychology/PR/marketing/advertising. Go ahead and tell me if you can see what it is about the picture.

From the 3rd 2004 Debate:

[dana_b]

35. the picture..

not quite sure that I'm smart enough for this... but Bushie is hunched and leaning towards the people and Kerry is standing up tall and looking forceful but I don't see how that would make Bushie look more Presidential. Bush's light is on and Kerry's isn't (not supposed to talk when the light is off?). I don't know - i guess my subconcious gets it though. lol

[tom_paine]

41. No, the answer is that Bush looks like a giant comapred to Kerry.

Bush looks like a 270 lb. NFL lineman, a pretty scary dude. Broad in the chest as Michael Strahan, wide as Jon Runyan and twice as strong.

How better to play into the Bushie Marketing Meme, designed for subconscious "ingestion" and force-fed at every turn in 2004, that Bush was strong and Kerry a wimp?

Now a picture of the men in their normal proportions:

http://www.softvote.com/blog/poll_2004/http:/

Bush is shorter and thinner than Kerry. He looks quite small and childlike, in reality, next to Kerry. But the Bushies neutralized it...and easily.

They did not do this during the first two debates, but as any psychologist, advertiser, marker, or PR person will tell you, that whatever is said/seen last is by far the post powerful thing in people's minds, sometimes by several orders of magnitudes.

And for two hours or more and all the clips shown thereafter and even today of 2004 Debate #4, the undeniable image broadcast to millions of subconsciouses in Bush as giant strong hulk and kerry and weak and skinny.

As usual, the Democrats were clueless. "Sure, you can try to fix the picture that way. Why would we mind?" :rofl:

As always when talking about advertising and marketing strategies, it sounds stupid and almost nonsensical to verbalize it, but it's real and IT WORKS.

And if you don't think so, know this, that until Bush and soon McCain, EVERY US presdiential election ended with the taller man winning. Look it up.

So, there you have it. Bush a giant strong scary hulk who will protect us, Kerry and thin-chested shorter loser. And of the millions upon million who watched the debate and the tens of millions more who watched the clips the next day, how many noticed this?

I have never met anyone else, either in person or on-line, who noticed.

And as any advertiser, psychologist, marketer or PR person could tell you, it is literally ten to twenty times more effective to manipulate people, when they don't realize or even consider that they're being manipulated. This has been proven and re-proven in decades of scientific research.

Thus, I satnd by my statement that the Bushies enlarging his picture (and the Democrats letting them get away with it) for the entirety of that third debate may have been one of the most brilliant moves ever, in terms of deep-peneteration advertising and gestalt-based propaganda. I also stand by my statement that this one action gained Bush more votes than all the blither-blather of all 3 debates combined. More importantly, the votes gained were through people's subconscious', where conscious reason cannot touch. This, as any advertsier can tell, is the most effiient and effective way to sell someone, and almost guaranteed to keep them from being able to change their mind to something else, when it is lodged in the subconsciuous.

This was one of the literally hundreds of examples of the Bushies bending reality to their will, and doing it easily, through the delivery system of mass media saturation of our society.

[dana_b]

51. wow - people are easily manipulated then

because I thought he looked like a goof in that position. Most people knew that Kerry was taller but still fall for that kind of manipulation. unreal.

I'm sure they'll try it again with McSame because look at him compared to Obama! The differences in stature are great and Obama easily looks stronger than him.

[tom_paine]

53. You are fully missing the point and I have no desire to verbally spar further with you

Crack wise all you want. I already said it sounds foolish when talking about it.

Sadly, the fact that it sounds ridiculous to verbalize it does not lessen it's effectivess.

And yes, people are, in fact, easily manipulated, and tenfold so when they do not "screen" the manipulation with their conscious minds.

But it is quite clear you think that's all bullshit. So fine...we agree to disagree and that's the end of it.

If you are mildly interested in understanding what I am talking about, please read Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders".

It was written some thirty years ago, but still is something of a primer for understanding the wild success of subconsciously-directed "deep penetration" advertising and the history and ethics (or lack their of) that lead to it's widespread acceptance as acceptbale, permissable methodology.

Or don't read it. Keep snickering, then...

[dana_b]

95. wow - and you're missing the point

that I was serious and not at all snickering or trying to be a smart ass. sorry.

[tom_paine]

101. In that event it is me who is sorry for jumping to conclusions.

I would also then doubly recommend Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders" for more information on the topic.

http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Persuaders-Vance-Packard/dp/0671810359/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220996815&sr=8-1

[dana_b]

108. thanks!

I will definitely look into that one.

[Raksha]

116. Yes, they "knew" intellectually that Kerry is the taller man,

but it's what they perceived that mattered. It worked on a visceral or unconscious level that bypasses the intellect...just like everything else they do. I totally get the point tom_paine is making.

However, when I first looked at the pictures, I would have said they showed Bush in close-up and Kerry from further away, making him appear more aloof. Bush by contrast appeared more "up close and personal." I didn't perceive Bush as bigger because I already knew that Kerry is the bigger man.

[tom_paine]

118. I got curious and check to see how much Bush's picture had been enlarged and in which directions

horizontally or vertically.

It was actually easy becasuse there was a frame of reference, which was the little lightbox each man had on the podium in front of him.

By comparing the size of Kerry's podium lightbox to Bushler's, an experiment anyone can easily replicate using the splitscreen picture posted above, one finds that Bush was increased vertically only by roughly 105% but horizonatlly by at least 1105 and perhaps up to 125%, it's that wide.

Again, copy the picture to your photoshop program or paint program and check it yourself.

And no one noticed. No one. well maybe someone, isolated and far away, but certainly no one in the media.

Then by further levelling the top of Bushler's head not just even with kerry but slightly HIGHER than Kerry, Bush appeared to be a 6'7" 270 lb. muscleman.

Good PR.

And not a single person but for me noticed. You wanna talk about an Invasion of the Body Snatchers Moment? How'bout that one?

[redqueen]

264. "And not a single person but for me noticed."

Huh? Do you mean in the room where you watched? Cause we discussed that here.

And the media noticed knew. They just know not to say anything about it.

Operation Mockingbird didn't 'end'... it just changed names.

[tom_paine]

285. I guess I do mean in the room that I watched, and everyone I have every talked to about it since.

I didn't see the thread(s) of which you speak, but it doesn't surprise me that DU caught it.

And how true is this And the media noticed knew. They just know not to say anything about it.

What I don't get, what I will NEVER GET is if that is the case, and I am almost certain it is, how come the KERRY CAMPAIGN DIDN'T NOTICE? DIDN'T STOP IT? OR AT THE VERY LEAST BRING IT TO THE PRESS" ATTENTION.

Either when the Bushies were doing it (and stop with a "Hey, you can't increase Bush's width 120% unless you increase Kerry's width!") or bring attention to the dirty trickery afterwards, so at least the manipulation wouldn't stay in it's most effective place, people's subconsciouses, which would be reminded that Bushler is not 6' 7" 270 lbs. and as big across the chest as John Runyan.

Whatever the answer turns out to be: complicity, sheer cluelessness, fear of blackmail, fear of anthrax, Bushie Moles, or whatever the dozen other possibilities, something is very VERY wrong here.

I mean of all the shit the Bushies could dispel easily, this trick exposed, is so obvious and reproducible by anyone with a Photoshop can measure the width extension, could not be "spun away" by the Bush Lie Machine.

Well, maybe not. They have done a remarkable job bending the perceptions of reality like fondue cheese these last eight years, but this would be a hard one, even for them, to shout down with the Bush Lie Machine. Not impossible, I suppose, not after what feats of Bushiganda we've seen these last eight years, but difficult.

But it doesn't surprise me that DUers were one of the realtive tiny handfuls of who caught on to that.

I have discussed this with probably 50 people, give or take, since 2004. You are the very first to have recognized it before I mentioned it to you. Most of the sheep, of course, don't believe it even after I tell them.

No way that could have happened and nobody heard about it.

We would have heard about it in the news.

Liberal Propaganda.

Etc.

[redqueen]

289. Yes... something is very, very wrong.

And no party leaders will save us. No one can save us but US.

And precious few of us even seem to notice what's going on.

[bertman]

298. This photo comparison is being RESURRECTED today by NBC (Brian Williams) but Obama-McAnus are the

two in the photos.

There's a DU video clip of Brian Williams saying something to the effect of the "lipstick on a pig" story is ridiculous. And they feature a photo of Obama beside a photo of McAnus. Obama's image is smaller, McAnus is larger and dominates the frame.

IT NEVER FUCKING ENDS.

Thanks for awakening me to this trickery, tom_paine.

[Stand and Fight]

155. Reality is the observance of the present.

Reality is reflections of the past.

Reality -- put most simply -- is based on data that can be collected, processed, and cataloged.


Reality is NOT assuming the future.

Reality is most definitely not what you're putting forward in my opinion -- at least not wholly so.

[tom_paine]

167. I think you are both right and wrong there.

First off, by and large I wholly agree with what you said, but for this caveat that I believe to be a key distinction:

(it also goes without saying that I could be wrong in my assessment, and realizing that would be a dmaned happy day)

But back to the key distinction. It has to do with totalitarianism/tyranny vs. democracy/liberty, basically, though strictly the Old USA was a Representative Democracy, a Constritutional Republic, a Democratic-Republic, it was in one way or another all three, it comes down to that dichotomy.

I never said my assumption of the future was reality, and if you'll go back and reread the Op I believe even there I thought Obama had a 50-1 shot to assume the throne, even considering the issues raised, so I did say unequivocally that I was 100% certain. 98% certain? Yes. 100%? No.

I merely point out that since changing my basic premise of thinking that our nation was free on 12/12/2000, suddenly, perhaps coincidentally, I became remarkably "prescient". Not with 100% accuracy, but with roughly 80% accuracy and that is way too high.

Somewhere in my DU journal is a partial list of some of the things I predicted months, even years in advance, once I began to see through the hologram, so to speak. There are also a couple I missed.

I am not speaking of pyschic nonsense or anything, just the base premise that totalitarianism, in whatever form it comes in, is predictable to people who know what to look for. Totalitarianism is predictable for the same reason Free Nations are perplexing, puzzling and surprising.

The minute I changed my base premise that America was a Free Nation, which IMHO it hasn't been since 12/12/2000, the Date Everything Changed, suddenly it was like being able to see the future.

As I said, it hasn't worked out 100% of the time, but it has worked an amazingly high amount of times. But it's just using observation and analysis to plot the future based on the past human reactions to similar situations.

Do I sound arrogant? My apologies, But I am beyond caring.

If I am wrong, I am wrong. I will joyously take my verbal flaming here at DU. Joyously because of my being wrong about something terrible coming like in Europe 1936..waiting in the calm before the storm.

But I am tired of tapdancing around the obvious, being Politically-Correct about it. Just calling it like I see it and not caring anymore.

Like how I was saying in 2001 (really, it's archived here at DU on numerous threads) that I was CERTAIN that Bushler, would leave office with us $10,000,000,000 in debt.

Here's how much debt we have at this second:

http://brillig.com/debt_clock/

So add that one to my tally of shit I was CERTAIN of and said so repeatedly every month since 2001, until it hs basically come to pass and can no longer be fobbed off as a prediction because IT'S HERE.

Think that's easy? Know anyone else who did that? I've done it more than a dozen times sine 12/12/2000.

If we lived in a Free Nation, I would wholly agree with your sentiment. Of course, if we still lived in a Free Nation, I wouldn't even be on DU, mostlikely.

But we do not live in a free nation, only the pale shadow of one, an Inverted Totalitarianism. And as such, that distinction I mentioned makes me feel ever more comfortable in being certain about thing...ESPECIALLY since predictability is woven into the very fabric of all totalitarianisms, included the newfangled Inverted Totalitarianism that rules American and Russian Subjects.

[Flatulo]

283. Pardon my naivete, but I thought totalitarinaism relied on the

application of brute force to terrorize the citizenry?

Nothing like very publicly shooting a few troublemakers to get everyone else on the team.

[tom_paine]

291. You wouldn't try to sell kosher hot dogs in Cairo or Baghdad, would you?

It's just smart marketing. The Classical Totalitarian brand has been worn out in America. More appropriately it was discredited from Day One as being antithetical to our founding ideals.

The Bushies, I strongly suspect, have been dreaming of absolute rule of this nation since Prescott Bush and his boys tried to overthrow FDR and turn the USA facsist, then ally with the Nazis, with Prescott Bush as Ambassador to Nazi Germany?

Don' t believe me? Do please check it out and listen to those wacky conspiracy theorists at the BBC and Washington DC's National Archives, the records of the 1935 House Joint Committee on UnAmerican Activities.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

Pretend you are the Bushies and you desire unchecked, unopposable power in a nation where the founding central myth is that it will NEVER bow to a king.

Like ol' Br'er Rabbit, you've got to find another way to get your way, by and by.

How to do that? Well, it's a long story. Luckily, people lots smarter than I have already sussed it out.

You are the citizen of a nation governed by that most recent advanced in totalitarian control, NEW and IMPROVED forthe 21ST CENTURY! Innovated by Bush and Putin, with a little help from the Chinese.

Welcome to Imperial Amerika, 2001-?, and...(drumroll)................ Inverted Totalitarianism.

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20080515_chalmers_johnson_on_our_managed_democracy/

Cool, huh? :sarcasm:

[Imagine My Surprise]

16. He IS on our side -- about time someone on here woke up to reality...

without being called a baiter or some some equally juvenile name. WE ARE FUCKED.

[Two Americas]

73. it is not a football game

Seeing this as though it were a sporting event is a big part of the problem.

[snappyturtle]

127. May I ask how old you are? nt

[Scriptor Ignotus]

259. 30

just turned...

[snappyturtle]

294. I'm glad you answered. You're the age of my "kids"...30 & 32. They

get impatient with me from time to time probably for the same reasons you are upset with the OP and would have posted the same as you. I don't know how to say this without sounding feeble or old but I am over twice your age and have been interested in politics since 1960 and active from 1968 forward. I guess I've just gotten to the point after all I've been involved in that I'm tired. There I said it. Just tired. I still have good energy levels but my head says maybe I ought to place this energy somewhere else where it might be more productive. Went to the funeral of a friend yesterday...he was 62. You know it just makes me think. I'll probably never totally turn off but I feel worn out from years of trying and not seeing our lives improving that much for all the effort and it's gotten worse during the last eight years....that's all. End of rant. And, thanks again for answering.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

303. so understandable

Obama has spoken about this very fact of American life many times. That was what his whole "bitter/guns/religion" comment had to do with. Check out the full context of those remarks, he was talking about people just like you, that have given up on politics, a little clumsily perhaps.

If Obama loses I will probably be forever demoralized with regards to politics. I recognize that this is our only chance to truly change things in Washington. McCain won't do a goddamn thing different from Bush. I don't know why more people can't see that.

As I said in another post on this thread, it will always be a struggle. Always. But it's one we got to fight. Our country simply won't survive another 4-8 years of conservative foreign and domestic policies.

[kayell]

204. I approve of this post.

This is an extremely bad time to be preaching "all is lost". We need fixes, not doom and gloom. We all know the difficulties, how about the solutions.

http://electiondefensealliance.org/what_you_can_do_defend_election_08

[EV_Ares]

278. I agree with you, those kind of posts are bullshit. Hell, there was nothing in there that we all

don't think about from time to time. But you tell me what good was that post for anything? If that is what the poster believes, then so be it, I may think it too but I am not going to put it all out here. It is hard enough to stay upbeat when you get broadsided but you do find a way to stay upbeat and you can win against all odds if you have the initiative, desire and the willpower to stay in the fight.

Are the New England Patriots going to quit now that Brady is out for the season? No.

It is just the same with Obama, he knows the odds and he knows the media, the possibility of theft of the election, the courts; how they are all stacked, but we don't quit, sulk and say no chance. We fight the battles for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren and each other.

[bbgrunt]

9. yes. The reaction to the 'puke convention

and vp pick provided ample evidence of what we, as a nation, have become. Not that there wasn't plenty of evidence before, but too many (for their own sanity) refuse to even consider the reality in this "reality based" party.

Obama said things were Urgent. Well, they are beyond urgent. Facing this and still resisting is the measure of one's mettle.

good work, Tom Paine.

[glitch]

15. "Facing this and still resisting is the measure of one's mettle." well said. nt

[dana_b]

36. definitely good work

and you made a good point too about the VP pick. People are excited about her because she's "one of them" - a hockey mom, a church goer, etc. It's all manufactured b.s. and the people who are now defending her knew nothing of her two weeks ago and STILL know close to nothing about her and definitely nothing of her policies. It's terrifying really.

[Sonicmedusa]

10. There is just one thing wrong with that essay

"When the Bushies, probably through Randy Scheunemann, greenlighted Georgia for or perhaps ordered it to begin it's August 2008 "Bushie Bounce" invasion of Georgia"


Did you mean to say "invasion of Russia"?

Otherwise, great post.

[tom_paine]

32. Thanks for the correction. YES I meant to say the invasion of Ossetia.

But the editing period has expired.

Seems no matter how hard I go back over a long OP and how much shit I fix, there's always at least ONE THING I miss.

Thanks again.

[Stand and Fight]

158. Don't you hate that?

There is nothing so dreadful as editing your own work. Either way, good post -- though I may not agree with it.

[tom_paine]

173. Thank you.

Have a beer on me... :beer:

[olegramps]

248. One issue overrides all-ABORTION

The abortion issue is the primary issue that has the greatest affect on the outcome of the election. It is what put Bush in office the second time when he should have been defeated easily. Every issue, economy, jobs, Iraq, Iran, education, health care etc. will take a backseat to this issue. Throughout the nation, ten of thousands of evangelical and fundamentalists pastors are organizing their flock to cast their vote based on this one issue. Catholic bishops are denouncing Biden a lifelong Catholic for his unwillingness to back legislation banning abortion. Remember this that the outspoken fundamentalist were joined by the majority Catholics for the first time in the 2004 election to vote Republican.

Sorry, the Democrats sealed their own fate when they allowed the party to take a strong pro-choice stance that has been interpreted as being pro-abortion. It not only alienated the Republicans, but also many of their own party, especially Catholics. In fact, isn't true that the rank-and-file of the party allowed a rather radical element to dictate party policy. They should have taken the pro-prevention course of action supporting a positive policy of education and public awareness of the necessity of preventing un-wanted pregnancies that would have actually reduced the abortion rate. They should have exposed the Republicans for the hypocrites that they are with the statistics that reveal the fundamentalists and Catholics high rate of abortion and how they have opposed effective measures of comprehensive sex education that has fueled the abortion mills.

[fudge stripe cookays]

302. .

:eyes:

Abortion mills? That tells us everything we need to know about you right there. Troll much, Mr. 21 posts?

That is the message they send. Morons who are only concerned with the invisible man in the sky will never listen to that message. They're more concerned with the fetuses. If the whores that have them die along with the babies, all the better, right?

[smoogatz]

11. I understand your need to prepare emotionally for the worst.

But I actually believe Obama can/will/must win this thing. I refuse to concede my country to the soft fascism of Bush/McCain. But you go right on ahead, if it makes you feel better.

Oh, and the Georgia/Ossetia thing? That was a HUGE blunder by the Bush administration. they were, in fact, trying to engineer a great moral victory for Georgia, of which McCain is a big and very vocal fan/ally, and they COMPLETELY underestimated Russia's likely reaction, causing the deaths of thousands of people. Another foreign policy cluster-fuck, brought to you by W, Condi and the Dickster.

[tom_paine]

34. The Bushies could care less about damaging foreign policy blunders, or haven't you noticed?

They could give a shit if they burned the whole nation or the world down.

Sure, it hurt America, and if the Bushies were Americans, they'd probably be unhappy. But Bushies are NOT Americans. In fact, they are as unAmerican as you can actually get without hurting someone (and many Bushies are ready to do just that with just the tiniest of permissions from authority).

McBush needed a ratcheting of fear and tension to make the "election" close enough to rig without having to tip their hands by doing too much of it. He got it, and now the polls are tied, mysteriously beginning, not after Palin, but after the Ossetia Invasion and Russian response.

You see, you are keeping score...of the wrong game. In your scorecard, the Bushies are amazing, staggering failures, are their successes.

And I don't just mean a willful ignoring of reality, though the Bushies do plenty of that, I mean the destruction of New Orleans and the Black Diaspora was a MAJOR POLITICAL SUCCESS for the Bushies and will ensure their solid control of Louisiana for a long time.

I could go down the list of Bushie "failures" which are really Bushie Successes but our own minds are so staggered by the enormity and villainy of it that we refuse to believe our eyes and common sense.

The Georgia/Russian conflict may have been an American foreign policy failure, but it was an unqualified Bushie success, just like the handling of Katrina and Iraq.

[smoogatz]

39. Most Americans have no idea where Ossetia is, or who invaded what first.

And they don't care. For most people, Ossetia/Georgia is a complete non-issue. And I'd like to see your link that shows Obama's lead shrinking before the Republican election. That certainly didn't happen in any of the polls I was watching.

The only big revelation in the McCain post-convention bounce is that people are easily swayed by stuff they see on TV. There's a lot of time left before November, and lots of things can happen between now and then. The race is essentially tied, just as it's been since Obama nailed down the nomination. There are lots of places to pin the blame (racism, fear of change, American anti-intellectualism, rightwing media bias disguised as "fairness," on and on), and I'm aware that it's tougher than ever to elect a Democrat to the presidency, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to throw in the towel. And seriously, you shouldn't be, either.

[tom_paine]

43. Sigh. You know that you are right in what you say...and yet it still doesn't matter.

That is the brilliance of the Bushies, at least in the areas of lies, deception, propaganda, and media control. It is the only area where they could be considered geniuses, aside from overall villainy, fraud and theft.

Also, I said in my OP I am NOT advocating throwing in the towel, and I will be out there voting for Obama in November.

But reality is reality. I see what I see and I will not close my eyes to it because I don't like it. That's what being a member of the Reality Based Comunity is, keeping one's eyes open to the truth, even when it is extremely painful, as this one is for me.

I very much hope I am wrong. If I am, I will show my face at DU day after election for the tastiest plate of crow I ever et! Never EVER in my life will I have been so happy to be wrong.

But I am not wrong. 50-1 odds, I would guess, so anything is still possible. Obama could still win, I just think that given the current degenerate state of nearly all facets of our nation, the oddsa re 50-1 against, no matter who pulls what levers. I also believe Obama has to win the cast voes by 60-40% to win the "counted" votes by 51-49%, so that, too, is a pretty tough hill to climb, and to start at the bottom of.

[demilib]

86. Look at it this way....

You can be the first person on November 5th to post on DU and say "I told you so". :-(

[tom_paine]

102. Yecch. No thanks. n/t

[amborin]

184. most americans do

care about the s. ossettia issue

georgia has a long and brutal history of abusing folks in those two provinces...ossettia nad abkazia

bush and his crew of 'advisors' had been in georgia for months, ostensibly trainning them to fight radical fundies

the reality was to push georgia and its corrupt prez (who's well represented by lobbyists close to mccain) to invade, knowing full well this would provoke russia

Russia was entirely within its rights....anyone with ANY knowledge of the region knows that

but the media and bush and cheney and mccain had their golden opportunity

and americans of all stripes were alarmed that the cold war was renewed

it was a huge coup for the rethugs....all carefully choreographed

[nadinbrzezinski]

188. Right and wrong. Muricans couldn't care less where Georgia is

but lord do they care that the COLD WAR is back on...

All them FEARS are back

[Doctor_J]

45. "own minds are so staggered by the enormity and villainy of it"

Amen to that brother tom. Their audacity is their greatest asset. In choosing McSame's sidekick, they went with the most unqualified person they could find, just to prove they could do it. Sarah Palin isn't fit morally or experientially to run a dog pound, much less a country. Yet her nomination has pulled millions of votes into the McSame column. Those of us based in reality either laugh or cry at it. But the brainwashed masses eat it up, and the Bushies put another one in the win column.

[glitch]

14. It is disheartening seeing the same old moves come out to play

but we really didn't expect them to just go away, did we? Ok, I kind of hoped they would take their loot and scurry back to their cracks. Let us fatten up for 10 years or so before they returned. But I guess they still have the military to liquidate. Lots of ready cash there still, even if it is sold to the lowest bidder terrorist state.

On the other hand, more people are aware now than before. While another election theft is the likeliest outcome it's not an absolute certainty. And who knows, maybe this time those that we've given our power to will fight back. And if they don't, maybe we'll take our power back. That has happened before, it could happen again.

And look on the bright side, if they are planning another election theft perhaps that means they'll leave American cities alone. For now. Perhaps.

At any rate, I am going to continue to choose to hope, since hope costs nothing. We'll know soon enough if I am a fool for it. I can handle another humiliation.

Save despair for better times.

[beam me up scottie]

17. A certain John Carpenter film comes to mind...

[Tutankhamun]

21. The OP is right.

A close "election" is an automatic victory for McBush. We need a scandal the media is forced to cover.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. What I find really discouraging

is watching the reaction to the demonstrations at the RNC.

The right-wing reaction is "dirty, smelly, unemployed hippies who should have been shot."

The left-wing reaction is "Since when is free speech a crime, and what about the possibility of police provocateurs?"

The "moderate" reaction is, "Well, I believe in free speech and everything, but those protesters shouldn't have thrown stuff." (This is even though the violence started after the main protest was over.)

Neither the right-wing nor the "moderate" group seems willing to even consider the possibility of police or FBI provocateurs, despite clear historical precedents.

There's a deep authoritarian streak in the American psyche, and all that is required for taking another step toward fascism is to push the right buttons.

It's scary, because one of the insidious things about fascism as seen in 1970s Latin America or pre-war Japan is that most people are able to get on with their lives, and the government provides them with handy scapegoats to explain their economic misery.

[EFerrari]

31. The little red flags are almost more alarming than the big ones.

Promoting a superstitious, ignorant woman with no executive ability whatsoever, one who apparently can't even manage her own household, to hold the nation's second highest office while pretending that she is in some way a public servant and the peer of a US Senator. That's alarming.


But Nancy Pelosi's book tour about "knowing your power" while she pointedly ignores voters in her district is worse because she's demonstrating how little power we have in reality.

What about watching Democratic delegates walk around with their ATT bags? Or, the wholesale rounding up of journalists in St Paul?

[tom_paine]

38. I'm not sure I agree with the significance of Palin. I think it was a simple marketing decision.

See, we think politically, the Bushies are thinking psychology, marketing and advertising.

It is simply another area they have run rings around the people who were supposed to protect us from Bushie and Bush-like Tyrants.

It is clearly to be seen in the contrasting ad campaigns, and the difference gets more pronounced every year. Democratic commercials are the same old same old bullshit. The Bushies come up with the wolves and other commercials to bypass the conscious mind and "go straight to the spine" so to speak.

The decision to pick Palin is very similar. One: she's a woman. sadly, it's as simple as that, from a marketing perspective. Bushies are always slimily doing that which they accuse their foes of.

Like Clarence "Slappy" Thomas, who may STILL be unqualified even after 10 years of on the job training, and who was definitely VERY unqualified even back then. But they Bushies needed a black dude so they could sneak in a villain behind the race issue, which of course is exactly what they always accuse the Democrats of doing.

There are differences between judicial and political decisions, but Bushie smart marketing decisions underlie them all. And sometimes it is really that simple. Lik how they chose Keyes, an African-American, to run against Obama.

Running against a black dude? Find a black dude. It didn't work that time but the marketing principles are the same. You can pick off some white women voters in a close election by nominating a woman? Nominate a woman. Sinister, simple, and effective time and time again, like almost ALL advertising, marketing and propaganda.

which brings us back to Palin. Many others have written on her advertsining/marketing appeal and we all know that issue are absolutely and 100% meaningless in Amerikan Sham Elections, even if they are smartly rigged in a targeted fashion, so I will not expound on her "marketing appeal" which goes well beyond her looks or any facile reasoning, but will suggest you find those articles and check them out at Huffpost of Joe Bageant or elsewhere.

Thus, Palin does not matter other than her archtypal marketing persona, including the fact that she is a woman.

Sadly, from that marketing, strictly issue-less perspective, she is a "good" choice for the Bushies to make it close enough to steal. With their pet Noise Machine and Toady M$M helping as always...well...now we are full circle back to the OP.

[EFerrari]

40. The marketing aspect is clear, which is why I suggested Caribou Barbie

along with a line of accessories for her.

But, I can't agree she doesn't matter as an individual or, if I'm not mistaken, I'm simply complicit with the view that reduces people to commodities.

[Stand and Fight]

162. One minute now...

I'm a moderate and I do consider it a very real possibility -- if not a high likelihood. Maybe it's because I'm African-American and have no misplaced notions about law enforcement, but it is entirely likely to me that the cops spurred this on... On that same token, I've known some of the more radical and seedy elements who show up to protest, and contrary to DU-think many of these people are not necessary upstanding citizens themselves.

Grouping moderates in with right-wingers is an insult to say the least. My personal opinion? Nothing like this happened at our Democratic convention... I think that's one of the most relevant things to consider -- especially when you look back at 2004 as well.

[ismnotwasm]

23. I don't know

While I'm certainly not in the "they're the same anyway" (Democrats and Republicans)camp, my personal feeling is that our political system has always been the problem. Started by propertied white males, some idealistic, some cynical, they came up with some fine ideas within the context of their experience. Despite these fine ideas, or ideals even, propertied, white males have made sure they ruled the roost so to speak, ever since. So with a accommodating media with a mighty infusion of the same old same old patriarchal religious values, things do look bleak.

But "things" over time, have changed. The "people", who the definition of has expanded to include minorities and women, from time to time thrown a wrench in the works.

The "polarization" of "issues" we've seen over the last few decades isn't new, but the issues are. Where the despair comes in for me, is those "people" who vote against their own interests, or think values voting puts living wages, along with food, on the table.

America is a fat country, and I'm not talking about weight. In fact, when I use that term to a Muslim from oh, say The Gambia, he knows exactly what I mean. We have lots of stuff here, stuff that's mostly meaningless. Comforting, but ultimately meaningless. So when a ticket like McCain/Palin comes along-- people who think having meaningless stuff is the American way, because it is, as well as having a self righteous busy body's interest in what is not their business, I hate to say it, but people Do relate. Who wants to be told horseshit is horseshit when we persist in thinking it's pure gold? We hand those who have less a huge pile of the same horseshit and tell them there is a pony in it somewhere.

Where I leave despair behind is in the voices of those who all of a sudden realize that they can made a difference, that their votes are being courted. The ones who were handing that big pile. I've seen people talk politics, who last year couldn't have cared less. Youth, Blacks, poor women, other disenfranchised voters and citizens who most definitely are NOT being polled are planning on voting. They're hitting the streets, they're talking.

I think there is more reason to hope than not, and I remain cautiously optimistic

[susanwy]

121. but will they turn out?

And in enough numbers to outweigh the election fraud? I wish I could be optimistic, but I remember 2004, the same argument. Oh, the youth will turn out to vote because they don't want a draft. Poor minorities will turn out because they are getting the message the food, water, shelter out weigh god, guns and gays. But what happened, the youth didn't turn out in any larger numbers than they had in 2000, and the voter fraud effectively neutralized the minority vote. Add to that the fact we STILL vote on a Tuesday....oh well, I'm not optimistic.

[Stand and Fight]

166. I'm with you on every point.

That's something these idiotic polls don't reflect. The great amount of people who have never voted before, are young, have only cell phones... None of those folks are being polled, and in regards to the youth vote, that is a huge dynamic. I am cautiously optimistic myself, but I believe people are going to be GREATLY surprised come November IF these people you mentioned come out to vote. I believe they will because of this historical election and, yes, because this time it is in their own best interests.

[Zomby Woof]

299. I am not convinced by the cell-phone argument

It was bandied about around here quite a bit in 2004, and came up empty as a theory.

[BlooInBloo]

24. We're doomed! DOOMED!!!!

[seemslikeadream]

27. No but the weed seed of FASCISM is always there

[Annces]

26. I sense the same thing

That the America of today is as without will as Germany under the Nazis. A sense of powerlessness and obedience to people with no care for humanity.

[Philosoraptor]

28. This is the dying of the age of Aquarius

[alfredo]

29. K&R

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

33. Not all that slow. The campaigning has been going on for 3 years.

Although it's not over yet, the Democrats seem to be making a hash of it yet again by offering the same old politics as usual pandering.

The Republicans are tapping into the "patriotism" of fear and more than a little plain old racism.

[Greyhound]

37. K & R.

A couple of days ago I read a poignant and disturbing post from one of our MDs here. He told of a 95 year old German that survived WWII. The man was dying and told the Doctor that he never thought he'd live to see this happen again.

This is a first-hand eye witness account of the rise of the Third Reich in his country and he sees the same thing happening here and, more relevantly, he sees Americans reacting in exactly the same manner as the Germans did. The rationalizations, the denial, the refusal to honestly look at what is happening right in front of them.

What can we do except to get out while there is still time? Make no mistake, there will come a time when it will be impossible to leave without permission from our masters.

[tom_paine]

44. He is one of THOUSANDS of WWII victims and survivors who feel the same way

It should be a major story. The testimony of these people would be powerful and irrefutable.

Which is why the Bushie M$M will NEVER allow them near a microphone, or allow that MD and likely the hundreds like them who also know WWII victims and survivors, to tell their story.

Hitler and Goebbels would be proud.

[nadinbrzezinski]

193. I know two direct survivors and my mom

they feel the same way

[AtomicKitten]

42. They only thing I fear is election fraud.

[Doctor_J]

47. What tom is saying is that all the other machinery makes blatant fraud unneccessary

Anyone with a brain knows that FL went for Gore in 2000 and OH went for Kerry in 2004. This year's theft will be along those same lines - a few thousand votes in key areas. without the propaganda onslaught and bombardment of lies, they would need to blatantly (probably physically) disenfranchise hundreds of thousands or more. Even the "Good Americans" might be put off by that.

[AtomicKitten]

65. The GOP is already purging voting roles as we speak.

[entanglement]

46. Republicans believe people's vices determine their behavior rather than their virtues

Their strategy is based on that. Bank on the electorate to be racially prejudiced (won't vote for a Black man). Bank on their selfishness (Katrina / NOLA). Bank on their xenophobia to promote imperialism (Iraq). Bank on their fear of the cold-war past (the socialist bogeyman). Bank on their religious bigotry to oppose science (global warming, evolution). Bank on their greed (rapacious capitalism). Bank on their fear ('terra, terra'). Bank on their homophobia. And on and on it goes.

What if a large portion of the electorate does not possess these vices? Why, just bombard them with propaganda, hate and misinformation 24 x 7 using the pliant, reactionary media / press / hate radio. Promote hate as love, bigotry as spirituality, xenophobia as patriotism, selfishness as independence, callousness as compassion, mythology as history and ignorance as science and you have a formula for victory.

The odds are stacked so heavily against the oppressed working class - and yet, one continues to hope against hope because that is what keeps us going.

[Doctor_J]

48. No, they believe Dems are subhuman

If "people's vices determined their behavior", they wouldn't put a cowardly, flip-flopping serial adulterer and fascist, inexperienced, corrupt adulterer up for election.

[masmdu]

49. I Think You Are Wrong...Obama will win...Life will get better

[tom_paine]

52. Let's hope so. That certainly is my preferred outcome.

[David Zephyr]

50. I wrote pretty much the same thing and my OP was diverted to the Siberian 9/11 forum.

tom_paine, you have no idea how much I agree with you.

I'd like to say more, but it does no one any good to throw a damp towel on hope. I just can't muster it up to do it.

But there will be great conflict if/when this election is stolen. My family is preparing as we get our mountain home off the grid for energy, water, etc.

[treestar]

54. It is Sept 9

Why give up now?

Start getting people to realize the media is manipulative. People don't like being manipulated.

The media is not everything; not everyone just does what Billo tells them to do. Some people don't even watch these pundits.

Go to the Obama web page - it is wonderfully laid out and super easy to find events to help out at.

[tom_paine]

56. I said in my OP I am not advocating giving up. Making observations is not advocating giving up.

I do wish I had better observations to make. Don't blame the messenger of reality sucks.

BTW, of course I hope I am wrong.

[galileoreloaded]

55. Very insightful and rational view, but then we have to ask why are people agreeable...

to constantly denying their own interests, and the answer is really quite simple and yet confusing, IMHO. The political will of any state is shaped fundamentally on the collective placement within the Maslow hierarchy of needs for the populism at large, and the control mechanisms in place to meet those needs. What is important to a starving Sudanese is very different to what is important to a Brit.

The aggregate re-balancing of those mechanisms and the needs within the pyramid, in my view, is the principle reason we find ourselves in our current political equation of (reason+reality<structural political change=insane decisions).

The idea of telling a progressive that they will not receive their "guaranteed" SSI, Medicare, pension, etc. has roughly the same equivalence and appalling indignation as telling a neo-con that someone is trying to "kill their god". The difference is that most neo-cons don't exist at the same level on the pyramid as us "little people" (as they see us), as their lower needs are generally met, and so their attention is allowed to dwell on other things, predominantly religion and nationalism.

This is why when things get rough, and people fall farther and farther down the pyramid, the collective opinion tends to equalize, and religion and spiritual needs fall prey to food, shelter, clothing etc. This is in large measure why FDR had such great success in enacting the policies of his day. Everybody (statistically) was poor.

Both, traditional progressive and conservative ideals, namely entitlements and religion respectively, are control mechanisms, and the founding fathers created or rather enumerated the ideas of "civil liberty's" so as to offer future generations the guidebook for throwing off those control mechanisms. Unfortunately, history has shown that it takes two generations to completely forget the lessons of the past, and here we find ourselves in a political reality that mirrors numerous historic political singularities or tipping points.

The harsh reality of our position in domestic and global politics probably has more to do with our excess of diversity: socio-economic, racial, political, on and on, rather than our collective vision towards what is right, how ever you define it.

Large events, such as our current economic disaster, and it IS a disaster, allow these differences to bubble to the surface, as different populations struggle to have their needs met. This is very different in Europe for example, as the geographical proximity to your neighbor historically promotes clan warfare and tribalism, but tend to smooth out the social needs question, as there is are strong familial and economic ties based on that said geographic "compression".

As an example, if you are a New Yorker, and you come to AZ where I am, I guarantee, there will be as much culture shock as if you live in France and you go to Bahrain, roughly the same distance.

What does this mean?? I don't know. Maybe we (separate ideologies) shouldn't live together, or perhaps we should gain perspective on our friends and enemies. Perhaps we should recognize the the last 300-400 years of "civilization" that we have enjoyed pales in comparison to the 100-200,000 years we have spent evolving, and that we might need a little more time as a species.

[tom_paine]

62. Pretty damned insightful reply, yourself. Inetersting perspective.

It's sometimes kind of tough to try and bring up the downsides of the left here at DU, but they certaintly exist, and I find interesting your perspective that views entitlement as control mechanisms.

In some ways, they certainly are that, I'll grant, but I generally hew to the FDR line on entitlements and still consider myself an "FDR Democrat".

"A Hand Up not a Hand Out."

Anyway, like you, I am drifting away from the main topic into a tangent. Not that there's anything wrong with that. As I said, I found your post interesting from top to bottom. An interesting mix of the Big and Little Picture.

Part of your post in in the Big Picture (Maslow's heirarchy of needs & the idea of diversity), part in the Little (progressives and "handouts"; conservatives and religion).

And while an interesting perspective, I still will hew to the even smaller picture, for the moment, that while the Democratic Party has it's disagreeable side, I was never worried they were aiming to literally snuff the Old Americanm Republic from the face of the Earth or lott the public treasury, or would purposefully delay aid to a drowning city of Democrats and African-Americans or any of the other shit the Bushies have done.

So, I cannot follow that path to the "they're both the same, Republicrats and Demicans", because at no time in recent history has the disparity been so great, certainly in terms of sheer villainy.

Hell, before the coming of the Bushpublicans, I don't believe I ever considered any politiciands truly villainous, even Nixon, who was a bad guy, but villainous?

So I agree with you, up to a certain point.

[galileoreloaded]

69. Thanks for the kind words.

I am not suggesting that anyone is the same or better or worse, and I am NOT trying to accentuate the negatives within the American left.

I will say though that those that look to Europe as a model for single payer, social programs, etc. MUST account for the comparative "compressed" geography and a culture that allowed for a European Union, and also allowed for their common defense in two World Wars as well as their common re-unification years later.

Very important to realize as well, is that we probably would not have the same set of political challenges today had the US been divided into say, three separate nation-states, and THEN organized into a Union. Look at the average red/blue map, and the massive disparity of politic, economy, religion, etc.

That in turn formulates my comment about control structure, as while social safety nets may be a huge issue in urban Baltimore where the needs of a populous is perhaps at the basest of levels, they mean nothing in Salt Lake City, where religion is the reason for their existence, the lower levels of the pyramid being irrelevant. The Mormons lived in defacto starvation for DECADES based on religious ideals and they vote along those lines, and probably won't change.

Not trying to be rude to Mormons or Marylanders, just trying to interject a dichotomy or two for thinking purposes to this debate.

I was merely trying to take a bread and butter rationally to our current political reality, and attempting to backdrop that against history and the current climate and somehow achieve a reason for our collective will or failure of enactment thereof.

I don't personally have any opinion on FDR, as I wasn't around, but it seems quite obvious to me that at that time and at that place, his ideas were accepted and integrated into the status quo. The public spoke and by virtue of his continued re-elections, spoke clearly and loudly.

It is important, and I hope you will agree, that understanding the why is socially, psychologically, and collectively the first step towards changing and allowing this great experiment to continue.

[tom_paine]

82. Could you elaborate just a bit more? You lost me a little.

Your last line:

It is important, and I hope you will agree, that understanding the why is socially, psychologically, and collectively the first step towards changing and allowing this great experiment to continue.

Ok, so what is the why you speak of? What is the larger issue here, in your opinion? Given your comments on location which leads to the religion vs. social safety net dichotomy, what is the specific bread and butter issue of why that you speak of?

I am not trying to be snide or argumentative, it sounds like an interesting point and perspective. I guess I just need a few more bread crumbs to get to it. :evilgrin:

Also, you are correct that FDR wove himself and his ideas into the establishment status quo. Certainly true, though in hindsight it is clear there was a small yet VERY POWERFUL cabal, which eventually became the Bushies, that never forgave nor forgot FDRs betrayal of his fellow Ruling Class, even though it saved capitalism and perhaps even American democracy (at least until 12/12/2000 ended it once and for all).

So, in that degree, FDR wove himself into the status quo, but once we peasants became to dumb and lazy and drugged and TV-zombified to know or care what they were up to, they took almst all of it back.

And the rest of the loot they missed, along with the rest of FDRs reforms and what little remains of the Bill of Rights, the Bushies'll carry out on their backs after Emperor McBush is installed in November.

[Fiendish Thingy]

71. Catastrophic economic collapse enabled FDR's reforms, but

it also enabled Hitler's rise to power.

"This is why when things get rough, and people fall farther and farther down the pyramid, the collective opinion tends to equalize, and religion and spiritual needs fall prey to food, shelter, clothing etc. This is in large measure why FDR had such great success in enacting the policies of his day. Everybody (statistically) was poor."

On the downward spiral of a collapse, if our leaders and media allow, there will be blaming and recriminations of various groups, liberals, people of color, Muslims, the poor.

[tom_paine]

85. Very true. So much depends on a nation's "at the moment" psychology.

Having watched the Bushies pull a kinde and gentler "Rise of Hitler" these last 8 years from the ground-level I can now say with some certainty that it was a narrow thing either way, that America during FDR opted for the continuation of the Old American Republic over alliance with the Nazis.

You may already know that what I am saying is not hyperbole in the least, but if you do not, prepare to be shocked...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

This is not the first time the Bush Family has tried to literally destroy America. It may bethe first time they have succeded, though.

Oh, and by the way, our national psyche at THIS moment? The National Psyche of the Amerikan Subject Populace? Nearly identical to the Germans who vaulted Hitler into power and supported him or fumed silently but did nothing against him.

There can be no question what this country will become if the economy crashes. The details, as always, are murky, but let's just say we will leave this relatively pleasant kinder and gentler Inverted Totalitarianism and make a journey towards the more Classical variety.

And I hate to say it, but after seven years of extensively observing and chatting with my fellow Amerikans, I have absolutely no faith that, except for a few Oskar Schindlers - there's always at least a few, anyone will do anything about it but what we do now, take our Prozac and beer and watch TV...or should I say "take our TV" since it is undoubtedly the most powerful drug of all.

[Javaman]

57. Nothing slow motion about it...

after moron* wrung every ounce of propaganda out of 9/11 and did a complete home make over on the US, it was nothing but racking through the coals for the things they missed the first time around.

[Taverner]

58. Coincidence Theorists - I love it!

[bobthedrummer]

59. K&R+ an archived thread

"Reality vs Perception Management: the tinfoil controversy" (started 1-6-2006)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x71919

[Joanne98]

60. It's so depressing. But this is what happens when your own leaders won't fight back.

Nancy Pelosi has been a diaster. She has LOST EVERY SINGLE BATTLE WITH BUSH! Harry Reid is letting them debate the Columbia FREE TRADE AGREEMENT right now. If that FTA passes, we will lose Ohio for sure because the Dems will be blamed for bringing it to the floor.

We have an army, but no one to follow. We need LEADERSHIP!

[tom_paine]

64. Sadly, there is nothing new about this.

Read Sebastian Haffner's "Defying Hitler" and you will know that we share many of the same feelings towards our Democratic Leadership and their capitulations as the liberal Germans felt about the Social Democrats and THEIR capitulations.

If I recall correctly, it was "akin to a national nervous breakdown", as Haffner put it in 1934, when the ordinary Germans realized all opposition to Hitler utterly collapsed. Just like the growing horrific realization WE felt in 2007 as the same became clear to US.

There's more, much more. But "Defying Hitler" will amaze you with it's relevance to toay's Amerika.

One can almost hear the Freepers in the "Liberal vs. Nazi" discussion between Haffner and his friends in early '34.

And the various "coping strategies" people adapted to live under Hitler will astonish you with how it looks right into your heart. It is almost a certainty that, like me, you will look at those coping strategies and say about one of them, "My God...that's MY coping strategy I have adopted in part or whole for the last eight years!"

Nothing new under the sun. Without the fear and the imminent physical danger, for now at least, we are living much ofthe madness and helplessness that the liberals and Jews of Germany must have felt as their world went mad and upside-down around them, too.

Hey, at least we don't have the imminent phsycial danger and fear for our lives...for at least a decade.

Unless we have another Bushie "terrorist" attack.

Or if the economy gets really bad.

Or if people get really scared and hungry.

Or if the Bushies decide, "What the fuck? Let's just go for it. No one can stop us."

[Taverner]

61. Agreed BUT we must also work like hell to prevent it

[nickgutierrez]

67. If everybody that wants to legally vote for Obama was allowed to do so...

...and have that vote properly counted, he'd get 60% of the vote. We all need to make sure, starting right now, that our voter registrations are still valid, even if nothing has changed that would invalidate it, and we need to make sure everyone we know does the same.

Otherwise, you may be right.

[sattahipdeep]

68. Have we forgotten the past?

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=7364281&version=1&locale=EN-US

[paparush]

230. That was simultaneously sickening and incredibly inspiring.

That young woman exemplifies the BEST of non-violence.

To me, that is as powerful as the Chinese man who stood in front of the column of tanks.

[bigmonkey]

72. In this post you are actively promoting what you purport to despise.

Your tone, and its effect on the reader who is not in your coterie of "realists", advocate for giving up and not voting. Your protestation that it should not do so is disingenuous.

I'm still baffled by the combination of arrogance and self-promotion that produces an OP like this. Both of those qualities are distilled in your use of the terms "realist" and "reality." You are making a prediction, do you understand that? A prediction, by definition, can't be a statement about reality, it can only be an assessment, a viewpoint. You are discussing the future of culture, not a laboratory experiment, and the actors are not elemental particles or molecules whose behavior can be comprehensively predicted. Your use of those two terms, one even in your "prologue", reveals that you are trying to preclude discussion. As if your ideas are real, those of others are not. Hogwash.

So what is your purpose in spending so much time to write this? Are you perhaps trying for fame as a self-described "realist"? You certainly aren't helping the political situation any. Whatever the odds, and currently the odds of an Obama victory are rather high, your declamation of despair can only reduce them. I've had online conversations with people who say that by this kind of behavior they are trying to wake people up, but I have a strong suspicion, and I think you should consider this, that the number of people that will be motivated positively by self-indulgent, despairing statements like yours is very small, approaching your "few realists", and far fewer than the number who are dragged into discouragement by the kind of things you say and the way that you say them. You need to own both what you say, and how you say it. You are the opposite of Tom Paine, using a sheen of rationality to cloak an emotional inducement to fear at a time when victory is finally possible.

I think it's likely you do want the negative result, you should be more honest. To be charitable, I would say that you want it so you can be correct, and at the head of the cool kids.

[tom_paine]

97. I am going to try very hard to reply to you in a civil fashion, though your post warrants being

cursed.

OK? Here goes:

1) You don't know me from Adam. How dare you play armchair psychologist and tell me what my motivations are and how I feel about various things?

Want to talk about arrogant self-indulgence? Pretending you can peer into my soul on the basis of a thread at DU is pretty arrogantly self-indulgent, no?

2) I have been walking the walk for quite some time, how 'bout you?

I am not talking about posting at DU, though I certainly have been here since April 2001. DU is an anonymous message board, and as such has little to no bearing on the real world. No, what I am talking about is donating your time and busting your ass after work and on days off/weekends, or taking the day off to drive seniors and the poor to the polls or run errands for the Democratic Party and Candidates on Election Day?

Ever done that? I've used vacation days in 2002, 4, and 6 and spent them hustling, driving and generally busting my ass all day Election Days so that I haven't seen a night-time election-fest since 2000 because I came home at 8 or 9 PM exhausted and fell asleep.

Ever given up buying something you wanted because that $50 was earmarked for Democratic candidates in an even election year? I have. More than once in 2004 especially I broke my own bank giving more than I could afford.

In 2002 I worked for my Democratic House Campaign, in 2004, Kerry AND the Democratic House campaign, with an occasional hand to the 2004 Democratic Senatorial Campaign when there was a joint event. In 2006, again I worked for the Democratic House Candidate.

You see, it's easy for you to blather on, and assume you know AAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL about me. To sit back and bitch about my self-indulgent arrogance and juvenile, never noticing all you are doing is projecting some of your more unpleasant personality traits and ascribing them to me?

:rofl: Yeah, it sucks having someone you've never met pretend they know all about you, doesn't it?

So tell me, how much have you donated to the Democrats in the last three even-year elections? How many doors have you knocked on? How many hours have you spent calling people for Democratic candidates? I'm curious.

If you haven't done any of these things, you should be ashamed of yourself for bitching at me, who have done so much and you so little for the cause.

The original Tom Paine lived at the end of the enlightenment. The intellectual pinnacle and counterpoint, in many ways, to the low of the medieval Dark Ages. The birth of modern freedom with the American Revolution.

It is our misfortune to live at a wholly other time, the Fall of Rome, just prior to the coming of a likely new and longer Dark Ages, possibly culminating in human extinction, depending n how severe environmental damage is and will be.

You make a good point though. Food for thought. How WOULD the original Tom Paine behave had he lived HERE today? Would he be the same man, and therefore one of the ones arrested at the RNC or perhaps in Guantanamo for speaking of violent rebellion? A Timothy McVeigh?

Or would he just despair, try for seven or eight years and then see the writing on the wall?

Who knows? He lived at the pinnacle of the Age of Enlightenment? We live at the cusp of a new Dark Age, with the Bushies working on eradicating what few of the original Tom Paine's principles they have yet to trample.

3) As to your contention to secretly wish McCain win to be "one of the cool kids", it is all I can do not to begin cursing you at the vileness of the idea you ascribe to me.

That would be like petulantly wishing everyone to die because I skinned my knee. Juvenile? No, a toddler's antipathy is what you disgracefully ascribe to me.

Project much?

Let me say unequivocally that I am sick at the thought of four years of McCain and that I will unequivocally rejoice should Obama beat the odds and be our next Emperor.

I will be deliriously happy. As I have said I will come to DU and let everyone who wants a verbal shot at me have it. And I will take my medicine gladly. How could I be anything less than deliriously happy on that day?

I say again, you don't know me. I am long past worrying whether I motivate people or not. I call it as I see it. Long ago in late 2001 and early 2002, when probably you were listening to O'Reilly and thinking Bush was a pretty good, strong, honest man, up through 2007, I spent lots of time playing that game. No more. Too late for anything but frankness.

So now I have addressed three of the more disgraceful, arrogant, self-indulgent aspects of your post and how you know nothing of me and got everything wrong.

Oh, and I did say Obama COULD win ("be allowed to win" is more accurate), I just think the odds are very slim considering the Bush False Reality Generating Machine.

The rest of your post is equally as shallow and vile ad hominem. Scarcely worth answering and this post is long enough.

Maybe, just MAYBE, when you have spent a couple hundred hours working for Democratic candidates and pounding pavement. MAYBE when you make even the tiniest sacrifice of yourself or your own time for "the cause of victory", like taking a vacation day that you could be at the beach and instead working your ass off knocking on doors with strangers from other states on election day, THEN you can bitch at me.

If you aren't right now volunteering for Obama, then STFU. ARE YOU...volunteering for Obama?

ARE YOU?

[bigmonkey]

114. Well, hello!

What a disgrace to myself that I made you quite so angry – I apologize about the intensity.
I've been politically active myself for about 38 years, starting with demonstrations against the Vietnam war in 1970. I haven't got quite your number of hours in, but I've been canvassing, working with one of the PIRGs, doing phone banking (for Obama), contributing, etc. for most of that time. I share a concern about election fraud that drove all my friends crazy, and lost me much of their respect until it became more obvious. We're on the same side as far as political stances go. I think it allows me to comment.

What I'm saying is that the tone is a major aspect of what you've written, and it actively discourages the people you obviously want to encourage, who you want to fight the good fight. I'm not saying it's badly written, quite the opposite, and your reply to me clears up that your motivation isn't along those lines in the general flow.

I found your piece personally very discouraging. You evidently didn't mean that, but I think that with such a piece you are discouraging far more people than you are motivating. If you just want to write a cri du coeur I have no objection (how could I object?) but to portray your despair as somehow more realistic than other people's views is the real hope-killer. I don't think you want to kill that hope, or to dampen motivation in a progressive direction. It sure seems like you don't, so what's the motivation for “publishing” this OP? What's published here has a public effect.

[tom_paine]

122. Thank you for your civil reply. As I said above, I am beyond caring about motivating

people.

I am HOWLING. Pure and simple. Wolf on the plains and the pack done died of disease. I'm weak and I'm human. From your perspective it is wrong for me to have started this thread, and that is why I put the warnings in at the top. People had the choice to stop and turn away from something they'd find very distasteful. It was their choice...your choice to read on when you knew what this thread was likely about from the start.

HOOOOOOOOOWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Just howling. Sometimes you just gotta let it out and howl for the pain, you know?

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I speak in the tone I do because at this point that is how I feel, and I am tired of cloaking it. Been headed this way since 2004, and accelerated in the dissapointing Year of Democratic Party capitulations that was 2007.

I don't know if you read all the entries on this thread...it IS a long thread, but somewhere I mentioned that for the last couple months prior to today, I have posted almost nothing at DU for the very issues of morale that you described.

So, far from being insensitive to your morale point, up until today it was guiding me. Today I grew weak and needed to howl.

We ARE both an the same side, undoubtedly and our similarities far outweight our differences, I am sure.

I wish for what you wish. I wish and hope that you are right and I am wrong. I just wish that my analysis of the past eight years, the past twenty years, and the past six months are mistaken, and that my observation supported such a conclusion.

But my OP tells what what my conclusions are to that sequence of analyses. I wish it were not so.

Could I be wrong? Hell, yes! Please let me be wrong.

HOOOOOOOOOWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[bigmonkey]

304. Civility is good, within reason, but ...

I'm still thinking about this. I disagree with your second sentence in your preceding "Howl" reply. You may not "care about motivating people", but you are demotivating people. That's my objection.

[katty]

75. I hear ya - right now palin AND her hubby are signing autographs

an overnight sensation--suddenly on the way to 1600 Penn Ave??! WTF?!

[Imagevision]

77. Keeping negative thoughts to oneself sometimes can be helpful...

[Runcible Spoon]

87. yeah, wouldn't want any of that nasty truthiness around, would we.

back into the sand with thee...

[katty]

91. yeah, the ugly truthiness is a harsh teacher-but we learn

[nolabels]

185. The idea people have fearful brain farts and should try them out silently was the point

Or in other words examining varying facets of evidence of how certain scenarios could play themselves out and then asking questions in an un-paranoid way about some of those ideas makes sense.
Running around like chicken little serves only small minority who pray upon that type of behavior

[tom_paine]

211. How much do you take before common sense rebels?

Obama routinely fills venues of more than 10,000. McBush can't even fill a ballroom.

Exaggeration? Barely, if at all. Look at the pictures.

And in this condition, with 80% of people answering at any given time that the nation in on the wrong track, the race is "knotted" in the polls.

Yeah, right.

How many time do you have to get shit on before you realize what is raining down isn't the delicious chocolate pudding your TV has been telling you is raining down?

I have spent plenty of days on DU doing as you suggest, calmly anayzing the data, asking questions, and making suggestions in calm, civilly worded threads.

So what? The response from people like you is the same if the analysis is careful or ranting. The very same. Not a whit or iota of difference.

"Shut up, you crazy chicken little!"

Even here at DU it is largely true: Any straying from the collective herd of M$M-induced thought is met with ridicule and disgust. A little bit less so than the "real world" but not by a whole lot, really.

Witness the Tim Russert Orgy of Political Correctness that came raining down in the aftremath of his death.

So, in that event, why waste time pandering to you types when all you're going to do is call me an idiot and otherwise slur me, anyway?

In such a case, proven by your lot time and time again, why NOT just let it all hang out in a big old howling fuck you not just to the Bushies but to the clueless, as well, many of whom (I am not speaking of you, here) simply get their rocks of, it seems by looking for threads they can superiorly and smugly jump on with their insults and their cries of "tinfoil" "apranoid" and "chicken little".

The clueless, to whom reeking shit can rain down upon their heads day after day after day and never ONCE wonder if it reeks so bad because the TV is lying that this is a new and more delivious form of chocoalte puddng with a mildly unpleasant smell.

To paraphrase our Dear Fuhrer, "Who cares what you think?"

[nolabels]

238. To me, It doesn't matter WTF * and the minions thinks of what i and others think

It's what we do with it that matters. No amount of debate or communications from what ever majority that has assembled will persuade the den of decadent to cede the reigns. Actually today and every day from here on i will be expecting things to become even more difficult and protracted. To the extent things leave the theoretical and start to operate in the practical is when things start changing.

I also have not spent these many years here at DU just expecting some debate to change things. The time comes when things just have to be done, that time is approaching This vast array of crooks that masquerades as the head of the federal government will not just lay down and walk off because of some vote. I agree that words, waiting and patience will not get it this time. It will take things of physical nature. Yea, be prepared with logical frame of mind is all i am getting at, because no moment is as good as the moment at hand

[EmeraldCityGrl]

80. I joined DU in order to read the unvarnished truth.

I experience a moment of clarity and renewed determination each time I read a posters comments that are in sync with my own.
The last eight years have dramatically changed my life and how I interact with my fellow Americans. It seems shortly after meeting
someone new, I find myself trying to detect which side of the road they're on. Compromise and tolerance can be found in
business situations, but on a personal and social level the walls go up. Conversation remains polite but I feel as if I'm playing in a psychological
mine zone. Where is the common ground I use to be able to find with every human being ? It simply no longer exists. We have been so divided,
half of us made to feel powerless, ridiculous, and god forbid, liberal!

You can't fight something you refuse to acknowledge exists. The carnage from this unspoken civil war is all around us. It just comes down to how
intolerable it needs to become before the majority say ENOUGH! Things are going to get much worse fiscally in the next few months. Maybe that
struggle will trump a mommy with kids and a gun. If not, we deserve what we get, and I agree with the author it's not going to be pretty.


The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

-H. L. Mencken-

[Runcible Spoon]

88. (belated) welcome to DU

it's good to know other people are paying attention...

[EmeraldCityGrl]

99. Thank you for the welcome:)

[screembloodymurder]

81. I can't say it, but we all know what we have to do.

What are you willing to lose to get your country back?

[NOLALady]

111. By any means necessary.

“Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”—John F. Kennedy

[Runcible Spoon]

84. I agree 100%. Even if Obama is the populists' dream so many want him to be...

and I have my severe doubts that he is, he won't be able to reverse anything significant. The best we can hope for is a few fingers in the dike...

While everyone is enjoying the corporate media Palin orgy, the REAL ISSUES are being left behind. Issues that even Obama and a Democratically-controlled congress can't or won't address:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20709.htm

“Modern Debt Peonage”?

Economic Democracy Is Turning Into a Financial Oligarchy
An interview with Michael Hudson, former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase & Co.), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute

"The Treasury’s aim is to revive Fannie and Freddie as lenders – and hence as vehicles for the U.S. economy to borrow from the foreign central banks and large institutional investors that I mentioned above. More lending is supposed to support real estate prices from falling quite so far as they otherwise would – and in fact, the aim is to keep the debt pyramid growing. The only way to do this is to lend mortgage debtors enough to pay the interest and amortization charges on the existing volume of debt they have been loaded down with. And since most people aren’t really earning any more – and in fact are finding their budgets squeezed – the only basis for borrowing more is to inflate the price of real estate that is being pledged as collateral for mortgage refinancing.

It is pure hypocrisy for Wall Street’s Hank Paulson to claim that all this is being done to “help home owners.” They are vehicles off whom to make money, not the beneficiaries. They are at the bottom of an increasingly carnivorous and extractive financial food chain.

Nearly all real estate experts are in agreement that for the next year or two, many of today’s homeowners will find themselves locked into where they are now living. Their situation is much like medieval serfs were tied to their land. They can’t sell, because the market price won’t cover the mortgage they owe, and they don’t have the savings to pay the difference."

[deaniac21]

89. He turned me into a newt.

[tom_paine]

103. "If she is heavier than a duck, she's a witch!"

"If she's lighter than a duck, she's a witch!"

"You are wise in the ways of science."

:rofl:

[deaniac21]

156. I got better.

[live love laugh]

90. I just wonder why they keep trying to cover it up--they have absolute control

and there is little that anybody can do to change it.

The pageantry staves off reality, I guess.

[katty]

92. all staging, like the Third Reich-it has to "look" like its a real

election-for their sheeple audience and the rest of the world, that's all that MATTERS to them.

[tom_paine]

105. My take on it is this. It's the same reason Caesar dared not declare himself king.

Even though he ALSO WAS one.

Both the Roman and American Republics have almost identical Founding Myths. That of a tyrannical set of kings being thrown off by proud patriots. Thus it was that both had as their Central Founding Myth of Freedom and that We Shall NEVER Bow To a King.

Caesar wanted to be king. With a Founding Myth like that to contend with, he would not. He could do damned near anything he pleased, and it got worse the more Caesars ruled, but the ONE thing he could NOT do was trample the people's most cherished myth.

As long as he could tread that narrow walkway between BEING a king and not actually LOOKING like one, he could do anything to anyone.

The same dynamic is at work here, I think.

[katty]

109. indeed it is - selling the 'ideal' of freedom & endless repeats

of this thoughtform-yet the continuing power structure still avoids any checks and balances/accountability...it is really a simple formula for keeping the (desperate) masses hypnotized and generally passive: 'WE GIVE you your freedom/democracy' - any empowerment of the people in the actual sense is forever circumvented/restricted/taken away slowly or overnight. the creeping fascism I/millions, have witnesses exponentially-since bush&co is truly stunning. As of today, I heard mcCain say: "we will give you REAL change" - he has now taken Obama's theme.

[G_j]

93. October surprises WILL happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile.html

[tomp]

98. this i believe. nt

[tom_paine]

106. 98% certainty.

Perhaps I am being too generous.

OK. 99. 99% certainty.

[donheld]

94. I hate you

For expressing what I feel. I've been feeling it for several days now. With great dread!

[tom_paine]

107. (whimpers) Don't hate the messenger.

Reality sucks. Living inside a Mass Delusion False Reality Bubble sucks.

Sometimes I feel like the "Joey Pants" character in The Matrix.

When you plug me back in, I don't want to remember any of this shit. And I want to be someone powerful and famous.

Yes sir, Mr. Reagan.

:rofl:

[DemoTex]

96. Read Herve Kempf's "How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth."

Then read Thorstein Veblen. Then tell me this wasn't the master plan all along. It's happening worldwide.

The middle class in the US had about 60 fair to good years, peaking in the early 1960s. But it is over now. Kaput. Fini.

Kempf's How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth (best-seller in Europe and just out in English translation) is one of the most depressing books that I have ever read. It is a non-fiction Sophie's Choice. A real wrist-slitter.

[pacalo]

100. My gut feeling all along is that you are right.

The media seems a little kinder toward the Democratic nominee this time around, but then reality hits me when I hear Brokaw tell Biden (both who aren't new to the scene) that Sarah Palin, an obvious twit who has to be kept away from the media until she is rehearsed, is a "formidible" opponent. And no matter how Biden tries to put the matter to rest, Brokaw continues to hammer that meme with a very sober, the-cat-ate-the-canary look on his face. Why is Brokaw so sure that Palin will be a hard nut to crack?

After 8 years of disgust & anger by the majority of people, I don't trust the polls that say both candidates are "even". I feel like they're used for conditioning the people to another Rethug "win".

Why does the right-wing continue to have a hold on the media, enough to dictate that our only source of reality -- Olbermann -- is removed as a campaign moderator?

Why was there no rabid swat-team police guarding against troublemakers at the Democratic National Convention like there were at the Republican National Convention?

Most of all, I can't reconcile with my common sense about the choosing of candidates this election cycle. I do like Obama, but why now, after 8 years of totalitarianistic treatment by the Rethugs?

I hope I'm pleasantly surprised when Obama is elected, but, unlike 2004, I'm not emotionally into it this time because I've seen the writing on the wall.

[nichomachus]

110. The very fact that we're discussing Palin is depressing

It means we have been sucked into their reality. One of the key things to avoid, when dealing with delusional people, is entering their reality. You must stay outside of it. Once you enter it and start arguing with them about it, you have already lost -- because their reality is their game. They set the rules and they set the parameters.

In this case, however, we have no choice. She is the candidate. But that never should have happened. In a sane world, McCain would have been laughed off the stage -- as would Palin. When he mentioned her name, journalists (remember them?) would have doubled up holding their sides and saying "No, really John, who are you naming?"

Sarah Palin is the least qualified candidate for high office since Caligula named his horse a consul. And yet, we are forced to debate and argue as if she were a legitimate candidate. That is the greatest insult.

I have been following her abysmal ignorance, her stream of lies, and her political corruption as much as anyone, but I resent having to do so, because it has sucked me into bizarro world. The whole conversation is outlandish, albeit very real.

And the polls are phony. There is no way that McCain and Obama are anywhere close to each other. This should be a slam-dunk for Obama, but if they can maintain the narrative that it's a neck and neck horse race, that allows them to engineer an October Surprise, steal a few precincts, and declare a victory. Americans will shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, the polls were close."

[chill_wind]

113. It's not going to happen. We're going to make McCain/Palin implode.

It's already formulating. He's probably been on a three-day drunk by now.

[tom_paine]

124. God I hope you are right. But at this point I have to see it to believe it.

n/t

[happygoluckytoyou]

115. GET OUT THE VOTE..... even the GOP may fear PALIN!!!!! pSYCho jOHn may even have scared THEM!!!!

as much as i hate the GOP.... and hate is just not word enough!!!! mccain may have dropped a bomb on them that they didn't expect.....
at 74 with all the beer he can drink....what did he have to fear....

THOSE CONSPIRACY NUTZ AT THE TOP HAVE THEIR OWN ISSUES>........

John....seriously off the deep end
Palin...a talking in tongues off the charts nut job

If Barack loses.... and it looks stolen.... BLACK RIOT AND BACKLASH.....

Biden... though a DEM is a "constant" and works across the aisles......

EVEN THEY MAY REALIZE THE SIZE OF THIS WAGER.......

[Gman]

117. Damn... somebody had to say it

I've been thinking it for days now. Even thought about posting it, but I could never have done it as eloquently as you have. Eloquence is not a strong trait I have.

It's interesting you used the term "Gleichschaltung". Listen to what's being said on Hannity or Rush and all around us. That's exactly what you have.

I'm afraid that the time is coming very soon when there are going to have to be thousands, no, millions of very, VERY brave people. We are headed for a civil war. Ironically, the Patriot Act will be used against these patriots. Citizens will be declared domestic terrorists (which is nothing more than a politically inflammatory term). People need to start deciding if they want to be sheep or if they love this country, and if they will do what is necessary to take it back.

[Raksha]

119. K & R, even though this thread is depressing the hell out of me.

What can I say? I'm part of the reality-based community too. I hope for the best, but expect the worst.

[Mike Nelson]

120. You pretty much got it

Sad, but true

[maxpower]

123. I just had the same conversation

yesterday with my best friend. He still believes, bless his heart, that Obama can win (I wish it were true). I pointed out just about everything in your post, I hate to be negative, but it is what it is. I think Obama could be the next Lincoln, unfortunately by hook or by crook that will never be so. I weep for my daughter's future.


Obama?Biden '08

[live love laugh]

128. I weep for the country I once knew. Whodathunk Humpty Dumpty would be a history lesson? nt

[bluesmail]

125. IMHO We're more like Saudi Arabia. Oh that can't be...can it?

Torture. Homosexual disgust. Rule of Law. HA! Politicization of each Fed Dept. I could go on. It's so depressing to think about. Yes IMHO America, my lovely country is Saudi Arabia. Crap Head hurts.

[keepCAblue]

129. Voter purging has started...and today New Jersey sends out 300,000

NJ SoS sent out 300,000 letters today advising residents they were not registered to vote - in spite of the fact that many, if not most, of those residents ARE registered. The letter even goes so far as to threaten these "illegally registered or non-registered voters" they will face a whopping $15,000 fine if they dare vote in the November election.

Election fraud? Oh you betchya. And the wheels of stealing another election have already been set in motion, via purges and threatening letters, such as those sent out today in NJ. This is just the beginning and isn't all just so deja vu?

[earth mom]

130. This all could have been stopped with a strong candidate like Gore or Edwards. I'm talking landslide

Edwards was hugely popular and his candidacy was destroyed as fast as the powers that be could destroy it because they knew he could win. The scandal may or may not have hurt him, I don't know. But he was a helluva better choice then this stupid ass "historical" race we've had the past year. I have been hitting my head on the wall for months telling everyone around here that Obama is not a strong enough candidate for oh so many reasons and no one would listen because they wanted to make history and do something they thought to be noble and oh yeah, spiritual-what the fuck ever. :eyes: It's all been just total bullshit because the democratic party needed to play hard ball with this election and they didn't. Jeez, Hillary would have been a better candidate than Obama-at least women wouldn't be paying attention to Palin if Hillary was on the ticket. And then Obama didn't pick Hillary for his running mate?! WTF? Does he really want to lose or what?!!!!

Yeah, I know I will get flamed for this post. So fucking what. I told you so. You all had to have it your bullshit "historic" short sighted idiotic way. Now we're all screwed. :(

[RagAss]

146. I've thought the same thing myself to be honest. It seems we could have run the

remains of LBJ this year and won the POTUS and instead we got into a bloodbath for 6 months within our own party and now find ourselves in a dead heat with a senile/old/shitass/liar and his pig sidekick .....unreal.

It's like we get paid to lose these things.....

[TankLV]

160. Not from me - I totally agree with you, but hope that we're both wrong...

Tom's OP is spot on - and I hope we all eat crow - but I fear that we are at the beginning of the END...

sorry - it's how we feel, no matter how you berate us...

[RagAss]

132. Agreed !....It's The Alchemy of truth......

From my journal...

GOP politics are a product of mind. Like it's model, cultist religion, there are no objective measurements or limitations. There is no right or wrong, nor is there any reality upon which to house "truth" other than the "cause of the day".

Yesterday's sin is today's virtue. Yesterday's saint is today's satan. Yesterday's road to hell is today's path to salvation.

Like their preachers "interpreting" the dogma every Sunday morning, their "truth" is a product of mental alchemy, served up like the Blue Plate Special at a highway diner and made with whatever was in the kitchen at the time.

Most of us here in DU have known this forever, so I'm not saying anything new. But after finding myself feeling the emotional stress of the past few days, regarding the hideous lies that were thrown out to America from the RNC, I guess I just needed to publicly remind myself of where they come from........

[Uncle Joe]

134. Even on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer,

they made no attempt to analyze the facts of the 2000 debate between Al Gore and Bush, who was right and who was wrong and certainly no analysis of the corporate media's dysfunctional role.

They aired part of one 2000 debate last night.

"Fuzzy math" is a "zinger" said Bush of Al Gore's contention that Bush's tax cut would primarily benefit the wealthiest 1% while damaging the nation.

Al Gore would have focused using the surplus toward helping the middle class and repairing our crumbling infrastructure, etc. etc.

The News Hours said Al Gore was the only major candidate to refuse their request to take part in this series they were running re: Presidential Debates, but they did interview Bush and he proudly stated "fuzzy math" was a just "zinger."

They did say Al Gore sighed off camera, what they didn't mention was that many pundits flipped overnight 180 degrees as to who won the debate, it was sort of like Florida flipping.

I contend this total out of touch with reality set of priorities by what serve as our so called "free press" is the greatest threat to our democratic republic.

When the American People are given foolish, incomplete and corrupted analysis of the issues and the candidates, the people make foolish decisions.

Taking over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, an exploding debt, record setting foreclosures with climbing unemployment, how's that for "fuzzy math" corporate media? Is that a "zinger"?

Thanks for the thread, Tom Paine.

[katandmoon]

137. You are not alone...I am firmly convinced this election will be stolen

Using the Repugs' fail-proof methods...a cowed/indifferent/complicit media, complicit state election officials, voting machine manipulation, voter suppression, and however many other dirty tricks they need to pull out of their bottomless bag to win. The Repugs can't ALLOW Obama/Biden to win -- they don't dare. Even though I personally have little (ok -- NO) faith that an Obama administration would make any real effort to investigate and bring criminal Bush administration officials to justice, the Repugs obviously can't and don't intend to take that risk. They play dirty, they play to win, and there is a whole lot at stake here for them, giving them all the motivation they need to do both against Obama.

I'm a realist too, and that's how I see it. Even if Obama gets 75% of the vote, the Repugs will not allow him to win the election. He cares about the country, but they don't. They only care about themselves. They will falsify whatever information they have to to make it appear that McCain won the election. That is both my biggest fear and my prediction.

More than anything, I hope we're both wrong, but this is the party of Karl Rove we're talking about. They are evil. And they will stoop to ANYTHING.

[MiniMe]

172. I'm not convinced, but I do fear it will happen

As Randi Rhodes has said, the only way we can make sure it doesn't happen is if people turn out to the polls so heavily, it will be almost impossible to believe the stolen results. As an extreme example, if the exit polling shows 90% voted for Obama, it would be hard to make a 51-49% result believable.

[katandmoon]

234. The repugs are already practicing their excuse for that -- same one they used in 2004

In 2004, it was "People just didn't want to admit they voted for Bush but in the privacy of the voting booth. That's why the exit polls were off."

This time it'll be, "People just didn't want to appear racist, so they said they voted for Obama, but in the privacy of the voting booth they voted for McCain. That's why the exist polls were off."

[brokensymmetry]

138. Thought provoking.

If ad agencies can manipulate the way people
buy cars and soap...what would be invested in
keeping control of a government.

K&R. Thanks, Tom_Paine, for creating the post.

[ZombieHorde]

139. Neither should this thread be construed as an advocation of giving up or not voting.

Sorry, but the complement to 'neither' is 'nor'. Neither/or statements do not make any sense. I would not have typed this but you put it in a bold font, taunting me.

TV-zombied-up sheep

The zombie bashing on DU is appalling and you have brought us to a new low. The bashing of zombie sheep is truly a foul abomination as they are certainly some of the cutest among us.

For a few of us realists

Don't most people think of themselves as realists?

It seems like the thesis of your post is; "Republicans, who's methods I disapprove of, are better at politics than Democrats, and I am in touch with reality more than most." That would have been quicker than your wall of text.

[tom_paine]

144. LOL. Excellent post. Nice shot you took at me. A little nitpicky on the grammar,

but who am I to complain?

:rofl:

As to what little of your post that ISN'T attacking me personally, let me reply.

You think this is a matter of simple politics? Oh, would that it were, as opposed to the systematic destruction of our System of Checks and Balances and some of our most cherished institutions such as the Free Press, which has reverted to it's Yellow Journalism State of the early 1900s or perhaps worse.

As to my tone and my "wall of text", which you seem to take as smugly superior, I am no longer interested in the whole "I'm Ok, you're OK, everybody's opinion is equal."

The Nazis say the Jews are serial liars who are trying to take over the world. The Jews say the Nazis are serial liars who are trying to take over the world.

You sure that's not just a he-said she-said? That they both are sort of right and both sort of to blame? Maybe the Jews are just angry that the Nazis are better at politics than them and arrogantly think they are more in touch with reality with those who simply disagree with them and think Hitler is a great guy who restored German pride?

:rofl:

BTW, who asked you to read the post, smart-guy? Plus, you couldn't have failed to notice my request at the top that various forms of glass-moles shouldn't bother soiling this thread with their pointless ad hominem blather?

So why did you bother posting here? Did you miss the notes at the top of the OP are are you a double industrial strength class-pole?

[Uncle Joe]

148. What did you expect from someone whose profile states.

Hobby; "Devouring the living"?:hi:

[ZombieHorde]

157. Exactly, though I did not know that people actually looked at those.

[ZombieHorde]

154. As to what little of your post that ISN'T attacking me personally

There is no part of my post that is not attacking you. My post is almost completely blather, and I would find it offensive if you found any real point in it, if I were that sort of person.

You think this is a matter of simple politics?

The motivations are simple, but the execution is complex, such as the "systematic destruction of our System of Checks and Balances and some of our most cherished institutions such as the Free Press, which has reverted to it's Yellow Journalism State of the early 1900s or perhaps worse."

As to my tone and my "wall of text"

Your wall of text was an obvious ploy to cover your lifest remarks about zombie sheep.

which you seem to take as smugly superior

I am to poor to purchase a fancy sports car or Hummer to cover for my penis size, so that just leaves me with your posts and one of the only grammar points that I am familiar with.

The Nazis say the Jews are serial liars who are trying to take over the world. The Jews say the Nazis are serial liars who are trying to take over the world.

Can't we all be serial liars?

That they both are sort of right and both sort of to blame?

What should we blame them for?

Maybe the Jews are just angry that the Nazis are better at politics than them and arrogantly think they are more in touch with reality with those who simply disagree with them and think Hitler is a great guy who restored German pride?

That is not my take on that situation, but feel free to run with it.

BTW, who asked you to read the post, smart-guy?

I didn't read it, I glanced at it and noticed the neither/or statement, then the word 'zombie' caught my eye, I skimmed a paragraph at random for more fodder and POOF, a smart ass reply.

Plus, you couldn't have failed to notice my request at the top that various forms of glass-moles shouldn't bother soiling this thread with their pointless ad hominem blather?

I have no idea what a glass-mole is, it sounds like a mole made out of glass. As cute as that may be, I am neither glass nor a mole. (couldn't resist)

So why did you bother posting here?

For fun.

Did you miss the notes at the top of the OP are are you a double industrial strength class-pole?

I have no idea what a class-pole is, but it rhymes with glass glass-mole very nicely.

post script: Sorry, I was just having some fun after some long hours of homework and as a general rule, I reply to every OP, that I notice, with the word 'zombie' in it. As my wife tells me everyday, I'm a dork.

[tom_paine]

159. Ok. No harm no foul no hard feelings.

I'll buy you a beer to show I'm not bullshitting.

:beer:

Sorry about that. As I tell people, my sense of humor has been largely "shot off" by the eight years' combination of homegrown totalitarianism on the one hand and environmental degradation/peak oil blues.

As a result I often miss jokes I should get.

For future reference, there's a simile to tell dumb no-sense-of-humor-having bastards like me (I used to dislike people like me...back when I had a sense of humor...who knew?) that you are joking:

:sarcasm:

[ZombieHorde]

164. I miss jokes all of the time here on DU and I always forget about the blood soaked sarcasm thing.

I'll buy you a beer to show I'm not bullshitting.

Ahhh, Newcastle Brown, my favorite!
Congratulations, you have found the hidden text!
As a result I often miss jokes I should get.

Most of the time, when I go on about the undead, I am joking. Same with cannibalism.

[tom_paine]

169. Most of the time? I guess I don't want to be around you when you're hungry and it's not

"most of the time"...

Speaking of zombies, I think you'll like this:

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2006/02/george-washington-would-fuck-bushs.html

[ZombieHorde]

174. Thanks for the awesome link, which is now bookmarked.

[L0oniX]

140. This election is the first one I will vote in. If McCain wins I will never vote again.

You'd stand a better chance of changing this country if you were a terrorist.

[Greyhound]

163. Don't forget that this country was founded by "terrorists". n/t

[protect our future]

141. I know you may be right. BUT I will not give up. Why? Because this

is our last chance to stop our country from disintegrating; from snowballing down the hill at lightning speed; from electing a Prez and Vice Prez whose catastrophic regime will catapult us into the hell we are making for ourselves.

One last chance.

[NoFederales]

142. Are we being manipulated to begin culling the political shepherds?

NoFederales

[tom_paine]

147. Not sure what you mean there. Please elaborate.

If you mean what I think you mean, I think it's just the opposite. There are now almost 7,000,000,000 on a world which is going to get resource poor, very stormy, and very hot very soon.

I think it is more likely we are being mainpulated for the great culling of us and our descendants BY the political shepherds and their lackeys, though likely not by direct nazi-style methods or anything like that. But no one can predict the details witha ccuracy, just see the trends.

[NoFederales]

235. Thinning the herd is exactly what I meant. Look at the desensitivity

expressed by the public--esp. our "leaders"--of the human toll due to hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, disease, and now, endless war. How terrible, but it's god's will--and we know anything can be justified by religious beliefs. I believe endless war and manufactured epidemics of disease will become the "norm" if certain policies and their pushers aren't eliminated. Exposure will be dangerous, for all involved.

As I re-read my previous post, I see how double-edged it could be taken regarding our "political shepherds". Eliminating some of these misanthropes, while illegal, is only a stop-gap in our current social fervor of religious/political perserverence. A massive re-education towards rationality and civility is necessary, and I don't think America is ready for it. Maybe the World isn't ready for a smackdown back to a medieval darkness, or worse, but I see so-called leaders of the "free world" positioning themselves for such an eventuality, perhaps even to re-creating it.

This is some bleak shit. Our leaders are greedy misanthropes, the populace is largely stupid and craven, and any thoughts of uprisings are likely to undergo such misdirectional paths that it would only strengthen the misanthropes. But I don't discount the value of such resistance.

I have come to this lowly, disenfranchised outlook unwillingly. I still hope an Obama Administration could be a check-dam against the torrents of criminality storming at us. And I'll be there to help.

But I despair in acquiescence to the theme of your OP.

NoFederales

[go west young man]

143. I would agree with everything you said in regards to the current

U.S. election/media system. It's obvious they are lining it up for a theft again as we watch them inch the polls closer each week. However your comparison to a totalitarian "Putinist" Russia is on it's face silly. There seems to be quite a few DU'ers buying the MSM line that Putin is a dictator and he steals elections through totalitarianism. It's the new cold war that you are all falling for and the MS has fed it to you hook line and sinker. Do you remember when they said Putin kissed a little boy and then not long after Cheneys in the Baltic just around the time Putin took back Yukos oil which Yelstin had given away to the west. Ever since then it's one thing after another and it seems even Obama has swallowed that crap. The difference between our country and theirs is that Putin is massively popular amongst all classes of people. Neither he nor Medvedev would ever have to steal an election because they are the only people who have been capable of turning Russia into a prosperous country. And boy are they prospering! At 8% GDP growth per year Russia is kicking ass. There you have the real reason Cheney and his friends are upset. The U.S. has peaked and is in decline at this point. Or at least middle America is. Russia, on the other hand, is on the upswing. Europe knows that. Japan knows that. Yet even Dems here at DU still swallow the MSM line about Russia. If the US would have taken the benevolent high road and made Russia a friend and ally then the future would be a much better place for all of us. I have many Russian friends and have traveled there many times. The good kind people of Russia are wondering "what the fuck is the matter with us over here"? They think we are as brainwashed as they were during Soviet times. They see America as a parody these days. DU'ers need to do some research on opposition parties in Russia and they can see that Putin had no competition. Not a blink of a hint of competition. Ask any young bright pretty Russian girl or boy that may be working here in the US on a J-1 visa and they will tell you that they love Putin and what he has done for their lives. And they know how hard it is to keep Russians happy. Bush and Cheney have nothing in common with Putin and Medvedev. It's an insult to the Russian people who have struggled and suffered so long to compare them to the US leaders.

[tom_paine]

151. Well, we ARE as brainwashed as the Russians during the Soviet Times. Worse maybe, because

we are so convinced that such is an impossibility it makes it a inevitability.

However, I cannot agree with your benign assessment of Putin. I stand by what I said that he is reminiscent of Bush. His use of the kept media to selective ignore opposition candidates was stunningly similar from Fox News methodology and the rest of the Bushie Lie Machine.

Putin (I supposed Putin through Medvedev, these days) also now chooses the governors, does he not? Did he not abolish gubenatorial elections for the provinces?

I agree with you about Russia being economically on the upswing, but I would remind you that it is dangerous to equate morality with "getting the trains to run on time", as the Germans learned sixty years ago.

One thing you said I wholly agree with: If the US would have taken the benevolent high road and made Russia a friend and ally then the future would be a much better place for all of us.

I remember thinking that same thing in the 90s, as we allowed newly freed Russia to sink into chaos and the claws of the Russian Mob.

As to your visits to Russia, well, I would be a fool if I didn't respect your firsthand experience.

Russians see us as a parody? They'd better wake the fuck up, then. Because viewing us as a parody now, is as dangerous as viewing Hitler as a parody in 1936.

Like Hitler, the Bushies have driven a great nation essentially insane and bent it to it's will. The mechanisms are kinder and gentler but the results are the same. There is nothing and I mean almost NOTHING, no atrocity too horrific, that 30% of the Amerikan Subject Populace wouldn't support under the right circumstances and goading from their TVs spewing Bushie Lies and HATE.

10% crazies and 30% being suckered is all that's ever needed...in Nazi Germany or Imperial Amerika or any tyranny in between.

Anyway, I digress. Yours is an interesting post and as I said I respect your firsthand experiences. But I do not view Putin as significantly different than Bush.

Is it possible that you are mistaken in this way? Say you were a Russian coming to visit the Amerikan Empire. but your friends were Texas Bushies.

Would you not then go home and report to your Russian freidns that Bushler is immensely popular in Amerika. After all, everyone you met ether loved him. You see what I am getting at?

I do not mean to insult you or your friends, I suppose there is no polite way to ask what I am asking, so my apologies.

And thanks for this ineteresting post. Could you throw in some paragraphs next time you post, please. It hurts the eyes to read that big block of text.

[go west young man]

196. I understand your point in regards to todays great leader is

tomorrows despot or dictator. I am aware that absolute power corrupts absolutely but today in this here and now Putin is very much respected and loved by the Russian people I know. I know many Russians who are well educated and thoughtful and they like Putin. In America it's the uneducated that like Bush. Just the opposite. In Russia the uneducated are more likely to support the opposition parties who tend to be nationalistic and a lot more scary than Putin/Medvedev. I personally don't buy into what the American media portrays Russia to be. I've been there many times and believe me it's so free these days that it's bloody scary. There are no rules. That's why there is so much crime and corruption. As far as freedom of the press goes just do some online research and you can see that there is plenty of press in Russia with many different views. Sorry about the long paragraph but I am used to just ranting away.

[tom_paine]

223. Thanks again for your unique perspective.

As I said, I respect your firsthand experience.

I will consider what you said, but I still can't quite buy that, in contrast to Bush, Putin is FDR-like.

I suppose it's possible that is the case, but Putin still seems a little too autocratic and Bush-like for me to trust in something like that.

Interesting conversation, and I will remember what you said, even if you didn't sway me and change my general opinion of Putin.

[go west young man]

255. Actually the FDR analogy is a good one.

Putin has developed a New deal for Russia. He has actually implemented many new reforms as far as home ownership, loans, law enforcement, education, and even large government payouts to women for giving birth. He has begun new construction projects that ave taken young potential troublemakers off the streets and given them jobs. Similar to Eisenhower's reconstruction of the U.S. in the 50's. Granted it's not 100% democracy in Russia but Americans are probably too idealistic in regards to democracy in Russia. What the Russian people want is lives that aren't so hard. They know that Putin is the best you could hope for in Russia. Like Chavez he claimed the countries energy companies back from the west and that is what has pissed off the MSM/gov't of the US. That's what Georgia is also about. It's all part of the "Great Game" and the term democracy is nowadays being used by the West to try to gain those resources. Crime in Russia is so bad that the majority of people are actually worried there is too much freedom. I'll eave this subject alone now as I think I've detracted far off what your original post is all about. I'm sorry but you hit a nerve with me as I want to see Russia be a great ally not an enemy because our MSM brainwashes us again.

[Doctor_J]

145. Our meager media presence is part of the problem - Hartmann today

spent an hour or so in his usual calm way mulling over whether or not the Founders were cons or libs. Instead of such pedantry our few people in the media should be repeating, over and over, the words liar, unqualified, flip-flopper, corrupt small-town politician, adulterer, weak, inexperienced, sidekick, Gidget, and so on. They should be yelling these words. Use the word "coward" to refer to Gidget's refusal to answer questions. Then mention that the Mayor has inherited McSame's Big Media base.

Inspire people to riot in the streets.

[Steelworker In OH]

149. 1 Solution

We have to get every Obama/Biden supporter out there to vote in november, if we can show more than 5% in the exit polls in favor of obama, it will be awefully hard for the bushies to cheat their way to a mclame/shedevil victory. We need to win this one big, bigger than one or 2 states like the last election. No one can stay home because they think their vote won't count. They all count, take the 30 seconds to exit poll, take 30 seconds to participate in any indenpendant poll about the election, we gotta make those numbers more realistic. We're looking for the cheat this time, everyone is, so if we can get the numbers looking better for us, it'll be easier to refute.

[littlecryinggirl]

150. Great thread

I don't post much because imho many of the threads are more name calling than I am interested in but I have to say this is one of the most interesting and provocative threads I have seen on DU. I don't really have much else to offer except to say maybe I will become a more active poster. Nice job to just about everyone on the depth of thought and clarity of opinion in this one. Very refreshing!

[Dammit Ann]

152. My feelings in words... exactly. I choose to put them to music and image, but

you said it for me, thank you. If you would like to see and hear my take, please watch...


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=183129

[jmpnfool]

161. No doubt in my mind

No doubt in my mind that this is going to happen. I'll vote, just to make them steal it, but I have no illusions, this one is already in the bank for mccain. God its gonna get ugly. As i've said many times before, keep your passport dry, you may need it sooner than you think.

[Janeite]

165. Best post I've seen on DU

I've been here for several years reading/lurking but haven't posted much. This post is the most thought-provoking I have seen yet.

Tom Paine, you are spot on with this.

Now if only the "OMG you won't believe what Palin said/did" diaries would stop. What she says or does and whether or not she's qualified is irrelevant with this kind of marketing going on. It just means we have to work even harder.

[nevergiveup]

168. I understand your pain

but you need to go above to the "hold on to your hearts....photos" under Greatest Threads and look at that little boy clutching to Obama. Tell this little boy that his future is doomed. Tell him you have given up. Your thread would have been best left for after the election. It serves no purpose for now other than to deflate those of us who are fighting to the finish....and by the way, you would have never had to write this depressing thread because WE ARE GOING TO WIN.

[kayell]

212. Yes! Time to focus on what our candidate has to say. He speaks for hope.

We need to follow that lead.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Barack Obama

It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.
Barack Obama

[bertman]

170. THANK YOU!! tom_paine, for an excellent and thought-provoking post.

For 40 years I have been "aware" yet hoping beyond hope that we could reverse the spiral into the Reich. Now, I see the world as you see it and I am finding it very hard to be hopeful. But I am still trying hard.

Every day. Every single day we are hearing about another voter caging action going on in a different state. We Dems are registering voters like there's no tomorrow and the Republicans are ratcheting up their voter disenfranchisement machine at the last minute so there is little we will be able to do to counter their efforts.

You are right, tom_paine, that the Dems are far preferrable to the Republicans. BUT, the Democratic leadership have become so much a part of the Reich that they are not even pretending to do anything about the electoral theft that is imminent . . . and they KNOW is imminent.

What is so sad about it is the candidate we have in Barack Obama is a leader who COULD start to lead us out of this morass if he were elected and we were to elect more progressives along with him.

He is truly the candidate of HOPE for me as well as for millions and millions of Americans. Despite what the McAnus campaign is saying about him, a lot of Americans are not buying it.

So, your post is a wake-up call to me, and I hope to others who read it, that tells me that I must do everything I can to elect Obama. And equally as important, I must educate everyone I can as to the REALITY of AMERICAN TYRANNY that is going on around us.

So, Thank you Thank you Thank you for reminding me that I MUST make a difference. That I must help everyone I know to comprehend how we are being controlled and how we must elect Obama to BEGIN to regain our republic.

It will be no small feat to do this, but I am here to tell you that a lot of former Bushies are ready to hear the gospel and convert (to use a bad analogy). A dear relative is an example of someone who, at the age of 75, and after voting twice for Bush, is now SEEING THROUGH THE HYPE. I have been giving her gentle lessons (and some not-so-subtle ones) whenever the spin is on. And she is getting it. She is starting to see the bullshit without me having to point it out to her. And now SHE is incensed when they lie about him.

So, my HOPE is that all of us can win over by persuasion and enlightenment at least one other voter into the Obama camp. If we do that and we get ALL of these Obama voters to vote, we MAY be able to swamp the Republican Election Deception Machine.

Then we will have the momentum and the masses and we may be able to BEGIN to reclaim our REPUBLIC.

The stakes are too high. WE MUST ALL GIVE IT OUR BEST EFFORT.

[Dammit Ann]

195. THIS is what DU is all about people!

:toast:

[IsItJustMe]

171. Been thinking along the same lines for a long time now. The fix is in and the deck has been stacked

But sometimes in life, you must dream without hope.

[Beregond2]

175. Despair is so easy, isn't it?

It requires nothing of anyone.

If you really believe all this, why don't you just end it all? Or would that be too much effort?

[tom_paine]

178. I suppose it was only a matter of time until this obligatory post showed up.

I guess I should feel lucky that it didn't show up until #175.

My response? Bullshit!

Go on, discredit me and attack me all you like. I'm just a dopey old manic-depressive wallowing in juvenile despair. Of course, that's the ONLY reason I could have for making an OP such as mine, right? RIGHT?

:rofl:

You don't know me, and you clearly have no understanding of where I am coming from.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's how I see it.

Want to attack me again? It'll make you feel better. Although, don't you think the whole "why don't you just kill yourself or are you too lazy" is a bit hackneyed, trite, and boring. I expected better from you in your ad hominems.

If your going to attack me again, at least try to think up something moderately original and interesting to do it with. Please?

:rofl:

[toadzilla]

179. with a heavy heart, I concur. we haven't hit rock bottom yet,

and until we do, the general populace will continue to not pay attention, and let our government be commandeered by these criminals.

we have to hit the bottom before we can climb our way back up, just like Nazi Germany did. My only real hope now, is I am young, and that my grandparents generation lived though the worst of the worst, great depression, WW2, but they also lived to see the great heyday of the American middle class. I'm learning from history, that people in general DON'T learn from history. they have to live it, look ugly in the face, then choose something better.

[lisainmilo]

180. This is it. that is why..

We MUST NOT give up! We have to continue to fight the good fight. We MUST make phone calls, we MUST knock on doors. We MUST give money.

I refuse to give up. What the hell....We have to continue. I appreciate the OP insight, but again, I will continue.

[tom_paine]

213. Good. I said at the beginning I didn't want to discourage and demoralize people.

But the time comes when a person just has to HOWL, you know?

That's why I put the bolded notes at tthe top of the OP, so that anyone who thought their morale might be damage shouldn't read this.

I am glad you are continuing.

Fight hard. Stay strong. Prove me wrong. (and you will make me one of the happiest people alive)

Thank you for your efforts.

[katty]

288. Mike Malloy (radio) last night--spot on-a reflection of this post

[Richard Steele]

181. K&R

[amborin]

182. sadly agree...somewhat along the lines of what marcuse warned about n/t

[flamingdem]

187. Get involved with EDA: What you can do to Defend Election '08 links

http://electiondefensealliance.org/what_you_can_do_defend_election_08

Examples from EDA's website*


Sign up for Election Verification Polling (Citizen Exit Polls) in November
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/evp

Sign up with the I-Count Corps to handcount ballots
http://electiondefensealliance.org/count/signup.php

Download, read, and share the Blackboxvoting 2008 Citizens' Toolkit
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit.html

Explore the links at the EDA Take Action page
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/takeaction

Write a Letter to the Editor (or your Representative)
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/let_people_count

Find and join a local election integrity group near you
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/Regional_EI_Directory

Join an EDA Working Group on a subject of your interest
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/workinggroups

Subscribe for E-mailed EDA Alerts and Announcements

Donate Financial Support
http://electiondefensealliance.org/Donate

[kayell]

202. This post is the important one here: How to fix the situation.

Forget the "abandon all hope" crap. Like this post shows - go do something. Stop whimpering.

[Dammit Ann]

189. No wonder the cons want to outlaw reading and education.

Your cage is no longer gilded when it actually becomes a cage.

[Neshanic]

190. Very nice piece. You summed it up nicely.

[autorank]

191. You're not a "realist" until the reality sets in;)

I've got some good news for you and a few comments. While I agree with some of your core assumptions, the points where I disagree are critical to your unjustified despair, well said as it may be.

Here is problem number one: "Does it even need to? In this nation of drugged-out, TV-zombied-up sheep, of which we are all a part what is essentially a vast artificial marketing scheme which has replaced objective reality, a National Hologram, to borrow Joe Bageant's term for it, do the Bushies even need wholesale election fraud to get their way?"

We're not that. The "rulers" are the zombies, doing the same things over and over and failing again and again. They put forth the filth of popular culture because they like it (as they did the torture pictures) but they only get a few converts, who receive out sized attention as if to confirm the popularity of the trash that's thrown at us.

Most people out there are working away, trying to make their lives better and negotiate survival. Most people know it's a house of cards.
Most people took the time to get educated on Iraq, which they opposed before Bush-Cheney used the "nuclear" word. And they've done it...without the corporate media, despite the lies, and the total media lock down.

The Bushies don't control the media. The corporate elite do as they control the Bushies. But there's more good news. The lock step corporate march off the nearest cliff has ended and there's a civil war among "management" factions. Obama has his supporters there.

So, we've got a decent public, by and large, that's educated itself on Iraq, global warming, etc. to the point where there's consensus, a majority, on key issues of concern; enough to move forward.

This leaves stealing the election. They would if they could and they did in 2000 and 2004. In 2006, the theft was vastly reduced due to a lot of noise various folks made and a broad public belief that things were rigged as reflected in two Zogby polls.

Will they try in 2008, try for the presidency. Maybe but there is more than activist noise. There's a national awareness thanks to RFK, Mark Crispin Miller, and Lou Dobbs. There's also a big sign of problems for the "fixers." They need a credible story line to justify the theft. But that comes at the end so that the fury of the close of the cycle masks the manipulation. But already Gallup and others are fooling with the polls in the most artless way - jacking up Republican respondents to make it look like McCain got a bounce - in early September.

This is a toss up now because we don't know the array of forces behind the scenes. But the media is hated, by and large, has a much smaller audience, and the public is locked and loaded for any nonsense that they try to pull, by general disposition.

All they can do is steal it in broad day light. Do they have the nerve? I doubt it. They didn't in 2006. There are too many lined up against it.

So rejoince, there is hope for now. Awareness, vigilance, and determination are the qualities that will retire the biggest failures in the history of this country and allow them to experience the Bugliosi effect;)

[nadinbrzezinski]

192. I wish I could be that hopeful

after all, the 2006 congress has really done itself proud

:sarcasm:

[autorank]

281. I agree on the outcome of the 2006 Congress. My point was technical

Regarding election fraud. It was not as rampant as it could have been.

The results are as you say, no doubt about it.

My hopefulness is that they won't be able to steal it. If they do and those two get in, God help us.


Obamas statement in response to the 'lipstick' flap was great today - just blowing it off. If he
keeps that up and hits the real themes, we're in good shape. Palin is like the PUMAs - a total
fabrication.

[tom_paine]

217. I also wish I could be that hopeful. But as we scientists say, "The data doesn't support it."

I very much hope I and nadine are wrong and you are right. How much better for our nation and indeed all of humanity if we are wrong and you are right about what is coming?

I have said it alreday numerous times on this thread. If I am wrong, I'll come here and happily take my flaming. "Happily" is too tepid a word to describe what I and most of DU and most of humanity will feel if the Evil Bushies are thrown out (if such is even possible).

I hope you are right. In spite of my feelings and my tragic near-certainties (I did still say it was possible for Obama to win, i just thought it was a 50-1 longshot, all things being considered), I still hope fo a brighter day.

[autorank]

282. Your post is an important expression of the dialog and process

of dealing with a ruling elite gone mad. If Bush appointed a horse to the Senate, I wouldn't be
surprised and large elements of the media would praise it as a 'brilliant move.'

After reading your post and seeing the next move by the right, making a big deal out of the 'lipstick'
comment, I thought, 'damn, I bet Obama apologizes in some way.' Well was I wrong to think that! His
response, especially, 'I don't care what they say about me,' was so on target. Now he's dangerous.
He ripped off the veil of lies and deliberate manipulation in this instance. If he does it and
tells people what he's doing, as he addresses real issues, he'll pound those two frauds into the
political retirement home for the soon to be obscure. He's captured the magic. I think he's smart
enough to go with it.

I won't flame you if you're wrong. I'll thank you for raising this as an appropriate part of
the process of dealing with truly awful people who manipulate, steal, and destroy. Quite an
opponent for those of us who just want to live our lives and do something productive for our
family, friends, and the country.

[tom_paine]

286. I wholly agree with you on Obama's "punch-back". Better late tthan never!

I agree that this was a surprise, and perhaps is one of the first TRULY DIFFERENT things that dares to punch even the tiniest hole in the Bushie Script.

As to what kind of surprise it was, just saying it was a "pleasant surprise" is quite an understatement. More like:
:woohoo: :woohoo:

So yes, THAT gives me hope since it's the first time Obama has really hit 'em back. Late but better late than never.

Now, he needs to follow up by taking some of the Rude Pundit's advice and keep punching and counterpunching. He needs to stop worrying what Bill O'Reilly is saying about him and FIGHT. (HINT: O'Reilly, hannity, etc. will always hate you and work to discredit you, no matter how much you try to bend to their will by sucking up on the surge, Obama!)

Which means more of this what Obama just did. Maybe as Rude Pundit suggests, he can try throwing the first punch next round, instead of just blocking Mccain and counterpunching, so to speak.

[bluespeck]

194. I am starting to agree, sort of...

I am starting to feel like an alien in my own country. What is so wrong with being a liberal? Why are we hated? We don't send people's kids off to war, we left the country with a balanced budget the last time we were in office, we allow people to make their own choices about religion, personal issues, and lifestyles, which to me is the ultimate freedom, and yet we evoke anger. And the environment? Is it wrong to want clean air? Clean water? Clean oceans? Protection of remaining wild areas? You say "environment" today and everyone thinks "global warming." Global warming is an important and vital issue, but there is so much more to our environmental problems. And do people really know how destructive drilling is? Do they want to sell out their air, oceans, and wilderness for a few extra years of oil? Oh, they want it done in another state, not in their backyard. And, yes, lets just drill more in the Gulf and give Texas and the other Gulf states even more pollution and possibly endanger the reefs off Florida or lets drill in our few remaining wild areas such as the ANWR. Anything to be able to get a little more gas for those large SUVs and Caddies and Suburbans.

I think the Right owns many to all of the major radio and TV networks, and most of the nation's newspapers, and controls and sets the slant. And I think the neocons have taken over the country. They want to "save" the rest of us by dictating how we should live and who they feel will be good for us in the White House. It sure looks to me like where fairness and morality are concerned, we should have the edge. But we don't, and that is strange. Something is amiss in our country at the present time. Fascism? Bushism? Cheneyism? Neoconism? And I guess they create diversions and attack us because they have the most deplorable record.

It doesn't seem like you can take credit for the surge without having to take responsibility for being for this very unpopular and ill-advised war. It doesn't seem like you can blame the Democratic Congress when they have not had enough votes to override the continuous Bush vetoes. And the moose lady with the beehive? Another distraction, I guess. What we really need to know is if she is qualified. And what really is elitist? If JFK and RFK were elitist and Bush was regular folk, please give me an elitist. Wouldn't our forefathers have been considered elitists?

I will be voting for Obama-Biden and hope that we have a fair election with a thorough discussion on the issues by a fair media. But I am realistic enough to know that we may have another 2004.

[Dammit Ann]

197. Welcome to DU. You are in the right place.

Your post is one of the most informed I have read in a while, please, keep it up. We are all one another's best hope.

[tom_paine]

216. Welcome to DU. The difficultiy you are having, I think, making Bush-generated reality "compute"

is that Bushiganda and indeed all totalitarians in a straight line backwards through Stalin and the Nazis (showing tyranny and authoritarianism is most definitely not conifined to either left or right) don't make sense because they don't have to.

The modern Republican Party is set up like nothing so much as a cult, and the whole point of a cult is to fool the gullible by transformingthem mentally into a condition from which they cannot escape. A mental condition which contains it's own chains, so to speak. A self-maintaining cage that travels around with the victim wherever they go.

Whether it be Sun Young Moon or the Bushies, the intent and result is the same, even if the methodologies are vastly different.

Think about, for both a Moonie or Bushie/Freeper/Dittohead/etc. it is the same:

1) They are locked into an ideology by being enclosed in a self-referential loop in which their delusions are reinforced everywhere they turn (TV, paper, radio).

2) They have been programmed to automatically reject Non-Party-Approved Sources. For a Bushie or a Moonie, it is the same. Any and I mean ANY fact or proof that doesn't come from Master or his Minions, is automatically rejected as supect and untrue.

How many times have you heard your local loyal Bushies, coworkers and such, dismiss ironcald facts with a wave of their hand and the words "liberal Propaganda".

To a Jew who knows his history, this is immeasurably creepy, since it a histoirical fact that Nazi Party members use the IDENTICAL JUSTIFICATION...except THEY called it "Jewish Propagana.

As a result of this and many other things too numerous to mention, the Bushies are undoubtedly and deeply psychologically related to Nazis and other totalitarian followers throughou history.

This is not hyperbole, but supported by 20 years of scientific research on tyrants and their followers, to put it loosely.

Here is a synopsis of said research which is a very interesting read.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

There's more, much more but this post is already getting long.

Something else to watch, if you haven't seen it already. It explains the Bushie-Nazi similarities from another angle. It, too, is a real eye opener.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

And again, welcome to DU! :toast:

[bluespeck]

301. Thanks for the welcomes...

And a fascinating discussion. Points you made are well taken about Bushie totalitarianism. I enjoyed the links and it brought this to mind. We had an evangelical neocon in our family and just to watch his controlling nature and his attempt to brainwash the rest of us was scary, but even if he didn't brainwash us, we simply were under his thumb and there was nothing we could do to escape his grasp. Only his death from leukemia freed us up, but we are only now reasoning things out. He was the self-righteous Right and we were the sinners. He was always right. We had no defense, not that we didn't try. His keywords were God, Family, and Church. He was a master of manipulation. So relating to that, I understand what these people are capable of. It may not be that we are not fighting back so much as we have no good way to fight this monster of a cult, not with the usual honorable tactics. Don't know if that makes sense.

[Dammit Ann]

198. NEW RULE. YOU CANNOT REPLY TO THIS THREAD.

Unless you donated or have donated or know someone who will, has or might donate $25 to Obama through DU in the last or next week.
PERIOD. Come on people, just look at the views, it is 2 to 1.

[kayell]

201. You don't make the rules. And I donate my time by volunteering. Sorry if I don't meet

your money test. :eyes:

[tom_paine]

215. Thank you for your efforts on behalf of our nation.

I know you disagree with my OP, but if you read it carefully and the rest of this thread, then you know it was not my intention to demoralize people, though I knew it was a possibility.

Which is why I put the bolded notes at the top of the thread, so anyone could see what was coming and click off if they wanted to without subjecting themselves to my OP.

[kayell]

222. Your post has had 9839 views. How many lurkers

has this post discouraged from voting? Without the information or encouragement to FIGHT against the situation you present, this post is a gift for the right-wing.

Your bolded lead-in is simply an attempt to squelch dissent. If ever dissent was needed it is against this kind of defeatist message.

Yes, America is all screwed up. Are we going to lie down and take it, or are we going to fight? Time to go listen to some Obama/Biden. Those guys aren't giving up. Who are we to abandon hope? Did the Brits roll over and abandon hope when London was burning? Can we do less?

[tom_paine]

227. I am neither responsible for Obama's defeat, nor his victory.

A hundred, a thousand, a million things will be responsible, no matter how things turn out, and this thread will be among the least of 'em.

To say this thread has any ANY microscopic bearing on the outcome of this election is hubris indeed. I feel like an idiot for even typing that it is even a factor, no matter how small.

This thread is tinier than even that.

I understand where you are coming from and respect it, but the Democratic Leadership has already given the Bushies dozens of these "gifts". Each one several hundred times larger in magnitude than my own puny, infinitessimal "gift".

Which will cause more Obama voters to not vote this November, this thread or Obama's grotesque embrasure of warrantless wiretapping?

Which caused more disgust and turn-off, this thread, or Obama's disgusting recent abasement of himself to Bill O'Reilly?

Look, I don't want to turn this into a shouting match and I certainly don't want to turn it into a flamefest against Obama, who is our last best hope of ever being free people again. Wheteher or not Obama moves in that direction, with McBush the chance is 0% and I mean 0%. Not 0.00001% but 0% plus or minus 0%.

So let us not forget we are on the same side here. And I am not abandoning hope. I still have hope, it's just that my rational mind won't let me enjoy it because the data is lined up too steeply in the reverse direction to embrace hope much...but it is there.

You asked: Did the Brits roll over and abandon hope when London was burning?

Good point, yet your analogy has one fatal flaw which renders it moot. 2008 Imperial Amerika is NOT analogous to Britain in WWII, but the Germans in WWII. Britain's threat was from EXTERNAL TYRANNY. Ours and the 1930s German threat, was from within...far more difficult to get people to see tha danger and so often misused by tyrants themselve as an excuse to murder opposition, that the shit will have to REALLY hit the fan before even a substantial minority of people wake up to it. Psychologically, historically, politically (the "Unitary Executive" is nothing more than Fuhrerprinzip dusted off, rebranded and remarketed) we are much much MUCH closer to the Germans of 1933 than we are the Brits or Americans of 1933.

Therefore, the appropriate analogy and question is: Did the Germans roll over and abandon hope when it became clear the Nazis had seized near-absolute power in 1933 and 1934?

The answer is an unequivocal and resounding YES! Which does not bode well for our future.

(remember, the more vile plans of Nazi society had not even begun to manifest in 1933 - in 1933, German society was roughly as "normal" and nonviolent as the American South in the 50s and 60s which, evil as it was back then was still able to exist in the framework of a free nation)

But what I did not know until these last years, when desire for some "hard data" and a more definitive answer to the question just how much like Nazi Germany, minus the violence and overt racism, are the Bushies and "Good Americans"? led me to voraciously consume every "on the ground" diary-account of life during the rise of nazi Germany that I could.

Those which I have read are:

They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer
I Will Bear Witness by Victor Klemperer
Diary of a Man in Despair, be Freidrich Reck-Mallczewen
Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner

The answer, which you will also notice, I think, if you read any or all of these books, is the similarities arer not just a few but multiple, close and staggering in their implications.

Haffner's book, which, like They thought They Were Free which isn't a written at the time diary but a retrospective written from the safety of England in 1938, 4 years after the last event of the story, but taking accounts of events directly from the people who lived through them. In the case of Defying Hitler, the author.

Thus, un-like the other books there is more analysis and that analysis is unsullied by the constant fear that people must have lived under. Because of that ability to "step back" to assess the horrors and th 4 years which gave Haffner time to ponder but not long enough for the memories to go stale, makes his book considerably more insightful that the others, and so I would recommend that among all of them, if you haven't seen any of them. All of them are in their own the way, as "on the ground" a view of the Rise of Nazi Germany as we can get without going back in a time machine.

Read it, and then come back and tell me how different the Bushies are than the nazis, in ANy area other than bloody violence and OVERT racism.

http://www.amazon.com/Defying-Hitler-Memoir-Sebastian-Haffner/dp/0312421133/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219406071&sr=8-1

Anyway, I have gotten off topic.

My original point was that this thread has little to no bearing on the outcome of the upcoming "election", even if it isn't rigged. And I think you are giving this insignificant thread far too much credit/blame and ascribing far too much power to it.

[kayell]

231. It's not helping. What can you do to HELP the cause? nt

[tom_paine]

242. I've spent seven plus years helping "the cause" and now I am sitting this one out.

In years past, I donated lots of my time and money. More than I could afford, really.

In 2002, 4, and 6 I worked on Congressional and Presidential Campaigns. Probably a couple hundred hours all told, I would guess. Some stretches in 2004 I worked 2 or 3 hrs. a night for three or four nights a week. Hard to do with a full-time day job.

And I know there are those who have done more, much more, than me. I also know there are ten times more, at least, who have done less or nothing.

In 2002, 4, and 6 I took Election Day off to work for the Democratic party as driver, phone banker, door-knocker, and general errands.

And nearly every goddamned day since the Death of the Old American Republic, 12/12/2000, I have been outspoken in the extreme to literally hundreds of strangers.

There's more, but I trust I have made my point. I have done plenty.

The sad truth being that my tiniest sacrifice of three vacation days for duty to country was more of a sacrifice than 90-98% of the Imperial Amerikan Subject Populace will EVER MAKE for their nation, and that is not just sad, it's pathetic.

In either case, our hollow non-victory in November 2006 and the capitulation-fest since pushed me to the bench, at least for now. Don't try to guilt me back off it because as you can see, I've done my part and at the very least am entitled to sit one out, if I want to.

[RepublicanElephant]

199. i agree with tom_paine and several other members here.

i lay the current destruction of our democracy 100% at the feet of the media.

the republicons couldn't have done all the damage they've done if the media presented ALL the unbiased details of what really goes on in this country. but their corporate bosses aren't going to allow that.

i don't even know if the fairness doctrine could help us now, we're in so deep.

these corporatists learned from the past -- reporters being allowed to do their jobs during vietnam & watergate -- so they bought the media, and market the "news" as little more than some fancy corporate newsletter mixed with police blotters.

uuuuuuuuugh!!!!

if it weren't for democracy now!, olbermann, rachel, air america, other progressive media, and sites like du on the internet, there'd be no news worth wasting your brain cells on.

unfortunately, most americans still get their news from news spokesmodels, so how will the masses even get a clue about what really goes on?

i still have a little hope left that americans will do right thing when completely and honestly informed.

and as a previous message above asks, once informed, how far are people willing to go to take their democracy back?

again, thanks for a great post, tom_paine!!!

[kayell]

200. Well, that was depressing as hell. How about telling us how you'd fix it?

In many ways I agree with you on the odds we face, BUT what you had to say seems (despite your quickie get out and vote anyway disclaimer) like an invitation to give up and give in. I'm a lot more interested in how to fix things than in abandoning all hope and mourning our fate.

Posts like this without any ideas on how to fix things are counter-productive.

How about some fixes?

Here's a link to some: http://electiondefensealliance.org/what_you_can_do_defend_election_08

[Hubert Flottz]

203. I respect your nose Tom...

And like I've said before...The New Age Nazis are here!

McCain is far to smug for me to believe that the fix is not in...the shake-up at MSNBC shows how the GOP has a lock on the M$M. The neoKarl's every wish is the M$M's command.

[judasdisney]

206. There is a parallel that no one will talk about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon_network

P.S. Ask Sibel Edmonds if this is a "parallel" or "metaphor" -- or if this is directly connected to the U.S. Neocons.

[Solly Mack]

209. I really enjoyed your post with a perverse kind of enjoyment

I've been trying to maintain a happy face and a positive outlook ...but your post echoes the conversations going on in my house

where things have bottomed out at "Fuck it. Americans obviously enjoy supporting their own oppression"

Still...having never been a fan of the slow it down thinking...slow or fast...the destination is the same... and slowing it down just allows people to adjust to it and justify it more...stopping/reversing the decline should be the goal(no matter who has to go kicking and screaming)...still...I've been telling myself that I'm ok with a slow down at this point in time....if it is followed by the understanding that slowing it down isn't enough and never will be. Alas...sigh. Time is a funny thing..and there is such a thing as having no more time.

My husband calls it "borrowed hope thinking"...because the hope is based on ideals that have long been corrupted..distorted so far beyond how they were intended that people are now banking on the way we never were to save us



Dammit


I knew better than to read this...LMAO

Now my inside voice is smirking at my outside voice.

But I'm laughing...

[tom_paine]

219. Dear God, Solly, YOU NAILED IT. And with a helluva lot more brevity than I did.

My husband calls it "borrowed hope thinking"...because the hope is based on ideals that have long been corrupted..distorted so far beyond how they were intended that people are now banking on the way we never were to save us.

I, a long-winded bastard who thinks Brevity is a town in Indiana, am in envy at you.

Lovely, short concise sentence that simply tells it all in the briefest and clearest possible way.

Yes indeed, most of us are indeed banking on the way we never were to save us from the way we are.

Collective societal delusion: a common feature of Totalitarian Nations from directly brutal ones like Hitler's Germany to "nice ones" like Imperial Amerika and everything in between and before.

Nailed it in one, Solly!

[LibraLiz1973]

240. You nailed it. Inside my house these same conversations are going on

and the OP just showed me that others see it too.

I'm trying, with everything I have, to hold on to a positive frame of mind.
I HAVE to believe that there is a chance, that this can be done.

But more and more, I am afraid.
Afraid that this really IS what the country has turned in to, and that there is no way out.

Afraid of how depressing this all is.

This isn't going well.

[Senator]

210. Failure To Impeach Has Brought Us This Low -- Yet, Could Still Be Panacea

While I would not quarrel with the basic diagnosis here, it is the disorder in our own house that must be repaired if we are to begin down the path to Redemption of Our National Soul.

For those with noses firmly planted against the bark of the tree otherwise known as the (genuflect) Sacred National Election Horserace, let me just say that without impeachment even a President Obama in the WH will be virtually irrelevant/impotent. The forest is much bigger.

Sorry. I wish it were otherwise. And it could have been. But Hillabamalosi-ism has been, from its outset, anything but a challenge to the forces described here in the OP. In fact, it's far more part of the problem than part of any solution.

And it still could be otherwise. Even Obama could http://talkingimpeachment.com/blog/Hall-of-Shame-Inductee----Barak-Obama.html">stop making a historical ass/eunuch of himself, return to the core principles of our once-great nation, and convert this euphemedia induced sleepwalk into a reality-based moment of truth that -- even in an (unlikely) defeat -- would reverberate in perpetuity as objection to and confrontation of http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Senator/8">the forces of totalitarianism.

But with or without him -- or the rest of our DC-Dem "leadership" -- we can and must keep talking impeachment. Panic is rightfully setting in. And it could easily reach the point that even the DC Impeachophobes consider actually DOING what they know they should have been doing for years.

They might yet see they are failing to acknowledge the rotting elephant carcass in our national living room: no impeachment for torture, felony abuse of power, and terrorizing the nation into war. That failure relegates the entire Democratic Party -- and its standard bearer -- to "non-alternative" status. Thus limiting its reach to marginally beyond the party faithful.

Having danced all the usual dances, they may at long last be willing to face reality. They may finally understand that in electoral history it has never, ever been a "failure to get the message out." (Which is what they were telling themselves in Denver.)

But we must DEMAND it from them. Loudly and repeatedly.

Impeachment remains our ONLY moral, patriotic (and electoral, diplomatic, democracy-defending, etc...) option.

---

[riona]

214. We have the world's most obtuse electorate or blantant corruption

[tom_paine]

221. Or BOTH. n/t

[Senator]

225. No, not both.

Blaming our fellow Americans in the public/electorate is neither correct, nor helpful.

I held my tongue in my earlier post to avoid being unnecessarily argumentative, but the public/electorate is never "the problem." Because whether our side likes it or not their will -- properly surveyed -- is sovereign. That is the essence of the democracy we must return to this country.

They are only victims here. They/we are entitled to honest representatives who take the oath of office seriously, instead of http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/08/pelosi-impeach.html">those who shriek "Don't Tell Me!!" at those who simply and rightfully question their actions. They/we are entitled to a standard bearer who does not bear the standard of tolerating ongoing torture and war crimes.

But we don't have it. We didn't have it in Florida in 2000, or in Ohio in 2004. And we haven't had it from this "new majority" led by Madame Squeaker.

And that's far worse than all the actions of this rogue regime combined.

--

[tom_paine]

237. Sometimes I agree with you on that, Senator, and sometimes not.

This is hard to put into words, but I will try. It may ramble a bit, but I will try.

As I mentioned above, perhaps our biggest analog psychologically are the 1930s Germans.

IMHO, what we think about the 2008 Amerikan Subject Populace (including ourselves) MUST be what we think of the 1930s Germans who yielded to Hitler even as at least 60% realized something was horrifically wrong, for the situations are psyhcologically dentical, and even the players, minus violence and overt racism, are similar.

Coming to grips with that fact, and I believe it is a fact, though because it involves psychology/sociology it can never be 100% proven as such, has been difficult and an education.

Because of this I vacillated and still vacillate between feelings of forgiveness of our fellow Americans and the 1930s Good German (this populace not to include Bushies, Nazis, and their active supprters, who are NOT forgiven) because of what was purposely done to their minds by the most powerful propaganda machine in all of human history (which the Nazis had in 1933 and the Bushies have today).

In other words, on some days I fully agree with you. Those are hopeful days because the ONLY way we will ever be free again without bloodshed is if a massive amount of us finally get off our duffs as the Russians did in 1991 when the Communists tried to retake the nation, or like Chinese tried unsuccessfully at Tiennanmen Sqaure.

Which we never will. NEVER. Ok, not never. There's a 0.000001% chance, or the exact same chance as the 1930s Germans rising up en masse and tossing out the Nazis.

Which brings me to the fact that, today at least, I don't agree with you at all. For the same reason the Good Germans were to blame, even though they may have never harmed a Jew or Liberal or Homosexual themselves. For the same reason Gen. Patton marched the German Bushies through the concentration camp they all denied they knew existed after it was liberated and the Nazis driven away.

They knew. On some level, they KNEW. Probably lots of them just knew and rationalized it, didn't care, or were too enamored with their own lives to speak out until things got personally uncomfortable for them which was much much MUCH too late.

THIS is the nation of people we are largely surrouded by, these days, too. Sure there are exceptions, but they/we are nearly as rare as Oskar Schindler, and will become rarer when the real shit hits the fan and the real intimidations begin, which may be as many as 30 years from now or as few as having already been started with the creepy miltaristic Nazi-like arrests of the RNC Welcoming Committee and their use of terrorism statutues to enhance the prosecution.

Not unlike a Nazi Judge doubling a Jew's sentence because of the additional prosecutorial enhancement of the severity of the law because of the religion/race of the defendant. Not unlike that, at all. Plus, the Nazis also refrred to their opponents as "terrorists". Look it up.

Sure, they aren't being sent to a concentration camp to have their skin made into soap, but strip away the degress of severity and the psychological nature of the actions by Bushies and Nazis is the same.

You may turn out to be right. I hope so. But I don't see it. Maybe tomorrow I will see it again...

[olegramps]

263. Rare Bird

The rarest thing to find throughout Germany was a Nazi following the war.

[Senator]

297. Well, I just said incorrect and unhelpful

Not that it was all that unreasonable to think that way. And while I don't disagree with the historical parallels you cite, I would suggest that our situation is mainly our own. Historical parallels rarely apply with any degree of completeness.

Just to deal quickly with some globals. The Germans in the 1930s had very little history or mechanism of democracy to "re-assert" as we do. Also, neither the Russian nor Chinese situations were predominantly "mass" people's movements. Nor do their overall circumstances track all that well with ours.

But it is not correct "blame Americans" because we are not, as a People, opting for willful ignorance. Majorities have supported impeachment, voted for Gore and Kerry, and oppose the Anti-American actions of the regime. Our main problem lies not in ourselves, but in our stars.

And it is not helpful because it just buys into the attitude of the neo-fascists -- who happily dismiss the once-sovereign American People as unworthy and/or incapable of self-government.

That attitude is the essence of fascism/totalitarianism/authoritarianism/theocracism/monarchism -- which are all the same anti-democratic thing.

---

[Dinger]

218. K & R Tom

You speak for me.

[The Wizard]

220. The Romanov solution (NT)

[Lost4words]

228. !

8643

[jamesatemple]

229. Help me with the math, here!

Let's see: Ninety percent of the citizens of this country "claim" some kind of belief in a god.
Then: Republicans "claim" to be the party of god.
Next: Republican candidates "claim" to be born-again Christians.
Next: Republicans paint the Democratic platform as godless, citing the pro-choice stance, et al
Finally: The election is held; non-believers are joined by some of the believers who see through
the madness and vote Democratic ~ but not enough!

Result: Mindless, brain-washed, bible-thumpin' zealots place a like-minded group of zealots in the White House.

Have I missed something? Can there possibly be any reason other than religious indoctrination that compels good people to abandon reason and vote against their self-interest? If so, what could that reason be?

[tannybogus]

236. Read this book:

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

From Publishers Weekly
Recently we have seen plenty of irrational behavior, whether in politics or the world of finance. What makes people act irrationally? In a timely but thin collection of anecdotes and empirical research, the Brafman brothers—Ari (The Starfish and the Spire), a business expert, and Rom, a psychologist—look at sway, the submerged mental drives that undermine rational action, from the desire to avoid loss to a failure to consider all the evidence or to perceive a person or situation beyond the initial impression and the reluctance to alter a plan that isn't working. To drive home their points, the authors use contemporary examples, such as the pivotal decisions of presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and George W. Bush, coach Steve Spurrier and his Gators football team, and a sudden apparent epidemic of bipolar disorder in children (which may be due more to flawed thinking by doctors making the diagnoses). The stories are revealing, but focused on a few common causes of irrational behavior, the book doesn't delve deeply into the psychological demons that can devastate a person's life and those around him. (June)

*DISCLAIMER: If you decide to buy this book because of these endorsements, you just got swayed. One of the psychological forces you’ll read about in Sway is our tendency to place a higher value on opinions from people in positions of prominence, power, or authority.
http://www.amazon.com/Sway-Irresistible-Pull-Irrational-Behavior/dp/0385524382/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221052178&sr=1-1

It's an easy read and not very long. It is scarey in its own way!

[jamesatemple]

239. Thank you very kindly, tannybogus!

I'll order the book today. It is good to think that factors other than religious indoctrination would cause people to act against their best interest. Yet, I hope that the authors include some reference to religious influence.

[paparush]

233. Dietrich Bonhoeffer nt

[wurzel]

243. The USA has gotten and will continue to get the government it deserves.

[murbley40]

244. Agreed!

[Nothing Without Hope]

245. Depressing all right. We are at a turning point and we have to do everything

we can to push in the right direction. The stakes are very, very high.

[ramapo]

246. Hope is an awful thing

My wife and daughter informed me months ago that there is no way that Obama can win. I know at one level that his chances aren't great but I do believe that he stands a 50-50 chance .

There is no doubt that the Republican machine is unmatched when it comes to diversion and division. They know exactly how to appeal to the low-information voter. They know exactly how to get voters to happily and enthusiastically vote against their own self interests. We have seen this play out time after time.

Obama has a big problem and it is running for President while black. This on top of the usual Republican fear tactics makes his election a difficult proposition.

Yet I have had and still have hope. I don't know how I'm going to deal with the next two months of this shit. I know I have to prepare myself mentally for the worst while hoping and working for the best.

This story still has chapters to be written. Palin has to come out of her cave. There are four debates.

The United States has become a very conservative country. There are deep pockets of reactionary and regressive thought. The Republican ticket is perfect for these people and they will come out in droves.

We need progressives and moderates to turnout by the millions, to flood the voting booths. Obama has been in tough spots before and has risen to the occasion.

[The Backlash Cometh]

247. Someone give me the cliff notes. Who is going to steal it this time?

[kayell]

249. Who needs to steal it if we give up 8 weeks early? nt

[tom_paine]

254. Geez. You can't lay off, can you?

Go ahead then, vent your outrage. You went and read this thread, even though you HAD to know what was coming when you read my first two notes which you apparently contemptuously ignored then and which you have been contemptuously verbally flaying in almsot every post on your thread.

You wanna post a dozen more here, all basically saying the same thing in slightly different ways, like the rest of your posts...be my guest.

You wanna hold an obscure thread responsible for what we wake up to on Nov. 5th? Go right ahead with that, too, if it makes you feel better.

You know,it occurs to me that could be a very successful strategy to make you feel better. While the M$M will be writing the backstory that legitimizes the theft evangelicals turned out in droves; "morality" was what everyone was concerned about; or legions of city dwelling white republicans suddenly began voting in overwhelming numbers where they had not before...

While the media is trying all that out to soothe the unhappy Amerikan Subject Populace, you can have your OWN personal justification. It was all those people like tom_paine, who made everyone give up, that is to blame for yesterday.

Know what? If that makes you feel better on a day we will all be clinincally depressed, go for that, too.

Do I need to say that I hope I am wrong about this whole thing and that Nov. 5th will see a President Obama?

Do I really need to say that which is so painfully obvious?

[kayell]

262. This is a public discussion board. I'm discussing. I will never tolerate defeatism.

If you're burnt out (and I understand that*) then don't spread despair and loss of hope to those who aren't.

*I really do understand that. I went through the same thing myself. The difference is that when I couldn't muster the energy to cheer for the home team, I stepped out of the bleachers for a while. I certainly didn't stay in the stands and throw beer cans at the team and their supporters.

Add: You are expending a LOT of energy on this subject. Perhaps that energy could be better channeled. Me, I'm back to the phones.

Also, it's ridiculous to post something like this on a Democratic supporters public discussion board and not expect feedback, not all of which will agree with your views.

[tom_paine]

274. First, your assumption that everything stems from the personal is way WAAAAY off.

The implication is that I am bitter, burned-out and simply turning to despair and trying to make others despair with me, is that about it?

Oh, would that it were something juvenile like that! I can't imagine few things quite so nice (that don't involve sex) as waking up one morning to find out I was wrong about it all because I was just misled by my own juvenile temprament.

Never would I be so happy to have such a juvenile temprement, if indeed I had one, if it meant waking up one day to find out I was 100% wrong and everything was 100% OK, in terms of the health our our Republic and all the many sub-categories it entails, too numerous to mention here.

Another thing I am wondering is how large your definition of defeatism? Clearly, speculation about the 880-lb. elephant in the room our Democratic Leadership would apparently die that confront (Google FL-13 2006 election for but one major example) and which so many would rather label as "defeatism" or some other nonsense.

That's like labelling the Germans who saw through Hitler early on and kept telling people what was CERTAIN to come (Sebastian Haffner, for one) as defeatists to the German Social Democratic cause.

You might dispute the aptness of the analogy, but apt it is.

I just told you what "Hitler" was going to do. I've been right much MUCH more often than being wrong these last 8 years in these predictions and thus feel confident in saying what I am saying.

You tell me I am a defeatist, and the only way the German Social Democrats can beat Hitler is if we work hard within the system.

Got news for you: You CAN'T beat Hitler with the System because he WAS the System.

In the same way the Bushie Cabal, including McBush and all their more willing eager non-family-related henchpersons from Charlie Kane to Dusty Foggo VERY LIKELY cannot be beaten within the system because they, like Hitler now ARE the System (there is still a 2% chance I am wrong, IMHO, even at this late date with so much now more evidence now revealed).

I am not telling you not to try. I am not telling you to give up.

Defeatism would be if I was saying we are 100% certain to be fucked and I have no good reason for saying this.

THAT'S defeatism.

What I am saying is that there is a 98% chance we are fucked, yet still hope, and I have plenty of ennumerated reasons which I have listed and given concrete examples for most to provide further bolstering.

You SURE that's defeatism, and not just constructing a hypothesis based on available data? Are you SURE that your certainty that you call this defeatism isn't just because you don't like where the raw data is pointing, and you are protecting your own ego and morale by doing so?

Damn it, I didn't want to have to say that to you, and I have no desire to give your morale a working over, but neither can I roll over and let you call me a Defeatist when it just isn't true!

And ultimately THAT'S why I warned at the top of the thread that people who might have their morale damaged that they shouldn't read further. Not out of some sense of self-aggrandizment or a desire to censor the thread (well, maybe a little bit for the Polyannas and the Coincidence Theorists, but not people like you) but out of a genuine concern not to hurt the Obama campaign, even in this tiny tiny way.

If you would have gone back over and read all the posts on this thread, including mine, you'd already know that. You'd already know that, for the past two months I have been virtually absent from DU for the very reasons you describe.

With all the nonsense going on lately and the replay of old scripts, shall we say, I just got fed up and had to HOWL. Call it weakness if you wish, call it human frailty. And here at DU is where I chose to do it, because it is my CyberHome for good or ill.

Enough, please. This is not a demand but a request for both our sakes. I have no desire to go after your morale, but as happenend above it will work it's way into the conversation as a part of my arguments and defense. I AM NOT A DEFEATIST!

Now, we can agree to disgree or you can come back at me again. In which case my defense will become more vigorous. I have no desire to waste my energies attacking someone who is part of the same side, and with whom I likely agree much more than I disagree.

So, please, please let this drop before things get heated and one or both of us says things we'll regret.

You think I am a Defeatist. I KNOW I am not one. Let's just agree to disagree and move onto other discussions. Please.

I will end this by saying something I think we can agree fully on:

If Obama is elected this November, there can be no question that it will be a happy day for all. Hope will indeed spring eternal on that day and we shall all rejoice!

As I said, if I am able I will even come back to DU day after such an election, so I can enjoy, yes ENJOY you all telling me how wrong I was about. And I will enjoy that. On such a day, I think I'd enjoying accidently smashing my knee into the coffee table!

See you around.

:hi:

[tom_paine]

250. Ohhh, there's no one simple answer to all of that. I mean, one could say "The Bushies"

and that would be as accurate an answer as can be given concisely, however it falls way short.

The funny answer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJVShOznFZM

the Serious Answer:

www.gregpalast.com

One bunch of people who have facilitated this are our own Democratic Leadership, who for whatever reason (does our leadership need reason to capitulate) have done nearly as much as the bushies to suppress legitimate investigation of Bushie Election Fraud.

We had 'em DEAD TO RIGHTS in '06. In FL-13 and a couple others in Florida and Ohio, but FL-13 was where we could have blown the lid off the whole thing. 18,000 Congressional votes mysteriously vaporized in an "election" that the Bushie won by considerably less than 18,000.

What did our Democratic Leadership do in early 2007? Not just shut down the investigation but voting to prevent one even getting started! Look it up.

I cannot for the life of me imagine any good reason they would do that? Are they HAPPY with corrupted elections? Do they not care? Are they afraid of what the Bushie Lie Machine will do to them if they dare make mention of it, let alone start a full investigation likely to yield prosecutable results?

In many ways, the whys no longer matter, the only thing that matters is the reality of the Democratic Response. Personally, I could care less which of the reasons motivated them in ANY of their cowardly capitulations...I just know I am sick to death of it and that the Democratic Leadership and Congress, with a few notable exceptions, does not serve the American People AT ALL.

Don't get me wrong. To use an analogous situation from history: Just because I am disgusted with the cowardice and capitulation of the German Social Democrats doesn't mean I am going to vote for the Nazis in 1934 (the last election in Germany until after German Bush was defeated in 1945).

[olegramps]

251. You have neglected the most important issue

As I stated in my previous post, ABORTION, is the overriding issue. Palin has hit a home run with the anti-abortionists. I would be the first to agree that the Republicans have used fascists tactics to split the nation. The Democrats have ALLOWED themselves to be defined as baby-killers, unpatriotic, welfare leeches, and homosexual loving degenerates. For the sake of clarity here was my post:

The abortion issue is the primary issue that has the greatest affect on the outcome of the election. It is what put Bush in office the second time when he should have been defeated easily. Every issue, economy, jobs, Iraq, Iran, education, health care etc. will take a backseat to this issue. Throughout the nation, ten of thousands of evangelical and fundamentalists pastors are organizing their flock to cast their vote based on this one issue. Catholic bishops are denouncing Biden a lifelong Catholic for his unwillingness to back legislation banning abortion. Remember this that the outspoken fundamentalist were joined by the majority Catholics for the first time in the 2004 election to vote Republican.

Sorry, the Democrats sealed their own fate when they allowed the party to take a strong pro-choice stance that has been interpreted as being pro-abortion. It not only alienated the Republicans, but also many of their own party, especially Catholics. In fact, isn't true that the rank-and-file of the party allowed a rather radical element to dictate party policy. They should have taken the pro-prevention course of action supporting a positive policy of education and public awareness of the necessity of preventing un-wanted pregnancies that would have actually reduced the abortion rate. They should have exposed the Republicans for the hypocrites that they are with the statistics that reveal the fundamentalists and Catholics high rate of abortion and how they have opposed effective measures of comprehensive sex education that has fueled the abortion mills.

[tom_paine]

258. Very interesting opinion. But could it not be, sir, that it is not the stance itself

that has caused so much pain, but like just about everything else, the Democrats' puzzling inability to answer these charges with righteous indignation, to say the least.

To use your own example: The Democrats have ALLOWED themselves to be defined as baby-killers, unpatriotic, welfare leeches, and homosexual loving degenerates.

Yes, yes we have...well the Leadrship has, and I suspect the rank-and-file feels much like me, that we should have hit these bastards back hard and fast while we still had the chance, before all the facets of Bushiganda, all the lies, half-truths and propaganda, are literally now the backbone of Conventional Wisdom here in this nation. Thus, all discussions, primarily those in the media, all start off from the quagmire that accepts Bushie Lies as obvious, factual truths, when in fact the exacft opposite is true.

Now don't get me wrong. Just because the cowardly supine nature of the modern Democratic Party pisses me off to no end, that doesn't mean I am going to reverse course and support Nazi-Bushies.

But I digress. Your perspective is interesting, but I am not sure I agree. My point that I was working towards above is the idea that it is not so much the Democratic position on abortion as it is the Democrts' puzzling aversion to standing tall and strong when attacked on these issues.

Instead, like trained seals they argue within the Bushie Frame of "Conevtnional Wisdom", which means that any argument they make is underpinned by the very base assumption they are working from.

This is a very complex issue and as I am a biologist, not a psychologist, it is hard for me to relate to words of breviy and clarity. Plus, the overall issue, even for this one aspect, is a good bit larger than my oversimplified explanations.

Having said that, I repeat, perhaps it is not the issue itself but the Democratic cowering on the issue that so frequently goes on. I am trying to think of an example to illustrate this, and all I can think of is the imginary example (not for want of real specific examples, but my own imperfect memory) of a Democratic Pundit (replying to a Bushie Calumny) Yes, you are right that we Democrats are baby-killers, unpatriotic, welfare leeches, and homosexual loving degenerates. But Social Security is really important.

So, within this overexaggeration taken to the n-th dergree, which is nevertheless representative of a very real phenomenon, I hope I have explained my mild obejction to your assertion that it's all about abortion, which is it's not so much the issue as the spineless Democratic defense that has accompanied the defense of said issues for almost as long as I have been watching TV.

[olegramps]

266. Thanks for your response

I am very much in agreement with the basic situation as you presented it. However, I would advise that people look at some of the religious periodicals in which abortion is the first and foremost issue. It in itself provides a degree of credibility to a host of untrue charges and drowns out discussion concerning the a host of serious issues that actually jeopardize the nation. According to their philosophy anyone who would condone the killing of a baby is most likely guilty of being an unpatriotic, homo-loving, welfare leech. I was surprised that you brought up the Unitarian Doctrine. I doubt that many people have even heard of the Unitarian Doctrine or realize that it is the greatest threat to the principle of the separation of powers as put forth by the founders of our Republic. My wife told me, as I was caught up in the enthusiasm for the Democrats with two great candidates, that she hoped that I wouldn't been too disappointed when Rove was done destroying them.

[theFrankFactor]

253. Unfortunately... I Agree

[QueenOfCalifornia]

257. Thank you.

You put together a very thoughtful post. You expressed my own fears and thoughts.

I have been watching Obama (and his advisors) fumble the ball and the media makes it into "He dropped the ball, the ball exploded, 1,000,000 killed!" Meanwhile, the McMooseKiller team is a clusterfuck of inane B.S. yet they are the media darlings. I do not want to get off on a tangent - Just wanted to tell you that I agree and though difficult to read due to the out-loud expression of my own fears wanted to tell you that, yes, I can smell it ----:( it stinks out loud.

I must say though, I know that the last two elections were stolen and that the last 8 years has been written in the PNAC handbook of global domination.

It is a redo of the 1930's &'40's Germany.

Same shit, different asshole.

[redqueen]

265. Eternal vigilance, friend.

The pendulum has been swinging this direction since the late 60's... it won't stop and reverse quickly no matter how hard we fight.

I think the end of the arc isn't too far off now, don't you?

:pals:

[tom_paine]

277. God, I hope so.

Not sure I see it as you seem to, coming soon. I wish I could. To me, the "raw data" simply does not suggest it.

Anyway, thanks for the :hug: . These days, I can always use one of those.

[redqueen]

290. To be honest...

that is mostly my hope / optimism talking.

It's hard for me to gauge the swings... if we use FDR as a benchmark on the left, and Nixon on the right... then, we're still experiencing the rightward swing that started post-FDR?

I'm not sure... but it's possible we have a ways further rightward to go. :scared:

But here: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug:

[baconbits5]

267. "October Suprise"

Great read. I too agree that the coming weeks before the election are more likely to have shocking/devastating events, that will mold the population towards McSAME.

I've mentioned it to my friends before and they think everything is coincidental, or that I'm crazy o_O

Thanks for your post!

[Anticon]

268. "The Language of Oppression"

is a book everyone should read. It should supply you with concrete examples of what our leaders are doing to tell to your bushie 'friends' (personally I keep bushie acquaintances at a distance). I will have to dig it up. Maybe I will post some talking points to prove bush is a modern day hitler. I have known it for years. The kinder, gentler nation and humble foreign policy crap is probably right out of german translation from das feurer.

On a side note, if you look at job postings, you will see a large solicitation for jobs in homeland security. Sound like a job app for the new SS if you ask me. Remember all the prisons they are building?

[George II]

269. WHAT "was going to happen"? Wouldn't it make sense to put the subject IN the "subject"????

[Locrian]

270. we forget who we are fighting....

We forget who we are fighting.... It isn't just Bush, McCain, Palin, etc. It is an entrenched, moneyed power structure that includes a multi-billon dollar propaganda machine called the media.

Reading Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine / Disaster Capitalism was an opener for me because it showed historically what goes down. It's not a fair fight, and there is no "superman" to save the day. It relentlessly grinds the opposition down because the are able to manipulate the people either through mindgames or direct intimidation and assault. Even when the left wins, the power structure is set.

The recent postings and stories of police brutality and "preemptive" crack downs show how far it has gone. But the real scary part is that we are nowhere NEAR the boiling point of raw brutality and oppression that S. America, China, Poland, Russia etc etc have endured.

It really is like a train wreck happening in slow motion. And I will fight as hard and as long as I can - but I wont be fooled into thinking that it is an easy fight or that the good guy always wins.

[Gregorian]

271. Apathy, ignorance, denial.

I was going to say that you left something out- the people. But you included that all important part.

I'm a pessimist. Or more like someone who sees very well. And what I see is pretty much what you described. However, there are a hell of a lot of bright people in this country. But as an engineer, I don't say how good something is, and overlook a critical flaw. I look for the flaw. And if I don't find it, then I show off the goodness of the whole thing.

I don't think McCain will win. But I still think you're right.

It has been rather distressing, hasn't it. A second term did it. That was my confirmation. It should have been a landslide like nobody's ever seen. Even with Rove behind his curtain. The second term told me this country is diseased. Socially retarded. Self obsessed.

My first girlfriend was Iranian. Her father was the physician who delivered the Shah Pavlavi's kids. She now teaches English in America. She's far left of center, politically. Back in the 70's she told me that Californians are car crazy, and brainless consumers. I honestly didn't fully understand. I do now.

The problem with this election is thatt there is even any doubt at all. It should be a laughing stock. That really bothers me. Lots of stupid people.

[antimatter98]

272. Agreed, but if people work hard..Obama can/will win..but..

We have to have the Obama campaign STAND UP to the GOP corporate fascists, voodoo Christians, and of course the Karl Rove strategy.

Sarah Palin is a voodoo Christian, dishonest, an abusive employeer, and a shill for the GOP.

McCain is a womanizer, dishonest (Keating Five, etc.), and trading on his POW status of
over 40 years ago as his only qualification for the presidency.

We are witnessing tasteless, some racist, attacks on Obama each day now, and it is time to take action against these attacks---whether it means picketing CNN, FOX, funding 527's, whatever it takes to reverse this game, and 'now' it must be done. No time for 'nice.' Take it to the bastards.

In 2004, yes I saw how nice Kerry was, and before that in 2000, I saw how nice Gore was..and where are we now? More nice.

Time to fight and take it to the GOP bastards, or lose in November and suffer the consequences of a GOP win. You all saw McCain's supporters speak at the RNC--all scary, fascist people, some with that phoney friendly southern accent, all expressing deep hatred as they foamed at the mouth on that stage in St. Paul.

Put in other terms, these people are Cylons, and if we let them win, it will be all over for the Constitution, and for a humane America, for possibly a generation. They are that close to totally destroying America for good.

Good Luck

[alfrankenaynrand]

275. redouble the effort

We outnumber them for the first time in modern history. Numbers are everything. The turnout in November will make or break us. Don't be discouraged. The turnout will be there when it is needed and we will overwhelm them.

[EV_Ares]

279. You can take that post and read it every night as far as I care, those

kind of posts are bullshit really. Hell, there was nothing in there that we all don't think about from time to time. But you tell me what good that post is for anything? We all know reality and we all know what we are up against. If that is what you believe, then so be it, I may think it too but I am not going to put it all out here and dwell on it and attempt to demoralize myself and everyone else who wants to win this election. It is hard enough to stay upbeat when you get broadsided as we do from time to time but you do find a way to stay upbeat and you can win against all odds if you have the initiative, desire and the willpower to stay in the fight.

Are the New England Patriots going to quit now that Brady is out for the season? Hell no.

It is sort of the same with Obama, he knows the odds and he knows the media, the possibility of theft of the election, the courts; how they are all stacked, but we don't quit, sulk and say no chance. We fight the battles for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren and each other.

[tom_paine]

280. Man, I am not going to explain myself again.

I already have done so a half-dozen times, and they are all here in posts I made throughout this thread.

To synopsize: First, that is why I warned people off with the notes at the top. You didn't have to read on, knowing what it was probably going to say, but you did anyway. Second, I have been largely absent from DU for the last two months because I actually sympathize with and share your views on morale and trying not to hurt it. Yesterday, watching the same old Bushie Inverted Totalitarian shit unfold as it always does, transparent and udmb yet 100% effective, I "weakened" and had to come here and HOWL.

Sometimes, as I am sure you well know, a person just has to fucking howl with the pain. In this case, I inadvertantly touched of a sea of howling from our similarly mournful wolfpack who sees what I see.

I figured this thread would sink quickly, like most of the few threads I author do. How the hell did I know it would spawn a half-dozen ongoing conversations, most of them very intersting and nearly all of them civil, and then rocket to the top of Greatest?

Apparently, I am far from the only one who feels this way.

If you wish, go back and read all the posts from this thread, not just mine, to further see how mistaken you are about the intent and meaning of this post to see what I am saying and why. Or not, whatever...

[EV_Ares]

292. Hey, its OK you didn't have to explain it to me. I don't freak out about these posts, you know as

well as I do, if you did, you would be freaked out most of the time with what happens here. I didn't have to read it but I did and that is the way I saw it.

Yes, I do feel your pain, believe me and yes, sometimes you just have to say "fuck it" and it is hard to understand sometimes. For the life of me I do not understand why this is a close election. If you have eyes, half of a brain and can remember the past, it should not be a hard choice.

Like I told you in the post, I may think some of the things you say in the post and I may want to scream my head off. Also, I am fearful of losing this election or it may get stolen from us in some manner again. I do care about what country I have to live in and those that come after me. I just handle it differently I guess and I fight hard to be optimistic but not blind to the facts and aware of the pitfalls.

Not angry with your post, I have seen you post before, just my take which certainly does not mean I am right.

[GreenTea]

284. Well written.

I have to admit I was surprised that most DUers understood and accepted this thread. As disgusted, outraged, and frustrated I am with our Dem Party, I'm even more outraged with Dem voters who are voting for old Mac out of revenge for Hillary plus their enchantment with Palin, that pug of all pugs! The fools are selling our country down the drain and will become good pugs....good god, how I detest them.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

287. bookmarked

:*

[nomaco-10]

293. I left a few weeks ago because I knew this too and...

also knew I would be shouted down and ostracized for saying so. I guess things have changed.

I think the pukes hold most of the cards and a lock on the MSM and the voting machines, but I have also been naive enough to think that good would prevail out over evil. I'm not so sure anymore. The mindset in this country has become so nationalistic and jingoistic that it actually scares me now.

The totalitarian nature of our government has done such a good job at rounding up the sheeple and fattening them up on propaganda, that I think we may never see the democratic party be victorious in a significant way again. I hope I'm wrong, gods, I hope I'm wrong.

I feel emboldened enough now to say at this point, Obama needs a crash course in debate 101. Stop the mumbling and stuttering and drive the issues home. It has all come down to that. We certainly can't count on the main stream media to separate fact from fiction.

It's all on you Barack and you Joe to knock it out of the park from here on out.

[readmoreoften]

295. I wouldn't exactly call it "inverted" totalitarianism. Nothing's more 'total' today than capitalism.

I would call our system a plutocracy so intense that it is almost indistinguishable from autocratic society. It acts with one mind: protect profit and power. In fact, if communism is "a dictatorship of the proletariat" then this system has quickly devolved into "a dictatorship of the elite" (as predicted by the communists, by the way.)

The current slave camps and gulags are actually whole national populations and the guards are a mixture of the elite joined with the con artists from the working classes (in which I include the middle class and professional classes who sell out their own) and the poor who've aligned with them for personal gain. We know very well that slaves and prison labor make our clothing, our gadgets, and pick our food. Low paid wage slaves do the rest. But we say it isn't "totalitarian" because it isn't happening by direct edict from an autocrat. No: it's happening from a bizarre and impersonal system that is far worse than autocracy because there is nothing to rise up against, no ideology or person or named group. Sure there are Republicans and Neocons but Democrats.

It's almost as if some strange group of plutocrats set up an automated system where they could pillage and humiliate the world, then named themselves as the saviors. When the people complain, the plutocrats say "it's not us--blame the automated system!" And people accept this as an answer. The fact that it was built by their grandparents means nothing. The system could easily be rearranged. The old rhetoric was "it's unpatriotic to question our system. It's the best in the world." And it actually didn't malfunction that badly because it had to appease the working classes by unions and labor rights and so forth--the plutocrats knew that they couldn't rule on bullshit alone when another system was available to the working classes.

So we bankrupted this other system in an arms race. Can't provide for the people and progress towards a better future when you've got to spend all your resources fighting thieves!

The new rhetoric is "HA! Dismantling our system doesn't work! Now you've got no hope, so you working class bastards better get with our program." "Not working" it seems means that plutocrats will re-program any dismantled system and then say "see, the dismantled system ends up the same as the old system!" (i.e. China) It also may mean wannabee plutocrats will corrupt the 'new' system so that it functioned to deliver the same results as the old system, but with less political finesse and more brutality (i.e. any assortment of third world dictators.) It may also mean "We'll make you so paranoid that everyone is a spy for industry, that you'll turn your whole country into a purge-police state in order to protect it from the siren song of our media and ideas." (i.e. Stalin.)

So now that there is no competing system, no threat against capitalism, it can tell us to go fuck ourselves.

(And by "us" I mean: anyone who doesn't live off investments and trust funds, anyone who works because they have to to survive: doctors, lawyers, teachers, street cleaners, small business owners, ad agency jingle writers, and so forth. If you EARN a living, you are working class. If you EARNED a living and put it into investments for retirement and we lucky enough that they didn't collapse, you are a working class person who survived the laws of capitalism. )

So now where are we?

Now we tell the rich--loud and proud: "Plutocrats! We, the people, will no longer tolerate your rule over us. You must listen to us or we will gather in large groups and denounce you at a distance and behind chainlink fences! You must listen to us or we will elect an official who subtly leans to our interests while still making sure yours are well-protected! Of course, you own the computer system that happens to count the votes and you own the media system that reports world events, but if you don't let us pick the candidate who doesn't totally shut us out (if we choose, some of us like to think we're on your side)--well then we will sneer at you on the internet! And we will remind you that you are corrupt! And we will make animations belittling you and we will post them on YouTube! If you rig our elections we will be disgruntled beyond belief!"

Of course, if they do rig the elections it's only to spit on us and show us their total distain. They will lose very little if Obama wins and, if he wins, they will win back our trust. This is one of the reasons the prospects of a McCain win is so frightening. It means that the Plutocrats aren't just in it for the money anymore, they're in it for the cruelty. Really it could all go anywhere from there on out.

Today our most radical hopes are of "changing the system from within" or in other words "rewriting the program written by the plutocracy, for the plutocracy in our favor-- and all with the plutocracy's blessing." The main weapon for this is shaming--either outright (in the style of many greens, socialists, and progressives) or through charges of hypocrisy (in the style of mainstream democrats.) The hope of winning by 'hypocrisy discovery' fails to take into consideration one big factor: The Plutocrats and their cronies aren't hypocrites because they don't stand for anything except violence and power and rhetorical style.

If all we have is indignance and demonstrations of public disfavor, we don't have much.

[Greyhound]

300. The changes we have wrought.

A :kick: for September 11th.