If you could go back in time to prevent this crash course we are on...

[coloradodem2005]

Poll question: If you could go back in time to prevent this crash course we are on...

...to what time would you go to?

[jdots]

1. you would have to go back a long long time ago

all these neoturds were dropped on thier heads at birth.

[havocmom]

2. go back to at least November of 1963

and keep JFK and Poppy Bush from being in Dallas at the same time.

[Squeech]

3. Won't solve the problem

but I would love to live 1968 over again.

And actually it might solve the problem. Assume Robert Kennedy doesn't get shot, does he prevail at the convention in Chicago? And if he does, do the Yippies respect him and not stage demonstrations? In our real history, Nixon won because (1) Humphrey was feckless-- he couldn't really run against a war tied to LBJ's administration-- and (2) the visuals of the Chicago street actions revolted people, and already the MSM was painting the kids as the aggressors rather than Daley's uniformed thugs.

[Seabiscuit]

4. Make sure Adlai Stevenson beat Eisenhower in 1952 & 1956.

and keep Tricky Dick from ever being Vice President.

[RC]

5. No, Please no.

Eisenhower was responsible for our interstate system. Ike was the last real Republican President. Just work on Tricky Dick.

[Ron Green]

7. Yeah, but if we hadn't built the damn Interstate System, we could've

had a real national rail network, and the suburbs would have developed quite differently. We might still have real communities instead of the fear centers we now enjoy.

[RC]

20. The Interstate system saves hours of travel time out here in the boonies.

Not everyone lives in the suburbs.

[Ron Green]

24. That's right, but what I'm saying is that if we had put the money into a

better rail system, we wouldn't have the same pattern of development. Life would be much different in this country, and cars would not have become as important as they did, both for good and for bad.

[CanuckAmok]

9. Only to facilitate the interstate transport of ICBMs

That's why there's that minimum height requirement for overpasses. It's so a truck-laden missile will fit.

No Eisenhower, no ICBMs. No ICBMs, no Cold War. No Cold War, no poverty in the US.

Fuck it, I'd rather have taken the train

[RC]

17. The Cold war started in 1945.

Ike had nothing to do with the Cold War. In fact he warned us, US against it with his military, Industrial complex pronouncement.

No poverty in the US? Please explain how Eisenhower caused that.
In short Eisenhower was the last true Republican President. He was criticized for playing too much golf.

It was with Richard Nixon things started to go bad with the republicans.

[4_Legs_Good]

22. I actually have a little respect for Ford

But the 3 great (and I do mean GREAT!) Republicans were, hands down:

Lincoln
Roosevelt
Eisenhower

david

[Guy Fawkes]

6. I'm thinking pre-dark ages...

[AntiCoup2K4]

8. Time machine. One Bullet. Prescott Bush

No Hitler. No Nixon. No Poppy. No Junior. No Jeb. No Osama. No Saddam. No 9-11.

Seems like a good plan to me. Anybody got a time machine?

[CanuckAmok]

10. I do....

I can't remember where I parked it, though.

[Huckebein the Raven]

11. You lost the Delorian ???

dammit I want to go to 2015 when the Cubs win the World Series and bet

[Bok_Tukalo]

18. I least you know when you parked it

<eom>

[Arkana]

12. I'd jump forward to 2008, see who was elected

then go back to 2005 and spread the word. It won't fix the mess we're in, but it'll keep it from being any longer.

[Seabiscuit]

14. If I were you

I'd return to 2005 with a machine gun. Much more effective.

"The word" doesn't spread well in today's media.

[-..__...]

13. Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand

1914.

WW-I > Treaty of Versailles > Rise of Nazis > Persecution of Jews >
WW-II > America as a superpower + founding of Israel > tension and conflict in Middle east > terrorist attacks against the US and it's polices > scaring the shit out of people to vote for the party that will "protect us".

Do I win a tin-foil hat? :tinfoilhat:

[Seabiscuit]

15. You can borrow mine - you earned it:

:tinfoilhat:

[Squeech]

16. In that case

you probably have to go back further and take out Bismarck.

Archduke Ferdinand didn't matter-- he was merely a relic of the old aristocracy, and incompetent to boot. The reason his assassination touched off the War to End All War was that Bismarck's policies had tied up all the governments of Europe in a web of alliances, and when the shit hit the fan, they were all obligated by treaty to take up arms. Many of these treaties were secret, so at least one country (Romania IIRC) started fighting on the wrong side before they opened the safe, read the text, and figured out what they were supposed to do.

I find WWI history strangely comforting: the only time I think the world situation was more misguided and more dangerous than it is now. And we did survive it, so maybe we'll survive the BFEE too-- but no question, it's gonna cost us.

[GreenPartyVoter]

19. Well before '68.. would

put the election reforms on my site in place.

[4_Legs_Good]

21. November 22, 1963 is the day America died

or at least the day where it began to die.

Quite possibly the worst day in US History.

david

[Nevernose]

23. No, that's the day the MUSIC died

The last, best chance for our nation died April 12th, 1945. 'course, that's just my opinion.

[BlueIris]

25. I thought the music died was the day Buddy Holly's plane crashed.

Talk about things I could prevent if I could.

[Seabiscuit]

31. That's what "American Pie" was about.

[Nevernose]

32. I was drunk when I wrote that. Sorry.

I promise: more sobriety on DU in the future (of course, "more" is a relative term. More than what? More than an eleven year old Mormon girl, or more than an ice-bound cossack in a Siberian vodka factory?).

[Freebird12004]

26. I know I cried

but I don't think America is dead yet.

[Iterate]

27. Reconstruction 1865-1875

Yeah, I know, long time ago. Big problem, big fix.

The more I think about it, the more things I trace to that time. Basic premise is this: the North won the Civil War, but lost the peace, lost the will to continue. The Southern aristocracy and Northern industrialists cut a deal with each others devil. Blacks, Reconstruction Republicans (akin to what we might call a Democrat today), and white labor were hung out to dry.

That puts a racism, corporate money, and the dominance of an essentially southern, racist, militaristic, culture as the core causes for the failure of American democracy. Any of this starting to sound familiar? NASCAR anyone?

[RedCloud]

28. Before the Vikings came.

I would warn all the brothers and sisters of the Earth. But I would probably get executed for being a lunatic.

[lpbk2713]

29. I'd like to go back about 20 years ago.....

and do my damndest to make sure Shit-for-Brains never got to be governor of Texas. It was after that point that he gained prominence with the RW crowd on the national level. If he had never made it to the Y2K primaries there never would have been a Florida selection travesty and we never would have even heard of Katherine Harris. And if it hadn't been for that we wouldn't have to be enduring that asshole now.

[nuxvomica]

30. 1886: Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific RR Co.

The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/theft.shtml