Just how long is this long dark tunnel we're in?

[undeterred]

Months?

Years?

Decades?

[MoonRiver]

1. God knows.

:scared:

[Olney Blue]

2. Two more years.

[ret5hd]

9. Tearing a high-rise down takes a few months...

(a few minutes if you use jet airplanes) but building one takes years.

So if the destruction of this country lasts eight years, how long will it take to recover?

[Minnesota Libra]

3. For as long as it takes to get the neocons out of Washington DC...nt

[rosesaylavee]

4. Well it IS better than last summer...

and if we win some seats in the fall, MONTHS would be my answer and will see some light then.

[uppityperson]

5. don't know. It has happened before, will happen again in the world.

we are just like every other country that has had nasty people in power.

[babylonsister]

6. Surprisingly, that made me feel better, uppityperson. nt

[JackBeck]

7. If it makes you feel any better...

Today's the first day of Summer, which makes it the longest day of sunlight in the US. We could move to Sweden, which has, like, 20 hours of daylight about now, if you're tired of living in the darkness.

Look, all we can do at this point is motivate others to vote in November 2006, and then hopefully we can begin to bring an end to the fascist takeover of our Constitutional rights.

[Redstone]

8. Goes about until that light at the end of it gets brighter.

Sorry I can't offer you more than that. I've been in one of these tunnels before.

Redstone

[rzemanfl]

10. Where and when? This is the worst one I've ever seen. n/t

[Redstone]

14. It's a long damn tunnel, and a damn dim light. Sorry to be the one to

have to tell you that.

As I said, I went through the last one. This is MUCH worse, because you'd have thought we'd have learned something. We didn't.

Again, wish I'd have been able to tell you something more positive. But I can't.

Redstone

[The Stranger]

27. This one is unlike any in history.

More consolidated power, both raw physical force, military and otherwise, and coupled with technology and the ability to control and enslave masses like never before, literally armies of lobotomized slaves.

This one is unlike any in history.

[roamer65]

11. I see no light yet

It will get worse, this only the beginning. Raisinbrain has set many dark forces into motion.

[SheilaT]

12. Years.

To get some insight, read Generations by Strauss and Howe, and their later book The Fourth Turning. The first one was written about 1990, the second came out in 1997. They present a theory of four generational types which are shaped and in turn shape the events of their lifespan. If their theory is correct, we're only about five years into a Crisis Era, which should take about another fifteen years to fully play out. Things will only get worse before they get better, and we're still going to have some kind of extreme event/period of time which will test our society in ways we cannot now imagine.

I have found that those two books have profoundly altered my view of history, and how I perceive the unfolding of history (current events) and how I picture what may happen over the next few years and decades. It's why I try to tell people that the problems created by George W Bush's incumbency will not be solved soon or easily. Even if Kerry had won two years ago, he would not have been able to make much difference. We'd still have been in Iraq, all those hurricanes would still have happened, and he'd have been battling a Republican House and Senate. Yes, he would have handled, or attempted to have handled many things differently, but the Republican Congress probably would have thwarted much of what he might have tried to accomplish for the good.

In any event, we're still on the downslope of a deepening crisis. Bush and his cronies are absolutely making this much, much worse than they need to be, but history takes time to play out.

Do read those books. They'll help out your understanding.

[undeterred]

15. So its the rest of my natural life

I don't want to believe that.

[SheilaT]

21. Depending on how old you are, yeah.

Think about someone who was your age in 1929 when the stock market crashed and the world-wide economy went down the tubes. No one at that point could have foreseen the length and depth of the Great Depression, the rise of Hitler, and the horrors of WWII, which didn't finally end until 1945, some sixteen years later.

Really do read the Strauss and Howe books. They will help you take the long view.

I'm 57 and I hate to think that things are going to continue to get worse for years. And I persist in trying to persuade right-wingers that the current administration is the worst one in our history, that we need to elect a Congress that will make meaningful changes, and all the things that we talk about here on DU. I can't stop trying even as I'm convinced it won't matter. It's the continuing to try that matters. Because eventually things WILL change and we'll eventually begin the long rebuilding that's going to be needed.

[undeterred]

22. I'd like to think things will get better in January - new Congress

but it seems like things have to get a lot worse before everyone notices how bad things are.

[SheilaT]

26. That's exactly right.

Things will have to get a lot worse before people really wake up. Even the most optimistic predictions of Democratic wins don't give us much of an edge, and given the inclination with too many Democrats already there to go along with whatever horrors this administration proposes, even a small majority won't make as much difference as we'd like it to. For one thing, Democrats, especially those in Congress, are for the most part being too readily cowed by accusations of "cut and run". Murtha is a refreshing exception, but notice how he's being marginalized.

I fully expect that Republicans will, contrary to all expectations and completely contrary to normal historical trends, will gain seats in November. It will almost be amusing to watch how that' spun. You can be sure that certain seats, seen as a virtual lock by the Democrat, will suddenly and surprisingly go Republican. Somehow "they" will have gotten more of their supporters to the polls. Never mind widespread allegations of voter fraud, of not enough working machines in heavily Democratic districts with the consequent long lines, while an abundance of machines and short lines prevail in Republican precincts. Never mind that thousands of Democratic registrations will mysteriously disappear, disenfranchising untold voters. Never mind that the usual intimidation tactics will be used, including telling Democrats they vote on a different day, or that if they've had so much as a traffic ticket recently they can't vote, all the usual stuff.

We are in the early part still of a long and terrible chapter in our history. Here's what Strauss and Howe had to say a decade ago, well before any aspect of our current crisis could be known:
Soon after the catalyst, a national election will produce a sweeping political realignment, as one faction or coalition capitalizes on a new public demand for decisive action. Republicans, Democrats, or perhaps a new party will decisively win the long partisan tug-of-war, ending the era of split government that had lasted through four decades of Awakening and unraveling. The winners will now have the power to pursue the more potent, less incrementalist agenda about which they had long dreamed and against which their adversaries had darkly warned. This new regime will enthrone itself for the duration of the Crisis. Regardless of its ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand private sacrifice.

There's more, or course, but that paragraph feels ominously prescient. We cannot tell at this point if the sweeping political realignment has already taken place or not. It may well have, actually over the three elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004. Or maybe my pessimism is completely unwarranted, and many Americans have seen the light, enough so that we'll see the beginnings of a turnaround in Congress this November, with the Democratic nominee winning in 08. But even if that happens, we won't be out of the woods, not for many years.

I wish I could get more people to read the Strauss and Howe books.

[whistle]

13. The Dark Ages lasted from 476AD to about 1000AD and the Third

...Reich was to last a thousand years, so I think that what George Bush and the American Neo-Conservatives would like to do is to top both of those times frames by going into eternity with a nuclear holocaust.

[dysfunctional press]

16. you mean this one we entered in the 50's...?

building started and continually under construction by the military-industrial corprofascists...?

that tunnel?

a LOOOONG ways yet.

[mcscajun]

17. It is always easier (and faster) to destroy than to build.

and BushCo has been very, very busy destroying. There's been enormous damage done, and there'll be a great deal of work to do once the bastards are gone.

We've got 943 days until the next Inauguration Day. The rebuilding will hopefully begin then.

There's a long, hard road ahead before we see any light.

Wish I had better news.

[chill_wind]

18. We're in it until gasoline prices get high enough.

And more of middle-class America has itself a little check-book style epiphany. I think we're well on the way.

[Odin2005]

19. Centuries

The West is in the intensive care unit getting it's last rites after getting shot by thugs in a drive-by shooting, and the Neocons are the thugs.

[undeterred]

20. Well if it lasts centuries

the only inhabitants of the esrth will be cockroaches.

[Avalux]

23. Bush is visiting Hungary today.

Their struggle, a violent one, lasted over 30 years. In this age of instant gratification, we should realize it may take awhile for the pendulum to swing, for people to get fed up enough to stand together and say "enough". The tunnel may very well seem as if it will go on forever.

[Jed Dilligan]

24. The light at the end

Is the magma at the core of the earth

[deaniac21]

25. It depends on my lithium intake.