I've got a question for DU members who know much more than............

[Minnesota Libra]

...than I do about our government and the world at large.

At DU we are educated enough to know what this administration is doing to this country and the world at large is an unforgivable sin. What I want to know is by January 2009 will this administration have ruined so much about this country and our relationship throughout the world that the damage can never be rectified??

Or, as I hope, is there and will there be enough good will toward the American people themselves that the world will give us a chance to straight this mes out????

I truly fear for this country and I'm hoping for the best but I also know there is such a thing as reality.

So what do you all think??

[Ron Green]

1. Two words:

Paper ballots.

[Master Mahon]

2. If you had told me 6 years ago

that things would be as bad as they are today, I would have had major doubts that things could possibly degenerate so badly in such a short time, and that Americans would ever stand for that happening. Yet they have.
So....in that vein I guess it would be possible to undo it all just as quickly. BUT, being the cynic that I am, I know that evil spreads more quickly and more deeply then good ever does, and evil gives up little ground easily.

[Minnesota Libra]

14. To be very truthful I hope you are wrong but I fear...........

....you may be right. In fact that fear is what led me to start this thread in the first place. I guess I have to try and hold out a glimmer of hope though - but one thing for sure, regardless of how bad things get we have to keep trying to stop this mess.

[stellanoir]

3. I may be a deluded optomist

but I am rminded of an ancient funny myth wherein the God and Goddess were negotiating terms. The God wwanted everything. She negotiated long and hard and offerred him with everything all the while though witholding maintenance of three things. time, fate, and the weather.

So figure.

[IChing]

4. Germany and Japan had to look into their moral national consciousness

for many years after WWII however they had a free press for the first time after many years of totalitarianism.

We will not have the damage rectified into our national consciousness until the corporate stranglehold of news is ended.

[annabanana]

5. To regain our standing in the World..

We would have to call an immediate halt to the worst of the B*sh policies. Reaffirm our commitment to The Geneva Convention and the Nuclear Anti-Proliferation Treaty. We would have to engage in a massive diplomatic initiative to realign ourselves with our allies in "Old" Europe, and reach out to those we've been stonewalling for too long.

It would be very difficult and we would have to be doing it starting asap (like in '06). If we cannot shake the neocon yoke in '08 any vestiges of goodwill we have retained as a people will have been twisted beyond redemption.

[Waya]

6. I think for the most part ........

......the world distinguishes the American People from the American Government. Bush isn't liked on a personal level by many international Leaders - his arrogance, his swagger, his supidity and stubborness, his visions of grandeur and the belief that he is right and everyone else better do as he demands makes him a trial to deal with for other Nations - which, contrary to Bush's opinion, do have rights also.
I think he will do a lot more damage before it's all over, but, if we're smart in the next election and pick someone who has actual brains - we might be ok. It will take a lot of doing tho.

[Minnesota Libra]

13. I hope you are right and the world does give us time to..........

....straightn this mess out.

[UrbScotty]

7. Look at Germany and Japan.

Think about how hated those countries were during World War II. Now look at today.

I think enough people will realize that the USA is not all about Duh-bya and his minions.

[blm]

8. It depends on who wins - if a Repub wins, the world will be horrified and

disappointed beyond measure.

If the voting machines are secured and the Democratic president finally is allowed to take office, the world will be more than willing to welcome and work with the US in a spirit of hope.

[izzie]

9. I think blowback has been in the works for years and

if we stop messing in every ones business I think we could get our good name back. We just have backed to many bad rulers even under the cold war so it is all coming back to get us. Or it is how I think. Bush has been the the top one in doing such stuff as far as I can see. Sending in the CIA was bad enough but when we send in the army we can not even say, as voters.\, we do not know about it.

[bigmonkey]

10. I've started reading a biography recently.

Autobiography by John Spivak, called "A Man In His Times." He describes the U.S. political situation during and in the run-up to World War 1. I'm shocked to discover that most things were actually worse than they are now - much more govt. lawlessness, much more suppression of free speech. So, strangely, I'm more encouraged that we can recover.

[Minnesota Libra]

12. What is the name of the book and the author?? Sounds like.........

....something I'd like to read.

[deaniac21]

11. We are just hanging on by a thread now. By 2009 I suspect

we will all be dead.

[Divernan]

15. We may get our good name back, but Bush has done irreparable damage to US

The incredible national debt of his two fiscally irresponsible, war-mongering terms will result in generations of severely reduced quality of life ( decent paying jobs, health care, student aid, social security), painful tax increases and crumbling infrastructure. His inept and insulting "foreign policy" will leave the US isolated as other countries cooperate with each other and make economic gains. India, China and the member states of the EU are already prospering (since they are not bankrupting themselves with military expenses). I don't think the US will be able to catch up to them.
So while we Americans may get the rest of the world's pity, forgiveness, outsourced low paying jobs and hopefully even some foreign aid, we will no longer be a major player, let alone a super power.

[Minnesota Libra]

16. I read something else along this same vain a few weeks ago..........

....and it has had me thinking since. This is the really sad part because it didn't have to be this way, if people had just been paying attention and caring.:cry:

"So while we Americans may get the rest of the world's pity, forgiveness, outsourced low paying jobs and hopefully even some foreign aid, we will no longer be a major player, let alone a super power."

[glarius]

17. Judging from my country...we hate Bush...not Americans.

The polls in this country show that although most dislike Bush and his policies intensely, we distinguish between him and the people of the U.S.A....I believe it is the same in the rest of the world and once Bush's administration is gone things will get back to normal as far as your standing in the world is concerned. Hang in there!:toast:

[Minnesota Libra]

19. OMG I hope you are right.........

.........I just fear that it will take us decades to recover from this crap Idiot Boy is putting us through.

You know it's one thing to see this kind of thing going on in another country. We Americans would no doubt be the first to say something to the affect of, "Why aren't they (the citizens) rising up and fighting back". Well, here it is going on in my own country and I'm asking the same thing. Why aren't we in the streets and just how bad will things have to get before people hit the cement with signs in hand?

Tell the world thank you for hanging in there with us, we will come out of this.

[Cybergata]

20. Thank goodness we have such fine neighbors.

The United States has been exploiting and screwing over our Latin neighbors since the 1800s. I'm always amazed at just how forgiving they are to us. During the Reagan years, his administration did terrible crimes against people in Central America. People I talked to and met from the area were always pointing out that they realized that there was a big difference between the Reagan government and the people in the U.S. I still felt like I needed to keep apologizing to them, just like I feel I need to do now to the whole world.

[leveymg]

18. Will America be forgiven after Bush? Ask the Germans about that.

I can forgive Germany, at least the German people. It's the American Fifth Columnists the Nazi sympathizers and crypto-fascist dynasties -- the Bushes, Walkers, Fords, DuPonts, Mellons, Morgans, and Harrimans-- who still piss me off. They got away with their crimes of an attempted coup against FDR, facilitating the rise of the European extreme Right in the 1930s, profiting from World War, and maintaining their power by poisoning the politics of the post-War world.

These wealthy Rightwingers financed the GOP and the instruments of McCarthyism and then the "War on Terror". They merrily destroyed the Constitution and subverted progressive institutions in order to sustain their own excessive priviledge and power.

They are modern history's greatest villains. Hopefully, the American people will finally see them for what they are -- traitors and war criminals -- and bring them to justice.