It seems I was happier before I started following politics. Everyone's so

[BigBearJohn]

mean. I'm not saying the solution is to put my head in the sand,
but it sure is a sad statement that I actually WAS happier before
starting to follow all the news politics and the government.

People are so damn mean spirited and GREEDY. Have things always
been so ugly and I just didn't see it?

[varkam]

1. Ignorance is bliss n/t

[DURHAM D]

2. Yes. Welcome to the party. eom

[Disturbed]

3. Yeah.

It is a rough biz. Sometimes ignorance may be bliss and other times ignorance can hurt you in ways that you don't even see coming.

[skids]

4. You're getting smarter, that's why.

The smarter you are, the more miserable you get. :-)

[LittleClarkie]

5. Kinda wish you hadn't taken the red pill eh?

Me too. I miss oblivious.

[SteppingRazor]

11. Bah! Not me!

to quote another movie "you must make a friend of horror."

Learn to find happiness in the greedheads and scumsuckers being exposed.

To quote Hunter Thompson's obituary of Richard Nixon:

"I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.

Nixon laughed when I told him this. "Don't worry," he said. "I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same way about you."

Ignorance may be bliss, but it's also ignorance. At first glance, the only other option seems to be knowledge and despair. But that's not quite true. You can learn to find happiness in the land of Fear and Loathing.

[LittleClarkie]

15. Nicely said. But still, I have a craving for a nice juicy steak now

Don't know why...

[spag68]

20. good one

[tjwash]

6. If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

That's an old saying that pretty much sums it all up.

[NoPasaran]

7. Yeah, me too

Everything has sucked since 1971!

[Sooner75]

8. Ignorance really IS bliss.....

but you're like a cow in a pasture waiting to become hamburger if you're not in the game....

Sadly, the intra-party politics is often just about as nasty as the conflict between the parties. It's hard to take, but somebody's got to get some social progress going. Think of the civil rights movement where they set the police dogs on black citizens who were standing up for equal rights. Think of the women who fought for decades for the vote for women, but who never got to vote themselves. Think of the environmental warriors who hug those redwood trees just to get people to realize that it takes 1,000 years to grow one and one day to cut one down. The GLBT community is now on that road. The hate was totally predicatable.

[Eurobabe]

9. I hear ya, nothing's been the same since 2000

that's when I started paying attention, and it's been wholly depressing. US is going downhill fast these days, very sad.

[unpossibles]

10. I know what you mean

but look at it this way: if we don't put up with the discomfort of paying attention, they could make it far worse and we would not even know until it's too late. My wife and I have this conversation every now and then; she is in the "too tired of the crap and we can't seem to change things" camp right now, and sadly I know exactly what she means, but I also can't just ignore these crooks taking over the country.

So chin up, and just remember that we only hear about the greedy jerks for the most part - a lot more people are good, or so I'd like to think.

:D

[cry baby]

12. I'm with you BBJ - sometimes I wish I could put on those rose colored

glasses again!

I'm at once, inspired and humbled by some (like DUers and other liberals) that have huge hearts and great minds...and horrified by the callousness and inhumanity and sheer greediness of others.

[Atman]

13. It is what the Republican Party relies upon.

MOST OF THE COUNTRY is ignorant. "American Idol." "Survivor." Bread and Circuses. Entertain the masses while we rape the world.

Otherwise, the Republican's polling numbers would be somewhere between Hitler and Satan.

[spag68]

21. If you here

are young, thank you for fighting. If you are old as me 64, thank you for staying in the game.

[coalition_unwilling]

14. Do you support workers or the economic elite?

Reason I ask is that all the "meanness" you claim to be experiencing is actually the result of two wings of the economic elite battling it out for power.

If you came to Los Angeles and watched the immigrant community (both undocumented and documented) for more than one day by, say, riding a public bus, I'm sure you would quickly realize that "people" are not "damn mean spirited and greedy." The elite, on the other hand . . .

[racaulk]

16. Yeah, same here.

But it's impossible to return to ignorance once you've seen the light. It's better to be knowledgeable and sad than ignorant and happy, IMHO.

At least you're in good company here. :)

[Uben]

17. I'm with ya man!

But, doing nothing is exactly what this administration wants you to do. They want you to listen to what they say, act when they tell you to act, and back everything they tell you to back. WTF?
They want Stepford followers.

There is a truism that everyone should adapt to their own life as well as their beliefs. "Act on your environment, or it will act on you!" In other words, nothing will change unless you initiate some action to change it. No one is going to drop a million bucks on you making your life easier.

You gotta go after it, and that will not happen without action! Same goes for politics.

I live in a "property owners association" gated community. We have about 1400 homes here. We govern ourselves by electing board members, who in turn appoint committees to handle the various activities. I was happy to set back and let others essentially run my life for me for the first couple of years. But, when I realized the same ole cronies were being cycled through year after year and making questionable decisions that I felt weren't in the best interest of the association, I got involved. We got together our own list of candidates whose agendas were more in line with our way of thinking. We got them elected, and now life is better for everyone! None of it would have happened if a few of us had not taken the time and effort to get the ball rollin.

Yeah, it's a hassle! You will get criticism and some get downright nasty! But, are those the ones you want running your life? Not me, bro! Keep yourself informed. Ignorance reaps no reward.

[Hekate]

18. It's truly toxic & we need to find ways to detox & protect ourselves

BigBearJohn, what you are feeling is the effects of the toxicity all around us. Meditation would probably help. (So far I'm not following my own advice, but I've watched it work on others.) It's affected my health, my marriage, and my relationships with the world. There has to be a better way.

I keep erasing the next sentence, because I don' quite know how to say or explain it. So I'll try to describe the people I've encountered instead.

(1) I know a couple of women who are quite serene, and I think it may be because they have defined their life's work as "peace" and seem to have begun with themselves. One is in her 80's, the other is in her 50's, and both look young for their ages. They are both civilian members of the VFP. I'm pretty sure both are practicing Christians, but their quiet core is simply spiritual.

(2) A former professor of mine likes to spend his summers on pilgrimages to Catholic monasteries. His description of our society right now is the same as my husband's: "toxic." He went without radio or tv for a month while on monastic retreat, and says when he got in his car and turned on the radio, "Nothing had changed. Nothing. Toxic."

(3) Last summer by chance I met a Chinese Buddhist monk in Salt Lake City, where my husband and I went to care for my mother while she was recovering from heart surgery. That man looked right through me. Aside from advice about diet (based on wind, water, and fire) and exercise (a form of chi gong) -- he also talked about the toxicity of our culture. Personally, he thinks the world is coming to an end soon, but that's another story.

(4) My husband -- the reason I got to meet Master Hsu in Salt Lake -- has been studying Buddhism for years. I read the newspaper at breakfast. He says I am "eating" and "drinking" Bushco, and it's making me sick.

That's it. Some of these people are anti-Bush but outside the anti-Bush movement, others (my two women friends) are inside, but all see the dangers of immersion, and all walk a spiritual path that helps protect them.

The strange thing to me is that I know what I need to do, but so far have not changed my habits sufficiently. Buddhists have a lot to say about habit, and they are right. You can still work for the salvation of the world/liberation of all beings/however you define it -- but to survive and be whole you have to work on yourself too.

I just wanted to say you have lots of company -- which you know from being an active DUer anyway -- but that there is another way to live...

Hekate

[spag68]

19. It happened to me

in 1975 when I took some labor histiory classes a Pitt. I just haven't been the same since.

[movonne]

22. The problem is, it is hard to get away from once you are into this..

I feel the same way. I try to stay away but I just can't..

[Warpy]

23. Not everyone is mean spirited and greedy, even though it may

seem that way sometimes.

In fact, grassroots Democratic politics aim to provide an antidote for just that by saying this is a big, rich country and there's certainly enough to go around to give us all decent lives with enough left over to share with less fortunate people worldwide.

The mean spirited and greedy have always been with us. We just are unfortunate enough to live in a time when they've been in control for far too long. Either we take it away from them or we get used to the fact that this is how it's always going to be: the majority of people living lives of quiet desperation with a very small overclass enjoying all the fruits of their labor without giving anything back. Oh, and you and I will not be part of that overclass.

I'm sure people who are incapable of seeing the big picture do have a kind of bliss about them, but they're also blindsided when what we know is a daily occurrence finally happens to them and they're offshored out of a job, medical conditioned out of insurance, and foreclosed out of a home. At least we unhappy souls can try to plan for catastrophe and sometimes we do succeed.

I wouldn't trade unhappy knowledge for blissful ignorance, but I do wish I could vacation there for an hour or two once in a while.

[dave502d]

24. I feel the same way BigBearJohn.

I think the reason we fill so bad now is because
the GOP cheated in 2000 and 2004.Dose anyone think were not
going to get cheated in 2006?