Where Did The Mean-Spirited, Openly Hostile Atmosphere In D.C. Politics Come From?

[KittyWampus]

How did it get so bad?

Now it is at the point that elected Republicans openly lie about Democrats wanting to kill off Granny in "Death Panels" and make jokes about hunting tags.

The Mediawhores would probably say it's both sides being so bitter and divisive. I don't see that and don't think it's party loyalty blinding me. In fact, I've watched as Democrats all too often play nicely only to get burned.

Orrin Hatch gave us a gift. Not just by sharing personal accounts stemming from his friendship with Ted Kennedy. He let us know there were years put into building collegial relationships with Democrats.

I don't know.

How do you work with people who just flat out call you an unpatriotic Nazi?

While Hatch may have policy differences he'll stick to, it'd be nice if he started laying into the Republicans who are becoming increasingly hateful.

I wish desperately that the opposition would rein themselves in when it comes to personal attacks and start trying to be more social.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Nixon. nt.

[Laelth]

2. Hear, hear! n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[KittyWampus]

3. and I guess, Atwater.

[sarge43]

18. Yes indeed.

Compounded by corporate take over of the media.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. I think Nixon/Vietnam/watergate. So now constant payback. maybe I'm wrong...

and not old enough to recall if things were as bad prior to that.

[Love Bug]

14. No, you are not wrong

All of the political acrimony from the Right since Watergate has been in retaliation for the humiliation of Nixon's resignation. Lee Atwater, Karl Rove and their like have poisoned the political atmosphere so badly they would rather see this country burn to the ground than let any Democrat gain ground. They have been aided by an irresponsible media that is more interested in profit than in reporting truth. They have also been aided by their minions in the press and on radio and TV who spread lies. They are not patriots. They are as anti-American as any box-cutter wielding terrorist. They are sociopaths who feel no shame and have no ethics.

[The Magistrate]

5. Mostly Newt Gingrich, Ma'am

His handbook for Republican candidates pretty much tipped the thing over....

[havocmom]

8. Yep, and he taught it in classrooms

full of up and coming brownshirt fools entering politics.

[LiberalAndProud]

13. Yes, that was my thought as well.

[medeak]

24. Newt banned dems and repubs dining together

in congress...made separate dining times. The start of it all imo

[PatSeg]

55. I heard Bill Clinton make this point a while back

He also mentioned how republican leadership in congress shortened the work week so members could go home on weekends instead of socializing with colleagues in DC. There was a time when opponents in congress fought on the floor and went out for drinks and dinner together afterward. Congeniality under Newt was discouraged.

[Cleita]

6. Orrin is still Orrin and he is still part of the politics of

America who would like a conservative, theocracy running things in Washington.

[Stephanie]

7. Lee Atwater

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater

[Sebastian Doyle]

9. The Bush Crime Family

They have been running the Repukelican party since the 1950's, and were responsible for the careers of Nixon and Atwater as well as Poppy, the Chimp, and Bonzo Reagan.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Incrementally in this order

Nixon
Reagan and his kitchen cabinet
Bush and Lee Atwater
Newt Gringrich
Bush II and Dick Cheney and Karl Rove

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. Sounds about right to me.

[LiberalAndProud]

11. I believe that they are victims of their own machine.

They can't speak out against the hate without becoming a target of it. As soon as they call out the hate, they are asked by Rush and others of his ilk to resign from the party. It is a dangerous contrivance they have built, and I fear it will not end well.

[david13]

15. It has always been there. For more than 200 years.

[The empressof all]

16. I think it was a "Perfect Storm"

Watergate introduced the American Public to News as entertainment with the broadcasting of the "seamy" side of political operations. Soon we began moving into the 24 hour news cycle. At the same time we saw the beginnings of the maneuvering of Atwater and Gingrich which moved into the elevation of an Entertainer as Politician. The Messenger began to trump the Message and we were off ...soring right into this pit that we have found ourselves.

[Doremus]

59. The 24 hour news cycle didn't start until 1980 w the birth of CNN.

Gingrich and Rush Limpuke have had more to do with the divisiveness that's become part of the political culture than any other factors before, during or after, imo.

[Doremus]

60. ..

wrong spot

[TheCowsCameHome]

17. It was stoked by the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity

Their voices have spread hate and venom into homes everywhere.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. Hatch's most telling remark was about how they present a public face

that is not the private fact. DC politicians are like WWF wrestlers, they are inside the joke, and they all play along with the trash talk and act like enemies when they are in fact partners. The hostility is there because they all like it, it is a useful tool.

[KittyWampus]

23. I don't think Hatch would joke about our Democratic President and hunting tags

[polichick]

20. It was elevated by pardoning criminals - enabling them...

...and making them bolder.

[HughMoran]

21. Re-gone, Gingrich, Limbaugh, W

Idiots all who used manipulation over substance to destroy this country.

[Stardust]

22. I think the animosity has always been there, but it's being stoked by the

24-hour newscycle and what it's brought forth: no holds barred news.

[KittyWampus]

26. "Extreme Politics" now, with joke about hunting tags.

[Davis_X_Machina]

25. Rosalyn Carter always blamed Reagan..

...for making it acceptable to hate again.

[KT2000]

30. good point

I remember her saying that Reagan made us comfortable with our prejudices.

Before him there was still a stong mood to be better, improve our world and open our society to all.
The meanness that was unloeashed in the Reagan campaign has only gotten worse.

[Skittles]

43. he made idiocy, greed and hate acceptable

reagan was a true bastard

[robdogbucky]

27. Earlier, in the 20th Century

We had the rise of the German Bund and it was really touch and go as to which way this country would slide during the depression.

First there was Father Coughlin spewing hate on national radio:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin#Antisemitism

Father Charles Edward Coughlin (October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979) was a Canadian-born Roman Catholic priest at Royal Oak, Michigan's National Shrine of the Little Flower Church. He was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience, as more than forty million tuned to his weekly broadcasts during the 1930s. Coughlin used his radio program to promote Franklin D. Roosevelt and his early New Deal proposals, to issue antisemitic commentary, and later to rationalize some of the policies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.<1> The broadcasts have been called "a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture".<2> His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, with his slogan being Social Justice, first with, and later against, the New Deal........

...By 1934 Coughlin was perhaps the most prominent Roman Catholic speaker on political and financial issues, with a radio audience that reached millions of people every week. When he began criticizing the New Deal that year, Roosevelt sent Joseph P. Kennedy and Frank Murphy, prominent Irish Catholics, to try to tone him down. Ignoring them, Coughlin began denouncing Roosevelt as a tool of Wall Street. Coughlin supported Huey Long until Long was killed in 1935, and then supported William Lemke's third party in 1936. As Coughlin turned into a bitter opponent of the New Deal, his radio talks escalated in vehemence against Roosevelt, capitalists and "Jewish conspirators"...

He was initially supported, and later – after turning on Roosevelt – opposed in his efforts by another nationally known priest, Monsignor John A. Ryan.<10> Kennedy, who strongly supported the New Deal, warned as early as 1933 that Coughlin was "becoming a very dangerous proposition" as an opponent of Roosevelt and "an out and out demagogue." Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman and Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) in a successful effort to get the Vatican to silence Coughlin in 1936.<11> In 1940–41, reversing his own views, Kennedy attacked the isolationism of Coughlin.<12>

After 1936, Coughlin began supporting an organization called the Christian Front, which claimed him as an inspiration. In January 1940, the Christian Front was shut down when the FBI discovered the group was arming itself and "planning to murder Jews, communists, and 'a dozen Congressmen'"<19> and eventually establish, in J. Edgar Hoover's words, "a dictatorship, similar to the Hitler dictatorship in Germany". Coughlin publicly stated, after the plot was discovered, that he still did not "disassociate himself from the movement", and though he was never linked directly to the plot, his reputation suffered a fatal decline.<20>

Warren, Donald. Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin The Father of Hate Radio. New York: The Free Press, 1996. ISBN 0684824035

[Iterate]

28. Racial slavery, built into the constitution,

made someone rich, shaped the states, structured the economy, win the war loose the peace (which we repeat), hate the immigrant, love the cheap labor (which made someone rich again), so we fight the civil war again and again.

Sins of the fathers and all that.

The arguments over universal health care or health care reform (and/or single-payer are precisely the same ones used when it was first proposed in 1912, again in 1920, 1934, 1948, 1962, 1971, 1994, and now. The racial subtext has always been there. The alliance of money interests against it have always been there - though some of the players have changed.

They won't rein themselves in because they aren't really talking about health care.

Every wonder why other countries are able to discuss it so rationally? Or what there is about a simple national health insurance plan that's worth getting so rabid about?

[omega minimo]

29. Gingrich, The Contract On America, Frank Luntz, Venal Professional Liars and Their Machine

[cornermouse]

45. I agree.

It was Gingrich who created this.

[Vinca]

31. I don't think it would be nearly as bad as it is if it wasn't for

right wing, hate radio. They get the dimmest constituents of these people all worked up and then, to be re-elected, the politician begins to mimic them. That's why, IMHO, there isn't a prayer of bipartisanship ever on anything.

[robdogbucky]

32. And then there was Tail-Gunner Joe

Joe McCarthy added a certain visciousness and hatred to the national debate during the Red Scare of the early 50s.

One cannot forget that these demagogues garnered wide-ranging support in this country and it was often across party lines:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy

Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion.<1> He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. The term "McCarthyism," coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist pursuits. Today the term is used more generally to describe demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents...<2>

From 1950 onward, McCarthy continued to exploit the fear of Communism and to press his accusations that the government was failing to deal with Communism within its ranks. These accusations received wide publicity, increased his approval rating, and gained him a powerful national following.

...McCarthy's methods also brought on the disapproval and opposition of many. Barely a month after McCarthy's Wheeling speech, the term "McCarthyism" was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and others used the word as a synonym for demagoguery, baseless defamation, and mudslinging. Later, it would be embraced by McCarthy and some of his supporters. "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled," McCarthy said in a 1952 speech, and later that year he published a book titled McCarthyism: The Fight For America.

In his conclusion, Murrow said of McCarthy:
His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. <...> We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully.<82>

[mrdmk]

57. The press aided McCarthy with his investigations in the

Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. It must be stated that some of the press were selling the "sizzle, and not the steak", to quote a marketing term.

<snip from above link>

Final years

After his censure, McCarthy continued senatorial duties for another two and a half years, but his career as a major public figure had been unmistakably ruined. His colleagues in the Senate avoided him; his speeches on the Senate floor were delivered to a near-empty chamber or were received with conspicuous displays of inattention.<96> The press that had once recorded his every public statement now ignored him, and outside speaking engagements dwindled almost to nothing. President Eisenhower, free of McCarthy's political intimidation, quipped to his Cabinet that McCarthyism was now "McCarthywasm."<97>
<end of snip>

It was McCarthy on TV that finally turned the public against him!

[kentuck]

33. It has metastasized...

since the days of Reagan, in my opinion.

[JohnnyLib2]

66. Metastasized!

So true, and Limbaugh is a big malignant tumor. :grr:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

34. D.C. politics?

They're not hostile. The District makes its share of mistakes, but, for the most part, the City Council does a good job, given its limitations and lack of autonomy.

What's with picking on D.C. politics? Adrian Fenty's doing a great job as Mayor, and it's possible that the cops have Marion Barry under control, although that's always debatable.

Or, do you perhaps mean "national" politics?

There is a difference. Your subject line is confusing to those of us who live here.

You really don't know where this antagonistic stance came from? Read your recent American political history. You'll see. It's right under your nose..........................................

[KittyWampus]

36. Get over yourself. It's called starting a discussion.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

41. In the real world,

it's called "using the English language properly."

D.C. politics is a very real subject of discussion to those of us here in the D.C. area.

Expand your teeny-tiny mind, and raise your awareness of the world out there..........................

[KittyWampus]

52. you know, about 30+ other DU'ers managed to understand what I referred to.

but thanks for demonstrating what pettiness is all about.

It really added to the discussion.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

67. Numbers?

Well, they might not be familiar with the existence of the District of Columbia, and the phrase "D. C. politics" is, I trust, not a daily entry in their normal conversation.

There is "national politics" and there is "D. C. politics." It's good to know the difference, presuming, of course, you know there is a difference.

You were sloppy with language, and it sits there, in stunning inaccuracy. That others are just as uninformed as you is nothing but discouraging....................

[robdogbucky]

37. Even back to

Adams/Jefferson

Lincoln/Douglass

Kennedy/Nixon


To carry on with the chain of increased public acrimony from Coughlin to McCarthy, there then came C.R.E.E.P., Watergate, PACs, media consolidation, abolition of Equal Time Provision, etc., Tea Parties, Town Halls w/assault rifle toting RWers.

A very linear line of progression of agression in the public domain.

More importantly, where does it lead?

What will we do?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

44. Ask the people who put Ronnie Raygun

into office.

That's where it all began, and even during Reagan's tenure, there was a certain amount of old-time cooperation that still went on. Tip O'Neill thought Reagan was an idiot, and had absolutely no personal respect for him, but Tip still tried to work with him, because the Speaker was a pro.

Reagan was an amateur, and screwed Tip more than once. That was Reagan, the handpuppet of the money guys, the rabid rightwingnuts who had put him into office. After that, all bets were off, and it opened the door to the election of G H W Bush, and Lee Atwater, who, quite unironically died of a brain tumor before he could see the horror that his "genius" had spawned.

What you're seeing here, my friend, is an appalling - in some instances - lack of historical context. People who don't understand or know the past are constantly re-inventing the present, believing they are the ones who just discovered fire.

What will we do? My own personal belief, after a lifetime in Washington, is that this is now the downslope. There's no way 'up'. Obama is going to be the fall guy, the one who will be in charge when it all crashes down. I think this has been the planned scenario, and it's going right along according to the script. I think the United States of America as we knew it, those of us lucky to have been born long ago, when it was still a great place, with shortcomings, yes, but a great place, is over. And it's not going to come back.

We're too far gone. Fuckface made sure of that when he sold our birthright to the Chinese. That's a debt we're never going to be able to repay, and therein lies our collapse.................................

[fulton]

35. Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton

Always been there.

[omega minimo]

42. Not at this level. And you can thank Rush Limbaugh for that too. Jumped on Gingrich's bandwagon.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. Newt gaver orders when they won the majority

NOT TO engage democrats in any way, shape or form... but it goes all the way back to the 60s. Newt just formalized it.

[omega minimo]

46. Newt formalized it and folded in Reagan's Big Lies and Orwellian NewSpeak/Doublethink

[H2O Man]

39. Great question.

The truth is that it cannot be fully understood in terms of individuals, or even political parties. It has to do with the dynamics involved with an often unconscious rule by the military industrial machine. To focus the nation's resources, including the fruit of its youth, on a killing machine demands hatred.

[FarCenter]

40. Sumner assault - 1856

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Brooks
On May 22, 1856, Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner with his Gutta-percha wood walking cane in the Senate chamber because of a speech Sumner had made three days earlier, criticizing President Franklin Pierce and Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas ("Bleeding Kansas"). In particular, Sumner lambasted Brooks' kinsman, Senator Andrew Butler, who was not in attendance when the speech was read, describing slavery as a harlot, comparing Butler with Don Quixote for embracing it, and mocking Butler for a physical handicap. Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who was also a subject of abuse during the speech, suggested to a colleague while Sumner was orating that "this damn fool is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool." (Jordan et al., The Americans)

At first intending to challenge Sumner to a duel, Brooks consulted with fellow South Carolina Rep. Laurence M. Keitt on dueling etiquette. Keitt instructed him that dueling was for gentlemen of equal social standing, and suggested that Sumner occupied a lower social status comparable to a drunkard due to the supposedly coarse language he had used during his speech. Brooks thus decided to attack Sumner with a cane.

Two days after the speech, on the afternoon of May 22, Brooks confronted Sumner as he sat writing at his desk in the almost empty Senate chamber. Brooks was accompanied by Keitt and Henry A. Edmundson of Virginia. Brooks said, "Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine." As Sumner began to stand up, Brooks began beating Sumner on the head with his thick gutta-percha cane with a gold head. Sumner was trapped under the heavy desk (which was bolted to the floor), but Brooks continued to bash Sumner until he ripped the desk from the floor. By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood, and he staggered up the aisle and collapsed, lapsing into unconsciousness. Brooks continued to beat Sumner until he broke his cane, then quietly left the chamber. Several other senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by Keitt who was holding a pistol and shouting "Let them be!" (Keitt would be censured for his actions and later died of wounds in 1864 during the US Civil War.)

Sumner was unable to return to his Senate duties for more than three years while he recovered. He later became one of the most influential Radical Republicans throughout the conduct of the American Civil War, and on through the early years of Reconstruction.

[Warren Stupidity]

47. Yes the roots to run deep. nt

[Kaleva]

48. When President Jackson threatened to hang his former V. P.

John C. Calhoun knew Jackson well enough to take the threat seriously.

[charlyvi]

49. Atwater/Gingrich/TalkRadio trifecta n/t

[sunwestdog]

50. Limbaugh said....

He blames Teddy Kennedy starting with his remarks at the Bork SC hearings. Rush said it, so it must be true. All the political vileness we see today is all Kennedy's fault. Rush is a genious. A freakin' genius.

[Still Sensible]

51. I think Nixon started it. The tapes that

revealed his unbelievable fixation with everything Kennedy and the depths he would sink to in order to destroy them was, up to that time, about the ugliest political things the public had seen (unless you go back to the early days of the republic when the vitriol was incredible).

Watergate was an extension of that bile, but when the scandal was uncovered and Nixon resigned in disgrace, I believe we saw two things. One, it led to a Carter presidency and a brief respite from the ends-justify-the-means rancor Nixon started. Unfortunately, the Watergate scandal also left many on the right wing determined to atone for how the democrats destroyed Nixon. Indeed, some of the most despicable assholes today started as true devotees of Richard Milhous Nixon.

[KittyWampus]

54. is there an ebb and flow to it then? Perhaps things will dissipate for a while

[Still Sensible]

58. I don't think so.

The hate leaders... Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Beck, et al, now have the 24-hour media and the wide open internet to reinforce and mainstream their message. The GOP politicians publicly cringe at some of the haters' tactics but privately encourage them because they are the greatest beneficiaries.

I believe you are right, though, in that history shows pendulum swings and it is likely to keep swinging back and forth. But as for the polarization, rancor and vitriol, it is hard for me to see that going away now that it has become the norm.

[Kaleva]

56. Nixon and JFK were friends during the 40's and 50's

That friendship ended during the 1960 presidential campaign.

[robdogbucky]

61. I recall Oliver Stone's Nixon

and the scene therein where Nixon appears in front of a "council," of sorts somewhere in Texas (I think to represent the Oligarchs that actually own everything, both parties, media, etc.) and they kind of make fun of him and his out of control hatred and jealousy of the Kennedys. Back then the strategy of tension was to keep the focus on the external enemy, worldwide communism.

I think everything cited here is part of the progression of the pattern. Kind of like a strategy of tension. I think it is always the Oligarchs and their minions that have subverted the original notions of economic 'capitalism,' to re-frame it in terms of Calvinism and wage-slave cheap laborites instead of true capitalism where workers actually earn part of the ownership, or capital in the business they are laboring for. That was conveniently subverted to fit the needs of the Oligarchs, thereby not sharing any ownership rights or interests in the business but they kept the trappings of a political democracy to placate the masses.

It is just very difficult to find any evidence that the tension ever comes from the left. That movement when from the left is more than likely in response and almost always a result of grassroots pressure and reform notions. Usually the tension is ratcheted up to a level where the left reacts. Of course the left and the right have changed party positions over the centuries as Lincoln was a Republican for example.

I was reading Stephen Ambrose's history of the building of the transcontinental railroad as my bedtime sleep-inducement recently. Yes, I know the rail historians have jumped all over Ambrose for inaccuracies in that book, nonetheless those are in minutia compared with all the other factoids and historical accounts that are accurate and it still makes for a very good read, especially if you know the mountains here in Cal and have appreciated what they achieved going over the Sierra back then.

Well, this same conflict manifested itself back then, as the effort to get the rail line built had been going on for about 50 years when after the Civil War, it was finally begun. Lincoln was a longtime advocate and finally lined up enough support to get it on track (sorry). In the years leading up to the Civil War, the south was promoting a southern slave-state route, which was opposed by the north free states. There were many confrontations as that cited above in the US Legislature over the fighting about the railroad. It was not until after the war and enough incentives were built in to safely attract the capitalists to the project, that it was also realized that it was too big for the capitalists on their own to build. Well, once the US govt provided all the land necessary and the other resources and advantages required to cross the Great Plains and overcome the mountains, it was finally undertaken and built. It could not have been done without big government providing welfare in the form of land and a myriad of other favors and advantages that only the government could give, to the capitalists in their time of need.

Fascinating read and I recommend it to all. Despite the objections of descendants of the original owners that justifiably criticized the errors Ambrose and his son left in the final account.

Civil War is still simmering I believe, just along somewhat different lines. More of a class conflict than a race conflict.


Just my dos centavos

robdogbucky

[depakid]

53. Always been there at the fringe

Media deregulation just allowed it to proliferate via hate radio and create a culture where dishonesty wasn't only acceptable but was rewarded.

[emulatorloo]

62. Another vote for Lee Atwater and his successors. EOM

[Doremus]

63. Limbaugh & Gingrich. THE reasons, period.

Well, that and the fact that they would never have had the same impact if we hadn't let the repukes turn our airwaves into fulltime propaganda machines.

[smoochpooch]

64. Talk radio, followed by Gingrich. At the time, there were many areas in which the only stations

you could get in many rural areas were talk radio and fire-and-brimstone preachers. Today, faux news does the same thing.

Though Speaker O'Neill and Reagan famously enjoyed each other's company after hours, Gingrich turned D.C. into a town in which demonizing Bill Clinton (for absolutely no good reason) became so pervasive it resulted in impeachment. The 2000 election and Bush's disastrous two terms cemented the division of the country. It really seemed like Obama might be the guy to bring the country together again, I know neither McCain nor Clinton could have done it.

[alarimer]

65. Republicans.

Well not all of them, but the right wing pieces of shit that came to power with Newt Gingrich.

Fucking assholes the lot of them. When THEY die I will jump for joy.