Reply #33: Great post, except for this line:

[Gabi Hayes]

The Republicans use all this stuff against
us because we permit them to get away with it.




WE don't let them get away with it, if you mean those posting here. if you mean WE as the dem party which 'represents' us, you have a point....up to a point.

it isn't WE, or the demparty, that let's them get away with it. It's the MEDIA....repeat after me (that's from your post), who has allowed the fascists since Reagan, as you noted (see On Bended Knee for the first in depth media deconstruction of media complicity in the fascinization of the US) that has allowed the pugparty to get away with EVERYTHING they've done since Reagan: stealing the 1980 election, Iran Contra, Iraqgate, SandL scandal, Fools for Scandal (WHitewater/Lewinsky/impeachment), stealing the 2000 and 2004 elections, as well as the UNCOUNTABLE criminal acts perpetrated under this most dishonest government in history

without the actively complicit corporate media, who could NOT avoid tipping their hand when Clinton left office, and, after eight years of relentless 'investigation' of his administration, turned a blind eye to EVERYTHING, and I mean everything (when it counted) that Cheney/Bush etal have 'accomplished' in their seven year smash and grab run.

If they'd done even a tiny tiny part of their job, covered just ONE of the myriad BFEE corruption stories, just ONE, he'd never have gotten 'elected' once, much less twice,

just compare his Harken/SEC imbroglio to what they did to Clinton over Whitewater, in which the PROSECUTORS even admitted that the Clintons were the victims!

but you get the picture, yes?

an informed populace wouldn't have let this happen, as their 'outrage' over the Clinton scandals fooled them into thinking that Cheney/Bush would restore honesty and integrity to the WH. They THOUGHT they were being told the truth over those eight years, even as they professed not to care, but the meme was planted, Gore was connected to the 'scandals' by the relentless, gop/corpmedia-fed eight year screamfest

that's why we're where we are today, and until there's some sort of de-concentration of big media, we will NEVER have our representative democracy restored, if we ever had one to begin with