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[prolesunited]

1. Umm...

You have a nice day, too. :hi:

Some very nice turns of a phrase in there. Talk about a kick in the gut. Not sure I'm going to thank you, though, for this PSA. ;-)

[Name removed]

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[Closer]

2. I concur

I share your gloomy outlook :-( I dunno what it is, but I just feel so down about things now.


We're up against one HELL of an enemy. I surely won't stop fighting though.


I just think the Democrats (as a whole) don't know how to fight and take on the right wing machine. And until we learn how to be tough and fight the fight, we'll keep losing like we have been. I am most assured of that.

[mmm]

6. I agree with you

100%

[Mountainman]

3. I don't think any of us are denying the truth but remember

The roses still bloom and if you don't take some time to stop and smell them you are missing out on much that life has to offer.

We must never give up the fight because in the end we will win. I keep posting this because I believe it:

"When I despair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seen invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it, always."

Mahatma Gandhi

[calimary]

29. Hey, Mountainman - thanks hugely for that Gandhi quote.

I try to remember stuff like that, too, when I become despondent. I'm afraid that more often than not, I share Pete's concern. I got there last night after seeing a promo (I think) on CNN about the campaign commercial the rethugs are ready to launch - talking about how "some people are fighting our lovely little george on terrorism, while he's just trying to fight terrorism," with all the lofty cosmetics and stirring music and other visual crap.

I have become VERY depressed about that, added to the fact that the Dems DO NOT fight smart, or mean. We just play nice, abide by all the rules while we wring our hands over how the enemy is breaking every rule and winning repeatedly. But our people don't seem to have the spine or the clever minds to be able to fight back hard. And that's what we HAVE to do to win!

I know, it sounds like a sellout to all those who nobly feel that "we become like them if we fight like them." Well, okay, maybe that's true. But do you wanna win this and change the agenda because you now control the agenda? Or do you wanna keep losing and watching the parade - and all the controls and all the power and all the influence and all the marbles - pass you by? Do we want to seize back the controls and start repairing the damage, or do we just want to be a perennial also-ran and nothing more than a footnote as the enemy becomes more and more powerful and omnipresent???

Because that IS what we'll get if we keep making nice-nice.

Also, the more I think of it, the more I like my idea: Let's start calling them republi-CONs, and referring to them as republi-CON-ARTISTS or CON MEN and what shit they're up to as republi-CON-JOBS! Why can't we start doing that? Repeatedly? So it's now WE THE GOOD GUYS establishing the memes and setting the agenda and infiltrating and influencing the national mind-set? WHY CAN'T WE DO THAT?

For heaven's sakes, SOMEBODY'S GOT TO!!!!

[kentuck]

4. With a good dose of deception thrown in for good measure...

Deception, by definition, is a lie. We need a free press that is willing to do it's job and call the deception for what it is...a lie.

[mmm]

5. absolute truth

this is life in the US as we know it today

[Beetwasher]

7. Stop and Smell the Flowers

Go out to the beach, carpe diem ;-)

Yeah, it's bad, sometimes oppressively so. I'm trying to learn to enjoy the small things while honing my dragon slaying skills...

[Name removed]

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[Mikimouse]

8. I can empathize with your position, but

would argue that while there are still voices such as yours, all is not yet lost. Though there has been an obvious effort on the part of some to stifle our voices, we are not yet silent. It took approximaely 40 years or so for us to get here, politically and socially, and reversing the trend will not be quickly accomplished. I am sure that it is the fervent hope of those who would destroy the nation of which we were once so proud, that we will simply tire of the fight after a short time and quit the field. We must be patient and do what we can, though we may not see again in our lifetimes, the things for which we strive. Let it, however, be our legacy.:hippie:

[adamblast]

9. I was going to respond, but...

...the lifeblood draining from my wrists makes it difficult to type. :D

Seriously, I can't disagree with your assessment. Our hope is slim, but our need to go down fighting--if that's what happens--is very real.

I suppose that's why I can't just side with those who want to place electabilty/politics over justice on so many key issues.

[rumguy]

11. Well said but all is not lost yet

For the most part, they control the discourse...that's our main weakness right now.

If we could level that playing field they would be swept away.

But what to do about the media mess?

Someone in here once said something about protesting the whore media, holding protests next to the reporters who are covering Jacko, etc...holding signs denouncing the media for their whoreish ways.

[liberalmuse]

12. Unfortunately, I agree with you.

I think about this every day. I've become disgustingly pessimistic when facing up to reality. A part of me has to hold onto the hope that we will get a Democratic President in 2004--but in 2000, I somehow knew the 'pubs would steal power, and once stolen, it would be hell or high water before they gave it up. It is still possible that we will win in '04 and I will do the best I can to ensure this happens. I try to balance the optimism and pessimism, but have to admit that more often the scales tip in favor of pessimism.

In every struggle for freedom and against injustice, there are those who begin it, then are quickly and brutally stifled. They die and are forgotten. Then there is a period of severe oppression. It is then left to others to pick up the fight and they are the ones who live to experience the agonies and rewards of our/their efforts. I hope the situation we are dealing with now is not what I've described above. I want to live to see America put on the right track--and it would have to be better than before. No more CIA overthrowing legally elected governments and supporting brutal regimes. No more FBI spying on its own people. No more buying of political office by corporate entities.

[Brucey]

14. Pete, you are a damn good writer and you have stated the truth.

Yes, that is the situation we are in, and it does not seem like it will change much in our lifetimes. However, there is a sizable minority who agrees with you, so we are not alone. Many of the people around the world agree with us also. Unfortunately, money rules, and the US corporations have taken power and will continue to control the US government. I don't see any way around that. Look at the recent energy bill and presciption drug bill. These were loaded down with tax breaks for repug corporations. Even AARP is one of them now. The rich are in control of everything and they are greedy bastards. The only way to once in a while get a victory is to convince them that they can make more money by going in our direction. People hate liberals because they think we want to increase their taxes. We have to show them that they will have more money if we have peace, a clean environment, no poverty, and a strong middle class. Why can't we pay Halliburton to clean up OUR cities? The rich would still get the money... so they should be happy. Anyway Pete, I agree with you completely, and I, too, am completely demoralized by the whole stinking mess.

[dusty64]

15. "feeble opposition",

I'm afraid its much worse than that. Our minority leader has refused to block the energy bill and the gutting of Medicare and actually supports it. feinstein worked with pombo (one of the most anti-environmentalist in Congress) to hand our National Forests over to chimp's timber donors. The elimination of overtime will go through without blockage from the Democrats and the "patriot act" has been expanded with little coverage from the media.

Sorry friends, but we've been completely sold out. With the exception of a few, the Democratic party has become a wholly owned subsidary of the same corporate masters as the republicans. I'm convinced they are playing out a soap opera for us every now and then pretending to oppose the agenda of the extreme right. Every item on their wishlist has been approved from the HUGE tax giveaways to the superwealthy to an illegal war with tens of thousands dead to spread MORE pork to their political donors. We've been SCREWED blue and tattooed. WTF are we to do now?

[JNelson6563]

16. Dr. Julie prescribes a look at history.

Take a look at 1215-1219 in England. William Marshal. Relatively obscure at birth, ends up serving several of the Angevin kings. John-the-much-hated dies at a time when every nobleman of note had gone to France to beg Phillip's son Louis to come and take the English throne.

The new king of England was a 9 year old named Henry. The treasury was bare, there was no standing army. Things looked incredibly grim. The Capets were set to sit on the throne of England.

William would not give up, pushed on, held out hope and only had promise of pardon to offer as reward to nobles returning to the royalist cause. At nearly 80 he lead the charge himself on more than one occassion and, in the end, manage to save the kingdom for the boy king and kept England from being annexed by France.

And he didn't even have the internet. :-)

Remember Pete, like Shakespeare said, or rather, had Henry V say: The fewer men(/women), the greater share of honor. You really should see Branaugh's version of the Bard's Henry V, you'll be ready for battle with a renewed enthusiasm!

Julie-whose Irish genes and history studies are like antibodies to defeatest thoughts

[Name removed]

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[JNelson6563]

24. My apologies for making the impression

that you were being defeatist as I do not think that was your purpose. I do feel though that a couple of defeatist microbes have gotten into your system hence the malady you now suffer from; acceptance, resignation.

We can make reality whatever we want, if we are willing to work to achieve it.

I am glad you liked the post Pete, it really was meant as a buck-up-Johnny message and I get those for myself from history. Just sharin' my stash. :toast:

We'll share a drink when the revolution is complete.

Julie

P.S. For additonal boost to sagging spirits, give Vivaldi's first movement of Winter from his Four Seasons a listen. I hear all things that are great from our species in there, perseverence, bravery, determination, hope.......greatest piece of music ever written. When my book on William Marshal is adapted to the screen I will insist much Vivaldi is included (after I finish the book of course) ;-)

[MrPrax]

17. Good points...

esp.
The media is in COMPLETE control of the message. The 24 hour Michael Jackson-a-thon subsided the day AFTER 150,000 Brits spat in Bush's face. Most Americans see and hear what THEY (the media liars) want them to see and hear, and precious few know what's really going on.

But is the media even worth 'correcting'?

The Movement Conservatives and their foundations' agenda has been to neutralize the 'Media' and undermine it's credibility by, decade after decade, explaining it as unreliable and in the hands of liberals.

Damn if you do and damned if you don't -- what if the US media put the UK protests front and center?

It would be discounted by their 'audiences' as liberal bias, unpatriotic and unfair coverage...and conservatives would assume there is a REAL story not being covered.

It is like Rush's ESPN firing as interpreted by the Freepers--Rush said the unspeakable, was critical of liberal media and that is why he was crucified...like Jesus was!!!!

Many people are running on an ideology/'core' value systems and simply appropriate from Media the things that fit and encourage that that 'core'.

We are living in distinct 'program' to hardwire irrationality.

[tom_paine]

19. "We are living in distinct 'program' to hardwire irrationality."

Yes. Yes we are. I like to call it Goebbels v2.0. It exists for the same purpose as the original but is magnified in power by 100-fold.

And it is still building power. We have not yet seen the final product.

[stopbush]

20. Let me play MSGOP and inject some happy news to this thread

While it's easy to agree with everything Pete says, and while all of us have reached his point of pessimism at least once...or thrice...since the last (s)election, at the end of the day, I can't agree with Pete. There's a simple reason for that - the world has changed, and no more so than in the area of communication.

Think about it - what would 2000 have been like if the internet and Dem-friendly boards like DU had been going full-throttle since 1996? What if Al Gore had fought back with the vigour of a Dean, Kucinich or Clark? What if Dems realized that the best strategy was to call repigs on their lies and hammer home their duplicity at every chance? What if at least a segment of the media took an interest in running anti-Bush stories in the lead-up to the election? Where would we be now?

If you follow the Dem candidates and what they're saying, it becomes very clear that some of them have staffers frequenting DU, smirkingchimp, Bartcop, MWO, BuzzFlash and other sites to get a feeling for what die-hard Dems are thinking. They're using these sites as a media shorthand to stay on top of issues and stories that would have been miles under the radar only 4 years ago. They're checking in and building the themes of their campaigns from the grassroots up. What could be better?

While the marquee political events seem to favor repigs (Ah-nold, etc), Dems are actually making progress that has been pretty significant. We're actually UP in governorships since 2000, the economic recovery/depression is a mixed bag at best, the war(s) hasn't a snowball's chance of improving, bush's ratings are in the toilet across the board, and there are glimmers of hope in the mainstream media. Even BBV is being addressed in the mainstream, and this a full year before the election. In other words, I believe that the free ride for bush has ended just about everywhere - except Faux.

So, cheer up. Keep your eye and heart on the prize. We have the power to create a new reality. Why feed the beast?

[rumguy]

22. excellent points

there is an internet movement that the candidates are in touch with...

[Philostopher]

23. Good points.

I was born to be a political junkie of sorts -- my mother used to read the comics to us at night when other people's mothers read 'Cinderella' or 'Pinocchio,' including Doonesbury and Pogo. If we didn't understand, she'd explain to us in terms we could understand. That's how I came into my knoweldge about Richard Nixon and Watergate -- through Garry Trudeau. My father never let a single political story on the television go uncommented. I remember him practially yelling at the TV 'they've made John Dean their scapegoat!' His insinuation was that there's no honor among thieves -- and he was right. There is none.

But he also was pessimistic. He quit attending church when he saw it becoming a political forum. Of course, the church couldn't go so far as to speak to specific candidates -- but I think we all know how that's avoided, I'll go into more detail if anybody needs it, but I doubt they do.

This is going to sound mighty odd coming from a twenty-year agnostic, but something that gave me a spark of hope was the Christian group that announced its formation earlier this week -- a group that resents the way Christianity is being used by political right-wingers to justify things Christ would have found repugnant. They are absolutely right -- there are plenty of well-meaning, generous, peaceable people out there who believe in God and go to church regularly, who are being outright defamed by the behavior of some rather nasty people who are using the cross (the same way they're using our national flag) as a cover for greed, hegemonic 'world building,' the bullying of our former allies and trampling our bill of rights.

Not all Christians believe this stuff is okay just because the people who do it hang a cross around their necks, just like not all Americans think it's right because they slap an American flag on it. It gives me some hope that it will give courage to other Christians who don't believe this stuff to come 'out of the closet' and say so. I haven't considered myself a Christian for a long time, but because I was one, I've felt awful for the ones whose greatest solace has been distorted into a weapon for right-wing misbehavior. But only they could say anything -- they had to be the ones to come forward and say, 'we don't believe this junk -- they're wrong.' I knew they were out there -- there are plenty of them here on DU -- and finally, there's an organized effort to say it.

The Bush cabal is a parasite on Christianity -- I'm surprised lightning doesn't strike most of them down for even taking on Christ's name and behaving the way they do. Only Christians themselves could disassociate their beliefs from the version of Christianity the pretender in the Oval Office tries to present as Godly, though. I feel better in some part of my brain that they've finally done this, and I wish them well.

[Q]

21. WE are the 'evildoers'!

- Many Democrats don't understand that when Bush* said...'you're either with US or with the terrorists'...he was also talking about ANYONE who opposes him.

- That's right...the Bushies don't just consider us the opposition. We're the enemy.

- And it doesn't help that many 'conservative' Democrats seem to 'hate' progressives/liberals as much as the Right. This makes it even more difficult to get out a common, unified message.

[camero]

25. There's only one thing to do

Tame the beast

[Malva Zebrina]

26. Medicare debacle has made me very sad

and down

Buy some property all you younguns--buy it now, wherever it is cheap--and live on it, grow your food, and become self subsistant. Educate yourself as to the ins and the outs of medicine and know that all that is foisted upon you as good health, is not always "good health", but the result of lobbyists seeking to make moeny off of you. Work your land and rejoice in it at the end of the day.

grow you children in this environment--the simple life--without the glitz and the orgy of shallow and cheap spending--grow your children to be honest and loving of their fellow man and their fellow animals-

learn to grow your own food, dig your own well, chop wood, take care of the land, smell it's earthy scent and rejoice in the simple things-such as a seedling surviving a frost and the wonder of a plant growing to maturity and feeding you -- keep a few animals--a cow--some sheep-some chickens--live simply--the pleasure involved in doing so is priceless and you are not as indentured to corporate manipulations as some.

[Name removed]

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[Kanary]

28. Reality is biting some of us Very Hard!

Great bit of writing! Welcome to my world.

Yes, some of us on the bottom rung have been seeing this for quite some time. Afterall, it's rather hard to ignore when we have been affected by cut after cut, and slide further and further down.

It's very hard to keep trying to maintain some balance when confronted with the hard truth -- cuts and less and less ability to just keep surviving -- on one hand, and on the other hand, having people in our lives who keep telling us to "stop being so negative", "cheer up" and all that other stuff. Some of us KNOW that we won't survive..... some of us see more cuts coming that will stop our very breath. Those of us who will be affected first know that our "passing" won't even be noticed... it will be just our personal problem. Maybe when there are thousands dying every week, then somehow the press will take notice, which means that not until then will the average citizen even know what is happening.

Yes, indeedy, I've been facing this reality for quite a while now. It makes it very hard to even talk with others who *aren't* facing this reality. And the gulf between us is getting wider.

Some of us don't have the ability to get out somewhere to "smell the roses", or to get a change of scenery to lift our spirits momentarily. So, increasingly, we are pushed to the outside, because what we are living is not what others want to hear.

Reality?

It sux.

For some of us, there's just no getting around that.

Kanary

[leftofthedial]

30. thanks for cheering me up!

:-(

well stated and exactly how I feel, although I think there is hope for Bush to lose next year.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

31. This is what life looks like when people live with NO commitment

to future generations. The generation before us lived with a commitment to us. The future was VERY much a part of their conversation. Those of us that are boomers can recall growing up in a conversation about progress and the future. Whether right or wrong we knew it was being done for us and we saw a future ahead that was bright.

That conversation has been supplanted by BUY IT TODAY! Even on this board, there are conversations about tomorrow but they are subjectives worries. There is very little REAL commitment to tomorrow and to the beings that will live tomorrow with the after effects of who each of us are being today.

[gulliver]

32. Can't go with you on this one, PeteNYC.

Things are looking pretty bad for Bush right now. He truly screwed the pooch with this Iraq fiasco. Islamic terrorists and insurgencies throughout the world are going completely haywire. Their methods are being copied by terrorists and insurgents of every variety -- because they work.

Not only did Bush's Folly produce bad results, but it was fought for bad reasons. It was the wrong thing done at the wrong time for the wrong reason. He's toast.

Polling trends are all negative for Bush. He is going to have a hard time winning manufacturing states. Retirees will have a Medicare PD plan, but it will be one that Dems can capitalize on (Improve it. Make it happen faster. Ensure it doesn't get scuttled immediately after the election...).

[Name removed]

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[CWebster]

34. My sentiments exactly

Good post, Pete.

[Name removed]

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