The Nation has undergone a terrible experience.

[olegramps]

Little more can be said of the proven incompetence of the Republican administrations that have dominated American politics for the last 28 years.

My concern is are we to emerge from this nightmare to be a stronger nation or is the damage irreparable. Will the ultra-right extremists come to the realization that their massage of hatred and division has done massive damage to our nation? Will the fanatical religious right realize that the mixing of politics and religion has only served to discredit their brand of Christianity? Just what will be my grand children's future? At the present, it looks rather bleak and the task ahead for Obama to be Herculean with the Republican hyenas resisting every chance for improvement. The Republican Party has to be so soundly defeated that it is forced to totally abandoned its present irrational strategy of hatred and division or be driven out of existence. A house so divided can not stand.

[quiet.american]

1. Hear, hear. nt

[mrcheerful]

2. Then in 2012 the right wing will be right back with all the dirty tricks of the past and

some new ones. If the economy gets better in the next 4 years of democratic rule you can count on republicons and dunder heads voting for republicons again on stupid issues like abortion, gay marriage and what ever else to get america fearing again. History shows us that, Clinton 8 years of good things starting to happen and what did the numb nuts do? Voted for *.

[Cleita]

5. So what do we do in those four years to make sure it doesn't happen again?

I say we need to put those political operatives behind bars for war crimes, treason and racketeering. This way they won't be able to resurface again like they have in the past. If President Ford hadn't pardoned all the Nixon people back then, then all those PNAC neo-cons would have been in jail instead of populating the administrations of Reagan, Bush1 and Bush2s where they got really good and experienced in cheating their way to power.

[mrcheerful]

6. So you put the current criminals behind bars and you leave their faitful students, like Todd

out on the streets, guess what same old same old with different faces. The problem is the american voter, when money gets tight for Joe the working stiff, he votes democratic, when Joe the working stiff has a few dollars in his pocket his brain goes out for lunch and he gets the greed bug then votes republicon.

Seen it with Nixon, Reagan and the shrubinator. My grand father thought after 1929 that no one in their right mind would ever elect a republicon again, yet the american working man showed gramps how wrong he was about that. Whenever the working man gets comfortable for some odd reason he has to screw himself, I think its fear of being ahead that gets them, if you have nothing you have nothing to lose, but when you have something then someones trying to take it away fears.

Unlike gramps days, today americans have been brain washed into not only voting against their best interests, but also to fear the one party that gives them half a chance at living a life better then their dads life. You have seen this time after time, yet once again on the eve of a democratic victory, we hear this is the end of, when its not, its just a break before the next republicon take over.

[Cleita]

8. I don't think the minions would be so quick to break the law when

they see their mentors locked up. What makes the minions bold is seeing that those who went before them got away with murder. Anyway everything else you said is true, and we have to roll up our sleeves to do the work ahead of us first by stopping the brain washing techniques and taking back the media. The media should be educating the masses but when they are turned into propaganda machines for those who are in power, that's when we are in trouble. We do this by bringing back anti-trust laws breaking the media branches off of those giant five corporations that own them into smaller companies that compete with each other and can offer a diversity of viewpoints instead of just one. We had this back before the seventies and we can bring it back again. I remember in school being taught that "yellow journalism" was lower than the lowest. Now it seems that "yellow journalism" is all you get in the M$M.

[Liberal Gramma]

7. We need to ensure fair, open voting

This is the time to federalize the voting laws and undo the tricks the Republicans are using. No paperless voting machines. No proprietary voting software. Machines that give the voter a paper receipt for their vote, just like an ATM. Fairness in distributing voting equipment within jurisdictions--no more 2 voting machines for 100,000 urban blacks and 10 voting machines for suburban whites. No unrealistic ID requirements. Spot inspections of voting machines by IT professionals unaffiliated with parties. Requirements of "matching" other government records must be revised so Joe Jones (driver's license) and Joseph Jones (voter registration) doesn't result in voter purging. Indictment and prosecution of anyone who tries to manipulate the vote. Confiscation of voting equipment that is found to be defective. Lawsuits against manufacturers who will not comply with open source coding. Election oversight by non-partisan panels comprised of both Republicans and Democrats, rather than by a possibly tainted Secretary-of-State's office, ala Katherine Harris.

I think if election fraud was eliminated, the Democrats would win every election forever unless they screwed up big-time. There aren't enough rich people and religious nuts to overcome the masses.

[MarjorieG]

10. Dems are just as convinced electronics our future, when we should care about mechanical..

Less unstable, and we wouldn't have to worry about software independence, voting results/ballots we can't count in the open and observe.

Even if audits are impossible with a mechanical means, the election boards wouldn't be forced to spend money and time they don't have to audit, and be responsible for a chain of custody with unfunded mandates in these budget crises.

We need penalties for denying us our vote through disenfranchisement, a guaranteed right to vote, and correct our systems. No central tabulators allowed to ruin and compromise our precinct's results.

[closeupready]

3. Completely agree.

K&R

[daninthemoon]

4. things are terribly bad and foreboding. mcpalin has left thousands

of followers with the total belief that their next president is a terrorist. I thought the partisan witch hunt launched against Clinton was as bad as things could be. mcpalin has topped that, and in a much more dangerous time. mcpalin seemed to decide that if they couldn't win, they would burn down the whole damn country. I have alot of faith and hope in Obama, but I can't imagine how we can get through the energy, banking, global warming, and resurgent overt rascism we now face. I almost feel like our future depends on the strenth of one man: President Barrack Obama. If it is beyond his power, it won't be his fault, it will be the fault of the rw evil pseudoxians who did this.

[Dumak]

9. If the Dems can get enough power, they would have to do these things

(and some people aren't going to like it, but) :

1. Election reform, including federalized elections (or at least some aspects of elections), which implies a *national ID* for everyone, given at birth, which will allow the elimination of the registration process. The Rethugs have been trying to inoculate us against this by proposing a stupid state-run "Real Id" system. We could use a "Department of Citizens" to illustrate how important this is.

2. We need to reduce the relative amount of right-wing propaganda, which is turning people insane. We can do this by requiring, by law, equal participation from the left.

3. We need better education from the earliest age through high school, and television ads by the government. We need to teach against bigotry and fear, and teach deductive reasoning.

4. The Dem politicians have to be models of ethical behavior.