Will we ever recover?

[MinneapolisMatt]

I'm 29, so I missed Nixon, was a young child during Reagan and had fundie parents so I loved him like a grandpa (I know, I know better now), and prospered in corporate America as a new college grad under Clinton making a shit-load of money before I left the industry I was in.

So my question is this: Can we ever recover from this administration? Are we just in some partisan-cycle that we'll naturally over-come? My parents, who have finally started to listen to me and stop drinking the Kool-Aid, are still trying to reason with me that, yeah, this admin should be punished SEVERELY, but we'll eventually over-come this.

But I'm not so sure. I'm really scared. I am really worried about our future, not only for myself, but for my little family I have and as a country.

Anybody have any insight or advice? I'm really not trying to be a pessimist; rather, just realistic I guess.

Thanks you all. I just feel so defeated, like, even before I've even begun to fully live. I don't have a good feeling about any of this. You know what I mean?

- Matt

[DanCa]

1. Maybe that's why Pappy and Bubba are hanging out together

The chimp has been makig such a mess of things that it's going to take two former presidents from both parties too straighten things out.

[imenja]

2. mobilize

volunteer in the upcoming elections. Politics has cycles, but it takes sweat to change the tide. Make sure you spend lots of time canvassing and otherwise campaigning for Democrats in 06 and 08. Volunteer to be
an election worker through your county. Do whatever you can. That's how we will recover, by bringing about change.

[mmonk]

3. We're in unchartered waters

Many rights and protections of the people have been taken away. For the first time in my life, I can't really reasonably say what's ahead.

[Booster]

9. What I think we can reasonably say is that if we don't get the voting

problems fixed, what is happening right now will go on for years and years. If we don't have a chance to vote out a corrupt administration, then we have no voice at all. The voting problems to me is the thing that will break this chain, but as long as they run the machines, they can pretty much do whatever they want, and that is truly sad.

[Sapphire Blue]

4. This might help...The Impossible Will Take a Little While:

Hope in a Time of Fear...

Adapted from the introduction to Paul Loeb's new book, The Impossible Will Take a Little While

The Impossible Will Take a Little While: Hope in a Time of Fear

Paul Rogat Loeb

How do we learn to keep on in this difficult political time, and keep on with courage and vision? A few years ago, I heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at a Los Angeles benefit for a South African project. He’d been fighting prostate cancer, was tired that evening, and had taken a nap before his talk. But when Tutu addressed the audience he became animated, expressing amazement that his long-oppressed country had provided the world with an unforgettable lesson in reconciliation and hope. Afterward, a few other people spoke, and then a band from East L.A. took the stage and launched into an irresistibly rhythmic tune. People started dancing. Suddenly I noticed Tutu, boogying away in the middle of the crowd. I’d never seen a Nobel Peace Prize winner, still less one with a potentially fatal illness, move with such joy and abandonment. Tutu, I realized, knows how to have a good time. Indeed, it dawned on me that his ability to recognize and embrace life’s pleasures helps him face its cruelties and disappointments, be they personal or political.

Few of us will match Tutu’s achievements, but in a political time that’s hard and likely to get harder, we’d do well to learn from someone who’s spent years challenging abuses of human dignity from apartheid’s brutal system to Bush’s Iraq war, yet has remained light-hearted and free of bitterness. Because Tutu embodies a defiant, resilient, persistent hope, where we act no matter what the seeming odds, both to be true to our deepest moral values, and to open up new possibilities. As Jim Wallis, editor of the evangelical social justice magazine Sojourners, writes, “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.”

<snip>

Even in a seemingly losing cause, one person may unknowingly inspire another, and that person yet a third, who could go on to change the world, or at least a small corner of it. Rosa Parks’s husband Raymond convinced her to attend her first NAACP meeting, the initial step on a 12-year path that brought her to that fateful day on the bus in Montgomery. But who got Raymond Parks involved? And why did that person take the trouble to do so? What experiences shaped their outlook, forged their convictions? The links in any chain of influence are too numerous, too complex to trace. But it helps to know that such chains exist, that we can choose to join them, and that lasting change doesn’t occur in their absence. A primary way to sustain hope, especially when our actions seem too insignificant to amount to anything, is to see ourselves as links on such a chain.

<snip>

As the Polish activists discovered, we gain something profound when we stand up for our beliefs, just as part of us dies when we know that something is wrong, yet do nothing. We could call this radical dignity. We don’t have to tackle every issue, but if we remain silent in the face of cruelty, injustice, and oppression, we sacrifice part of our soul. In this sense, we keep on acting because by doing so we affirm our humanity—the core of who we are, and what we hold in common with others. We need to do this more than ever in the current time.

http://www.soulofacitizen.org/articles/impossible.htm

[eleny]

5. Consider this....

Enough people gathered together to bring progress to America decades ago. It will take a long time to get back to where we were before this administrations madness. I have confidence that your generation and the ones to come will dig America out of this. You've lived in a somewhat progressive state. So you aren't starting from scratch.

Btw, I'm 58.

[whistle]

6. Nixon capitalized on it. Reagan produced the conditions for it to

...expand and infiltrate all of America's institutions and corporations and now shrub is mass producing it. And what is "it"? American fascism!

[pox americana]

13. You got it.

Nixon was a crook but at least he had delusions of grandeur. Reagan was the robotic stooge who turned the whole show over to the truly evil fascists of the BFEE.

Getting it back is gonna be very, very tough. It'll probably take a lot of martyrs and even that might not be enough.

[murielm99]

7. I felt the same way after the Reagan and Bush One years.

They had ruined the country and the economy. I thought we would never recover. Then along came Clinton.

I don't know. Who knew we would have two stolen elections, an attack on our country, and a war based on lies? Nothing in the past compares to this.

I think that if things get much worse, they may be removed by force. It won't be the peasants with the pitchforks. It might be former CIA and military. Then we may not have a democracy any more.

I wish I could help your feeling of defeat.

[H5N1]

19. This is far worse than anything I have experienced

I think our golden years, as they were, are all behind us.

[eridani]

23. Clinton just slowed it down

He managed to block some of the worst excesses, but made no real gains. That was partly the fault of progressives, who did not effectively organize to push him to the left.

[The Traveler]

8. The matter is not yet decided

We certainly have a chance. Though the window of opportunity shrinks quickly.

We cannot afford the luxury of despair, friend. We must dig down deep inside ourselves and find the words necessary to awaken our people. We must help them open their eyes.

And if we fail, our children will have cause to curse our memories.

[Lilli]

10. Yes....we always do....... but

im tired of the one step forward 10 steps back dance...

[RPM]

11. no - its the start of the long march back to the mud

its only a matter of how many will perish over what span of time.

[sam sarrha]

12. head of the GAO, title; The NEWS is Bad... And Getting Worse......Link>>>

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_7041.shtml

David Walker mentions that in 35 years the Federal Government will be reduced to doing little more than paying the national debt.

walker is the one who tried to get the energy papers from Cheney..

[NAO]

14. Depends on (1)Resources =Oil and (2) the Courts = SCOTUS

There are two reasons why I am worried about our future prospects, regardless of the outcome of the 2006, 2008, etc elections.

First, there is the issue of peak oil and the crisis that would result if oil production declined and was not able to meet demands. Oil helps grow our food, take it to us, and keep it from perishing. It pumps water, runs the purification equipment, and is (!) required to manufacture anything, including windmills and solar panels.

Second, even if oil production keeps up with needs and there is no problem with resources, if the SCOTUS is packed with Religious Reich activist-judges, it won't matter if we win the WH, and the Senate and the House. They can strike down as "unconstitutional" any progressive reforms that are passed. There is NO WAY OUT of this, as the SCOUTS is the highest appeal. The Religious Reich figured this out after winning many elections and controlling everything BUT the courts and that's why they are so angry about "activist judges". But if they do get the courts - and it will be a miracle if we can make it to 2008 without that happening - we will be without recourse for many years - until the 2040's or later.

***
***

The Swift Advance of a Planned Coup: Conquering by Stealth and Deception - How the Dominionists Are Succeeding in Their Quest for National Control and World Power
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheSwiftAdvanceOfaPlannedCoup.htm

The Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm

[RPM]

18. after reading this...

it's incumbant upon people to realize that we must play as dirty as they do.

its taken me a long time to reach this, but thats whree i se it now.

[autorank]

15. Yes, and we'll be improved, more jaded, more time to relax and produce.

Unfortunately, nations need to learn a hard lesson in order to choose peace over militarism (posing as nationalism).

Sweden -- rampaged through Europe until the end of the 30 Years War. Here is how they describe one of the last battles: "The campaign of 1640 stalemates in a hunger war that leads to nothing but more destruction of Germany and wasted lives." They continued to play a military role at times but were not rapacious scavengers as they had been from the days of the Vikings through this horrible war.

France -- they should have learned with Napoleon but they didn't. So they had to learn in WWI. The loss of lives was exponential for that time. Many, many more than the USA and Britain combined, they lost an entire generation and are still recovering in terms of population.

Germany & Japan -- these two delights were nighing but trouble for so long. The Germans met their match in the form of Russia with British and US help in Europe. The Japanese got a load of us in the Pacific theater. Neither nation has a serious armed forces establishment today and both are reflexively peaceful.

USA -- we had Viet Nam but chose to ignore the terrible cost to the lives and well being of the million plus US soldiers and we've blacked out the several million lost in SE Asia due to a war we started and perpetuated. Lost opportunity! We learned about 1/2 of the necessary lesson. We are now engaged in the insanity of Iraq, trying to avoid the Viet Nam "mistakes" with much lower man power and an all volunteer Army. We do not face the same human losses of Viet Nam but the insanity of starting a war with Iraq to plunder rather than fight terror is a weak equivalent of the 4th Crusade when the Serene Republic of Venice diverted the fleet from its destination, The Holy Land, to Constantinople, capitol of the wealthy Byzantine Empire, which btw was Christian! The Venetians gained a victory of unmatched fortune which renewed their society. We've lost $300 billion and can look forward to being invited out of Iraq as soon as they get a truly popular government.

This will be our lesson, all in a relatively short period, all played out for everyone to see. The 50% plus to think the war a waste will grow to 70% plus (with only the core "faith based" loyalists supporting the effort). Bush will be reviled, the neocons will be lucky to find lodging at the inn, and those who supported the war in Congress and the punditocracy will back peddle so fast, they will lose all credibility.

We will have learned our lesson and the military industrial complex will divert it's energies to eco-catastrophes which will loom large in our future due to two stolen elections that were allowed to pass because the people who stole them also control the media (they're done too).

Rejoice, we shall be free!

[seabeyond]

16. it isnt what comes our way, it is what we do with it. and there is always

opportunity in all things. i am not worried about my children and their future. they are clever, informed, we stay on top of thisgs. we know our priority. it will be youths to do with as they see fit. lets nurture real leaders in our youth. that is what i am doing iwth my children.

i am not discouraged
my little world is fine, good, better than good. we have love, lots of lite. we can deal with what comes our way

[union_maid]

17. It's hard to believe, but I guess they're right

I'd be about your parents'age. I've never seen damage done to this country like this. Don't give up, though, please. It's your generation that's going to have to provide the energy, hope and do the heavy lifting when it comes to recovery. Thinking it over, my parents'generation came through the Great Depression and World War II, to come face to face with the McCarthy era. That must have been discouraging. After that, though, we moved into a period of progress, not all of which has been trashed as yet.

Keep hope alive, support the right things and never give up. Unless you decide to move to Sweden or something. That would be perfectly understandable.

[lutefisk]

20. I clearly remember Nixon and Reagan; this is so much worse...

Many of the perps from those administrations are engaging in a sadistic form of "revenge of the nerds." They are doing everything they can to push this nation beyond the point of no return.

[MinneapolisMatt]

21. Thank you all for your insights.

I really am glad for them.

It's almost ironic, that now, when I hate America and what it "stands for" the most, I feel the most patriotic! I just see it all going to shit, but dammit, I'm going to fight for the truth and do whatever I can to get our country back. And I think there are a lot of other people out there feeling the same way.

Thanks for letting me question and vent. It's been a long week, and I feel better. :) I just have a lost feeling a lot.

- Matt

[seabeyond]

25. i seldom lose hope, though there are times

it is good to come in here and get a little support when needed.


:thumbsup:

[Bluebear]

22. The Age of Anxiety.

Bush's legacy in a nutshell? Uncertainty, fear, terror, misery all around. Not knowing.

This is decidely NOT a partisan-cycle. I don't believe any time period in our history can compare, so I don't know what to tell you except I wish we had done better for you, son. :)

[Carolab]

24. Matt, my advice is to help us locally. We need to defeat Pawlenty.

We need to defeat Coleman.

We need to defeat Kennedy and Kline.

We need to defeat Mary Kiffmeyer.

Help support local progressive candidates.

P.S. If you have a lot of time, I'm working with a few groups on election reform locally and we could use some help.

[wli]

26. No, we're all going to die horrible deaths because of this.

Bush will declare himself dictator and subject us all to autogenocide, mass imprisonment, and slave labor.

Peak oil and global climatological and economical collapse will strike. Transportation will be defunct and progressively more expensive until it's infeasible altogether. Drought and famine will ravage his massive slave labor populations and leave riot-police-guarded gated communities progressively more isolated. As they wander toward the poles and fungus reestablishes itself as the dominant phylum (as was the case during the Permian-Triassic extinction event) even the rich will starve. Near the end, the carbon and nitrogen and other cycles will halt entirely, leaving an earth completely barren of all life but archaeobacteria. Finally, the progressive increases in the luminosity of the Sun and the utter failure to establish extraterrestrial biospheres will at long last doom the last of life to extinction, with the evaporation of oceans and the eventual reduction of the Earth to Venus-like conditions, and even total conversion of the surface of the Earth to a sea of boiling lava.

This is the end. This is all there will be, namely evil. Rampant genocide and slavery and gang raping of children en masse will be our legacy, the final acts upon which the judgment of inscrutable posterity will be based. There will be no God to save us. No Jesus to redeem us. No Mohammed to lead the last of us into righteousness. Only the perverted sociopath will endure to the last before finally dying of starvation and dehydration. The whole of life will fail, and beyond that it will ultimately be deprived of even dignity in death.

[Tactical Progressive]

27. No, I don't think we will

It's not a dichotomy. We're not going to march upwards and onwards versus all die miserable deaths very soon. It's that we've taken so many steps in the wrong direction, not taken so many actions and attitudes in the right direction, that has left us with so much to make up for and very little time to do it in.

Decades of mindless arrogance and apathy has led America into a greedy, delusional culture. We should have been getting better for twenty-five years and all we've been doing is getting more consumer-technologically advanced. That's something we can't go back on, catch up to or however you want to look at it. If we had made fusion work for instance - and that's another fine example of the lack of government research, like when we cancelled the supercollider project in the 80's - or if we'd spend this nation's best capital on energy efficiency, then maybe it wouldn't be so. But we didn't, and so it is going to be a very, very hard road ahead. People don't really understand what it all means, even most of those aware that the oil is running out, don't get it.

This eight years, and the eight years of obstructionism and ugliness that preceded it, have run down the clock something fierce. We're 37 points behind going into the fourth quarter with an attitude that's worse than when we started the game. At a time when strong government should be a primary force in our development, our economics and our diplomacy, all people give a shit about is that they get a tax cut, cuz that's what Jesus said.

Scientifically, economically, sociologically, this country has fucked itself hard, wasting decades of decency and awareness of what's real, to the point that even if we suddenly turned on a dime and became true, like if say Hillary Clinton or Al Gore or Wes Clark gets elected in 2008 with 65-35 Senate and also House majorities - ie full progressive control - it is so very late.

And, we're not going to get those things. The biggest corruption in America is what America itself has become, and that isn't going to change soon or much. We're on a bad road down now and realistically we're not going to deviate much from the current trajectory.

In short, it's a matter of degrees. If we work real hard and get real lucky, we might not be AS fucked as we're going to be.