America is being ruled by shitheads; Please, World, help us!

[Mich Otter]

The Bush administration is loaded with shitheads. That is a simple given.
The Republicans in Congress, as well every other Republican in the country, have stood by and supported this administration in their stupidity and crimes against humanity. I do not know of a single Republican who has stood up and opposed the Bush crime syndicate.
And, the worst of all, are the Democrats who are either sellouts to global corporations or who simply do not have a backbone.
We Americans who are decent cannot win against all the crooks and liars who oppose us.
We need help from the rest of the World. Please do anything you can to help stop the evil that America has become.

[shadowknows69]

1. well not ANYTHING

anything that leaves most of us good people living would be cool.

[cwydro]

3. leave the good peeps

absolutely...and really no violence would be best...can't that giant hook they used on the Gong Show just come take him away?
Sheesh...and to think I used to consider Reagan the worst...

[enigami]

2. In case you haven't noticed the World is being run by shit heads

I am afraid we are on our own brother. I got an MRE and a bottle of wine. What do you got?

[shadowknows69]

22. Say can I have some of your purple berries?

"Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now"

"probably keep us both alive"

Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

33. And always has been.

and sadly probably always will be.

Because I think maybe only shitheads like that level of power.

[mr blur]

4. Sorry, our Prime Minister is a shithead too

I think he caught it from your Chief Shithead.

[hardrainfallin]

5. Like how about invoking the UN Convention on the Prevention and

Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (US is party to this agreement)
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm



UN Must Never Again Be Found Wanting on Genocide

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/545f929a-2618-11da-a4a7-00000e2511c8.html

In coming years, as historians reflect upon what was achieved at this week’s United Nations summit in New York, one decision may stand out.

If all goes as planned, the world will vow on Friday “to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner… should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”.

This promise, part of a new doctrine called the responsibility to protect, reflects a profound shift in international law, whereby a growing sense of global responsibility for atrocities is increasingly encroaching upon the formerly sanctified concept of state sovereignty.

While possibly never more than a convenient fiction, sovereignty has been the rock of international relations for 350 years, and the guiding framework around which the United Nations is organised. It remains deeply important to most UN member states.

[Gnostic]

9. Definition of sovereignty...

....is he who has the biggest military.

[hardrainfallin]

18. *Tribal* sovereignty...

means just that; it's sovereign. You're a--you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity." GWB, 13 April 04

Sigh.

[Gold Metal Flake]

6. The rest of the world sez: Help yerself, buttmunch.

[hardrainfallin]

27. we won't get involved until we can no longer buy/use

things like

levis
macintosch computers
microsoft products
amazon.com
google
etc

or take vacations in the Wild, Wild West ....

(where are all the Indians, man!
uh, see those people in that rusted car in the front lawn: THOSE are the Indians, dumbfucks!
Gee, that's now how Karl May described em!)

[Gnostic]

7. yeh yeh

"We Americans who are decent cannot win against all the crooks and liars who oppose us."

You are forgetting one thing. I know I'm probably going to take some flak for this, but a large part of the blame for who we have running things now lays with the American Sheeple themselves, especially those types that stick the little trendy yellow ribbons on their cars and wave flags and repeat the same old party line rhetoric and propaganda about how we're "fighting the teeerrrorrists". Those same ones that voted old Georgie boy and Co. right back into office a second time. Yep, that's right. All you have to do is go knocking on a few doors in your own neighborhood (you know the ones....the guys who had "Bush/Cheney" signs on their front lawns) and thank them for their complete and utter ignorance. Not hard to do, since we all are surrounded by them.

I live in a so-called "red state", so it's quite easy for me to find people to thank for that. I live, work, and drive near them everyday. Yes indeed, I have no lack of people to thank and express my gratitude on for this at all.

Do I seem rather cynical about the intelligence of the common American? You may be correct.

[hardrainfallin]

12. the premise of your argument is that the election was

legit. I don't believe it was. In fact, you'll never convince me that the current administration got more than +/- 30 million votes.

I agree in general with your assessment of the basic intelligence level, apathy, the Sheeple Syndrome....but I also think it works as a convenient excuse to skirt around what for me is the basic fundamental problem: the fact that we do not de facto have elections in this country.

Add to that that the last time we had anything REMOTELY resembling an election (2000), the SCOTUS stepped in, reversed the results and installed the LOSER in office.

(PS: hate to nitpick, but it's "lie", not "lay", and yes, I put stock in it: here's why:

Speaking to a group of Middle School children in Concord, NC, GWB said:

“I think we’re making progress. We understand where the power of this country lay. It lays in the hearts and souls of Americans. It must lay in our pocketbooks. It lays in the willingness for people to work hard. But as importantly, it lays in the fact that we’ve got citizens from all walks of life, all political parties, that are willing to say, I want to love my neighbor. I want to make somebody's life just a little bit better.”

Speaking to another school group Townsend, TN in 2001, he said: “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test”

My question:
even if the President cannot?

If the President’s English doesn’t pass muster, how can we expect teenagers in inner city schools to pass the tests? Should we shut down the executive office and deny federal funding based on your inability to speak proper English?

Frankly, I expect that in this country, our children are taught not only the rigors of basic third-grade grammar, but also the difference between lying and getting laid in the White House.

[Mich Otter]

48. Your words are true.

You'll get no flak from me.
But there are those of us in Amerika who are decent folks, not driven by greed and hate. We are the ones I referred to as "We Americans who are decent".

[hardrainfallin]

49. Of course I know that, otherwise I wouldn't *be*

here.

But I do think ALL of us need to do some serious re-assessing of our society--with comparisons to how things work in other parts of the industrialized world.

Course, it would have been better to have done that TEN YEARS ago before what William Greider described as "the Manic Logic of Global Capitalism" succeeded in destroying many of the systems that were working much better in Western Europe and Japan

http://www.onecountry.org/oc92/oc9216as.html

Because what has happened is that US global domination of the marketplace and economic structures has forced those other countries to adopt some of the very unhealthy ways of "doing business" that have long been our mode, but which were UNTHINKABLE for Europe and Japan just ten years ago.

not anymore.

My friends in Germany complain about it all the time: Can you BELIEVE it, we have to pay for prescriptions.

Yeah, hon. Just wait another ten years, you'll be paying all your medical costs--no you'll be going fucking bankrupt from credit card debt to pay medical bills....oh no ....they'll be confiscating your house, your car, everything, because you certainly CANNOT afford to be going around having HEART ATTACKS or worse, any kind of chronic illness....

GRRR

[chalky]

55. Why would you get flak about that? It's the TRUTH.

At any rate, you sure won't be getting flak from me on that.

[tx_dem41]

8. Wonderful....another "helpless", "defeatist" post.

This stuff gets old.

[Gnostic]

10. but

I can almost understand the underlying meaning of the post. Since we have so many morons just living as average citizens in this country who think and vote the way they do, we just MIGHT need international help, even intervention, to save this country from itself.

[tx_dem41]

11. Perhaps if we can't save ourselves....

(and I know that we can, so no "defeatism" from me).....then we aren't worth saving.

[Gnostic]

13. Well we have'nt been able to...

since Nam, or even as far back as Korea, and things just progressively get worse on, so I'm starting to wonder is all.

[tx_dem41]

14. Some might say we never have been able to....

of course, they would be defeatists. They've been around since the dawn of time. Where are you moving to when you officially give up?

[Gnostic]

17. ummm

"Where are you moving to when you officially give up?"

Amsterdam comes immediately to mind... :P

[tx_dem41]

19. I was just there in April....

Beautiful place...kind of turning right-wing a bit itself. I doubt you'll be happy.

[Gnostic]

24. I'm sorry to hear that

I was still holding out hope that sanity still existed somewhere on the planet.

[hardrainfallin]

25. That's the problem, there's really no place left to go

I *did* leave this country in protest of Reagan's re-election (my logic: any citizen body stupid or otherwise impaired enough to put Darth Vader at the reins for a second term is NOT a citizen body I want to be part of).

Love it or leave it?

Yeah, I do love it, I have left it, and I'm back, so, GOPers, now it's your turn to get the fuck out.

[hardrainfallin]

20. Actually, a very valid argument could be made for the

notion that "we" aren't worth saving, and I'm not altogether certain on which side of that fence I stand.

Better to keep wallowing in the obscenties our lives have become or to die with dignity and quit trying to take the rest of the world/planet along with us?

Tis the question.

A valid one, in my view.

[tx_dem41]

26. My life has not become an obscenity.

I'm sorry you see life that way.

[hardrainfallin]

29. Turned on the tv lately?

as far as I'm concerned, life in these discombobulated states has been getting increasingly obscene since 1492.

The past two weeks have defied any definition of obscene, and if you feel like that doesn't have anything to do with you, I feel sorry for you.

Actually I don't.

[tx_dem41]

34. So according to you, your whole life has been an obscenity??

Short of the time you left in the 80s? Might I suggest not defining yourself soley by the political environment around you? You need to focus on the individual.

[hardrainfallin]

38. My personal life is not an obscenity...

BUT, I do have a very hard time dealing with the obsenity I see around me every day (extreme poverty, mostly. Kids in schools that can't even afford to put fucking toilet paper in the bathrooms. Youth centers that get shut down because of gang violence in the area--coming back the next day to find bullets stuck in the doors and being glad you "dodged" them again--being even more glad the kids did.)

I get to go home and night and hole myself up in my cozy little modest house and sit here in this cozy little office, playing in the "cybersandbox" as I call it.

Out on the street, my neighbors are looking for viaducts to sleep under.

Ah...and yes, winter is indeed just around the corner.

Sorry, I think that's obscene, and it doesn't "leave" my life when I close the door, turn on the alarm system and "hunker" down for the night.

I do what I can, of course, to help, and it's quite a bit, considering my modest means, but....

yes, I admit, I spend a lot of time being completely and totally HORRIFIED by the world in which we live

[TallahasseeGrannie]

37. Not a new concept

original sin and all. But I hope you pick the hopeful side of the fence.

Gosh, there is pervasive angst on here tonight.

I'd say I'm praying for y'all but that would just piss off a lot of people. Besides, can't pray tomorrow.

[hardrainfallin]

39. wtf? Where does "original sin" come into the picture here? n/t

[TallahasseeGrannie]

45. Well..

the notion that "we" aren't worth saving.

Original sin taught us (a whole lot of us) that human beings were so intrinsically immoral that we needed salvation in order to be worthwhile.

Only Mary was born without it. Somehow when her parents did the wild thing it didn't count and she escaped the burden. Or so the catechism goes.

So that's wtf!

[hardrainfallin]

52. somewhere you must have missed the part where

I stated (actually, where I have repeatedly stated) that I am NOT Christian, I have nothing to do with Christianity, I hold its precepts to be fallacious

"original sin" is not a tenet in my system of religious belief.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

54. We are not understanding one another

I pointed out that this is an old concept, I did't accuse you of being a Christian or having anything to do with Christians.

Kind of like if you had said "it has occurred to me that I might die and come back to this life as a bird" and I said, "oh, yeah, Hindus believe that. The call it reincarnation."

I was just identifying (in my mind) your emotions with a cultural/historical touchstone.

Original sin is not a tenet in my current system of religious belief, either. But in order to understand Western civilization one needs to know what it is and transferring that knowledge to other situations is a facet of intelligence.

Personally, I think OS has morphed into Original Angst and we see it (and despair) in a lot of people these days.

[hardrainfallin]

57. But it wasn't at all in that context that I meant it, so to say

that my concept was an "old concept" and to mean that my thoughts about thinking this human race, particularly as it has "developed" in this country, may not be worth "saving," is in any way even remotely connected to the concept of original sin is just bizarre.

I guess my objection is that my thoughts actually are rooted in precisely the OPPOSITE belief. I don't believe humans are "naturally" inclined to be as destructive as they have become. I believe we are DEFYING nature--our nature and nature itself, and I don't understand why. I consider the argument that humankind is naturally inclined to violence, naturally inclined to aggression, etc. an EXCUSE: along the lines "humans have been killing each other off since the beginning of time"....therefore: no need to change our ways.

No, I don't believe in some idyllic "golden age" when everything was perfect and no one did anything to harm anyone else....but I don't believe either that the rampant destruction we see all around us today is "normal" or the "natural" state of "man". I don't think we were born to sin. (Funny thing is, the etymological root of "sin" is seyn, that is TO BE).

Yeah, to be or not to be, that IS the question....and I don't quite understand why large sections of the human race are opting for "not to be" and engaging in rampant, inexplicable, senseless murder of members of their own species.

but, OA ....now that is FUNNY. Kudos to you for that.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

58. Okay, we're getting closer!

Yes, I agree it was a stretch, if not bizarre. But then, I have been thought of as a bit bizarre most of my life so I guess I was just being true to form!

But you know, the jury really is still out on whether or not we can survive as a species, given our propensities for all sorts of nonsense.

Somewhere there lies a middle ground between accepting responsibility for our actions without descending into despair. I'm can't quite point to a civilization who really got there and stayed there, though.

Thanks for "sparring" a bit with me. I post a lot and pretty much get ignored. I think it is the "grannie" in my name.

Maybe I should change it to "hotbabe."

[hardrainfallin]

60. LOL. I have a soft spot for Grannies! but

certainly not for Apples!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

36. But exactly

who or what does it so much better? I see glimmers here and there... great social programs in Scandinavia, for example. But nobody has it all together. Even New Zealand struggles with their own indigenous racial problems, and resulting racism.

Nope, we have to fix it ourselves.

[hardrainfallin]

40. well, maybe a good place to start would be to look to

places where it does work substantially better (Scandinavia is a good example) and try to LEARN from them, adopting the things that they are doing RIGHT instead of forcing them (often by virtue of economics, as is the case in Germany, for example) to conform to the things we are doing horribly WRONG.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

46. We're in agreement on this. n/t

[Name removed]

74. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mich Otter]

81. Hi david789

Welcome to DU.
Many of us here feel that Hillary's committment to the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) puts her in league with the devils. We view the DLC as being the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.
There is more info about the DLC here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council

[nonconformist]

32. So do your replies. nt

[donheld]

15. It's dreadfully sad

6 years ago we had a bright intellectual running the country along with bright capable people in his cabinet. He got a blowjob (for shame) but the world loved him and us. Now we have a dimwit and a cabinet full of mean and nasty fools. The world hates us and many times we stand before the world as a nation of fools for allowing such to go on. SOMEBODY HELP US!

[Maple]

16. The world IS helping you

but it's very hard to do without causing harm to others.

A shooting war would be a disaster to all of you.

But check your economic situation. Check the world geo-political moves.

It'll get worse before it gets better, but the world IS on the case.

[Just Me]

41. The world HAS to protect itself against an arrogant power,...

,...willing to sacrifice its own people and nation to pursue a fantasy of empire.

While the powers that be defend themselves, their countries and their people,...we must act in solidarity to survive the turmoil,...and we will!!!

[hardrainfallin]

42. in a roundabout way, what you're saying is,

and i think it' s an important point, that we're not asking the world to "help" us on OUR behalf, but in their OWN SELF INTEREST

Somehow, they seem to think they will be left unscathed....the shit is coming, people, it's coming....I'd HATE to be in Germany when conditions there get as bad as they are here.

Shit, what kind of shape do you think people would have been in in a post-FEMA disaster there? I seriously do not think you'd have seen the kind of public response that we saw here, and it is the ONLY saving grace for the victims of the FEMA disaster right now.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

47. I'm not following you with

"I'd hate to be in Germany..."

can you explain a bit?

[Karenina]

56. Das ist ein Deutsches Ding

Du würdest nicht verstehen. :evilgrin:

[hardrainfallin]

61. LOL. Actually, I'd have put it this way:

You had to be there.

[MN ChimpH8R]

21. Can't we just ask the Canadians to invade

through the blue northern tier? Here in Minnesota we could leave the door unlocked and a light on for them. I'm sure people in Washington, Maine, Michigan et al would be happy to do the same. Canuckistani troops would be greeted as liberators and flowers would be scattered at their feet.

[Maple]

44. Always part of our master plan

to take over the US. Muhahaha

Canadian World Domination Headquarters

http://cwd.ptbcanadian.com/index2.html

[Amonester]

66. Alright! Très bien. We're taking over and declare:

FREE PUBLIC HEALTH CARE FOR EVERYBODY WE'RE ABOUT TO INVADE!

Nous prenons le contrôle et déclarons:

SOINS DE SANTÉ GRATUITS POUR TOUT LE MONDE QUE NOUS ALLONS ENVAHIR!


And that's just a start...
Et ce n'est qu'un début...


LOL:

Despite our judicious uses of brutal oppression, we are generous and loving tyrants. As such, we allow the use of our graphics and/or photos on other people's sites. We probably appropriated them from other sources ourselves. Well, the leaves and logo we actually came up with. The propaganda posters are stolen. One thing we do ask - realizing fully that none of this means anything in a legal sense - please do not take the name "Canadian World Domination", text, and/or ideas from our site and present them as your own. Because that would anger the Generals -- and we believe in crushing our enemies as surely as timbits accidentally left on a car seat are similarly crushed.

As the sayin' goes: (True) Democracy has to flourish from within. (??)

:hippie:

[Mich Otter]

67. The Canadians are way too smart for that.

They know they have better beer. Why go to the trouble of invading someone whose beer sucks?

[ck4829]

23. I've been saying a similar thing

I've been working on a petition that will go to the UN asking to help Liberate ourselves from the Far Right

[McCamy Taylor]

28. We could ask the UN to declare NOLA a genocide.

[hardrainfallin]

31. It's what I've been saying all along

in fact, even before NOLA.

Because the problems with poverty and what has been done to certain sectors of this society were only EXPOSED by NOLA.

But if you look at the definition of genocide in the terms of the UN Convention on Genocide (URL above), genocide is NOT defined only as "mass murder" (there's a lot of misunderstanding about this; even a lot of dictionaries get it wrong).

This is how genocide is defined by the UN Convention. The tough part, I suppose, is proving "INTENT".

"In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

[The Magistrate]

51. Doubtless They Could Use The Laugh, Ma'am

[hardrainfallin]

62. Actually, it's Dr. --Fr. Prof. Dr. to be precise. n/t

[expatriate]

30. Sorry, Australia has its own pack of shitheads.

Politicians are shitheads, I'm afraid. Come on, visualize your average politician - not only are they most interested in their career, which is a cakewalk compared to what other people do for a living, but they're also RICH.

Show me a poor man in high political office. Or even an average guy. You have a very few exceptions in Congress (and I note that they're the ones who tend to buck the system and try to change things), but for the most part, they're rich people. Lawyers. Bankers. Career politicians who have never worked a day in their lives because their families or wives are ultra-rich. People with more money than the average mong will ever aspire too.

Same situation in Australia. Rich boys making sure they have a do-nothing job that pays them lots and lots of money and perks. I sure do love Australia, but I sure don't love our shitheads. Unfortunately, if you vote one pack of shitheads out of office, there is no choice but to vote another pack of shitheads into those offices.

And our shitheads are busy kissing the asses of your shitheads. So I'm afraid our part of the world isn't going to be of much help.

I do sympathize and empathize, being both an Australian and an American citizen. Being in a country run by shitheads is a damn sad thing.

*edited for misplaced apostrophe. I am becoming illiterate.

[hardrainfallin]

35. There are degrees of shitheadedness

and degrees to which that shitheadedness impinges on the rights of any country's citizens to survive, exist (shit, I'm not even arguing for the right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness--I'm talking about the right not to freeze to death in your home because you can't afford to pay the heat bill )

Anyone who thinks the line has not long since been crossed between standard-issue shitheadedness and criminal negligence in this country is either misinformed or too busy worrying about saving his own ass to care, most likely a combination of both.

Either way: it's yet another form of shitheadedness--shitheadedness without the means to inflict harm on others maybe, but shitheadedness all the same.

[expatriate]

43. I do agree with you on that.

What is going on in America actually goes beyond average shitheadedness. It's even beyond negligence or lack of perception - it's just plain criminal indifference, and deliberate obtuseness. George Bush's entire method of dealing with anything that might be negative is "ignore it and it will go away" - thus he just ignores questions that are uncomfortable, or situations that aren't to his liking. I'm hoping that he can't ignore away what has happened on the Gulf Coast.

I just don't forsee the rest of the world helping America with its problems with its government. Only the people of America can do that, by rising out of their complacency and demanding answers. Demanding action. Demanding impeachment. Refusing to swallow the stories and lies and propaganda any more. I do wish that other world leaders could do something, but their scope is limited. I guess they could impose sanctions on the US, but that isn't ever going to happen.

It's up to America to fix the disaster. If only people would wake up and realize what has happened, and do whatever is necessary to remove the shitheads from office.

[hardrainfallin]

50. What you and most of the world don't recognize is that there are

SO many people living in UTTER, abject poverty here, so many people who don't even have basic needs met, many more who are ILLITERATE, that they are simply not CAPABLE of political action. The only other place I have seen some of the widespread abject poverty that I see here is in AFRICA. I did NOT see it anywhere in ten years living in Europe--not in Germany, not in France, not in Denmark, Holland, Spain, Italy, Ireland, UK...I know, the conditions in EU have indeed also deteriorated in the past 10-15 years, but it's still UNFATHOMABLE to most Europeans. I know that: I regularly watch as my European friends visit here and simply cannot believe what they see. I've even had visitors from Africa here who are shocked.

You people do not get that when we speak in terms of the US as a "third world" country, we're NOT kidding.

We rank just below China in terms of infant mortality, just above China in terms of country's %age of income to poorest 10%

Newsweek reports:
8.9 million Hispanics in poverty
16.1 million whites
8.8 million blacks
1.9 million "other"

more than 37 Million "too poor to pay attention" (poor in this country means less than 9,800 USD annually--I don't have the numbers handy, but I bet even the poorest of the poor , i.e. on "welfare" in Europe are not THAT poor -- and I know that in Europe, they at least have medical care.

think in terms of Maslow's scale of human needs: when you don't have food or even a roof over your head, politics is not and CANNOT be a priority.

Yeah, for a lot of people it's apathy and laziness, but I think the rest of the world would rather believe the Hollywood reality of this country than the REAL reality.....For too many years this image of America as the "richest nation on earth" has prevailed, and you see it in the shocked reaction to the images from NOLA. Shit. I've been trying to tell y'all that they reality doesn't fit the myth for over 20 years, as soon as Reagan started the war on the poor. Those problems have exploded EXPONENTIALLY under this shitass gov, and, much like global warming, it's beyond the "tipping point"

Furthermore, what would you suggest is "necessary to remove the shitheads from office" when the entire voting system is rigged.

We DID NOT EVEN ELECT THIS GROUP OF SHITHEADS, their cronies in the Supreme Court INSTALLED them in 2000.

[expatriate]

53. HOW DARE YOU!

How DARE you assume you know what I know and don't know? How DARE you refer to me as "you people"?

For your goddamn information, I was born in the USA. Lived there until I was thirty-seven. And during that time, I spent a good goddamn twenty-odd years living BENEATH THE FUCKING POVERTY LINE! Several years of that time I spent homeless, with a child with insulin dependent diabetes. Want to talk about desperation? Want to know about getting food out of dumpsters? Want to know about not being able to get medical care while waiting months and months to be approved for any kind of aid, having to do anything you could to get enough money together to pay for a little kid's insulin? Ever look at some government flunky telling you that you just have to be patient while your kid's blood sugars climb into the stratosphere and you yourself are too sick to work? Ever have someone suggest that you put your child up for adoption so that he can get decent medical care? Talk to me.

I attended public schools in Louisiana during the era of forced desegregation. I know what illiteracy is. I know how horrible the educational system in America is. It's getting worse by the day. Just look on any internet message board - the level of illiteracy is mind boggling, and those are the people with enough know-how to get online and type! I saw the public education system being dumbed down during the 1960's and 1970's to the absolute Mickey Mouse, FeelGood Babysitting service that it has become. I know what has been done - get everyone in America dumb and complacent and convinced they have mental illnesses that require psychotropic drugs - oh, and hooked on passive entertainment.

Even better, I'm of mixed race, caucasian, American Indian and black. As a child, I appeared to be a light skinned black. Guess what happened to me? Yes, I had to drink out of separate drinking fountains, and wait in separate waiting rooms. My neighborhood swimming pool was off limits to me. My family had a cross burned on our front yard because of the way I looked, because people were convinced that my family was harboring a "nigger baby". And the blacks wouldn't have anything to do with me either because I was "zebra". Racism cuts two ways. So don't tell me about prejudice or lecture me about the terrible things that people do to those who are brown skinned. I've dealt with prejudice and mistreatment that most people on DU have only read about, back when the Jim Crow laws were still in effect in Louisiana, and even after, when they were still very much "in effect" though they had been abolished.

I've lived under the poverty line in NOLA. I shucked oysters for minimum wage while fat cat tourists sat in the air conditioning and slurped them up. I got Hep A from that job. What a delight, three weeks in Charity Hospital in New Orleans. I LIVED in the Desire Project. Don't get high and mighty and tell me all about how terrible it is in the USA, because I've been through shit that would probably kill you.

Right now, as I write, my poor adopted son is dying. He lives in NOLA, or did until Katrina. He has HIV and Hep C as well as insulin dependent diabetes that is out of control. Whole slew of mental illness as well. Thankfully his friend keeps him together, but there have been years and years of my desperately trying to get help for him there in the greatest nation on earth. Any kind of help - but oh, the mental hospitals are closed now, thank you, President Reagan, and of course, unless you're filthy rich, you can't afford decent medical care, unless you're one of the dwindling number who have sufficient medical insurance. I can't get him into Australia with me because he's ill, and the authorities will not let him come here to live. He just wants to get back to NOLA so he can die there - he loves it there. He has been the poorest of the poor. He went through ten foster homes before coming to me. He was sexually abused by his own biological parents before being sexually abused and prostituted out by several of those foster families. You're telling me about how American society is a fucked up and degraded mess? You're telling me about bureaucracy that destroys lives?

I am not some fat lazy Australia sitting here lecturing to the Yanks - I AM a Yank, I have lived the life you're sermonizing me about. What do you know about doing migrant farm work? Anything? I've done it. I've done all kinds of horrible dirty, degrading, miserable, back breaking jobs to be able to survive. It's permanently wrecked my health. I KNOW the USA is a goddamn Third World Country - and guess what? It never has been anything else. There have always been a disproportionate amount of poor people for the so-called richest nation on Earth. There are tons of people who are kept down for no other reason than that the people who do have things in America, those who do have money, are stingy and greedy and wouldn't want their precious dollars to go to anything but nationalistic displays and stupid wars that they think show the world what a big bad hombre America is.

Australians pay $5 for a gallon of gas - oh, Americans would just shit if they had to do that. But 75% of that money goes to taxes - taxes that pay for the decent social net that exists in Australia. We pay plenty of other taxes as well, but we get something for it - decent medical care, unemployment, pensions, educational grants. Other countries in the First World do the same - but ask an American to pay more taxes? God, the end of the world is coming if you do that. Let the poor starve. It's all their fault anyway. Be truthful about it, that is and always has been the American way.

The entire voting system is rigged? You're right. So what do you want the rest of the damn world to do about it? Australia uses paper ballots. Other nations do too. If enough Americans could quit being passively entertained and whining and bitching long enough to truly organize and possibly do something other than marching around with signs nobody reads, but really DO something, like pulling off real boycotts that have an effect because enough people participate for long enough, or general strikes, you might just get somewhere. But most people will just sit back and watch Survivor or Fear Factor, far too interested in mentally stroking their nads vicariously than actually getting up and doing something. But that would mean REAL action, REAL organization, and enough people taking action to matter.

I did not leave America for political reasons, but personal ones. As time goes by, I am more and more happy that I left, and I grieve to see the disaster that has occurred. However, for the life of me, I don't know what the hell anyone expects the rest of the world to do for poor America. We could put sanctions against you and not trade with you, I guess. What else do you suggest - invading? Starting a war with the USA, with that warmongering idiot in the White House, more than ready to fire nukes all over the place?

Since when is the rest of the world responsible for the way America has shit its pants and is now sitting in it?

Yes, there are those without a roof over their head and for them politics cannot be a priority, but what about the rest of America? I doubt the majority of Americans have ever been without a roof over their head - yet they sit there in the disaster, playing with their TV remote controls - or they're whining that the rest of the world should somehow step in and make it all better for them.

If you take offense at any of this, I don't even care. Your rudeness and temerity are shocking - that you would presume to know what I know about or have experienced, and to lecture me on how terrible you have it. Americans sit on one of the greatest resource goldmines on the planet. They have the ability to live in unbelievable luxury, yet they sit by and allow others in their country to be non-persons - and then they expect the world to come and sort things out for them?

Sort it out yourselves - however you have to do it.

I spent over 1400 hours phone banking, FROM AUSTRALIA, to try to get Shrub out of office in 2004. About the same to try to keep him from getting into office in 2000. For an expatriate, I'd tend to say that's a good effort. I am still an American citizen, and try like hell to do whatever I can to change things - and it just sickens me when 300 million people can't seem to affect some kind of change when their country has been taken over by Bush and Company.

But then, it's just safer to lecture people about how rotten it is and wait for the world to come along and straighten it all out, isn't it?

[hardrainfallin]

59. I am also of mixed race

American Indian and German Jewish, and also spent the first twenty years of my life well below the poverty line. Don't kid yourself by saying you've gone through anything that would have "killed" me: you're wrong about that. I've lost my ENTIRE immediate family to this scourge that is poverty and discrimination against Indians (Indian women in particular: my mother was a single Indian woman with 6 kids and an 8th grade education; never knew the man who contributed the "German Jewish" blood to my mix--and that's a book in itself!)

But that was then and this is now. I worked my ass off to break the cycle of poverty that destroyed my entire family (EVERYONE!). Personally, I am not "hurting" financially today. As far as the thousands I stick into medical care each year: well, at least I HAVE the resources, unlike many others. Jeez, and the fact that I don't even have a mountain of credit card debt astounds me every time the bills come.

I work (mostly on a volunteer basis) in the fucked up school system you're talking about. I *dodge* the bullets and buy from my own pocket the supplies, finance my own programs, etc., in order to counter some of the educational problems you're talking about.

In my view, this country has been in decline since 1492. But in the past five years, a line has definitely been crossed.

About the elections, well, hmmm. OSCE comes to mind

And yes, economic sanctions would be another thing other nations could do.

QUIT buying american products. BOYCOTT America, politically and economically.

Price of gas: I think it's pathetic that people piss about the price of gas (remember, I lived in Germany for ten years, where we paid even then, as much PER LITER as people in this country are pissing about paying per GALLON now. I've always argued much in the same way as you: happy to pay 10 bucks a gallon, if that means the schools have toilet paper! As it stands, and as you know, the profits are currently going to the oil companies.) For the benefit to the environment alone, I would advocate 10 bucks a gallon gas--again, if the money were going where it should. Same applies to cigarettes, booze, etc.

The UN could have rejected Bolton.

This administration is violating international law left and right: the international community looks the other way.

I wonder, what WOULD have happened if the entire UN GA had gotten up and walked out on Bush's address.

"What else do I suggest -- invading?"

I'd risk arrest by telling you what I really think about that: suffice it to say that I'd rather take my chances with NATO troops than with the US military under the leadership of the current administration.

The other point with regard to the rest of the world, and I keep repeating it: don't do it on our behalf, do it in your own BEST INTEREST, because anyone who thinks this shit is not going to create the same conditions EVERYWHERE is just in DENIAL.

Part of the problem is the proverbial "blame game": America is the problem, let America fix it. (Hmmm. and what is America, ultimately, but the product of Europe...I mean, really, if you trace it back, as I do, to 1492....chickens coming home to roost comes to my mind, it's just too bad that the people who were here when the European unsettlers descended upon these shores and the people from Africa whom they "imported" as slaves are the ones paying the highest price. For now.)

My take: who the fuck cares whose FAULT it is--recognize the problem, recognize the urgency of the problem and do whatever it takes to FIX it.

And I do not believe it can be fixed by "America".

[Mich Otter]

79. Thank you, expatriate

A big chunk of the help we need here in America is education. There is no better education than to learn from those with experience and sense.
thank you for your time you spent trying to make this country, and the world, better.

[Dorian Gray]

63. Okay,

this sounds like a call for other countries to invade us. I know you don't mean it that way. I would simply say that it is up to us. We have two years left of his presidency. We need to vote the Democrats into power next time. We need to offer the better alternative to this status quo.

[hardrainfallin]

70. actually, three, but who's counting. eom

[Mich Otter]

80. They don't need to invade us, Dorian Gray

We could use some help with getting people to speak out about the realities of the world and how American decisions make things worse.
We need the people of other nations to push their own governments into staying away from supporting what America and global corporations are doing.
We certainly have a lot to fix here in America. We need to do a better job of educating ourselves, our families, our friends, neighbors and co-workers.
We need to develop a society which believes in standing for and with each other.

[hardrainfallin]

64. Germans are fucking wimps! Pfui!

I guess my only point is that I wish the rest of the world would be using EVERY LEGAL MEANS POSSIBLE to resist this admin....but NOOOOOOOOO......




http://www.dw-world.de/dw/briefs/0,1574,1712237,00.html

Rumsfeld Won't Be Tried in German Court  
 
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA director George Tennet no longer have reason to fear for their freedom should they decide on a trip to Germany. A state court in Stuttgart ruled Thursday that German federal prosecutor Kay Nehm is not required to prosecute the two men for war crimes in relation to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004. The court decided against a petition from a group of lawyers and human rights organizations called the Republican Lawyers Association, which was representing 17 alleged torture victims. The Stuttgart court said Nehm adequately evaluated the case and approved his refusal of it in February. At the time, Nehm said it was not up to a third state to prosecute the charges, as they are already being investigated in the United States. The group of lawyers criticized the decision, saying the US investigation deals only with a handful of low-ranking American soldiers, not any high-ranking officials and leaves the "victims of the worst crimes without any legal protection."

[Karenina]

68. The Amis have bought Deutschland.

Check out what beer will be served at the World Cup. ;-)
If Angie gets in that "American model" will accelerate. Carlyle has dumped billions in venture capital. IHT is reporting the demise of Germany Inc. She had her private audience with the *dauphin and is poised to sell us all down the river. Da Volks KNOW IT.

[hardrainfallin]

69. Don't tell me: Budweiser? American style? n/t

[Karenina]

71. LOVE! American Sty-y-yle...

:puke:

[myrmenki]

72. There's going to be a boycott of beer

:toast:

but on a more serious issue,
I just had a four hour discussion with my neighbour (I'm in Berlin right now). She's over seventy, and she's going to vote for the very first time in her life. She never, ever voted before. Because, according to her, all politicians are crooks.

But this time, she'll vote for the first time. Why? Because Merkel's too close to Bush, and she's afraid Germany might join the US in Iraq or even Iran. She says it's going to be the Nazis all over again.

Merkel's audiences with Bush might actually cost her a considerable number of votes.

[hardrainfallin]

73. I have a very good friend who escaped the Nazis

she lives here in the US (has been here since the 30s) and she is simply HORRIFIED

She's an educated woman, retired university prof, says it all the time: It's exactly the same thing. Exactly.

You can only hope that Merkel loses, but again, you know, if she doesn't, then I don't want to hear another word of criticism coming from Germany about how pathetically impotent WE Americans are politically.

Not. Another. Word.

[myrmenki]

76. I'm a communist-jewish mixture myself,

and it's my relatives, some in Germany, some in the U.S., some Christian agnostics or atheists, some Jewish agnostics or atheists, who are comparing what is going on now, both in the U.S. and in various European countries, to the 1930s.

I've seen a huge number of election posters with Merkel's face, and someone had written on it: "If this happens, I'm emigrating". Or similar. But many, many of them. I've never seen anything like this before.

And yes, I'll be out of here too. I'll go to Spain, because Spanish is the only language I know fairly well, and Zapatero is acceptable.

You know, Merkel's party's predecessors voted Hitler into power, and her party was where the Nazis went after the war. My impression is, they finally found a replacement for the Jews. Rhetorics are so eerily similar between now (evil Muslims, evil terrorists) and then (evil Jews, evil communists).

I'm scared of what they might be up to.

[hardrainfallin]

77. And to think, when Reagan got elected I left *this*

country and moved to Germany (first Kiel, later Ruhrgebiet, with regular stays in Berlin): stayed there in "political exile" till 92/93.

I am also of Jewish extraction (paternal side); I have a PhD in German, and must, unfortunately or no, deal with German history (specifically: Nazi history) on a daily basis, professionally.

What I find alarming is that, for all the people making parallels b/w Bush + Hitler, it's those of us who are most INTIMATELY (either by profession or experience or both) familiar with the NS regime who are most willing to draw the parallel.

Anyone who thinks the parallels are "extremist" is either hopelessly uninformed about Nazi history or hopelessly bamboozled by the Bushites--in most cases, both.

As I said, if the friggin Germans can't manage to keep Merkel OUT they really should just shut up about us. And shame on them, because they, of all people, shoud no better.

And indeed, if I were you....I'd get outta there...Spanish? Venezuela's looking pretty damn good bout now. I was just thinking about that today: I picked the wrong damn second language! ;)

[myrmenki]

82. So we're the ones who run away from trouble

- are we cowards?

And yes, it's very discomforting to see what kind of people draw the parallel Bush/Hitler.

It's discomforting also, to see what kind of people like Bush's policies (and of course reject any comparison with Hitler). They are from parties or families who directly or indirectly backed Hitler. Well, that goes for my village and neighbouring villages, I don't know if it's the same elsewhere, I've never seen any studies on the subject.

And I don't want to shut up about your government, no matter who wins the German elections tomorrow. Hey, you twice didn't elect them, you shouldn't feel offended by it! And you are invited to criticise the next German government, be it Schröder or Merkel.

Oh shit, I'm so incredibly sad that I might lose my country tomorrow. (My "country" being a southern German region.) I feel like crying. Worn out, somehow. Tired. And I mustn't, because I'll be on a train for the next six hours, and perhaps I can convince another few people, who haven't decided yet on whether to vote. I need to be nice and eloquent and friendly and positive. And I don't feel like it at all.

[hardrainfallin]

83. You can run, but you can't hide, as the saying goes...

I feel for you, I really do, and am pulling for you (that is for Germany)

at any rate, think you feel "tired" now, just think how you'll be feeling five years from now (we are beyond exhausted)

the point I think a lot of Germans I've talked to don't get is that you cannot RUN from this. It's coming, and if Merkel gets in: you're cooked. May as well start packing your bags now.

(unfortunately, as I'm sure you know, I don't know any Germans who would consider voting for the Femme Ferkel...uh ich meine Fr. Merkel!, so my influence is limited.) Will you post the results here just as soon as they're out (I guess someone will, huh?)

[hardrainfallin]

78. winke winke, Karenina

schau mal in deinen Briefkasten...ich muss jetzt erstmal wieder arbeiten.


:hide:

[triguy46]

65. You put that so well. n/t

[Name removed]

75. Deleted message

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