How optimistic are you .... ****overall****?

[Stinky The Clown]

I dare say most of us are at least reasonably optimistic about the exit of Bush and the entrance of Obama. My question here is even larger than that.

In some sense, the world seems to be turning to total shit, with shittier times a-comin'.

In another sense, the world is always facing some crisis du jour and manages to come out of it .... only to face some new crisis. Rinse and repeat.

But taking the long view, we are so much better off than were our parents or grandparents. We are more safely sheltered. We are better fed. We are kept healthier. We are living longer. Yes, none of those are perfect statements and there are even reasons to disagree with them at the margins. So please think in the overall as you consider the question.

How optimistic are you ***overall*** for the next year?

How optimistic are you ***overall*** for the next four years?

How optimistic are you ***overall*** for the next ten years?

[madokie]

1. I'm probably the most optimistic one here

and I am optimistic as all get outs. I have faith in the Obama Administration doing the right things.

[monmouth]

2. And I'm right there with you. I'm very, very optimistic. This thing can be done....n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

3. I was looking for a larger view than just Obama's presidency

Not to take away from that ...... just looking for the larger view.

[Dawgs]

19. +1

How anyone can't be EXTREMELY optimistic when comparing Obama's plans to what we had over the last eight years is beyond my comprehension.

[Warpy]

4. Overall, I'm feeling the first glimmer of optimism

since Clinton sold us out on NAFTA. I'm feeling it because people finally admit there is a huge problem and that conservatives are responsible for it.

The next couple of years are going to suck, though.

[Bluzmann57]

5. Overall, I think we'll be all right

With a new President and some new ideas coming in, we will be ok at least for the short term. The human race has an amazing capacity for survival for the most part. The country, and the world, have been through hard times before and bounced back. I have faith we will again.

[Birthmark]

6. Almost completely pessimistic.

Sorry, but I'm getting old and my knees hurt...

and they've changed the name of my country to "Homelandia", near as I can tell.

[SammyWinstonJack]

9. I pretty pessimistic too. Being unemployed might have something too do with that.

:shrug:

[Birthmark]

12. Yeah, that'll knock the happy right outta ya.

Good luck, BSN. Been there done that, couldn't afford the t-shirt.

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. Thank you Birthmark.

[azmouse]

7. Cautiously optimistic

I think we'll all be seeing some very tough times ahead but I have faith in my fellow human beings that we can once again dig ourselves out of this mess. And we'll be stronger for having faced these problems.

[Blue_In_AK]

8. I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic.

I'm just trying to hold a somewhat Zen state -- what is, is; what will be, will be.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. I'm also older and I'm not wildly optimistic. The next year will be bad and maybe in 10 years, we'll

begin to see the benefits of change. However, I doubt if America will ever return to country it was directly during and after WWII. I totally disagree with your statement that we are 'so much better off than our parents or grandparents'. We're not better fed nor are we healthier as a nation. We eat tons more junk, full of chemicals and crap, than our grandparents, who ate locally and organic. We have become a nation of obese people with 20 times the number having heart disease and diabetes. Houses are probably less safe today than those built 100 years ago, again because of toxins and chemicals used in what we put in them.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Being a cynic has it's rewards. The world will keep on chugging along.

Plenty of bad things will happen. Plenty of good things will happen.

There's certainly some economic bad times ahead which will only be resolved when prices reach equity with value. Until they do, there's going to be hell to pay in the form poverty, wars, revolutions, and the misery that goes with it.

But, when the dust settles I think the world will come, for a time, to it's senses and see that working together is more sensible than paying the price of narrow nationalism and greed.

We're facing a new world coming. Of course, that's true every day that we breathe.

[zalinda]

14. False premise

"But taking the long view, we are so much better off than were our parents or grandparents. We are more safely sheltered. We are better fed. We are kept healthier. We are living longer. Yes, none of those are perfect statements and there are even reasons to disagree with them at the margins. So please think in the overall as you consider the question."

The above statement is not true, for the most part. Our parents and grandparents, had a more stable job environment, most worked at the same place for 25 years or more. Their houses not only cost less, but were paid off in less time or bought for cash. They had more access to doctors than we have, and their food was not laced with all kinds of chemicals. So, the only thing that could be true is that we are living longer, but even that has a caveat.........only if you can afford health care.

I don't see much changing at all until there isn't a "let them eat cake" attitude from the people with money. And that included Obama and other politicians.

zalinda

[Two Americas]

15. extremely optimistic

The people have rejected the religious right and the political right wing economic programs. That is the best political news in 80 years.

There will be very tough times in the short run, and I don't mean to minimize that, but so long as the right wing was ascendant and the public was duped, and the Democratic party was weak and compromised, hard times were inevitable. Of those three things, we have accomplished the first two. Will the Democrats now fight for the people? That is the question. But even if they do not, the people cannot now be stopped and one way or another will overthrow the rule of the few and rebuild the country.

I do not think that the debates here, and throughout the party at all levels, are between people who are "positive" and people who are "negative." Many are trying to portray the critics from the Left as "negative" and claim that those who are promoting extreme party loyalty and partisanship are the "positive" ones. The difference between the two factions is in what they are optimistic about. Some see the dramatic move by the people to the Left as the thing to be optimistic about, to expand and support, others are looking only at partisan politics and the success of the party politicians and think we should first and foremost promote and defend that.

[Taverner]

16. Two steps forward, one step back

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. Won't get very far doing that.

:evilgrin:

[Taverner]

22. Agreed

[Coyote_Bandit]

17. Not very optimistic at all

My career has been destroyed and I have a lot of reasons to fear that my only option will be self-employment. My savings are being depleted and my investments have tanked. And I have have very little income coming in.

I know if I were diagnosed with a serious illiness or chronic health condition I would not be able to acquire anything other than emergency room health care. I haven't seen a doctor for any reason in over a decade.

Obama is proving himself to be the moderate centrist I believed him to be. Money still buys power. There haven't been any changes to campaign finance laws - or to regulations on lobbyists. And kooks like Michelle Bachmann still get relected.

Why the hell would I be optimistic?

[Horse with no Name]

20. I wasn't sold on this administration

but to be honest--not one thing Obama has done has shocked me. It has been just as I thought it would. Like clockwork.
I feel that this country is in for a rude awakening.
I am optimistic personally because I have a recession-proof job. I have very few expenses and I have no debt. I have a place to live. I have a garden. I have insurance. I have food in the freezer and in the pantry.
I'm optimistic PERSONALLY that I will be just fine.
However, I do not see the country faring very well. I think homelessness and hunger will surge to third-world proportions.
But I am optimistic that the banks and corporations will have minimum losses to their bottom line.

[TornadoTN]

21. Cautiously Optimistic

I'm somewhat pessimisstic looking at the next year. There's just too much to do for the next year to salvage this country and try to undo some of the damage the last 8 years have wrought. The description "it's gonna get worse before it gets better" fits here.

However, I am very optimistic for what lies ahead over the course of 4-10 years. If Obama delivers on what he has promised and the country is able to respond and rebound from 8 years of total hell, I think there are some great things that we as a society can achieve.

[Javaman]

23. given the fact that we are leaving the dark age of stupid, very hopeful. nt

[Enthusiast]

24. Somewhat optimistic. But....

the right wing extremists have redoubled their effort to discredit the new deal and discredit Obama's efforts to right this sinking ship of an economy. Things are far from rosy.

[TNOE]

25. Extremely Optimistic

But we've got to keep the R's in check and refuse to allow them to lay the blame of this shit at Obama's feet, and basically, just shut them down completely.

[dysfunctional press]

26. not at all optimistic- i just don't see how the economy turns around...

people are tapped out- even those with jobs and houses.

[Hannah Bell]

27. i don't see much betterment from my parents generation, sorry.

the internet, for example, doesn't make up for loss of pensions, & ipods for needing two incomes/family v one.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. For the next year not so much

the first two years will be very hard

Long term...UNLESS we as a species get our act together... all species go extinct.

[Greyhound]

29. reserving judgment until he actually gets into office, but early indications

are not good. If he pushes for the dramatic changes needed, we can turn this mess around pretty quickly, but the system is so broken at this point that tweaks and half measures will not help and might make it worse.