Good to have you with us! Yeah, old fart here, I'm afraid. I'm 60 this year. Tried to "hip it up" a little by redefining it as "Miss 60" riffing off the younger-skewed fashion line. 
But yeah, I think we HAVE to speak up! We HAVE to tell the truth when so many elements around us are relentlessly not. And the media certainly isn't. Nowadays it's filled with the chuck todds who think it's not their job to straighten out the crooked lies and misleading talking points, or set the record straight. NO WONDER the electorate is so mis-informed. Nobody's willing to shed light anymore. I cling to the Rachel Maddow show and for the next few weeks also to Randi Rhodes on the radio - because KTLK here in Los Angeles will cease to be as of the new year. ClearChannel is shoving limbaugh and that-guy-whose-name-rhymes-with-VANITY and a whole bunch of sewer dwellers down our throats in a big programming change. HAH - they're packaging it as "The Patriot." What a joke.
I read somewhere that there's this approximate 80-year cycle in the national mindset or zeitgeist or whatever you want to call it. Eighty years. Things like Great Depressions and Great Recessions and Great Economic Collapses and Downturns happen approximately every 80 years. And it's thought to be mainly because nobody's around who remembers what happened that long ago. Nobody's around to remember, for example, how bad it was during the Great Depression, or what brought it on beforehand - the "Roaring 20s" when it was the free market on parade and sharks and pirates were running amok and there were no restrictions or controls or curbs to speak of, and it was hands-off big business and don't DARE do anything to stand in its way - let Big Business BE Big Business. (Kinda like the moldy oldie from the 80s - "Let reagan be reagan!"
. And that led to the biggest economic disaster in our history.
And THAT, in turn, led to people beginning to wake up. And it started to dawn on at least some of 'em, back then, that regulations and restrictions and curbs on Wall Street and Big Capitalism so they could NOT be reckless and greedy and opportunistic with America's money anymore. And that, in turn, led to government stepping in and clamping down, and rescuing the foundering ship. THAT, in turn, led to the problems beginning to be solved, and the trouble beginning to ebb away. And you get long enough of that and soon THAT, in turn, leads to a sense of complacency that starts to build over the ensuing decades among those who DO want to be reckless and don't like being restricted. Then THEY, in turn, AND those around them who are just watching from the sidelines, start wondering WHY we gotta have somebody telling us what to do and government getting in our way and why do we need all these regulations and restrictions and limitations when things are just fine! Hey, nothing to see here! The problems are fixed. Solved! No worries! So why are we still restricted? Can't we get rid of these stupid laws that don't apply anymore because the issues that ruled when they were implemented no longer are there? Whaddo we need all this government interference for? Let's undo some of this shit! We don't need it anymore! Problem's solved! Take the shackles off! Let the free market go free again! Free market! Free market!
SOOOooooo... you ultimately start hearing the yowling and whining about how the government is bad and we should get the government off our backs and it isn't needed and it isn't necessary and the government is the problem and blah-blah-blah. And the general population starts to believe it because A) it sounds good and it seems to make sense; and B) THAT is mainly what they're hearing as the advocates start to rise in power and prominence.
Unfortunately for all of us, the late 70s became a perfect storm that begat the rise of ronald reagan. He rode in on this nauseating movement that started, I'm sorry to say, here in California with Prop 13, in 1978. I was working at the time and had ol' Howard Jarvis on the radio the election morning-after when it passed, which was a lucky break for a little ol' morning news lady like me to nab him after he was headed down the hall from the morning TV interview he'd just done (even though I realized I was only helping to spread the infection). And like a virus or drug-resistant flesh-eating bacteria, it spread across the country from here. }=(
It provided the surfboard ronald reagan rode in - on this huge tidal wave of CONservative trickle-down crap, and we have yet to pull ourselves out of it. I mean, look at the shit people are giving Pope Francis now, after he dared to denounce trickle-down. But he's absolutely correct. And it's about time my poor misguided church started taking a stand on what the REAL Jesus taught, as opposed to the Supply-Side Jesus abomination that these assholes cooked up for us.
It's gonna take us a generation to undo all the damage. scalia happened during ronald reagan. I remember covering it and thinking "what the hell is an 'Antonin'? Isn't it supposed to be Antoine or Antonio?" And anthony kennedy happened on reagan's watch, too - he who can pretty much always be counted on to be the swing (to the so-called "right" vote. 
We have SUCH a huge reeducation and rehabilitation job ahead of us, to pull this misguided nation back from the extreme wrong-wing. And for so long our side was just absolutely asleep at the switch. A lot of times I've posted here talking about how important it is to protect the ground we've gained, build upon the gains we've made in whatever election just went our way. Because I've noticed that there's a very bad tendency on our side to get complacent, and assume that once we've started moving things toward the better, then that's all that's needed and it'll just somehow magically keep up that way. So we then can relax and go back to sleep. We let the ERA slip through our fingers. We let the peace movement slip through our fingers. Now we're at risk of letting a woman's right to choose slip through our fingers - look what's happening on THAT front these days?
The bad guys never dose off. They NEVER take their eye off the ball. They NEVER let down their guard and figure they've got this so they can relax for a little bit. WE'RE the ones that do that. It drives me CRAZY!!!!! WE'RE the ones who naively believe "the American people will see! They'll see what the truth is. They'll KNOW!" And the answer is "WRONG!!!!!!!!" They WON'T! Especially when there's such a virulent and powerful and never-ending pushback - in the now-powerful and entrenched wrong-wing media (that owns pretty much the whole game now) and big money backing all the bad guys, to make sure the general public stays blind. We're STILL there, what with the Dems ONLY NOW starting a PR offensive about the Affordable Care Act. SHIT! You guys just figured that out NOW??????? WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN????? That should have been undertaken several YEARS ago!!!!!! What were you thinking??? That just because this problem exists and people need affordable health care they'll just somehow magically SEE? FUCK THAT!!!
Something else I find myself posting a lot: I quote from Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter books. Remember what he always warned Harry Potter? "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!"
Sigh... enough. I've fulminated enough. Sorry to rant on. It's just that kind of day...
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