Is this administration THAT bad - or am I just new to this

[HEyHEY]

When I was a kid, I don't recall being so frightened about the outcome of elections, same as when I was in my early teens and 20s. But now, I'm really worried. I look at adults I know and they are liberals but seem much calmer than I. the only thing I can think of is they can remember clearly, previous repub administrations. For me they're a blurry memory. So they are used to nutjobs being in the whitehouse and are somewhat numb. That's my hope.
Or am I wrong and the people I know are just crazy...is this administration THAT bad?

[mhr]

1. 47 Here HEyHEY - I Am Very Worried - You Are Not Alone!

eom

[gumby]

2. It's WORSE than THAT bad.

We're talking Fourth Reich here.

[alittlelark]

3. hey, I'm 40 and have NEVER before felt

that an election was so crucial. The 2000 election was a big deal .... but this is SOOOO much more.

We are at a crux.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

4. Don't worry, HEyHEY. Gordon Campbell might lose after all.

Have faith!

[nostamj]

5. we will need new vocabulary

NEVER in world history has there been worse 'government'

I wish that statement was 'over the top' but, it just isn't.

[gumby]

7. we don't need a new vocabulary.

The accurate word is: fascism.

The rest of the world is aware of this horrible situation. You can be sure that they are working to fight against it because it seems that fascism can only be fought from without.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

6. You're preaching to the choir. We're all dismayed/terrified/disgusted...

Unfortunately, we're in the minority. Everyone else here is sipping koolaid or something. It's like a bad dream except we don't get to wake up from it.

[linazelle]

16. I don't agree that we are in the minority...there are LOTS of other

people who are just as aware as you are, and who see what we see. It's believing the media lies that makes us think we are losing and alone, but I was listening to AAR and Garafolo last week. Jeaneane named many who are voting for the first time because they think things are really bad. You can also look at the younger celebs who are pushing voting. That's something that has not happened in ages but it shows that people want change.

[in_cog_ni_to]

8. THEY just don't know what you know.

Blissfully living their lives with their heads buried in the sand.

I often wish I didn't know what I know. Ignorance is bliss? I'm beginning to believe that. :( I know too much.

YES, this administration IS THAT bad. Pure evil. We have NEVER had the likes of this cabal leading this country. Nixon is an angel in comparison. Reagan is too.

The neo-cons are in their own fascist league. This country has never experienced the likes of the chimp cabal.

[Nite Owl]

9. Reagan and Nixon were bad

This administration makes them look sort of normal.

[Poiuyt]

17. Oh, how I long for the days of Nixon and Reagan

51 years old and have never seen it nearly as bad. The country was more violent during Nixon (more violent protests), but Bush/Cheney are so devious that it's scary

[nodehopper]

22. they were bad but they still cared about public opinion

it was before Diebold machines

[Mikimouse]

10. Oh yeah, it IS that bad...

Ask around and you will find that there are many here, myself included, who feel as if they have been living under a dark, choking fog for the past three and a half years. It is stifling, choking and seemingly endless. It saps the strength and the will to go on. I have never been so unproductive as in the past three and a half years. I fear for the future of a once great nation, and shudder to think about how we are perceived internationally.

[TahitiNut]

11. In 40 years of voting, I've never before thought someone was INSANE ...

... for voting for either major candidate. Wrong. Ill-informed. Different priorities. Never just outright fucking crazy. I do this time.

I've never before, not even duing Nixon/Agnew, thought the administraion was the most corrupt in our history. I do this time.

No matter how hard I try to find some decent, semi-rational reason to vote for Bush/Cheney, I can't. They're beyond criminal and beyond corrupt. I never say this, but ... they're evil. (They've actually made me believe in evil.)


I've voted for Democrats and Republicans. I abhor partisanship. I think it inhibits improvements in our political process. It makes party loyalists incapable of improving the party they support. It's a kind of mental dysfunction, imo. This time, I'd even vote for Pat Buchanan or Lyndon LaRouche instead of Bush.

[gumby]

19. Yeah, getting your head around the EVIL

that this administration embodies is a very difficult task.

Maybe that's why most people prefer to believe in the lies. It's much, much easier.

[K-W]

12. Of the many recent aweful republican presidents. None has been so blatent

They have all done horrible things, but none did it in broad daylight, in front of everybody, because they could rely on thier propaganda machine.

Reagan fought his wars in secret. Bush 1 lied mightily, but Saddam invading Kuwait threw everyone off his track for a while.

The difference with W. Bush is that he sent us to Iraq based on blunt, blatent lies and just dared the american people to call his bluff.

[Ilsa]

13. I don't remember any public officials from decades ago who had

Armageddon as their ultimate objective. Nuclear war? maybe. Armageddon? No way.

[flaminbats]

34. I remember being told as a child Reagan would begin a nuclear war

it may not of happened, but it forever effected my perception of Republicans and their dark view of the future. No child should fear an entire society because of an idea. No American should give up a better future in place the dangers of a worldwide nuclear arms race.

Even today children are being taught that they may have no future because of terrorism and an exploding national debt. What kinds of people shall they grow into?

[Rose Siding]

14. It's that bad but there's so much else at play...

It's a perfect storm. If you have time and nerve, read this Bill Moyer's speech (such a saint!)-he gives lots of examples of the other elements involved; media deterioration, ever-growing corporate strength that thwarts investigations- he really outlines the do-or-die-ness of current conditions.

snip>
......In Cumberland, Md., the police reporter had so many duties piled upon him that he no longer had time to go to the police station for the daily reports. But management had a cost-saving solution: Put a fax machine in the police station and let the cops send over the news they thought the paper should have. (“Any police brutality today, officer?” “No, if there is, we’ll fax a report of it over to you.”)........... At the Social Security Administration, whose activities literally affect every American, only the New York Times was maintaining a full-time reporter. And incredibly, there were no full-time reporters at the Interior Department, which controls millions of acres of public land and oversees everything from the National Park Service to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

There’s more: According to the non-partisan Project for Excellence in Journalism, newspapers have 2,200 fewer employees than in 1990. The number of full-time radio news employees dropped by 44 percent between 1994 and 2000. And the number of television network foreign bureaus is down by half. Except for “60 Minutes” on CBS, the network prime time newsmagazines “in no way could be said to cover major news of the day.” Furthermore, the report finds that 68 percent of the news on cable news channels was “repetitious accounts of previously reported stories without any new information.”

Out across the country there’s a virtual blackout of local public affairs. The Alliance for Better Campaigns studied 45 stations in six cities in one week in October 2003. Out of 7,560 hours of programming analyzed, only 13 were devoted to local public affairs—less than one-half of one percent of local programming nationwide.

A profound transformation is happening here. The framers of our nation never envisioned these huge media giants; never imagined what could happen if big government, big publishing and big broadcasters ever saw eye to eye in putting the public’s need for news second to their own interests—and to the ideology of free-market economics.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/journalism_under_fire.php

[Ladyhawk]

15. I'm 37 and it's the first time I've ever been frightened...

...over the outcome of an election.

[AlCzervik]

18. I'm very worried about the chance Bush could win

not to be selfish here but i have a 10 year old and i don't want her growing up in bushworld.

[AndyTiedye]

20. Calm? Who's Calm?

:scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared:

[timefordrinking.com]

21. 54% of U.S. is retarded.

At least, if you believe the latest polls. I can't believe there are that many peckerwoods in this country. Maybe we should have a telethon or something.

[nodehopper]

23. we've never had a coup d'estat in this country before

this was a non-violent coup d'estat. now people who do not care about public opinion because they have a global agenda and elecronic machines are in power. they are also crazy fundamentalists. so yes, I'd say it's reasonable to be more frightened now than at any other point in history with the possible exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[ogsball]

24. I remember when Regan ran for President

I confess I was a Regan supporter. Forgive me I didn't realize the damage I did until recently. Anyhow to topic. . .

I had a good friend who was telling me what terriable things would happen if we elected him to office. She was a strong Anderson supporter. Anyhow I recall telling her not to worry everyone most of the politicians were similar and I just liked shaking things up.

If I would have only known. Today we might have had. . .

universal health care?
a better educational system?
A truly cooperative world organization in the UN?
Fewer WMD's everywhere?
Peace in the middle east?
No poverty?

Who knows?

I'm sorry.

[checks-n-balances]

26. You are a very big person to admit that, and I'm sure there are others

even here at DU who did the same. Anyway, you're talking about 24 years ago. And I remember how negative the press got with Carter and how the Reagan outlook took the country like wildfire, so it may have been pretty easy to get caught up in it.

Would you ever want to talk to others who might be in the shoes you were in back then? Maybe it could cause a few people to stop and think - that is, if they don't crucify you in the process. Maybe it won't be so bad with undecideds.

Sometime let us in on what might've helped you back then - do you think anything would have? When did you start changing your mind about the right wing mentality? Anything happen in particular?

In your own way, perhaps you could really be helpful to share some of this with the right people. It would probably help ease your mind a bit, too.

Thanks for coming over to the DU side - we need you and thanks also for sharing your thoughts & feelings.

[LibertyorDeath]

27. Vote Kerry & the Universe will forgive you

:)

Welcome to DU

Looks like your Reagan days are over.

[LibertyorDeath]

25. This is the real shit HEyHEY

It's hard to find a word that does justice to this group.

Evil comes to mind. No exaggeration they are Evil. They do not give a flying fuck about America or Americans or The Constitution, Due process of Law,
Civil Rights.

They are Anti-Democracy.

I'm sure it won't be long before the ACLU is declared Terrorist Sympathizers & all their members will be "persons of Interest"
To the Homeland Security Gestapo.

This is the real shit.

[Eloriel]

28. Well, you know what they say

"If you remain calm while everyone around you is panicking, you just don't understand the situation."

I think you've gotten plenty of validation that the situation IS dire. Count me as another one.

[Comadreja]

29. Not Scared

Just angry. I'm not the type to get angry, really. And before 2000 never paid much attention to politics. Now, at 51, I can say we have hit the shitsplat nadir of presidents or any politician I have ever seen with this gaggle of goons. I don't believe hate is healthy, but I'm fighting a losing battle whenever I have to see or hear that evil Reptilican or one of his Confederate clones such as Tom DeLay or Zell Miller. I grew up with southern redneck hate culture, and I believe it is the dark side of our nation surging to the top, unhealed Jim Crow ascendant. Afraid/ Hell no. What's the worst that can happen? Patriots have had to die before. If it comes to that, I'd rather go down fighting the Corporatists here than fighting for them in Iraq.

[Pax Argent]

30. Spent 37 years not caring either way about politics;

Never saw much reason. Bush has changed all of that. His administration has said and done things that you would anticipate being done by a third-world dictator, not by the president of the US I grew up in (I'm 37).

But my primary fear is that the Government has consolidated into the hands of the Conservatives and the media is almost totally in bed wih them. We are heading towards becoming like Soviet Russia with consumerism replacing communism.

I feel that the balance has been lost. I'm hoping electing Kerry will reverse this process, or at least retard it for a while.

[Starlight]

31. I've found every Republican president to be bad for the country...

but this deranged lunatic is the first one who I really, truly think is totally evil. I have no idea how anyone could be blind enough to support this Hitler Wannabe. :(

BTW, I'm 47 so I've seen a few presidencies...

[Cleita]

32. I was born after Hoover, but I heard about him growing up,

and it was nothing good. But for out and out nutjobs these are the worst Republicans ever although we never gave Nixon a chance to get as bad as he could get although he was one scary dude too. I hope we can lop this bunch of crooks out soon. We really need to go back to the drawing board to make sure wackos like these never get power in high offices ever again.

[yardwork]

33. It's that bad.