Where would we be today, if not on DU, if it weren't for George W. Bush?

[MrScorpio]

I for one, would be driving my flying solar car to work in DC at the Department of Peace and then go partying in Georgetown with all my friends of different creeds, colors and religions before heading back home on auto pilot.







Either that, or hanging out in some DJ forum.

[rusty quoin]

1. You mean only if Reagan kept those solar panels on the White House,

and followed Jimmy Carter's energy plan. My God, what we could have become.

[havocmom]

2. I would be happily writing comedy again

Somehow, since the coup of 2000, I lost most of my humor.

[Demeter]

3. I Know What You Mean.

I used to live on chocolate. Now I hardly touch the stuff. It's Schadenfreude that gets me through a day (or night). Much worse than chocolate, because there are no calories to burn.

[TahitiNut]

4. I think about how much better the world would be if a certain parachute didn't open.

>splat< :evilgrin:

[catnhatnh]

5. Well, without Bush....

I definitely never would have found DU. I stumbled in here dazed and confused (WOW-that would make a great song title...) shortly after the Scam2/2004 election debacle. I was always a democrat,but never "political". I figured I could vote every few years and that no discussion was required and no whining was allowed-it was all a pendulum swing between two parties, both of whom wanted what they thought was best for most Americans.
Reagan/Bush was a tough 12 years to take, but what the hell, we had 8 years of Clinton even if I thought the swing was a bit weak...And then selection 2000.
The Supreme Court deciding a Federal election??? Weird as hell,but it WAS the Supreme Court and I took almost on face value the outcome. I figured a Rube like Bush was a 4 year phenomenon and got on with life...September 11th was when the chickens came home to roost-by the end of the day something smelled wrong and the odor has never, to this day, left. The run-up to the war seemed transparent to me, and the outcome predictable-if any mission was accomplished, it was not the salvation of Iraq.
2004 had me foaming at the mouth to vote this failure and his regime out of office-I was both giddy at the thought and cocky about the outcome. I went to bed with assurance that Kerry had kicked ass. The next morning was worse than the worst hangover in my life and harder than the five steps of grieving...and I have never reached "acceptance".
How lucky for me to have found DU that November-I was lost and unsure of my own sanity by that point. Among my family and friends I found no one as appalled and shaken, nor as digusted or confused. And here I found a community that helped me slowly pull the whole picture together-the lies, the cheating, the base neocon planning, and the treason.
It's been a tough 3 years-sadder but wiser, you know. I'm not sure that we, or the ideal of Democracy will prevail. But I tell the truth to any that will listen and pray for the best.

[TheDoorbellRang]

6. Same story here

I was never "political" until after 9/11. I didn't buy the "go shopping -- it's patriotic" crap afterwards. Instead, I thought it was my patriotic duty to start paying attention to what the hell was going on both in D.C. and around the world. Didn't find DU until November 2004; but had the same gutwrenching feeling you had, thinking Kerry had won and finding out otherwise the next day.

I won't rest easy until January 2009 sees a new, democratic administration come in.

[Rhythm and Blue]

7. Report from Alter-2007: Many of us are outraged at "corporate sellout whore" Al Gore

(who totally engineered the 9/13 attacks), and who's done nothing but "give Detroit and Wall Street everything they wanted," and many of us are threatening to vote Green yet again, claiming that the two parties are exactly the same.

The rest of us are outraged at the unending Republican attacks on Gore. Most were totally baseless, but with a booming economy what could they do? The answer, of course, came on the attacks of Sept. 13th, and what Rush dubbed "The Greatest Failure of an American President in History." The Republicans cried out that we had nine years to stop bin Laden, and yet we didn't, despite Gore supposedly increasing funding for the anti-terrorism unit in August of '01. Gore quickly regained the initiative, and with the Afghan war came out as a hero of sorts. We made a promise to the Afghan people that we would rebuild their nation, and though it's been an expensive proposition, Afghanistan looks like it might soon become the jewel of Central Asia.

However, things turned for the worse when they cost us the Senate in 2004 by suggesting that the Dems were weak for not following Afghanistan up with an invasion of Iraq. 2005 was hardly better. When Hurricane Katrina came, FEMA was simply overwhelmed. It could have been worse (one shudders to think what would have happened had the National Guard not shown up within hours of the levees being breached) but with a Democratic President, Governor, and Mayor, the Republicans gleefully pointed out how "big government trips over itself." In '06, at least, the Abramoff scandals got some attention off of Gore, but it wasn't quite enough. The House remains Republican, the Senate holds a one-seat Republican majority, and DC is gridlocked.

Even still, can't let the bastards get us down. The economy is trucking along fine, we've had five consecutive surplus years, and the Mideast (while still a powder keg) hasn't gone up in flames quite yet. Iraq remains a thorn in our side with its anti-American rhetoric and rumored WMD stockpiles, but Iran continues to slowly westernize.

Things aren't so bad.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Would be able to sleep at night

And not worry about where we are going as a country

Sleep, that would be a nice thing to have

Oh and I would not have been politically radicalized