Way to go, Debra. We've got your back.

Brad--I did indeed email Mr. Wildermuth, however the email address you listed is not working.
Any suggestions?
Peter in Ore.
Home of the mail in ballot

Should I have a clue why so many Americans, who are lovers of true constitutional democracy, who love the concept of the government of, by, and for the people, would have such a low opinon of politicians, presidents, congressmen, and neoCons of the state sort?

And therefore not give a shit about their preposterous bullshit and show it by being at the beach by a bonfire drinking beer instead of voting?

Golly gee, puzzling is it not?

Or is it just their way of saying fuck it, bring on the destruction of the world. Come on George, Bill, Dick, Paul, Jack, and Karl, we call your ficking bluff, blow the fucking world up.

We are going out without ulcers ...

Peter K - I've fixed the Email link to Moberly (and it's for Moberly, not Wildermuth as you errantly mentioned). Sorry about that, and thanks for letting me know!

Thanks Brad, one good correction deserves another
Peter

Are things really turning around? We've been disappointed so much in the past with so many false signs, I feel like a beaten dog, and I can't bring myself to believe it.

Did you ever think that these creeps ruining our democracy are the products of our schools, they are our friends, neighbors, relatives, acquaintences, products of America. What's wrong with this country? We produced these people!

Big Dan - The ringleaders are not products of public schools. They're the product of establishment schools who groom their young to take the mantle of "leadership" and believe that the general public are simply fodder for their profit-margins.

The average American, on the other hand, has been duped. Think about our resident trolls - they're suckers in every sense of the word. They were co-opted by corporate mass media and the churches, which in turn are controlled by those ringleaders. As much as I loathe the ignorant body of people who fancy themselves Republicans, I also feel very very sorry for them. True, it is their ignorance and willingness to abdicate their citizen responsibility of holding government accountable and questioning their party's actions instead of blindly following that has lead to a criminal enterprise heading up the most powerful country in history and thus caused untold death, damage, and destruction. But when all this shit finally goes down, man are they ever gonna feel stupid

This patriotism and flag waving bullshit nationalism has been sold to us since we could walk and talk. What I want to know is what makes people like us resist? Is it inherent intelligence? Is there a wisdom gene, or a compassion gene somewhere? Is it some experience that we have in common? I'd really like to know why what seems so OBVIOUS to me is apparently hidden, or at least drastically obscured, from others?

I'll say this about public schools though - we don't teach critical thinking. We claim to, but when it comes down to making rational life decisions, we pretty much tell em to trust the government. Educational institutions should be (and used to be) forces for radical change, especially in the direction of democracy and resistance to control. What happemed to that? That's why in every totalitarian coup (China, Cambodia, Stalinist Russia, etc) the first people to get rounded up and whacked are the educators. In some sense that's exactly why our public education system does not get adequately funded. How dangerous to power would a nation of real thinkers be? That's why religion has become so prevalent in government over this president's tenure - nothing like religion for thought control.

Soul Rebel and Big Dan-- I think part of the "wisdom gene" may be skepticism and an ability to tolerate insecurity - to even welcome it as a vital element of growth. (Hence the name "progressives"?)

During the past couple of years, I have been working on my sister to bring her over to seeing what is happening in the country. She's not a Republican (we were raised as FDR-type Democrats), but listening to music, going to movies, buying what she wants, participating in the great commercial bazaar is what is important to her. It's a kind of security. Bringing her to see the necessity of political honesty and action in this time and place has been enlightening to me. She has wanted to run away, to scream, "I can't hear you!" It obviously disturbs her greatly to contemplate the utter corruption, greed, and criminality papered over by the "good life". She knows it, but she doesn't want to see it.

Happily, she is finally getting mad, and it is a great joy to me to see it.

There is also a security to be in the "organization" and to be looked upon as a tribal member of the big, rich tribe - corporate America. Why would you want to be wandering outside the borders when you could be part of the glittering fun? Fly to conferences in interesting places, stay in nice hotels, participate in the heated and almost-erotic atmosphere of trade shows, be part of a network of wealth. It colors all the perceptions, as we see clearly in many election officials, but also among people in the corporate MSM, and elsewhere.

I think those who welcome insecurity as a concomitant to growth will always be in the minority but, historically, have done the work of bringing about necessary change. The political perceptions of those immersed in security are generally fuzzy, and there comes a time when facts of crime and corruption cannot be ignored (because they are perceptibly destroying the system of security), the "progressives" come into their own in fashioning a way out of the mess. (It is probably a cyclic or spiral historical process.)

Outside of all this, there is a foundation from which to work. From Molly Ivins latest column speaking of enabling Democrats:
The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

(Molly's getting especially militant lately, and I love it!) We progressives work with what we have and it's not all bad.

It's important to remember that the American Revolution wasn't overwhelmingly popular among the colonists. Many of them were doing just fine commercially by cooperating with the Crown. If they had had opinion polls back then, it might have been about 50-50 whether to break from England.

It's the same today. Substitute Bush and Cheney for King George III. Last year Wall Street paid huge bonuses...they're doing O.K. The media are sycophantic to the administration...ad rates and ratings stay strong. Consumers are happy...the stores are full of all kinds of junk to buy, and with interest rates relatively low they're able to borrow out their home equity and spend, spend, spend.

A lot of people who aren't politically oriented are happy with the status quo. My three adult daughters have no clue about what I'm all upset about.

Bush and Cheney have one huge advantage over George Washington in terms of public support. Washington's army was small, and the soldiers didn't always get paid. Today's military-industrial complex has left millions of American families dependent on the Pentagon for life...salaries, pensions, health benefits. These families don't hate war, and just don't want to hear that the commander in chief was elected by fraud.

There must be some reason why more people voted in Vietnam before it fell, and Iraq, in its recent elections, than do in presidential elections in the United States.

The United States has a lot of people who are so fed up with the bananna republic the republicans now idolize, that they do not have enough faith in the system to vote.

It says a bookfull.

Robert at #9 --- It's a good point about the dependency of people on the military-industrial complex.

But that's why a revolution, beginning in ideas, is not only vital but virtually assured. (The only thing that could stop it would be oppression of the worst kind.)

The military-industrial complex and big oil/oil economy have spiraled far out of control and any kind of rational purpose and are parasitically killing the host. We have no choice but to redirect energies and resources and to radically restructure the nature of our economy and workforce --- as well as assert the power of democracy. (It wouldn't be so radical or so traumatic if everyone were rational and said, "Yes, it obvously has to be done." But we are not dealing with rational forces.)

And the politicians refuse to lead. They turn away just as my sister did (but, of course, they have a larger responsibility not to.) Their purpose appears to be soothe and pet nostalgic and irrelevant prejudices ("We're the greatest country on earth.") and to assure people that we can keep going as we are --- assuming, of course, a few policy disagreements. We are seeing an astonishing failure of leadership. (Of course they have a stake in the military-industrial complex, too.)

Someone will have to take the lead. (You have to be impressed with Gore currently.) Someone will have to start talking honestly. Someone will have to bring exitement and joy and forward-lookingness into the revolutionary process. And the longer we put it off, the greater the adjustment necessary.

(We certainly have moved beyond the topic of elections in California. I emailed Moberly, BTW. I think we are going to win on this issue, but I can't help feeling a kind of astonishment that we are only - as far as the MSM that covers it - at the point of "confidence wavering" about e-voting. What was that confidence based on anyway? It's almost a kind of dark humor. But it is very good, of course.)

I also oneself something would want to find out on this theme. Very attentively I will read every post.