|
Post by classiccountryfan on Nov 3, 2004 14:43:51 GMT -5
I just did the math and we have 1460 day's till we will finally be rid of W. Let's just pray his little brother doesn't run then. I was really hoping for a Kerry win.
|
|
snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
|
Post by snizz on Nov 3, 2004 21:50:03 GMT -5
I take it back. I DO believe in curses. I do! I do! How? How do you make sense out of complete insanity? I just don't understand. How could anyone with a pulse vote for a proven lying, scheming SOB who has royally fu*cked up everything he's ever done? I don't feel so good right now. Not about anything. I think it's time to pack up the wife and kids and do some traveling. Abroad. Far away. I'm a stranger in a very strange country now, so what the hell? It beats trying to survive through another 4 years of it here.
|
|
Roland
Full Member
Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues
Posts: 235
|
Post by Roland on Nov 3, 2004 21:55:05 GMT -5
Snizz, I've been trying to make some kind of sense of it all day and I can't either. All I know for sure is that I've got a clear conscience. While he finishes dismantling and destroying everything this country once stood for and the ones who voted him back in get exactly what they ask for, I can proudly say that I and the vast majority of the people from my good state did our best to throw him out with the trash where he belongs. I'd like to say that I only wish I could oblige Kerry's request to bridge the divide. I believed with him there was a chance for that, for a fresh start. But the same people who caused that divide in the first place, remain in power. I'm sorry but I cannot in good conscience support people with whom I wholeheartedly disagree with ideologically and morally. As for Bush, ! He's got to be kidding! Newsflash George! I was among the 49% of Americans who voted for your "opponent" because you and your wrecking crew screwed up this country. You've already had 4 years to "earn" my support and trust and all we got from you were lies and horrendously bad policies. Some of them have cost thousands of peoples' lives. You divided this country and wiped your ass with our Constitution. I vehemently disagree with your policies and policy proposals, I find you ideologically small minded and morally bankrupt. So unless hell freezes over, you'll get no support from me.You blew any and every chance of that over the past 4 years. All we have to look forward to is 4 more of the same.
|
|
|
Post by Roughneck on Nov 4, 2004 14:42:54 GMT -5
The Red Zone By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON
With the Democratic Party splattered at his feet in little blue puddles, John Kerry told the crushed crowd at Faneuil Hall in Boston about his concession call to President Bush.
"We had a good conversation," the senator said. "And we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together. Today I hope that we can begin the healing."
Democrat: Heal thyself.
W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.
The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.
W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.
Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on "moral issues."
The president says he's "humbled" and wants to reach out to the whole country. What humbug. The Bushes are always gracious until they don't get their way. If W. didn't reach out after the last election, which he barely grabbed, why would he reach out now that he has what Dick Cheney calls a "broad, nationwide victory"?
While Mr. Bush was making his little speech about reaching out, Republicans said they had "the green light" to pursue their conservative agenda, like drilling in Alaska's wilderness and rewriting the tax code.
"He'll be a lot more aggressive in Iraq now," one Bush insider predicts. "He'll raze Falluja if he has to. He feels that the election results endorsed his version of the war." Never mind that the more insurgents American troops kill, the more they create.
Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: "This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world." Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And "confident" is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji.
Vice continued, "Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." Only Dick Cheney can make "to serve and to guard" sound like "to rape and to pillage."
He's creating the sort of "democracy" he likes. One party controls all power in the country. One network serves as state TV. One nation dominates the world as a hyperpower. One firm controls contracts in Iraq.
Just as Zell Miller was so over the top at the G.O.P. convention that he made Mr. Cheney seem reasonable, so several new members of Congress will make W. seem moderate.
Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.
Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."
John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.
Seeing the exit polls, the Democrats immediately started talking about values and religion. Their sudden passion for wooing Southern white Christian soldiers may put a crimp in Hillary's 2008 campaign (nothing but a wooden stake would stop it). Meanwhile, the blue puddle is comforting itself with the expectation that this loony bunch will fatally overreach, just as Newt Gingrich did in the 90's.
But with this crowd, it's hard to imagine what would constitute overreaching.
Invading France?
|
|
|
Post by Roughneck on Nov 4, 2004 14:43:22 GMT -5
The Day the Enlightenment Went Out By GARRY WILLS Evanston, Ill.
This election confirms the brilliance of Karl Rove as a political strategist. He calculated that the religious conservatives, if they could be turned out, would be the deciding factor. The success of the plan was registered not only in the presidential results but also in all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage. Mr. Rove understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution.
This might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and, now, gay marriage. Mr. Rove felt that the appeal to this large bloc was worth getting President Bush to endorse a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (though he had opposed it earlier).
The results bring to mind a visit the Dalai Lama made to Chicago not long ago. I was one of the people deputized to ask him questions on the stage at the Field Museum. He met with the interrogators beforehand and asked us to give him challenging questions, since he is too often greeted with deference or flattery.
The only one I could think of was: "If you could return to your country, what would you do to change it?" He said that he would disestablish his religion, since "America is the proper model." I later asked him if a pluralist society were possible without the Enlightenment. "Ah," he said. "That's the problem." He seemed to envy America its Enlightenment heritage.
Which raises the question: Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?
America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.
The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.
Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.
It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one American general put it, in words that the president has not repudiated.
President Bush promised in 2000 that he would lead a humble country, be a uniter not a divider, that he would make conservatism compassionate. He did not need to make such false promises this time. He was re-elected precisely by being a divider, pitting the reddest aspects of the red states against the blue nearly half of the nation. In this, he is very far from Ronald Reagan, who was amiably and ecumenically pious. He could address more secular audiences, here and abroad, with real respect.
In his victory speech yesterday, President Bush indicated that he would "reach out to the whole nation," including those who voted for John Kerry. But even if he wanted to be more conciliatory now, the constituency to which he owes his victory is not a yielding one. He must give them what they want on things like judicial appointments. His helpers are also his keepers.
The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things. It is not too early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment.
Garry Wills, an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University, is the author of "St. Augustine's Conversion."
|
|
|
Post by Roughneck on Nov 4, 2004 14:59:09 GMT -5
The scary thing is that this year it wasn't the economy stupid, it was morals. I mean, those right wing nuts weren't voting against Kerry, they were voting against CLINTON again for God's sake! Given what happened, I'm thinking that Hillary will get buried in 2008. Turns out it really does matter whether a President bangs another woman. I used to, but I'm cured. Unfortunately the entire Deep South seems to care. As if Kerry was going to seduce all the interns. Although you look, turns out that the Gay Marriage issue was the big one, really mobilized the Right Wing loons.
Slate had a good point in that the Dems need someone who knows Godspeak in order to hit the South. Maybe John Edwards. One big problem is that the Dems are shut out of the entire South. There was never any question of who would win the old Confederacy. You can't even say that it was a desire to keep the same horse in midstream, because the exit polls showed morals dominating. Ohio desicively cast for Bush, when the jobs should have pushed them towards Kerry. The whole South, poor white guys , voted directly contrary to their interests! I just don't understand their logic.
|
|
|
Post by SanAntonioMike on Nov 4, 2004 22:33:51 GMT -5
Ah, Lord, I knew if I came here I'd find some other folks who are as deeply wallowing in agony and disbelief as I am.
Life's been too real lately for me to take much time to come hang out at the ol' party here, but I knew if there was anyplace I could find some other folks like me, it'd be here.
I was born in a red state, and Lord, I'm living in one now, but believe me, I never have voted for DUHbya, even when we lived in Texas. We really tried to turn Arizona blue. I did my part, anyway.
|
|
|
Post by classiccountryfan on Nov 4, 2004 22:48:25 GMT -5
Ah, Lord, I knew if I came here I'd find some other folks who are as deeply wallowing in agony and disbelief as I am. Life's been too real lately for me to take much time to come hang out at the ol' party here, but I knew if there was anyplace I could find some other folks like me, it'd be here. I was born in a red state, and Lord, I'm living in one now, but believe me, I never have voted for DUHbya, even when we lived in Texas. We really tried to turn Arizona blue. I did my part, anyway. I am a bit ahshamed of my state it was red in the last two elections. I can't believe Tn didn't vote for their native son in 2000. If they had W would have never been president. Again this last one it was red but not with my vote!
|
|
|
Post by Mr._Shooter on Nov 6, 2004 1:23:49 GMT -5
As a conservative Republican who crossed party lines to support Kerry, I'm probably MORE at sea those here who have long pledged allegiance to the anti-Bush cause. Don't quite know what to think about my fellow Americans (and certainly don't know what they were thinking), but I nevertheless respect the fact that the "process" worked this time. America FINALLY got what it voted for. Two observations. Don't cry in your soup, my anti-Bush friends. This is a limited engagement. Bush is gone in 4 years. With any luck, Rehnquist and his fellow justices will find health and stamina and remain on the bench. Second, there ought to be ONE focus of the Democratic party from here on out: run a candidate who actually can WIN the South and the heartland. Whether that's Hillary...oh well, I'll leave that up to the pundits to debate.
|
|
Roland
Full Member
Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues
Posts: 235
|
Post by Roland on Nov 6, 2004 13:52:26 GMT -5
Don't quite know what to think about my fellow Americans (and certainly don't know what they were thinking) The Mirror's headline said it all for me. How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb? On the contrary Mr. Shooter, what should have been a limited engagement, has inexplicably turned into a double feature. The first show has been the worst nightmare ever produced, an agonizingly long, dark 4 years that, with a few months still left on the clock, isn't over yet. The previews for the second show don't look any more promising. After he was appointed the first time, he acted as though he had achieved a mandate. This time he was narrowly elected and he's acting as though he won by a landslide. Already he's made it clear that it's going to be more of the same, his way or the highway. Possibly more chilling is the notion we could be subjected to a sequel. Bubba Jeb Goes To Washington. Maybe. After the way the past two elections have gone, all bets are off. But by the time he is gone, it'll be along with most of the Constitution, separation of church and state, social security, medicare, healthcare, more jobs, equal rights, Roe vs Wade, and who knows how many more soldiers' lives. I don't think Jesus is interested in the job. Steering off topic for a moment, I've noticed there's a missing voice among us that I'd been looking forward to hearing from. Where's LS? I thought certainly by now she'd have weighed in with her thoughts. Has she already fled the country??
|
|
|
Post by SweetNadine on Nov 6, 2004 14:19:44 GMT -5
It's going to be a long 1457 days with King George. I was disappointed that Kerry lost the election. Paul Krugman from the NYT said it best - George Bush is a radical with an agenda. The Republicans will fall from grace. With the party being in almost full control in DC, one would think the American people would wake-up to their arrogance and hypocrisy in these next 1457 days. Let's hope so.
|
|
|
Post by Mr._Shooter on Nov 7, 2004 21:21:55 GMT -5
The Mirror's headline said it all for me. How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb? Roland, I know more than a few "intelligent" people who voted for Bush (including bright partners at my law firm and a number of sophisticated clients)...some lifelong Republicans, some fence-sitters since way back. Sometimes, we all have to admit that party allegiance trumps common sense - Republicans AND Democrats are both guilty of this. And sometimes we have to admit that guile-less campaiging will ultimately seize the day. That's the way it is, and apart from pointing out that the fact that I don't agree with the majority of voting Americans on whether Bush is the right man for the job , which I'll glady do, I'm not at all prepared to give up on America, not all prepared to trumpet the downfall of America as we know it. My father was a practical man, an honest man, a veteran and a taxpayer. He voted for whomever he wanted, not at all interested in party or politics. If he heard me bemoaning the future of America simply because we elected the wrong man for the job, he'd roll right of that grave and give me a glare that would move a thousand mountains. Thus, I'm giving Bush the benefit of the doubt, as I am the MAJORITY of my fellow Americans - don't know what they were thinking, but I'm not about to condemn them. Why? Well, because I live here, and we're at war (whether or not it's a just war, I'm not at liberty to decide), and I'm not about to give up on my country when we have so many outsiders who have great fun denigrating this country and its people. If I were French, I'd be offended by the term "frog." I'd be offended by "freedom fries," even if I disagreed with my country's position . But since I'm American , I'll gladly take offense at those Europeans and other non-Americans who think Bush speaks for me with respect ALL issues, or those who think that ALL of America is worthy of disdain because a small majority elected Bush as president. Listen, this country will survive Mr. Bush; it is not defined by him (to say otherwise would be to diminish the contributes of those who went before him, and those who will come after him). That's why I'm not crying in my soup simply because Bush (legitimately) won. It is, however, why I'm hopping mad about the notion that America is entering a dark age of sorts. Rubish. Simply rubish. That being said, the notion that Bush is the ONLY hope for the conservative cause is as bankrupt as the notion that there's an end in sight for our involvement in Iraq. I look at John McCain and I say, there's my man. Rudy Giuliani will likely get the party nomination in 2008, but John McCain's talent as a battle-tested uniter who nevertheless respects the tenets of Republicanism will forever animate those of us who are proud to call ourselves Republicans. Yes, it's sad that a man who illegimately seized the office the first time around only NOW been popularly elected to office. "Re-defeat Bush in 2004" was a clever slogan, and I understand the point entirely, but it didn't make a difference. What should have been a limited engagement has turned into another 4-year gig. Unless you know a fabulously good lawyer and a time machine that's worth it's weight in gold, I don't quite see the need to bemoan the fact that over 50% of Americans either fell for Bush's bill of goods, hook, line and sinker, OR actually had a substantively good reason for voting for the man. Notwithstanding my initial "here we go again" reaction to Bush's "relection," I have no interest in going behind the curtain to learn why my fellow Americans voted they way they did. ;D While your cynicism is appreciated (I've made a career out of it ), it is neverthless disturbing to me. But hey, if you feel that way, like I said, I won't go behind the curtain of your opinion.
|
|
|
Post by Travelinman on Nov 7, 2004 22:01:49 GMT -5
Maybe the answer isn't surviving, but winning. Take This Country Back. I take it back. I DO believe in curses. I do! I do! How? How do you make sense out of complete insanity? I just don't understand. How could anyone with a pulse vote for a proven lying, scheming SOB who has royally fu*cked up everything he's ever done? I don't feel so good right now. Not about anything. I think it's time to pack up the wife and kids and do some traveling. Abroad. Far away. I'm a stranger in a very strange country now, so what the hell? It beats trying to survive through another 4 years of it here.
|
|
|
Post by Roughneck on Nov 7, 2004 23:16:35 GMT -5
Suicide suspected at WTC site Friends say man was distraught over election results
NEW YORK (AP) -- A 25-year-old from Georgia who was distraught over President Bush's re-election apparently killed himself at ground zero.
Andrew Veal's body was found Saturday morning inside the off-limits area of the former World Trade Center site, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
A shotgun was found nearby, but no suicide note was found, Coleman said.
Veal's mother said her son was upset about the result of the presidential election and had driven to New York, Gus Danese, president of the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, told The New York Times in Sunday's editions.
Friends said Veal worked in a computer lab at the University of Georgia and was planning to marry.
"I'm absolutely sure it's a protest," Mary Anne Mauney, Veal's supervisor at the lab, told The Daily News. "I don't know what made him commit suicide, but where he did it was symbolic."
Police were investigating how Veal entered the former World Trade Center site, which is protected by high fences and owned by the Port Authority.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|
|
|
Post by SanAntonioMike on Nov 7, 2004 23:44:07 GMT -5
Well, it is time for us ol' Yellow Dog Democrats to pull our jaws up off the floor, get our backs up, and start doing something about taking back at least the House or Senate in TWO years, not four. Making sure ol' DUHb can't repeal the 22nd Amendment (I've heard too many people point out that the "law" Democrats are resting so comfortably on, "it can only be four more years" has only existed since 1951). Focus on getting your local Democrats into office in 2006.
It's our country, damn it. It's OURS. We can take it back, but we have to do better than we did this time, and not by compromising and cozying up to the moralists who are dictating our ways. We are FOR Civil Rights. We are FOR Freedom. Life. Liberty. The PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. They can keep their "moral values" just fine, we don't mind, but don't by God force them on other people. We're not just a Christian nation, we're a nation of all races, creeds, and religions.
I'm reaching the "incessed" point, where I can't believe we allowed a lying spin doctor to destroy a pious, couragous, heroic former altar boy, turning him into some kind of sleazy, cowardly pervert who wants to ban the bible. What they did to John McCain in 2000 they turned on full blast in 2004, and for some reason, ol' shifty-eyed, monkey-faced DUHb managed to fool people into thinking he's "compassionate" and he "cares" about anybody but his money-grubbing friends.
THIS former altar boy has had it. My family has had it. I need affordable health care for family of four with some serious health problems. I'm an American, damn it. I want my country back.
And I don't want to just "wait four years." I want it back NOW.
|
|