Here's an example of a typical Bush backer.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=896174#896174

Hey, if it's not about guns, cjhsa isn't interested. Your question didn't have the words 'gun, assault or rifle' in it, so I doubt he paid much attention.

Cycloptichorn

FreeDucks on a roll today!

Hey, cjhsa got an A2K license? I want one!!!

There it is again! The same old tired line. The Bush voters remind me of "The Night of the Living Dead" -- a bunch of mindless zombies walking straigt forward, arms extended, and chanting Must fight terrorists over there, not here Must fight terrorists over there, not here....Must fight terrorist over there, not here...
They then travel en masse to the poll booth where they dutifully vote for Bush.

Meanwhile, around them, people in ivory towers watch and laugh.

and those in trailer parks break into the homes of the 30% of their neighbors that went to the polls for bush......

What I cannot get over is the fact that one has to conclude that the terrorists consider the Bush Administration one of their best friends.

Could this "gang that couldn't shoot straight" possibly have done more to aid and abet these people?

Because of the Bush Administration...recruiting for terrorist organizations is not only UP...the recruits are even more fanatical than before.

And these hopeless bunglers have managed to alienate the populaces of almost every one of our allies.


How can anyone with any common sense vote to re-elect these miscreants based on their handling of the terrorist issue?


They get an F- in this area.

Amen, Frank, amen.

"Does it really matter what the rest of the world thinks at this point? How are they going to help protect the US? "

by sharing information regarding covert operations
by supplying troops for valid justified operations
by providing doplomatic alternatives to war when possible

America can not and should not be attempting to police the world.


The arrogant, unilateral, unjustified, pre-emptive invasion against Iraq has allowed the terrorists to paint America as imperialistic, anti-Muslim, oil-greedy aggressors. This has fueled their ranks geometrically.

How does this make us safer ?

Not to mention insulting and alienating our long-standing allies, whom we need. Bush has lost all credibility in the world community, and he can no longer generate the cooperation and support that we need.

We are NOT safer now, we are MUCH LESS SAFE, and with four more years of Bush's ill-advised destructive foreign policy, the terrorist threat will escalate geometrically.

I agree, Frank. I won't make the jump that it was intended, but the effect is there for all to see.

Oh dys...you did me in with this one.

Jesus...another one! Too too funny guys.

Note...what I've written below is intended for a liberal audience. Folks from the right, including the one or two I've personally mentioned, can feel free to respond if they wish, but I won't be in discussion with you. Frank said

But they will. They do believe. And not just a few. We see it on these threads every day, as in Baldimo's unthinking repetition above, or cjhsa's unthinking repetition that Kerry is a far-leftist.

We all know how close this election will be, and we all know there is a very good chance that the believers will outnumber the rest of us.

We all have come to learn how ineffective logical argument almost always turns out to be in the face of what we are up against. We have all come to learn how surprisingly easy it is for the population of a modern state to be manipulated and deceived, and yet be so unawares of the nature of their predicament. We've all come to learn how easy it is for a democratic state to enthusiastically begin devouring its own innards because it has been told it is hungry.

A couple of years ago, Ann Coulter, in an interview with another right wing TV host, said, "We've won." Bold, but true. How did she know this and many others not? Simply because she is rather more appraised of what has been going on out of sight...how sizeable it has been and how effective it has been. We'll recall her comment, now many years past, to Drudge (I think it was) regarding the beginnings of the legal and PR attacks on Clinton, "There are lots of busy little elves working away." That was accurate. Lots of them, well funded, active and effective at the community level, the State level, and the Federal level. And at the same time, establishing an alternate media of exclusive voice - not just to counter the mainstream press, but to bypass it. Thus Baldimo. Thus millions of others like Baldimo.

I'm sorry, but I'm not hopeful. You are heading towards totalitarianism, if a somewhat soft version for a while. If Bush wins again, the machinery that has brought him to power and kept him there...even in the face of such continual deceit, of Iraq and it's attendant policies, of Abu Ghraib, of Medicare, of Richard Clarke, of DiIulio, O'Neill of of of....that machinery will be enhanced, strengthened and made as permanent and exclusionary as these extremists can manage. Redistricting? Oh yes. Secrecy? Just watch that one. Court appointments? Intrusions on privacy to ensure that the non-patriots don't cause any trouble? Media concentration? Media hesitancy and obsequiousness? The gap between rich and poor? Environment? I have seen the future, and it is murder.

There is no way you guys are going to be able to pull this out of the fire unless you understand that the rules have changed. These folks want PERMANENT POWER AND CONTROL. They are bold enough to say it (see Norquist, and others). A second party is of use to them only as a scapegoat, to deflect negatives away and to maintain the necessary illusion of representative democracy.

You've had a revolution take place. That is going to be countered only through understanding how it has been accomplished and joining them in this street fight. You are going to need a lot more than one Al Franken and one Michael Moore.

In March, Paul Krugman gave a lecture at the London School of Economics. I've linked this transcript elsewhere, but I'll do it here too. Krugman understands various aspects of this administration and what it is up to as well as pretty much anyone else. He's an easy-going guy, and he's more than a bit worried. Krugman transcript

Sorry for the downer. But it is probably time to get real.

On Sunday, I was on the plane with a group of guys who all work for the same company. They travel around and repair stuff.........sorry, I didn't understand what kind. I was reading a book.

The friendly and jocular guy next to me asked, "Catch 22, is that a good book?"

I said it was somewhat of a classic and when I was young, it had been made into a movie.

"Oh yeah, what's it about?" he asked.

"War," I said.

To which he replied, "Oh."

But I must admit, I agree with Bernie, we better get serious about this election. I'm going to volunteer to be a polls monitor (it has an official name)........I'm looking up the email right now........I'm going to volunteer.

Morans. Everywhere.

PDiddie.............yup

How'd all this happen?

How could a significant (I don't think it is a majority by any means) segment of our population be hoodwinked into thinking American conservatism...and the Republican party agenda...

...represent something good for our country and for the world?

Is this what things were like before dictators like Hitler took control?

Wasn't it Ben Franklin who, upon existing the Constitutional convention, said: "You have a Republic...if you can keep it!

Are these ideologues truly so taken with the big lie that they will help flush the Republic and our democracy down the toilet for these upstarts?


What a sad day for America.

What a sad day for the world.

Frank:

They're morans, it's fascism, and if we don't stop them now we're all going to be under their boot.

Nice to see ya around again, you old curmudgeon.

Sorry, dudes.

frank

The best accounting I've seen of the key personalities of the New Right, the history of their activism and connections, and of their very successful techniques is in a book Gang of Five by Nina J. Easton. Of course, Alterman's book on the media is without peer, really a classic piece of journalism. Krugman too is particularly illuminating in his main area of economics, but he's much broader than that, and in the lecture I linked above, he talks about Irving Kristol (Bill's father), and important parts of this story lead back to him. It's very interesting, in a historical or academic sense, for anyone like me who's drawn to a study of American politics. But interest turns to something else when a precipice looms so close.

BBB
A wise person once said to someone he wanted to chastise, "May you live in interesting times."

I think those "interesting times" are at hand but would add "the times, they are dangerous."

BBB