I don't think it's an accident that they're frothing and drooling this replay of Burn Baby Burn. It's the same as the reason why "all details are stripped".

They know they've destroyed the country, that from here it's only "the downward path" as Jeffers called it. All they have left is atavistic nihilism, to revel in the destruction, and to dream of violence.

I don't know if David was exaggerating when he said he briefly felt real fear, but it's no joke. By now the Reps have mobilized whatever level of baseline fascist scum there is in America (using that term here simply to mean belligerent, aggressive stupidity).
Yet this is more visible than the far more ominous massive expansion of the private paramilitary/repression-industrial complex, Blackwater et.al.
(This expansion and its domestic ensconcement was one of the goals of the Iraq war.)

You can bet, when things really begin to bite, when the Republican-set charges detonate in earnest and the economic system comes crashing down, that's when this cadre, bolstered by all this yahoo vermin, will try to impose a de jure police state (whereas so far the admin has only been able to move in increments toward a de facto authoritarian state).

It will be the final, most all-encompassing play by disaster capitalism.

The time to understand this is now, and the question to ask now is, what kind of forces can be mobilized to prevent this?
Unfortunately, so far there's little consciousness, and little organization.

Something to think about.    

but you are not bad, you are good, and you can have anything that you want

and that is good; liberal elites are bad

liberal elites say the world is coming to the end, and you cannot have cheap coal industry or drive your car with cheap gasoline

but liberal elites are wrong; you are good and can have anything you want

demogoguery

"You have nothing to fear but fear itself"

FDR saw the danger

have one big advantage over all the rest of us. They believe in themselves. They do not know doubt. They are relentless. In short they represent people who believe they were born to rule.

Randy Cunningham
Cleveland, OH

Randy Cunningham

Cheney and Bush have always been about replaying the 60s, and winning this time

much of Repub ideology since 1980 is based upon those cultural milestones

rednecks v hippies, army v vietcong, church v atheists, mothers v libbers, white v black

the nonsensical remark about Obama not mentioning "victory" in his speech is about the Vietnam War, and its re-incarnation in Iraq

the derision toward "community organizer" strikes a chord with those who resented the mobilization (and "manipulation") of the poor and the black in the 1960s

Repubs want the election to be about identity politics (most elections are), and want the "issues" to be vague identity-loyalties regarding general topics from the past.  Old prejudices, near and dear to hearts historically

stay calm; talk about the last 8 years, and the situation now

don't call Republicans "scum"

I really think that Obama is showing us the way forward.  

Stay positive.  Unite, don't divide.  Work to solve the problems that we and the entire world face.

The sort of attacks that I heard last night do nothing to move the country forward.  They simply serve to get one specific set of candidates into power.

Obviously there is a lot to be done in both developing better answers to our problems and educating the greater public as to what can be done.

Why not turn our focus in a positive direction?

IMO, we need a major push to educate, to take what we current know can be done and make Americans aware of real world solutions.

Is there an opportunity here in their "Drill, Drill, Drill" frenzy to discuss the APF.  The citizens of AK get $$$ directly from the oil drilling that happens in their state.  

We should demand (if new drilling does happen) that any oil company profits made from drilling off our coasts go to a fund to protect new areas/fund clean-up-- Kind of a drilling Superfund?  Or pay for clean energy R & D?  Or fund public transportation?

This may take fire out of the oil companies efforts--and at the least offer some protection from the eventual environemntal impact or have something good come out of it.  

sort of similar to ants. however, the good lord in his wisdom saw fit NOT to give ants the power to destroy human civilization.

what scares me is the 50% of american voters who believe in them. bad enough they fell for it in 2000, but when bush got half the votes in 2004 something deep within me broke and i knew i would never be the same. at this point, there shouldn't even be a need for an election except to officially confirm the american public's obvious rejecton of the combination of stupidity, malice, and all around cognitive dysfunction which forms the republican platform. and with globalism these days, running and hiding isn't even a choice any more.

Apparently about 30-40% would vote for a Republican even if the candidate was a dead puppy, and those are the people Palin was talking to.  About 40% of the public would probably never vote for a Republican.  So the question comes to the "swing" 20% or so.  I don't see how Palin's speech got to those people, and McCain is evidently schizoid about what to do -- he had Lieberman trying to appeal to the middle 20%, but Wednesday was hate-mongering -- not even fear mongering, as happened at the 2004 convention, but hate mongering.  It seems as though Obama's poll numbers have improved since Palin was chosen, so we can only hope that she's going to scare the middle 20%

Was that using the "burn baby burn" line of Adam Clayton Powell Jr in the 1960s?  That wasn't a line the Republicans particularly liked back then.  But this also confirms my first suspicion of Palin, that she's there at least partially to push the only issue the Republicans seem to have, drilling.

I have a question that's been nagging at the back of my head for a while now. I mean, I know that the Republicans tell out and out lies---e.g., "our opponent is against producing [more energy]".

So it stands to reason that the Dems are also telling lies. But what are they? Do I just not notice them?

of desperation is in the air.

I began feeling that Sarah Palin's one-liner should be:
"What's the difference between Dick Cheney and me? Lipstick!

We'll have one fantastic VP right after another. I am totally psyched! I have always been a little indifferent to McCain until now. He made a great decision.

mreinbold:
"We'll have one fantastic VP right after another. I am totally psyched! I have always been a little indifferent to McCain until now. He made a great decision."

I'm still somewhat indifferent to McCain.  I was more of a Romney supporter.  But, I must say, his speech at the convention was so poor that I may have had the wrong choice.  The Huckabee speech was decent.  Giuliani's speech was good.  And of course Palin hit it out of the park.  It'd be nice if Palin was the top of the ticket, but interestingly people are drawing comparisons between her and Mr. "Hope, Dreams, Change, Social Justice". While Obama was selling snake oil for a year without getting to specifics, Palin got to them immediately.

Nobody wants to bother to make comparisons with Biden.  I mean here is a guy whose only achievement is that he has mastered putting his foot in his mouth more quickly than any other politician.  The guy that graduated 76th out of a class of 85 and then started telling everyone that he had graduated in the top half of his class.  The guy that got kicked out of one of his courses for plagerism.  Why bother comparing to him.  He is a complete idiot.  And you have to question Obama's intelligence in choosing him.  Of course Obama has never run anything or been responsible for anything in his life.  So there is no reason to believe that he is capable of making a reasoned decision.  When you consider his choice for mentors and freinds, you have another very strong clue that Obama is clueless.

Saluki? Are you still excited about Palin?