We have come home

John Cole does a what were you thinking post and does it ever get hot and heavy.

One of the comments,from tomvox1@48 writes we have become a nation of whiners. What has happened is that the Ugly American has decided to stay home. We are now inflicting the Ugly American syndrome on each other as well as the rest of the world.

Now you know why they like us so much. Not only do we strut, preen, shout and start wars everywhere else, we do it at home now.

Another Voice, Different Vantage

My last post may be reflective of my mood which has been going downhill for a while, getting darker and darker.
If I actually look around I see that we have actually made a fair amount of progress in the last 2 years, but we have a long way to go and I am running out of time, not that quickly but it is going at a notable pace. I'd like to see some repudiation of the last 30 60 years of the political warfare that makes up this country. And looking back I do see some, but it has been a war and I am tired of warfare. There has been declared warfare, The War on Poverty(which we are losing/lost), The War on Drugs(also losing), and undeclared warfare, civil liberties, presidential power, media war on truth(being won with bullshit, so losing), financial controls, more commonly known as money rape(all but the most wealthy are losing). I'm sure I left out something but isn't that enough war?
And now I read a post from someone I've never read or heard of and maybe, just maybe this will allow me to believe that the end is a little lot farther away than I envisioned. That is the resilience of the oppressed, to stay in the fight and to, if not win, at least continue to make progress. After all that's why we are called progressives, we want to continue to move forward, even at a snails pace. A rear view mirror never shows the whole picture, only what we can focus on. So if backing up to a better time is your thing, remember you are never going to see the whole picture going in reverse and that better time really was not so much.

You can't stop progress, you can beat on it, you can slow it down, but contrary to what looks like your views you can't stop it. Because time runs only one way.
Forward.


H/T ABL at Balloon-Juice, Earthbound Misfit

Woe, oh woe is me

I truly believe we are seeing the beginning of the end of our country. I suspect that we can get through the tough times ahead and that I am once again full of shit, but I wouldn't want to bet money on this country being anything like most of us hope it could be any time soon. We are seeing the government taking liberties with what's left of our liberties, we are seeing a country that is on the verge of bankruptcy of the ideals the made it a good place to immigrate to, legal or not. Those ideals that everyone has an opportunity to have a decent life, that we will protect those that are not there yet or never get there. We are seeing unprecedented greed from people that if their fortunes were cut 90% they would still have so much more than most of us. We are seeing politics (always a dirty underhanded sport) used as if a game at which there are few real life consequences for the pure power of it. Many of our neighbors seem to be so ignorant they can not see or accept facts or reality. The country is becoming more and more divided along the have and have not lines, with a lot of the have nots believing that the need to protect the haves or what little comes their way will be gone.
I give it 50 years. I hope I'm wrong. I most likely won't be here to see the disaster if it goes the way and takes the time I think it will because I will have passed my worm food date by then.
But maybe someone will come along and be a powerful enough force to make this work as a actual democracy.

It Really is Simple

Vote.

Vote Democratic.