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[Frenchfry]

DEMOCRATS CAVE IN TO BUSH FEARMONGERING
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
by Jim Hightower

Once upon a time, America had a strong president who reassured the American people that, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Now we have a weak president who tells us that we must be fearful of all things all the time, using fear as a political pump to inflate his own ego and power. He even color codes fear for us, always keeping the colors flame hot. This summer, he used the scorching rhetoric of fear to cow congressional Democrats, scaring them into rubber-stamping a blatant subversion of our constitutional liberties.
Fanning the fears of terrorist attacks, Bush stampeded Democrats to rush through a law letting the White House eavesdrop on your and my phone calls and emails without bothering to get search warrants. This new warrantless spying law gives the attorney general carte blanch to order that any of our international calls or electronic messages be monitored if he decides on his own that we might be communicating with someone who might be outside the U.S. who might or might not have even vague connections to some terrorist group.
Yes, this means that our precious privacy is in the grasping hands of Alberto “See no Evil” Gonzales. He can click into entire telecommunications networks to intercept millions of innocent messages without having to show probable cause of illegal activity.
Congress ceded this extraordinary reach to the executive even though there’s a perfectly-functioning, quick-responding court in place to authorize surveillance of legitimate terrorist suspects – and to do it constitutionally. Bush's law is not about protecting Americans from terrorists, but about protecting the Bush-Cheney regime from the Constitution.
It’s arrogant nonsense for the Bushites to assort that they’re above the law – but it’s shameful cowardice for scaredy-cat Democratic leadership to go along with it.


“The Fear of Fear Itself,” The New York Times, August 7, 2007
“Stampeding Congress, Again,” The New York Times, August 3, 2007
“Wartime power grabs require beautiful sunsets,” USA Today, August 7, 2007
“Bush Signs Law to Widen Reach for Wiretapping,” The New York Times, August 6, 2007
“Wielding the Threat of Terrorism, Bush Outmaneuvers the Democrats,” The New York Times, August 7, 2007

[SMASH]

This Hightower guy writes like this stuff is new.

He starts his story quoting a President whose assult on the Constitution was treasonist at best! Blatant subversion of our constitutional liberties, what a hoot!!
Did he just wake up? Hello!
The Clinton administration was using Echelon 10 years ago.
Does he not know this? Does he not research what he writes about?
Probably not, he's not a journalist he is a Bush bashing whacko and his agenda is quite clear.

Please keep posting this guy he's funny, bordering on absurd.

[zard0z]

I just spit my Mt. Dew into my keyboard..that Hightower guy   Man, he should hang out with Frank Green and his "black helicopters".  I still love all the people complaining about the jobs going to China - Slick Willy made that happen folks, remember all the big campaign contributions from Chinese business for him....Hmmm?  Wonder why he signed NAFTA?

Damn good point...!

[Normal Joe]

Politicians can't come to my Island

[Frenchfry]

PROFESSOR BUSH'S ECONOMIC NOSTRUM

Monday, September 3, 2007
by Jim Hightower

On this Labor Day, when working families all across America are struggling, it's fitting for us to reflect on the profound insight of that prominent economic theorist, George W. Bush. In 2000, explaining his approach to economic policy, W declared: "We ought to make the pie higher."
What the professor was trying to express is the old theory that by baking a larger pie, everyone can get a bigger slice. But that theory ignores a special trick of economic pie-making that Bush baked right into his policy: Greed. Yes, the pie is now larger, but Bush simply fattened the slices of the corporate powers and the rich, leaving the workaday majority of folks trying to get by on the same slim pickings they had before... or less.

Today, corporate profits are surging, CEO pay is skyrocketing, purchases of luxury goods and oceanfront property is zooming – but the income of workers is not even keeping up with inflation. Well, now, wait a minute, say the Bushites, we've been creating thousands of new jobs, so, see, trickle-down-economics really does work.
Hold it, greed-breath. First, you've been losing jobs, too. In fact, Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to produce a net loss of jobs during his term. Second, and most important, the issue is not jobs. Think about it: even slaves had jobs. The issue is income... wages... middle-class opportunities. Ask a waitress at any cafe or bar if she's aware that Bush has been creating new jobs, and she'll say: "Yeah, I know, I have three of them."

In terms of buying power, average wages today are lower than what they were when Nixon was president. Under Professor Bush, America's economy is producing more low-wage, service sector jobs, while shipping out the manufacturing and high-tech jobs that offer our people middle-class wages and the opportunity for upward mobility.

Instead of trickle-down, America needs a grassroots policy of percolate-up economics.


"For wage earners, economic pie getting harder to digest," The Boston Globe, July 24, 2005.
"How Long Can Workers Tread Water," The New York Times, July 7, 2005.

[Frenchfry]

BILL MOYERS: Some closing thoughts now on politics. When Karl Rove announced his resignation from the White House earlier this week, he got some rave reviews. Here's a sample circulating on the Internet.

CNN Correspondent: We should be congratulating Karl Rove for a long successful run - this is a guy who elected a president twice- who's known as one of the most brilliant political activists of our time...

CHRIS MATTHEWS: If you've ever talked to him he's almost got, almost like a blinder's eye- he looks you right in the eye - and he talks fast than I do - really fast right in your face totally intent on you - and it's real like talking to a fire hydrant...

BILL PLAINE: He's not only the mastermind behind everything - he's the president's senior advisor...

MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Boy genius, Bush's brain, the architect...

KAREN HUGHES: Karl is brilliant- he is funny- and he's a passionate advocate...

ANDREW CARD: Karl rove is a superstar- he's very insightful - he's a great friend to the president- he's also a very broad thinker - he is one of the more intelligent that people I know - he's very quick witted- he's got a great sense of humor and the president will miss him...
BILL MOYERS: There is, of course, more to be said. What struck me about my fellow Texan, Karl Rove, is that he knew how to win elections as if they were divine interventions. You may think God summoned Billy Graham to Florida on the eve of the 2000 election to endorse George W. Bush just in the nick of time, but if it did happen that way, the good lord was speaking in a Texas accent.

Karl Rove figured out a long time ago that the way to take an intellectually incurious draft-averse naughty playboy in a flight jacket with chewing tobacco in his back pocket and make him governor of Texas, was to sell him as God's anointed in a state where preachers and televangelists outnumber even oil derricks and jack rabbits. Using church pews as precincts Rove turned religion into a weapon of political combat -- a battering ram, aimed at the devil's minions, especially at gay people.

It's so easy, as Karl knew, to scapegoat people you outnumber, and if God is love, as rumor has it, Rove knew that, in politics, you better bet on fear and loathing. Never mind that in stroking the basest bigotry of true believers you coarsen both politics and religion.

At the same time he was recruiting an army of the lord for the born-again Bush, Rove was also shaking down corporations for campaign cash. Crony capitalism became a biblical injunction. Greed and God won four elections in a row - twice in the lone star state and twice again in the nation at large. But the result has been to leave Texas under the thumb of big money with huge holes ripped in its social contract, and the U.S. government in shambles - paralyzed, polarized, and mired in war, debt and corruption.

Rove himself is deeply enmeshed in some of the scandals being investigated as we speak, including those missing emails that could tell us who turned the attorney general of the United States into a partisan sock puppet. Rove is riding out of Dodge City as the posse rides in. At his press conference this week he asked God to bless the president and the country, even as reports were circulating that he himself had confessed to friends his own agnosticism; he wished he could believe, but he cannot. That kind of intellectual honesty is to be admired, but you have to wonder how all those folks on the Christian right must feel discovering they were used for partisan reasons by a skeptic, a secular manipulator. On his last play of the game all Karl Rove had to offer them was a Hail Mary pass, while telling himself there's no one there to catch it.

[Trisha]

Frenchfry:

Do you think you are wasting your time in Monroe?  Maybe 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue would be a good fit for you.  Seriously, considering your political savvy.

[Frenchfry]

People are reading the thread so I look at it as time well spent.

[Frenchfry]

BLOOMBERG PIMPS HIS RIDE
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
by Jim Hightower

Mike Bloomberg, what a guy! He’s the mayor of New York City, a presidential wannabe… and a billionaire who wants you to believe that he’s just an average Joe – one of the folks, doncha know!
To dramatize his claim to be a man of the people, Bloomberg pledged in his first mayoral campaign that he would ride the subway to his office nearly every day. What a great political touch – a billionaire straphanger, willing to rub up against the teeming masses and connect to the hoi polloi like a commoner!

How’s that working out you ask? Well, the reality of the mayor’s mass transit commute turns out to be a bit less populist-tinged than his image-makers intended. Instead of facing the daily crush that ordinary New Yorkers endure, Bloomberg gets on the subterranean train only a couple of times a week. Still he sets an example, right?

Not exactly. Even on the days he does go underground, he gets – believe it or not – a chauffeured ride. Rather than walk four blocks to the nearest subway station, Bloomberg instead steps out of his swank Upper Eastside brownstone townhouse and steps into a king-sized, black, Chevy Suburban SUV that’s kept idling outside his door ‘til he’s ready. His excellency is then chauffeured, not to his local subway stop, but 22 blocks away to a station where he can hop onto an express train that zips him non-stop to city hall.

Thus the can emerge refreshed, barely touched by the great unwashed, yet appearing to be at one with “the people,” while also touting the environmental benefits of riding mass transit. Never mind that few commuters get a chauffeured ride to the express train, and that Bloomberg’s Suburban SUV is a polluting gas hog – it’s the image that counts.
Hey, Mike – riding an SUV to a subway stop is not populism… it’s hypocrisy. I don’t think you’re fooling anyone.


“Yes, Mayor Takes the Subway. But He’s Driven There by S.U.V.” The New York Times, August 1, 2007
“When a Mayor Plays Just Another Straphanger,” The New York Times, August 2, 2007

[Frenchfry]

  A U.S. study says Iraqi security forces are not ready. Hey, come on! How can we expect the Iraqis to handle roadside bombs when the American Army, the Marines, and Halliburton can't do it?
      I've got an idea -- how about another surge? (HaBlog)

[Frenchfry]

LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF FREEDOM’S WATCH
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
by Jim Hightower

A TV ad that makes an emotional appeal for viewers to back Bush’s war in Iraq is running in some 20 states. A veteran who lost both legs in that war is featured, and he closes with this powerful plea: “It’s no time for politics.”

Strong stuff!

But the ad loses all of its punch when you learn that this is not a message from a veteran’s group, but a blatant political pitch orchestrated and funded by a new front group run by old Bush political hacks. Masquerading as a grassroots outfit under the name “Freedom’s Watch,” this bunch of White House insiders is headed by Ari Fleischer, George W’s former PR flack, who was salesman-in-chief for pushing America into this disastrous war of occupation. Millions of dollars have been put into this promotional blitz by about a dozen Bush fundraisers, including shopping mall magnate Mel Sembler, macaroni manufacturer Anthony Gioia, Grocery baron Howard Leach, and Sands casino chief Sheldon Adelson.

The group is targeting Republican members of congress whose support for Bush’s war is wavering. Using Karl Rovian, thuggish tactics, the group questions the patriotism of all who stand up to Bush. Such dissenters are accused of wanting “to cut and run.”

While the wounded vet in their ad says “It’s no time for politics,” Freedom’s Watch is nothing but politics. In its ads, viewers are urged to “Call your Congressman,” and a toll-free number is provided. Only – the number doesn’t connect you to congress. Instead, a Freedom’s Watch operator answers and immediately asks if you support Bush’s rationales for his war. If you say no, the operator politely refers you to the group’s website… and hangs up on you! Only people who agree with Bush are connected to congress.

Freedom’s Watch is not about freedom at all – it’s about Bush propaganda and political manipulation. Is that what our soldiers are fighting for in Iraq?






“Freedom’s Watch,” www.sourcewatch.org
“Ari Fleischer’s misleading message,” www.salon.com, August 24, 2007
“In latest twist, former Bush spokesman blames Carter for Iran,” www.rawstory.com, August 23, 2007
“Pro-War group launches $15 million ad blitz,” www.politico.com, August 22, 2007
“Welcome to Freedom’s Watch,” www.freedomswatch.org/

[Frenchfry]

From a link ML posted:

TRANSCRIPT of "If Voting Changed Anything", spoken word by Jello Biafra
from Jello Biafra's album:  _I Blow Minds for a Living_
also on: _The Bat is Back--An Alternative Tentacles Record Sampler_
(date?  sometime after Pete Wilson being elected as CA governor...)
--


How many of you out there think this country's a democracy?

Or is it really more of a one-party state masquerading as a two-party
state?  The Democrats are on the inside what the Republicans are on
the outside--each having almost identical financial backers to grease
all the appropriate orifices and holes.

So maybe it is no surprise that Ron Brown, head of the Democratic
National Committee and a Jesse Jackson protegee, has announced a Fall
Democratic Party endorsement for Bush's war against Saddam Hussein...

Did you VOTE for the Pentagon?
Did you VOTE for Wall Street?
Did you VOTE for a nuclear arms race?
Did you VOTE for the CIA?
Ever try reading the _Bill of Rights_ to a cop?

People didn't vote for "Star Wars." 
People didn't vote for "Drug Wars."
People didn't vote for acid rain.
Noone voted for being homeless.
Hardly anyone in this country votes at all anymore...

Meanwhile, people in places like China and South Africa are out there
dying just for the right to vote. 

But in America, people take it for granted and they just pout and they
stay home:  figuring [that] their wishes aren't respected anyway.

They don't make people like the popular myth of JFK any more.
They don't make people like Martin Luther King any more. 
(And if they did, the cops would just kill 'em anyway.)

So why bother?  Doesn't matter.
As the spray paint on the wall so often says:  "If voting changed
anything, they'd make it illegal."


After all, if the will of the majority of the eligible, or even the
registered, voters in this country were really respected, guess who'd
be President right now?

NOBODY!  Noone would be President!  Noone would be Senator!  Noone
would be Governor!  And probably noone would be D.A. or Mayor, either!

The White House would be occupied by Nobody...'cept maybe a few
homeless people tired of freezing across the street.
Capitol Hill would be accountable to Nobody.  (Is that such a radical change?)

"None of the above" came in second for senator in the Republican
primary in Nevada last June.  And it seems to me [that] there's a
similar reason why DEAD people keep winning local elections.

How many of you pay taxes?

Confess.  Confess.
I pay taxes.  I confess.

And the only reason I pay taxes is out of fear of getting busted for
not paying taxes.

But I would GLADLY pay those taxes, and maybe quite a bit more when I could,
if I knew that money were being used for real needs of real people.

And I went on vote strike for years myself.  But I got talked back into it for
this reason:  local ballot initiatives...state ballot initiatives.

Like:
   "Yes or no on rent control"...
   "Yes or no on domestic partners"...
   "Yes or no on pollution control."

Things that we can decide for ourselves because the people we put in power are
too chicken to do it on their own. 

Urban renewal and youth centers instead of "Drug Wars" and Nazis with guns and
boot camps. 

And, [another reason to vote] keeping Bible-thumping bigots from sneaking onto
your local school boards...

And, who can deny how delicious it tastes to vote down another sports stadium?

And just imagine what COULD HAPPEN if there was a spot on every office on
every ballot where you could check off "None of the Above"!!!

And if "None of the Above" came in first, they would have to have a special
election like they do when a congressman dies or resigns or something...and
only NEW CANDIDATES could run...instead of the bozos that got rejected the
first time.

Think of the possibilities.  We already vote "yes or no" on judges.
Do you think Rehnquist and his creepy crew would be so sadistic towards our
daily lives if we got to vote "yes or no" on them every four years?

In a little-known Gallup Poll in the 1988 election, 30% of the people that
actually voted said that they would have voted "No confidence" on both Bush
and Dukkakis if there had been a place on the ballot to do that.

And guess how many people, in a CBS Exit Poll, said that they were
dissatisfied with existing nominees:  SIXTY-FOUR PERCENT (64%).
So this is not such an unpopular idea...

The last Soviet Union elections were more democratic than ours.
Instead of picking the lesser of two evils, ([like] having to choose between
Feinstein and Wilson for governor and then running to the nearest toilet),
people voted by crossing off all the candidates reject[ed]...so [they] could
even vote out people running unopposed!  And no election was valid if less
than half the people voted.  The result?  Out of 1500 races for the Congress
of People's Deputies, nearly 200 had to be rerun.

But just like over there, getting rid of the crooks and turning things around
for real will probably REQUIRE a revolution.  Let's hear it for revolution!
The kind of revolution that the people of Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and
Nicaragua thought was impossible until they actually went out and did it!

The kind that will only happen over here when more people realize that
overthrowing the rich is not just in our own best interest:
   it's a hell of a lot of fun!

In the meantime, it's not a bad idea to pay attention and to react to those
local ballot propositions in your own back yard before someone else does it
for you. 

And maybe start getting those petitions together to make "No Confidence--None
of the Above" a choice on every ballot on every ballot for every office in the
country.

Wouldn't take that much time, wouldn't take that much money, and it sure as
hell beats staying home...pouting...turning on the television...and being
greeted with Governor Wilson!


http://hackvan.com/pub/stig/rants/biafra--if-voting-changed-anything

[SMASH]

We are not a democracy.
Never was.

[riar]

From a link ML posted:

TRANSCRIPT of "If Voting Changed Anything", spoken word by Jello Biafra
from Jello Biafra's album:  _I Blow Minds for a Living_
also on: _The Bat is Back--An Alternative Tentacles Record Sampler_
(date?  sometime after Pete Wilson being elected as CA governor...)
--


How many of you out there think this country's a democracy?





Or is it really more of a one-party state masquerading as a two-party
state?  The Democrats are on the inside what the Republicans are on
the outside--each having almost identical financial backers to grease
all the appropriate orifices and holes.

So maybe it is no surprise that Ron Brown, head of the Democratic
National Committee and a Jesse Jackson protegee, has announced a Fall
Democratic Party endorsement for Bush's war against Saddam Hussein...

Did you VOTE for the Pentagon?
Did you VOTE for Wall Street?
Did you VOTE for a nuclear arms race?
Did you VOTE for the CIA?
Ever try reading the _Bill of Rights_ to a cop?

People didn't vote for "Star Wars." 
People didn't vote for "Drug Wars."
People didn't vote for acid rain.
Noone voted for being homeless.
Hardly anyone in this country votes at all anymore...

Meanwhile, people in places like China and South Africa are out there
dying just for the right to vote. 

But in America, people take it for granted and they just pout and they
stay home:  figuring [that] their wishes aren't respected anyway.

They don't make people like the popular myth of JFK any more.
They don't make people like Martin Luther King any more. 
(And if they did, the cops would just kill 'em anyway.)

So why bother?  Doesn't matter.
As the spray paint on the wall so often says:  "If voting changed
anything, they'd make it illegal."


After all, if the will of the majority of the eligible, or even the
registered, voters in this country were really respected, guess who'd
be President right now?

NOBODY!  Noone would be President!  Noone would be Senator!  Noone
would be Governor!  And probably noone would be D.A. or Mayor, either!

The White House would be occupied by Nobody...'cept maybe a few
homeless people tired of freezing across the street.
Capitol Hill would be accountable to Nobody.  (Is that such a radical change?)

"None of the above" came in second for senator in the Republican
primary in Nevada last June.  And it seems to me [that] there's a
similar reason why DEAD people keep winning local elections.

How many of you pay taxes?

Confess.  Confess.
I pay taxes.  I confess.

And the only reason I pay taxes is out of fear of getting busted for
not paying taxes.

But I would GLADLY pay those taxes, and maybe quite a bit more when I could,
if I knew that money were being used for real needs of real people.

And I went on vote strike for years myself.  But I got talked back into it for
this reason:  local ballot initiatives...state ballot initiatives.

Like:
   "Yes or no on rent control"...
   "Yes or no on domestic partners"...
   "Yes or no on pollution control."

Things that we can decide for ourselves because the people we put in power are
too chicken to do it on their own. 

Urban renewal and youth centers instead of "Drug Wars" and Nazis with guns and
boot camps. 

And, [another reason to vote] keeping Bible-thumping bigots from sneaking onto
your local school boards...

And, who can deny how delicious it tastes to vote down another sports stadium?

And just imagine what COULD HAPPEN if there was a spot on every office on
every ballot where you could check off "None of the Above"!!!

And if "None of the Above" came in first, they would have to have a special
election like they do when a congressman dies or resigns or something...and
only NEW CANDIDATES could run...instead of the bozos that got rejected the
first time.

Think of the possibilities.  We already vote "yes or no" on judges.
Do you think Rehnquist and his creepy crew would be so sadistic towards our
daily lives if we got to vote "yes or no" on them every four years?

In a little-known Gallup Poll in the 1988 election, 30% of the people that
actually voted said that they would have voted "No confidence" on both Bush
and Dukkakis if there had been a place on the ballot to do that.

And guess how many people, in a CBS Exit Poll, said that they were
dissatisfied with existing nominees:  SIXTY-FOUR PERCENT (64%).
So this is not such an unpopular idea...

The last Soviet Union elections were more democratic than ours.
Instead of picking the lesser of two evils, ([like] having to choose between
Feinstein and Wilson for governor and then running to the nearest toilet),
people voted by crossing off all the candidates reject[ed]...so [they] could
even vote out people running unopposed!  And no election was valid if less
than half the people voted.  The result?  Out of 1500 races for the Congress
of People's Deputies, nearly 200 had to be rerun.

But just like over there, getting rid of the crooks and turning things around
for real will probably REQUIRE a revolution.  Let's hear it for revolution!
The kind of revolution that the people of Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and
Nicaragua thought was impossible until they actually went out and did it!

The kind that will only happen over here when more people realize that
overthrowing the rich is not just in our own best interest:
   it's a hell of a lot of fun!

In the meantime, it's not a bad idea to pay attention and to react to those
local ballot propositions in your own back yard before someone else does it
for you. 

And maybe start getting those petitions together to make "No Confidence--None
of the Above" a choice on every ballot on every ballot for every office in the
country.

Wouldn't take that much time, wouldn't take that much money, and it sure as
hell beats staying home...pouting...turning on the television...and being
greeted with Governor Wilson!


http://hackvan.com/pub/stig/rants/biafra--if-voting-changed-anything

Check this out on democracy. In 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earler:

     "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of      government." A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most beneftis from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith
2. From spiritual faith toe great courage
3. fRom courage to liberty
4. From liberty to abundance
5. From abundance to complacency
6. From complacency to apathy
7. From apathy to dependence
8. From dependence back into bondage

I say we're in stage 7. What do you think? Only I don't think it's due to freebies from the government or loose fiscal policy for a big welfare state as much as everyone voting with blinders on to a bigger picture that includes the whole brotherhood of America. I know people that voted for Bush because they had a big gun collection and didn't want to lose rights to own them. WHAT? How many voted for him to save unborn babies? WHAT? So we can kill adults in Iraq? We're irresponsible and somewhat greedy at the polls and it all comes back on us. How many people are saying it's too early to choose a president? They will wait until the last month to pay attention and then make a bad decision for America instead of listening, watching, and researching what's what like responsible citizens.

[Griff]

From a link ML posted:

TRANSCRIPT of "If Voting Changed Anything", spoken word by Jello Biafra
from Jello Biafra's album:  _I Blow Minds for a Living_
also on: _The Bat is Back--An Alternative Tentacles Record Sampler_
(date?  sometime after Pete Wilson being elected as CA governor...)
--


How many of you out there think this country's a democracy?

Check this out on democracy. In 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earler:

     "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of      government." A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most beneftis from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith
2. From spiritual faith toe great courage
3. fRom courage to liberty
4. From liberty to abundance
5. From abundance to complacency
6. From complacency to apathy
7. From apathy to dependence
8. From dependence back into bondage

I say we're in stage 7. What do you think? Only I don't think it's due to freebies from the government or loose fiscal policy for a big welfare state as much as everyone voting with blinders on to a bigger picture that includes the whole brotherhood of America. I know people that voted for Bush because they had a big gun collection and didn't want to lose rights to own them. WHAT? How many voted for him to save unborn babies? WHAT? So we can kill adults in Iraq? We're irresponsible and somewhat greedy at the polls and it all comes back on us. How many people are saying it's too early to choose a president? They will wait until the last month to pay attention and then make a bad decision for America instead of listening, watching, and researching what's what like responsible citizens.

Before we start discarding the governmental structure we have...

Let's remember to call it a Republic; not a Democracy.

peace,
Griff