Are Bush and the GOP the cause or a symptom of our problems?

[Armstead]

I've been wondering this for six years. Is the turmoil and negativity and decline of the last six years due to the ascention of Bush and the GOP and the right wing?

Or are they just the symptom of a deeper malaise and set of dangers and fundamental problems that are much larger and deeper?

Is Bush the logical conclusion of trends that accelerated in the 1970's and continued through the 90's? Putting it another way: Are we reaping what we sowed by our values and behavior before 2000?

Or were things going okay until 2000? Are the last six years a deviation from what had been a much better course?

I'll withhold my own opinion for now, because I really want to know what others here think. So the basic question is: Are Bush and the GOP the cause of all of our present problems? Or are they just the symptom of something much deeper?

[babylonsister]

1. We weren't fine until 2000, but a helluva lot better, in so many ways.

The cabal has changed the world as we know it. This bunch of puffed-out chests, sure of everything but knowing nothing and accomplishing nothing but an unending war, is a disgrace.
A war, I might add, that they appear to have no desire to get out of, reason to get out of, and care nothing about the blood on their hands.

[Armstead]

2. But how did such a bunch get in charge....And stay there?

[Vexatious Ape]

5. the right has been working

and organizing in every way imaginable since Nixon was run out of town--and it paid off in 2001.

[htuttle]

3. Both

It's a heuristic thing.

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Yes. I think both

[valerief]

4. Football causes people to behave like chimps when they

should behave like bonobos. Chimps are aggressive and let themselves be bullied by the bigger chimps. And so, we have a chimperor. And stupid football.

You take away football and soccer and you're halfway to curing the world's problems.

edited to fix misspelling

[Vexatious Ape]

9. The Nobel Bonobo

is something to strive to. They are a lot less aggressive and have a considerable lack of sexual hang ups.

[valerief]

16. Yeah, and more fun! Sometimes I think the human race is divided

into chimps and bonobos. And football doesn't help matters, at all.

[Swamp Rat]

6. They were interrupted a few times since the McCarthy Era, but now they

are back on track.

[Marie26]

7. Symptom

External manifestion of a deeper internal problem w/American society. We are a lot like Bush, ultimately - lazy, ignorant, driven by money and power, & aggressive. He's the perfect symbol. The perfect channeling of all the worst aspects of the American character.

[Rex]

8. Symptom and current problem.

A byproduct of the MIC and the Establishment IMO.

[Armstead]

10. kick

[Avalux]

11. Bush and the GOP exploited our weaknesses.

Their little coup has been in the works since Nixon resigned - they've spent 40 years figuring out how to manipulate the American people and the system to get what they want. So while we thought things were going OK, they were busy little beavers setting the groundwork for their power grab.

[mdmc]

12. The middle class is the "problem", they are the cure

God Bless the DLC!

[Armstead]

14. I voted #2 -- Accelerated exisiting problems

Here's my own opinion.

Bush and the GOP and the situation now has hightened something that has been ongoing for a long time. It is the devaluing of humanistic values, and their replacement with a form of harsh materialism and "free market" social Darwinism.

Unfortunately, the Corporate Elite and the Right Wing were able to screw up our overall social and economic values through clever propaganda, sheer power and the bumbling incompetance of the left half of the political spectrum (from moderate liberals all the way to staunch left progressives).

The good news is that finally, the left half has been coming out of the shadows, and are starting to fight back. The bad news is that it didn't happen 15 or 20 years ago.

[leftofthedial]

15. our systematic problems allowed the bush cabal to seize power

and set the stage for the coup in 2000. Ignorance, apathy, contended consumerism, skewed priorities, religious insanity, failure to put corporations in their place . . .

The possibility of the rise of gun-totin', flag-wavin', bible-thumpin' fascism in Murka has long been there, so I selected "accelerated existing problems" even though it would be more accurate to say that they took advantage of some problems and accelerated others.