How optimistic are you about the future of the country?

[Syrinx]

Ten being totally optimistic, what has gone wrong in the last several years will be corrected, and those responsible will be held to account.

One being that you agree with what George Carlin said recently on Olbermann's program, "This country is finished." That America as a free and democratic nation is a thing of the past.

[donheld]

1. maybe 1 1/2

FAR too many just either don't care or aren't paying
any attention to what's going on in this country. Even
good solid Democrats just aren't tuned in.

[Syrinx]

2. that's what I'm afraid of

And I don't think the Democratic candidates are telling it like it is. I give credit to Kucinich, because he is. But as far as the "top 3" only Edwards is making a dent, and still he's far behind the curve, to my thinking.

[trusty elf]

3. self-delete

[glowing]

4. I put it half way.. no one is going to save us, but us.. and if we demand

the changes, the changes will come... best done under a dem... Bushie doesn't even pretend that there is a congress, justice system or a democracy... So, objectives best met with dems at the helm.. better achieved when we demand... and don't underestimate the field grazers, those in the pasture can usually be led back to the barn in a snow storm.. the truly stupid get stuck out and die frozen in place..... If they can be so snowed by the evil repugs, I think we can steer them our way... easier and easier now since the pasture is getting so bare... the cows are about to jump the fence and push the bull on out.

[The2ndWheel]

5. It never got started

Other than lucking out with a dense form of energy that has given everyone their rights(although people still had to fight for them, but they could be given since there are plenty of slaves in a barrel of oil).

I could go on about how surveillance is needed to keep things together, or the required environmental destruction of mass production, or the diversity killing of centralization and consolidation by organized institutions, but that could get a little wordy, and I'm not much of an author.

[Perry Logan]

6. A few hopeful signs...

There are countless investigations going on. Healthcare is on the table. The internet is safe for now. Our wounded vets are no longer lying around in their own urine. The Senate Ethics Committee is back in action. Many 9/11 Commission recommendations are being passed. A bill to increase financial aid for colleges has passed--the single largest increase in college aid since the GI bill. The President's signing statements are being investigated. Legislation to restore habeus corpus has been approved. The Senate Armed Services Committee has passed legislation "that would grant new rights to terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay. The unions have a voice in the government now—as do gays, women, and minorities. The environment has a fighting chance. The House passed the Taxpayer Protection Act, to protect taxpayers against "identity theft, deceptive Web sites and loan sharks." It also makes it "easier for taxpayers to retrieve property lost as a result of a wrongful Internal Revenue Service levy and directs the IRS to notify lower-income people that they qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit." The House approved a bill spending $1.7 billion over five years for cleaner water. There's a new House committee devoted solely to addressing the issue of global warming. And so on.

"President Bush's success rating in the Democratic-controlled House has fallen this year to a half-century low, and he prevailed on only 14 percent of the 76 roll call votes on which he took a clear position.

"So far this year, Democrats have backed the majority position of their caucus 91 percent of the time on average on such votes. That marks the highest Democratic unity score in 51 years."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1728952&mesg_id=1728952
http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002576765.html

Don't let the media rhetoric fool you. The Democrats have acquitted themselves quite well--especially given their bare majority in both houses, and a relentlessly obstructionist Republican minority.

this 110th Congress has had more roll call votes this year than any
other Congress in history, almost doubling the number under the previous Congress overseen by Boehner
and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL):
The House last week held its 943rd roll call vote of the year, breaking the previous
record of 942 votes, a mark set in 1978. The vote was on a procedural motion related to a
mortgage foreclosure bill. When the House adjourned on Oct. 4 for the long weekend, the
chamber had reached 948 roll call votes, putting Democrats on pace to easily eclipse 1,000
votes on the House floor in 2007.
Last year, the Republican controlled House held 543 votes, and for historical comparison,
the last time there was a shift in power in Congress, Republicans held 885 roll call votes in
1995. The Senate, which has held 363 votes this year, isn’t on pace to break any
records, but has already surpassed the 2006 Senate mark of 279 votes.
Much of the lack of progress can be traced back to obstructionism by conservatives. Approximately “1 in
6 roll-call votes in the Senate this year have been cloture votes,” noted a JulyMcClatchy report. “If this
pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous
record number of cloture votes.”
It’s interesting that Boehner is criticizing the 110th Congress as doing nothing. After all, the House, under
his leadership, met for just 101 days during the second session of the 109th Congress, setting the record
“for the fewest days in session in one year since the end ofWorld War II.”

[H2O Man]

7. Other.

Being hopeful should not be confused with being stupid in the "don't worry, be happy" sort of way.

[Syrinx]

8. Point!

:thumbsup:

[H2O Man]

10. I am very confident.

However, I do not think any serious progress will be made by leaders in Washington, either democrats or republicans. I think that progress will come despite the leaders in Washington. I also think that, just as Martin Luther King said in the 1950s and '60s, progress would involve pain and suffering. We face some of the greatest domestic problems since the Civil War, and some of the greatest international problems since WW2. We also face the greatest global/environmental problems in human history. We will need to change, as individuals and as a nation, in order to make progress. But I am confident that it can and will be accomplished.

[mmonk]

9. 1.5

We won't return to what we were but there is an outside chance of limiting the damage and partially returning some areas of the constitution. Given there are only two political parties and they agree in principle with the right's views on economics and the security state (too much promise for them for graft, revolving proitable doors, and golden parachutes), change soon looks bleak except in perception and the edges of legislation.

[Echo In Light]

11. Carlin is correct

I'll take your evil wind
And give it right back to ya
Hungry buzzards are waiting
On the grey fence of ignorance
It's a classic case
They obfuscate
A brainwashed populace

Screaming crows and sirens
A normal world is crying
Bright bird of redemption
Winged truth with eyes of fire
One more fool
Divide and rule
A brainwashed populace

You dance around the question
Because the answers you must hide
You crept into this dimension
Now be lost through all time
It's a classic case
They obfuscate
A brainwashed populace

~ Brainwashed, by Spirit Caravan

[MiniMe]

12. I'll answer this next November

After the election.

[warren pease]

13. About a "2"

A line that catches my mood perfectly:

"I believe we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones."

TS Eliot, The Waste Land


And that number goes to "1" once the dead men emerge from their coffins around sundown, sign HR 1955/SB 1959 into law, and start rounding up the usual suspects.

This one is the final brick in the wall that was built starting with the patriot acts, the MCA, various executive orders and presidential directives, total domestic surveillance -- including retargeting spy satellites to snoop on Americans, hiring a bunch of new TSA "behavior detection officers" to spot those who don't "look quite right," various watch lists, alleged detention camps courtesy of Halliburton (and I've never seen adequate evidence to believe or dismiss that story), all this wonderful new stuff the DHS has in store for us... all that and rendition and torture, too. Oh my.

We have only a little time left. I'll be shocked if the 2008 elections are allowed to proceed. And if they are, I'm assuming that means that the proprietary source code and the touchscreen interfaces for the voting machines are now so stable that, no matter which buttons voters push, the outcome is not in question.

Nor are there likely to be any serious cross-checks on vote tallies. The networks have again hired their favorite exit polling firm, Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International, to perform their magic in 2008. This is the same firm that, instead of defending their data in 2004 by maintaining that exit polls have never been that far wrong in their history, quickly caved to the corporate/GOP/mass media line that the election results were valid and, therefore, the polls must have been somehow flawed. Not flawed enough to avoid using them again, though.

Of course, that's not what their self-congratulatory web site says:

Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International formed a partnership in Exit Polling in 1996. Since then, Edison/Mitofsky has become the preeminent Exit Polling organization in the world. The companies were chosen by ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC and the Associated Press to conduct Exit Polls and collect vote returns to project and analyze results for broadcast in 2004 and 2006, and will again provide data for every major presidential primary and the general election in 2008. Edison/Mitofsky also designed the CNN RealVote system used by the cable network during the 2002 General Election.

However, these days it's vital to not only curse, laugh at or just turn off mass media. We have to replace them. Here's an organization that's doing something about it by creating an independent network of exit pollsters from around the country, devoid of rigged numbers and media spin.

Among other services, they offer information on organizing other people in your area who still believe that quaint notion that election results should actually reflect the will of the people.

The resulting organization would then go out to precincts and conduct its own local exit polls, submit results to state and/or national tabulation databases, compare notes with what the networks are saying, and be available to testify against anyone or anything claiming results other than those obtained by these independent exit polls.

Which seems like a hell of a good idea, given the sorry bullshit pawned off as reliable data by Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International and their customers: all major US TV networks and the AP.


wp

[IndianaJones]

14. 10. nt.