AP: Everything seemingly is spinning out of control

[Pirate Smile]

Everything seemingly is spinning out of control

By ALAN FRAM and EILEEN PUTMAN, Associated Press Writers
Sat Jun 21, 3:14 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Is everything spinning out of control?

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.
Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.

The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.
The sense of helplessness is even reflected in this year's presidential election. Each contender offers a sense of order — and hope. Republican John McCain promises an experienced hand in a frightening time. Democrat Barack Obama promises bright and shiny change, and his large crowds believe his exhortation, "Yes, we can."

Even so, a battered public seems discouraged by the onslaught of dispiriting things. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll says a barrel-scraping 17 percent of people surveyed believe the country is moving in the right direction. That is the lowest reading since the survey began in 2003./b]

-snip-
American University historian Allan J. Lichtman notes that the U.S. has endured comparable periods and worse, including the economic stagflation (stagnant growth combined with inflation) and Iran hostage crisis of 1980; the dawn of the Cold War, the Korean War and the hysterical hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s; and the Depression of the 1930s.
"All those periods were followed by much more optimistic periods in which the American people had their confidence restored," he said. "Of course, that doesn't mean it will happen again."
Each period also was followed by a change in the party controlling the White House.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080621/ap_on_re_us/out_of_control

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. As a poster said yesterday, yes, our sense of power is under direct, orchestrated assault.

It's good of people to recognize this, as action can be taken once the issue is named and understood.

[Skittles]

3. with the best action being

getting repukes out of the White House

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. A change in the White House...

Yes, indeed.

K&R

[FreakinDJ]

4. Who are these 17% who beleive the country is heading in the right

direction....

Talk about the dumbing down of America

[tsuki]

14. The Media. nt

[Triana]

5. They're stating the blazingly obvious here. About the media ack'd it. n/t

[rwenos]

6. Copy of 1932; Mirror Image of 1980

I've thought for a few weeks the same thing as this article stresses -- i.e., America is spinning out of control. In 1932, the country was DESPERATE for change, and it is one of the great good-luck moments of the 20th century, that Franklin Roosevelt was there with a plan. On Inauguration Day, 1932, Roosevelt took over, and 100 days later the New Deal was off and running.

In 1980, Jimmy Carter was bedeviled by high gas prices, high inflation -- and a screw job of major proportions by the Reagan hostage-setup. If that didn't violate the Logan Act, what COULD? (The Logan Act prohibits private citizens from making representations to foreign governments about US foreign policy.) The Reaganites came in on Jan. 20 1980 and took over. To our grief.

I'm looking forward to the same TAKEOVER on January 20, 2009. Obama's first act after walking off the podium and back into the White House should be to order the Justice Dept. to go after all these war criminal pig Republicans.

[Echo In Light]

7. "Love will overcome"

Passive we stare down these chequered halls
Massive yet spare sound these measured walls
Wanting is more than life will allow
The colors they fly at half mast from the bow

Early frost arrives
Winter heralds near
Blood moon to rise
Premonition's clear

Precious the lives that are uncaringly stole
Treacherous minds, just brains without souls
Greed is the core of their sheltered ideals
The flag it unfurls at half mast o'er fields

Earthly wind divides
Goddess heralds near
Early frost arrives
Destiny is clear

We will overcome
You will overcome
Love will overcome

~ The Hidden Hand, Half Mast

MP3 http://www.last.fm/music/The+Hidden+Hand/_/Half+Mast

[dweller]

8. ...cough...

17% feels better?
dp

[cloudbase]

9. The wheels have come off.

People thought that when times got hard, the government would be able to help. Instead, we've learned over the last decade that the government can't really do much of anything to help. Instead of being proactive, it's now (over)reactive and has become "the" problem. Legislators at the state and federal level don't give a damn about the people, just the institutions that feed them the money to get reelected, and we continue to keep sending them back.

[Wednesdays]

10. Of course the government can't help

When there's no government left.

[Super Soaker Sniper]

15. Actually, when times are hard for me

My biggest fear is that the government will try to do anything to help. I have enough problems without them adding to the situation. A good metaphor is Robocop. Robocop was at his best when he had 3 objectives and a secret 4th one. Government got involved and all of a sudden he had 200+ objectives to process before he could take any action. Several of those objectives were completely at odds with each other. Government did not improve on Robocop, instead they made him worse.

I often complain about the clowns in Congress but I also resign myself to the fact that I helped put them there. But my motives were not really pure when I voted for my Congressman. I did not think he would help in any form or fashion. I just wanted to unleash his incompetence on the rest of the country and get him out of my state. :D

[Proud Liberal Dem]

11. Has Grover Norquist's "vision" of government finally been realized?

Did it get shrunk to the size where it finally (got) drowned in the bathtub?

I like to think of it as incompetence. Or maybe even "PLANNED INCOMPETENCE" and that their "incompetence" is really Bush & Cheney's way of further weakening government (but not themselves or their power of course) by trying to pretend to the American public that "government" just can't do anything right. I don't think that we ever saw incompetence, planned or otherwise, on this scale during any recent administrations (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong). The ONLY thing that I can think of that the Bush crew ever handled the right way was the early stages of our invasion in Afghanistan IMHO. Of course, they soon thereafter COMPLETELY dropped the ball on even that modest "success" and his (mis-)administration's efforts to handle everything else (i.e. 9/11, Katrina, etc.) have been equally disastrous, at least insofar as it has so negatively affected the American public in general.

And then they have the audacity to question why the rest of us (or at least some of us) DARE question their ability, let alone their integrity, to make the correct decisions about who they designate as "enemy combatants" and or who they feel that they need to spy on without warrants???????????????
To me, the ONLY reason that they need to have ultra-rigged "kangaroo" trials against terrorist suspects is because deep down they KNOW that they either don't have a case that would hold up in a REAL court of law or that they didn't obtain their information using lawful means (actually, probably for both reasons).
To me, the ONLY reason that they "need" to be able to spy on people without warrants and obtain immunity for their telecom partners-in-crime is because they know that they have been doing things that they shouldn't have been doing, at least according to the soon-to-be-defunct-1978 FISA law.

Unfortunately, I don't think that Bush/Cheney, the military industrial complex, the oil companies, etc. are any worse for the wear that the rest of us have experienced during their tenure and most of our "representatives" in Congress for some inexplicable reason don't seem to really care about nor are sufficiently outraged about the sheer incompetence of the Bush (mis-)administration and their blatant lawbreaking to do anything more than give an angry floor speech or pen an angry column.

:banghead: :argh: :grr:

[KillCapitalism]

12. I can't say I agree with this statement.

"Home values are abysmal."

It should be more like home values are coming back down to reality.

When a 50-yr. old 900 sq. ft. home in poor repair in a bad neighborhood runs you $400,000 you know something's not right.

[Hissyspit]

13. Wheee! I'm so glad we let Bush/Cheney be in charge.

Such a fun ride!