Have things gotten really worse, or have I just become an Old Fart?

[Armstead]

Despite my occasional feistiness on DU over the years, I've always been an optimist underneath. One of the reasons I have been cantankerous at times is because I honestly believed we could do better. I always have felt that our country was capable of improvement.

It has been grounded in what I would describe as hopeful anger.

But something has been building up that feels fundamentally different. I got so pissed off I posted a couple of venting threads here in the last few days that were more downbeat than usual.

But thats just the tip of the iceburg. Obviously a lot of You folks on DU are pissed off and frustrated too.....But what else is new? DUers are always pissed off....But it seems much deeper now.

And its not just DU. Just about Everyone I know in the 3D world is also frustrated, angry, demoralized...hopeless at the state of things.

Heck even one of my freeper friends feel similarly.

Its gotten so bad it almost seems to be transcending the usual political stuff. It doesn't matter whether President Obama is good, bad or indifferent. ITs bigger than him. Its getting bigger than the other D vs. R battles. All that stuff seems more and more irrelevant.

It's getting bigger than individual issues. They too seem irrelevant, compared to the rate of breakdown that's occurring.

IN other words ITS BAD.

I'm 61, and I've been paying attention since the 70s. Experienced a lot if up and down cycles and periods of hope alternating with frustration.....

But I can not remember a time when it seemed this bad, or when the problems seemed so intractable.

It seems to me that we're finally reaching a point where if we don't -- as Samuel Jackson said -- Wake the fuck up, we're going to cross a threshold I don't even want to think about.

Or else maybe I've just crossed a personal chronological threshold and am officially just an old fart. GET OFF MY LAWN.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Discussion would be improved by defining the words; "things" and "it".

There are a great many things that truly are worse and many that truly are better.

[Armstead]

36. The thing is it is so big and deep

This current miod was triggered by TPP and the Death if the Internet...

But that just seem like the tip of sn iceburg -- the increasing slide of the middle class contrasted to the steep rise of the 1percent. The defeat of any decent policy to correct this because the rich are also grabbing all the power.

All of our systems seem designed to crush average people and further marginalize the poor,

Many specifics seem to be going in thos direction...And the political aystem is aiding and abetting it.

[TampaAnimusVortex]

138. Here - let me give you some good news.

[Enthusiast]

160. That life expectancy increase is entirely due to improved child mortality.

Besides, the assholes® use the "increase" in life expectancy as an excuse to raise the retirement age.

[dreamnightwind]

172. +1

But they do nothing to create jobs for the elderly before they become eligible for retirement.

[TampaAnimusVortex]

205. Most of it is - but not all of it...

Yes, this article says that most of the increases in life expectancy is from improved child mortality, but not all of it... and I'm not sure why you wouldn’t include that as good news as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/global-life-expectancy-span-world_n_3281211.html

"Even countries where people live longest have managed to keep eking out a few more years, suggesting that humans have not yet reached a natural limit to their age. That has surprised some experts.

"In 1990 a 60 year-old (in a high income country) had a life expectancy of 21 years, and in 2011 it was 24 years. I think there were very few people who predicted that in 1990," said Ties Boerma, director of health statistics and informatics."

[yeoman6987]

74. People are scared

The debt is troubling but the unfunded monies (bills) are overwhelming and only going to get worse. I don't know how we are going to fix these. It is scary for sure.

[on point]

107. The answer to your specific concern is to restore tax rates on wealthy

Make the rates apply regardless of source (wages, interest, dividends, capital gains)
Restore rates to at least Clinton levels, when we were just 4 yrs from paying down debt completely, or better yet return them to at least 60% for wealthy until we pay down debt and restore infrastructure. The debt was run mostly for wealthy tax cuts / avoidance and for their war

[Blanks]

149. Here you go.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1964

Just undo this particular piece of legislation and we'd be back on the right track.

To be fair - I suppose Reagan's tax cuts on the wealthy should be undone first.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

169. Go back in time and stop GWB.

There is, however, one aspect of the deficit /public debt problem which must be considered. The Obama Administration has not been budgeting and spending on a clean slate. Rather, it inherited a large structural deficit from the prior Administration. Indeed, at least half of the record 2009-10 deficits are attributable to Bush’s cynical and reckless economic policies which involved running large deficits during periods or prosperity. These deficits of choice involved two wholly avoidable policy fiascos: The Bush tax cuts and the Iraq War–Bush’s two signature policy initiatives which were never paid for.

In addition to contributing half of the deficit and debt increase at their peaks, the tax cuts and increased spending of the Bush years when the economy was at full employment represent fiscal irresponsibility in the extreme. Imagine where we would be now if substantially or even part of the $5 trillion surplus accumulated by the Clinton Administration had been available to handle the economic emergency.

http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/deficit-size-doesn-t-matter

[Egalitarian Thug]

196. If we get a time machine, I can do far better than offing that moron. n/t

[Egnever]

191. Stop worrying about the debt.

You are falling for republican mind tricks when you get overly worried about the debt.

Our debt ratio has been higher in the past and we have overcome it. Many countries have higher debt ratios than we do, Japan for one.

Also we print our own money. If we wanted to we could pay off all our debts tomorrow by just printing the money. Printing money to pay the debt would obviously have effects but it could be done if need be.

There is not some debt collector out there waiting to foreclose on the US and kick us all out. The US dollar is still the strongest and most trusted currency in the world.

Thats not to say we should ignore it. But it is not nearly as alarming as the media wants you to think.

[KentuckyWoman]

2. You are just an old fart.

and things are pretty bad. America has an anger management problem that is beyond everything you mentioned and then some.

In my opinion not even a national crisis can do anything now to stop the looming breakdown. I'm just not even sure there is a solution for it anymore. But I'll tell you I do what I can do. You do what you can do. Hold the door, let someone out in traffic, notice a neighbor in trouble .... whatever kind act I see I do. That's all any of us can do.

[Armstead]

38. I do all that...I dont really tell kids to get off my lawn

But i sure hate whats happening in the bigger picture

[RKP5637]

128. Yep, I think you hit the common core through everything, by saying

"America has an anger management problem that is beyond everything you mentioned and then some."

We use to be a country of doers, education was improving, capitalism was working (although not for all), jobs for the most part were plentiful, civil rights has passed, on and on, and generally people cooperated. Now, IMO, we've been in a decline since the 80's.

Now, for the most part, almost every issue is met with hostility, anger and a lack of cooperation.

It promotes an unhealthy depressing environment. And layered on that is the horribly skewed wealth in this country. I also think a growing number of people don't give a fuck anymore about the country, they feel as disgruntled employees in a failing corporation. And a democracy is more and more of a joke each passing day.

And, for the most part, we have a congress that would better serve the people if they all just went home and quit.

Sadly, I think the future for America is Idiocracy.

[Brigid]

155. Funny thing about "Idiocracy":

When I first heard about this movie here on DU, it was talked about as if it was a documentary about the dumbing down of society. Then I saw it on Comedy Central. Turns out that, despite the crude humor, I was right.

[RKP5637]

164. It really is. I've never made it all the way watching it in entirety. I find

it so factual and depressing.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

165. You know what I say in Costco:

"Got my law degree here, man."

Fact: Got my law degree at a real college of law. But it is funny to think about.

[RKP5637]

167. Yep! Sometimes fiction gets way too close to reality! n/t

[BelgianMadCow]

153. "Hold the door, let someone out in traffic, notice a neighbor in trouble"

Word!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. It's also global

[Skittles]

4. you're an old fart AND things have gotten worse

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd say I'm so glad I'm not young but I was thinking the other day how much it would suck knowing I'd be working in this kind of environment (and getting worse) for 40 or 50 years

[Armstead]

39. Yes, my mother used to say that...And I find myself thinking it too

Scary...but maybe means it is old fartdom...or is accurate...dunno.

A conundrum, as they say.

[SharonAnn]

94. And we who are Female Old Farts, are even more distressed. Watching the freedom we

thought we had established (after many, many battles) over our own bodies being overturned and our granddaughters facing a future perhaps even worse than we had.

The thought of limiting/preventing birth control and the right to abortion is absolutely terrifying. Perhaps only a woman remembers what it was like when you had little access to control over your own life.

We're distressed about the same things the OP is AND we're distressed about what amounts to a perverted form of sexual slavery for our granddaughters.

And I'm just tired of fighting these battles over and over again. The forces against us, capitalism and religion, seem to be relentless.

[Armstead]

118. Not to mention the pushback against voting rights....

It;s discouraging on many fronts

[Skittles]

150. agreed

and it's hard for me to fault young women for not fighting harder because they have so many other issues going on

[awoke_in_2003]

131. "I'm so glad I'm not young"

I feel the same way. A few things have gotten better in my lifetime, but economically things are in the tank. Knowing I may never be able to retire is a bummer, but knowing what my grandchildren will have to live with is even worse.

[polichick]

5. Everything is broken...

Broken lines broken strings
Broken threads broken springs
Broken idols broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.

Broken bottles broken plates
Broken switches broken gates
Broken dishes broken parts
Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken
Everything is broken.

Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground
Broken cutters broken saws
Broken buckles broken laws
Broken bodies broken bones
Broken voices on broken phones
Take a deep breath feel like you're chokin'
Everything is broken.

Everytime you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face
Broken hands on broken ploughs
Broken treaties broken vows
Broken pipes broken tools
People bending broken rules
Hound dog howling bullfrog croaking
Everything is broken.

~Bob Dylan

[Initech]

6. No things really have got worse.

I was watching the Daily Show earlier and they were playing a bunch of clips from Fux Noise about how fast food workers should not get paid $15/hour and it was really making my blood boil.

[Armstead]

40. Yes, even Fux has gotten worse....

They seem to feel liberated to be ever more blatent in their awfulness

[hfojvt]

7. maybe it is the internet and cable TV

America used to have the BIG 3 and the AP news. Now we have cable TV and they want you to GET MAD, about something. Usually about something that some member of the other tribe did.

Walter was not that way. There were things to be upset about, like the assassination of JFK, or the Vietnam war, or Watergate, but Walter just reported them. He didn't deliberately try to make you get mad.

And then, after Walter, people watched Mary Tyler Moore and laughed for half an hour. Now they might watch another show with some other host trying to make you mad. But the TV is also loaded with dark, dark, dark. CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Dexter, The Mentalist. It's all death, and terrorism, and torture.

I know we had Hawaii Five-Oh, and Kojak, and Magnum PI (or Rockford) but I would like to see a comparison. I bet the body count is higher and so is the level of violence. The stories we hear are about people trying to kill other people.

Then, of course, there is also "reality TV" which I think is sort of based on "people behaving badly towards each other". And the internet, which is kinda similar. The internet is also an outrage/hate machine. Articles and OPs expressing and stirring up outrage and hateful comments adding to the atmosphere of hate.

I know the 70s were not perfect, but I don't think we were so awash in hate. We were the flower children. It was more about love and enlightenment.

[BelgianMadCow]

19. as my 90 year old aunt said yesterday

"Love is the answer. We don't tell each other enough that we love one another".

Flowers have seeds, and seeds are sprouting. It's just a feeling. Call it woo.

[Armstead]

41. I remember in the 60s and 70s also had senses of breakdown

In the turmoil of the 60s people and media often said things were worse thsn ever.

The 70' s also seemed mired in declibe...stagflation, gas crises, etc.

So maybe it is all cyclical, and Will ever be thus....Perhaps that is the root of olf fartdom. JUst get worn down by a seeming lack of forward momentum.

[KoKo]

203. I think we had hope, then. Optimism of youth, but

there were still some "New Deal Policies" in place for workers and the Unions still had some power to threaten strikes and be heard. So, there was still a "system" in place. Plus IBM and others were hiring as the computer revolution had begun and there were jobs in the Big Pharma and Consumer Products and Auto, Textile and Manufacture. That was to erode in the coming decades when Globilization and Offshoring began.

I don't see much hope these days. It sort of died with the slogan "Hope & Change." So much momentum...and then...this Malaise...

Maybe it will be cyclical but so much has been destroyed of what was left of the New Deal and those who held things together are very old or have passed on.

There are youth today who don't remember what "rural" life was. They only know TV and Enfotainment. They don't know quiet time...creative thinking time. But their world is different and they will sort it out or not survive.

Whatever...this is a ramble and I remember that the 60's and early 70's were certainly filled with Revolution and what many of us thought was positive change for conserving our Environment, Consumer Protections, end to our Military Involvement in other countries and a growing Gardening Movement. The China Trade Agreements and Offshoring were the end to that.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. Part of it is the Conservatives gave up trying to win over anyone and they're in a panic.

[Armstead]

42. Or they don't feel they need to win anyone over because...

Tge opposition is so ineffective.

Perhaps Rather than paniced they've become smug victors.

We have huge economic needs -- but the agenda is all about budget cuts, denying necessary services, protecting the rich...etc.

It feels to me the bastids have won and they don't need to have any pretenses anymore.

[Eleanors38]

92. CORRECT. The FR doesn't need to compete: There is no opposition.

That is the difference between "then" and "now."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

116. Quite the contrary. They see that their crap isn't working on a new generation....

To their HORROR all the polls are showing that Americans aren't in a PANIC about "Socialism"

Republicans are seen as a broken record of a few talking points that don't work anymore. Things like, "I've never worked for a poor man" doesn't address the need to do something about CEOs making more in an hour than what their employees make in a year.

[dreamnightwind]

171. Yet it doesn't matter

People (some people anyway) know what the problems are, but are rendered powerless by a system impervious to reform, because that's how the rich want it. Armstead is correct.

Or maybe I'm wrong and socialism is right around the corner. Sounds good but I wouldn't bet on it.

To your CEO point, we all know how whacked the salaries and perks of people at the top are. Where's the fix? How does it get passed into law? It doesn't, because "they" make sure it doesn't, and though Republicans are worse on this issue, our side isn't breaking their backs trying to make this happen. If anything, they're spending most of their time on the phone soliciting campaign donations from these very CEOs, and asking them what they can do for them to show their appreciation.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

178. Ike wanted a 100% tax over a certain point effectively capping salaries....

There was a huge incentive to put the money back into the business.

[dreamnightwind]

179. Yes

Much of what ails us, economically anyway, could be fixed with changes to the tax code. Unfortunately most anyone with the ability to do anything about it is a corporatist masquerading as a public servant. They like it just fine the way it is, and when they leave office, they make millions from the very people we want them to claw back money from.

The one where we're really looking hopeless is climate change. No systemic push to avoid this. We'll be very very sorry. Even a cynic like me is shocked to see how society has no mechanism to correct what is basically a cancer, uncontrolled growth and resource depletion, and externalized costs (environmental degradation) that have no way to be accounted for in any corporate balance sheet. Utterly hopeless from where I'm standing.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

188. It's like I predicted...

An alien race will stumble upon a dead planet with very impressive balance sheets.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. People are so disgusted by it all that they aren't even talking about it much.

There's little left to say, other than 'this country is fucked up.' I don't think people even want to hear why it's fucked up anymore. Everybody has an opinion about that already. All they want is change, a hell of a lot more change than we've gotten in the last 5 years.

I think that if the right person came along and said we need to scrap the system and start all over again, people would follow him/her. A wide variety of people from across the political spectrum would follow them. We're at a very vulnerable time, and I hope that when that person comes along, and they will, that they have the best of intentions and a good heart.

[polichick]

103. So true. Unfortunately, sociopaths are great at sniffing out vulnerability...

And too many people will follow - ARE following.

[840high]

190. ....

[chknltl]

10. I can point you to only one confirmation.

Yes, I believe "things" have gotten worse.

Your post made me remember seeing a repeat version of Thom Hartmann discussing his book "The Crash of 2016" on C-SPAN last evening:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TheCra

Thom Hartmann confirms what you are feeling and discusses here exactly how things got worse. He also discusses the whys and wherefores and puts everything in a historic context. It is a bit over an hour but if you are unfamiliar with Thom's take on things this is VERY worth the time.

One thing I need to add: Thom seems fairly optimistic that we will come out the other end as a better more progressive(er) than ever society and even says why in this piece.

As to your feeling like an old fart...well...I got nothing cuz I am getting there fast enough too. Happy MLKjr. Day

[Armstead]

44. I always have agreed with Thom's take on everything

But I'm not sharing in his optimism these days.

[delrem]

11. The US-Western middle-class has always been protected.

So the US-Western middle-class could afford to be passive voyeurs as e.g. Central/South America was ravaged by psychopaths trained at the School of the Americas, where mercenary "contras" and allied right-wing death squads did their business with full backing of the USA from the President on down. That's why Eric Prince and Dick Cheney and Haliburton could make billions, with almost zero public awareness. The US-Western middle-class could afford to be passive voyeurs who at most offered their "opinions" for/against at the dinner table, then go to sleep fully sated - with an overwhelming feeling of superiority over the "stone age type" victims of the process. That was the whole weltanschauung.

But that and all military/economics like it was in the service of absolutist capitalism, an idea that doesn't *finish* until the extreme few at the top of the $$$ ladder take it all, control it all, with no thought whatsoever for the common wealth, the common good. In fact that entire philosophy sees the common wealth, the common good, as a military/economic enemy to be defeated at all costs. That's why "socialism" is such a dirty word in the US. That's why an universal single payer health care system just plain isn't on the table in the US.

Now we're in a finishing stage of that process and, like the middle-classes of all the sacrificed countries who've already been consumed, it's the turn of the middle-class of the US to be consumed by the *identical* process, because there's nothing else left.

But hey, in the USA Karl Marx's work is considered to be the work of the devil incarnate.

[woo me with science]

13. You said what I just tried to say below,

but you said it much better and more clearly. Thank you.

[delrem]

14. Oh no, you said it below very clearly!

I'm honored by your reply.

[BelgianMadCow]

20. Richard Wolff sums that up as "capitalism is now ready to leave these shores"

After being born here (in the west), after expanding to overseas countries, it's now ready to leave us behind. If you haven't checked out his vids, there's several in the multimedia forum.

Tragedy of the Commons.

[delrem]

27. I can only hope so!

I'll check out the vids, but capitalism is global by nature. It *never* leaves without a fight. There has been *no* such fight in North America. There has been *no* such fight in the Western Alliance.

I agree that capitalism, at least the unrestrained unregulated absolutist capitalism militarily enforced by the USA, is being challenged in many places, esp. in South America. But as for public opinion in the USA for example I read Dems at DU in effect saying "what the fuck, why should I care or think about it yet, since I don't know what the TPP is, since the TPP has been negotiated in secret (except for big $$$, of course), why should I care if it's fast tracked?" These folk talk about "ODS", whatever that is, as justification for their acquiescence. I read more than a few Dems at DU throwing shitballs at "leftists", that being their main defense of current Dem top-down policies.

OK, I'm heading to the multimedia forum right now

[delrem]

28. could you give me the urls?

I've go so much on my plate - including hour long vids of progressive talks - that I have very little time.

[BelgianMadCow]

31. November and December links

November: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017158343
December I just reposted (and in GD by accident, oops): http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024360626

You may find his talk with Bill Moyers a better way to get a sense of him (and quicker):

http://billmoyers.com/segment/richard-wolff-on-capitalisms-destructive-power/

[delrem]

100. Thank you!

I appreciate the time you spent digging those up.

[dreamnightwind]

175. +1 for Richard Wollf, worth the time to watch - eom

[Change has come]

192. Thanks!

I need to catch up too.

[Armstead]

47. If only we were smart enough to replacecthe void it leaves behind

[Romulox]

50. And Americans everywhere are *convinced* that everyone will say "Enough!" when it is their

community, their livelihood, their lives being destroyed.

I can report from Detroit, Michigan, that this is simply not the case. It will most certainly not be different when your (that's the generic "your&quot time comes.

[abelenkpe]

84. Exactly

Anyone notice thousands of animation and VFX jobs were offshored last year? Or care?

Nope.

[godevil10]

97. You've heard this before, I'm sure.

"....and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed..."

[truedelphi]

168. Thanks for the insider report.

Every single aspect of what went down in Michigan makes me ill.

And I really do see Detroit as the PTB's model for the future of the average serf here in the USA.

It's probably their rallying cry - "If we would destroy all the cities and towns whose citizens actually made the cars and the boats and the trains here in the USA, it will be so much easier to bring down BumFuck Nowhere!"

[Enthusiast]

162. You have it nailed.

It is different this time.

[woo me with science]

12. Yes, it really is worse.

This is not politics as usual. We are witnessing a global corporate expansion that is deliberately and systematically dismantling/usurping the democratic, representative governments that previously have protected at least some of us from the predators who raze and farm human lives for profit. We are waking up to realize that a sick, unsustainable system has been built around us, that a collapse is coming, that those who have the power to do something about it are incentivized to collude and propagandize instead, and that the protections we always assumed would be safeguarded through a "representative" government are not there anymore.

Other countries have already experienced first-hand the unfathomable pain and death and despair that occur when corporate profit motive supersedes the lives of human beings. In this country, we have always been trained to think of devastating poverty and tyranny as something that happens "over there," for reasons that are often deliberately left unclear. But we are not special to the corporatists, and they are coming for us now. They are building global plans, and we are headed down a road that may very soon show us what it is like to live under the rule of faceless corporations that see us as living "human resources" to be squeezed and discarded for maximum profit.

That's a lot to take in. No wonder people are feeling grumpy.

[BelgianMadCow]

18. and it's not just the US & UK

the EU is saving banks with no end in sight whilst applying austerity for the masses,
resulting in third world conditions and depression era unemployment in the south,
is NOT taking a stand against fracking and is reneging on its climate ambitions
is negotiating a TPP with the US which usurps democracy

what I am hearing here is the same - people seem to be waking up to the ugly truth, but also to the beauty of speaking about it with one another.

on edit: f***ing WORD for your post.

[CanonRay]

45. Very well stated.

Thank for writing this.

[Armstead]

48. I've seen this coming for decades

But thought somehow we would avoid that point.

Now Im thinking maybe not.

[BelgianMadCow]

15. "it almost seems to be transcending the usual political stuff"

You're on to something there. Thanks for sharing your feelings.

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. Everything is worse, much worse. You have a decade on me, so I'm not sure about the old fart, part.

What makes it much worse is the fact that it's been getting worse more slowly for about half a century, but the last 10 - 15 years have been the avalanche.

For those of us old enough to remember the before time, it is much more obvious because the world we grew up and lived in has been relegated to mythology by those too young or too dumb to grasp the scope of what's happened, or those committed to the decimation of our nation for their own gain, but we lived it, so we know it existed. I can't even imagine the mental contortions required of those born after 1970, they've never seen the world that was and only know some version of this schizophrenic nightmare we are all living through.

Sometime in the last 20 years or so, we crossed the line. The course is set and the destination is inevitable.

[Armstead]

55. I think of the idiocy of the whole minimum wage battle right now

The minimum wage was hard-won, and there was always opposition to it from business.

But in the larger social context, by the 1960's it was at least accepted by the general population that wages -- and the minimum wage -- should at least be expected to cover basic living costs. Therefore there was some correlation between the minimum wage and rises in the cost of living.

And business knew that they had to abide by that principle -- both because many businesspeople were decent human beings and also because they knew the pressure from the public and policy would prevent wages that were excessively low.

But now, the minimum wage has fallen below the basement, and the public has lost the sense that people deserve a fair days pay for a fair days work.

The same applies to many of the outrageously unfair "new rules" of business.

It's discouraging to see us willingly lower our standards like that.

[Egalitarian Thug]

194. So apparently this thread wasn't depressing enough. I just watched Rollerball and

listened to Norman Jewison's commentary afterward.

[Armstead]

198. Might as well watch the movie Network and get really depressed

[Egalitarian Thug]

209. Paddy Chayefsky was exactly where I went while listening to Jewison, which then

lead me to start thinking about how many others, Altman for example, spent their best creative years warning us about what was happening. Film, books, and even television to some extent, over and over and over.

[Skittles]

151. to me the line was Reagan

he made greed and idiocy fashionable

[Egalitarian Thug]

193. He pulled the trigger, but the preparations were underway for a long time.

It's very like shrub, without Bill, 41, and that senile old fuck before him, he would have lacked the capacity to do nearly so much damage.

[polynomial]

17. The whole real story about politics

has been convoluted twisted and oppressed for decades by the mainstream media. The corporate media destroyed the true history of politics, banking, education, and the Congressional, Senate, Supreme Court, social structure, and worse the health care system. Especially the backroom secret stuff for regular citizen operations like basically open government without a shutdown.

That whole basic idea of shutting down the government is treason. Or at minimum a pseudo-insurrection proof positive those in the Congress and the Senate disrespect the basics in the Constitution and its citizen. America is now way on the wrong end of a corrupt business and government. Government is working today on the side of business retribution and retaliation, the system is fixed to produce cowards as citizens with that same type to eventually be leaders in corruption.

Just looking at the clip of Senator Ron Paul Jr. talking about how slavery is connected to health care service leads me to think Senator Paul is not only insane but is a racist and should be indicted and convicted for intentional mentally twisting blasphemy as radical slur towards legislation that is law for the wellbeing and right of the citizen. It baffles me that rhetoric in the affordable care act is deliberately race baited as and talked about as Obama care over and over in the media. This phony illustration that the legislation in the current health care is only of Obama, yet Obama as another supporter besides Hillary, has been going on too long and the mainstream media is the key player in rhetorical nonsense. The health care act is called the Affordable Care Act. Obviously condemned before Obama and before Hillary.

Especially now, less talked about is the essence of unionism that is built into the first amendment. The very woven fabric of assembly peace rallies in that people can help each other understand the what is wrong know the separate local issues that are different in different parts of the country. To submit grievances to be able to list problems and give feedback is not only a simply and good business practice in profession circles it is referred to as quality control.

Its normal to feel cynical and feel happy at the same time. Its human nature to have that happen to you. Also to be wading in that epiphany, to have that eureka moment especially here on DU were its the new way to gather with a vast resource to support or condemnation for many political philosophy’s. From my view it is one of the ways that we all learn from each other to push the mental envelope to go beyond what we usually think. To do better for the good of all people not just the one percent.

[indie9197]

21. I think rational democrats and rational republicans have a common enemy

which is our corporate owned politicians. Our political system is broke beyond repair. A revolution of sorts is in order.

[Demo_Chris]

22. Some things are better and should give us hope, like the internet...

Other things are more than simply worse. We have significant systemic problems with no simple solutions.

[RobertEarl]

23. What's wrong now?

Is it that a starting wage has gone up from $2 to $8, while gas to start your car has gone from 20 cents to $3.20?

That we have an ex-president who stole the election, sat on his ass while the 19 hijackers boarded planes, then started two wars and managed to crash the economy, and the new president just winked and nodded at the bastard who really fucked up the US?

Maybe it is because of the lies we were told about the "too cheap to meter" nuke power?

How about the fact that while the climate change grew the denial from officials grew even faster?

That most people don't even bother to vote, much less be involved in local politics? Because even if they did vote or get involved another bush would just up and steal it?

Is that what's bugging you?

[Armstead]

49. Those too

I was shopping the other day and the same bottle of milk that cost $1.50 three years ago is now around $3.....But I dont know many people who've gotten 100 percent raises in the meantime

[zentrum]

24. It's because we've reached...

..the metastasized stage of Capitalism. Made worse by Citizen's United corruption of Congress. And the purposely, gleefully divisive work of Fox news and hate radio has set the thing to boiling.

It doesn't matter who is President or in the Senate. The economic system has eaten democracy and is embedded deep within the structure of our country at this point. It took 60 years for the military-industrial-congressional complex to fully flower and it's here now.

[jtuck004]

25. Both. And you are going to get older, and "things" are going to get more upleasant.

"But look on the bright side". I do not know where that is, but that is what I am told to do. Supposedly because optimists will carry the day.

I personally think they will just be the first ones over the cliff, but who knows

[Armstead]

51. Thanks. i feel much better now

[jtuck004]

142. ROFL

I labor under the delusion that we will never find our way out as long as people keep spinning the idea that we have recovered and are getting better.

But people really, really don't like facing the reality that is all around them, I fear, so I don't hold out too much hope.

[Kablooie]

26. It is clearly worse and will get much worser soon.

As all us baby boomers retire, either by choice or force, there will be more and more decent people who have worked honestly and hard all their lives who will fall into abject poverty as the weather starts to go haywire and become more dangerous for everyone.

We are in for a hell of an ending, (I do mean hell) for our generation.

(And I know 'worser' isn't a word, but it should be.)

[Armstead]

56. Retire? Who the hell can afford to retire these days?

[stuntcat]

83. much much worser

I'm so sorry for all the young kids I see. I can call them teaming masses. I can realize tens of thousands of babies starve to death today and most people don't seem to mind, so people are obviously expendable. But still I feel sorry for them, because a few of them will grow up to be like me, and see clearly what their species is doing to all the rest of life.

[Dragonfli]

114. your description is reminiscent of a Harry Harrison style distopia

If we do not eat the rich we will end up eating each other instead....

Perhaps we are offered only a choice between soylent green and radical red....

[Jamastiene]

29. I cannot answer your question, because I may be experiencing the same thing.

I'm not sure if I am just getting old and cranky or if things really are progressing so damn slowly in America that we are falling behind the rest of the civilized world. I mean the country to our north has health care I would love to have. In America, we were damn lucky to get the ACA, but we should have gotten something more like Canada has, but it took a damn LOT of work just to get the ACA much less something like Canada has. America is just too resistant to change. Or maybe our politicians are the ones who are too resistant to change. Seems most of America would vote pot legal and vote to have our health care easily available and covered already. I think our politicians are too resistant to change. Either that or I'm just getting old and cranky. Or both. That is a high possibility. I think it is probably both for me.

[LuvNewcastle]

30. They're only resistant to change that benefits the people.

Corporations and the 1% get all the change they want. As long as they own the government, the situation for us will remain the same. The root of the problem is that the government fears them, not us. We need to do something about that.

[Armstead]

58. The contradiction between what peop need/want and what we get is discouraging

We elect politicians who say they'll work for us. But once in power they become neutered or sell us out.

Millions of us, much fewer of them. And the bastids are winning anyway.

[raven mad]

32. We're thinking with the same brain, Armstead.

I hate to say it - I don't want to think it - but it isn't cranky old fartism. If it us, 2/3 of DU is our age, and we know DU'ers are all ages.

I think the threshold to despair was approached in 2000, crossed on 9/11/2001, and the door slammed shut on March 1, 2003. That's when we, as a nation, gave in and gave up to the corporations who previously pretended not to own us outright, and to the politicians who had been in the corporate pocket all along.

The despair got worse with every fuckup of the Bush administration, from "Mission Accomplished" to Abu Grahib. From the "tee hee, I found the WMD's, they were hiding behind the couch all this time" Bushit to Dickless Cheney's allegations that Saddam and Al Qaeda were "linked" in the 9/11 attacks. From Valerie Plame (remember "Scooter" Libby?) to the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Reich..........uh, Security.

I'm not sure the despair can be exorcised. Not in my lifetime, anyway; hopefully, by the time my granddaughter and grandson are of age, if they haven't starved or become homeless by then, they'll still choose NOT to fight in made-up wars for corporate profits.

We can't feed/clothe/house the poor or downtrodden; we cannot provide healthcare to the sick, elderly or mentally ill but we BY GAWD have the highest military spending and prison population in the "civilized" Western World!

[Armstead]

59. Yuppers...It's been a chip,chipping away

[Kermitt Gribble]

180. Good post.

I would only add - and this is where the curtain was pulled back for me - when Dems took back control of the House and Senate in 2006 and the bush agenda rolled on.

[Kaleva]

33. I'm 55, disabled, but I believe my best years are ahead of me.

Thankfully the mortgage on my home which I bought for 24k 14 years ago is paid off so none of the $1119 a month I get for SSDI has to go for that expense. I can't afford a car but I do have a scooter which gets me around in the warmer months. I actually have fun trying to find ways to stretch the dollar and the Frugal and Economical Living Group here at DU is my favorite.

Spring is on it's way and that means getting the garden ready and planted which is something I really enjoy doing. Maybe this year I'll learn about wild edible plants that I can find in this area. Was going to do that last year but ended up house sitting for my ex and getting jobs done there that needed to be taken care of. I got projects to do around the house which takes time to complete as the funds are very limited and I can only do so much work before the legs give out but progress is being made.

I just get simple pleasures out of simple living. Everyday has the potential to be an adventure. What will today bring!?

[Armstead]

60. That's a good attitude....But it's too bad the big picture can't also provide consolation

[Notafraidtoo]

34. I think its worse on the economic level

The first world could care less we have the most powerful military in the world, the reason they put up with our crap is because we have 300 million consumers, its the true bargaining chip in our 1st world power. Now lets look at china with 1.6 billion people and imagine multinational corporation's drooling at the prospect of more than 300 million middle class consumers in the future in that country.

China is a investment to company's that will jump the US ship the second things get decent over there, and the very people we give everything up for in hopes they may give us a job will abandon us for the younger woman and America will be left in unregulated capitalistic ruins, although Faux will still blame fast food workers, black people and taxes because there will be a few consumers left here its just we will be irrelevant to business and the rest of the world and it will be our own gullibility to capitol marketing that does us in.

Hopefully some progressive nation in the future will learn from our mistakes when our empire crumbles, investors are too disconnected from the pain their productivity demands cause and CEO's and business leaders don't care what happens when they are dead, they want to steal from the future and we let them.

[TreasonousBastard]

35. Both. I'm a slightly older fart but remember...

growing up when we were still on the high of winning WWII-- probably the the greatest single thing we have ever done as a nation.

Then we noticed the environment, black people were still treated like shit, war actually does suck, and a few other things. And did something about them. Not enough, but the point is we tried.

On TV we had Walt Disney telling us how marvelous the future will be, and World's Fairs sponsored by huge companies selling us the dream of a better tomorrow. And everyone was serious about it back then. AT&T and GE had it in the corporate culture that they had a mission to make this planet a better place.

Things have changed. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is talking about how the future is something to look forward to. The new management ideal is maximize profits and no one has a plan to deal with a planet with 10 billion humans, poisoned water, and no birds not on a turkey farm.

Getting older does knock some of the steam out of you, but I can't much see a future when I look into the eyes of today's kids.

[Armstead]

63. That's what's a shame...We aren't leaving the young with much to hope for

[Bluenorthwest]

37. Folks who think it was much better in the 70's and 80's are straight, white

and usually male. You are even older than me, yet when I was born there was Jim Crow in some places, no Civil Rights Act anywhere, gay people were jailed as criminals, women were prevented from taking part in business and politics and most of them were 'homemakers'. There was a 'war' going on which was immoral and uncontested by either Party, this war was protested and those protesters were shot to death, gassed, jailed, made to 'go underground'. Segregation was protested and those protesters were beaten, shot, children were faced with dogs and gas for walking to school.
So when you say it was so much damn better, are you simply saying that back then you had more money and more fun? It was 'better' for you because you were 25, not because it was actually better to have segregation and sexual oppression and Napalm and Kent State?

[Armstead]

64. Nope not saying that.

You are correct. And I realize history and progress are not straight lines. They are uneven, with steps forward and backward, and different people in different situations at any given time.

But thius is not just the whining of an over privileged white male. This is about the things that affect everyone.

Minorities are somewhat better off comparatively today. But also you can't seperate them from the problems that bedevil almost everyone today.

A gay couple can be open and get married today. Women have a better position than they had. Ethnic minoirities have also gained some rights and made some advances.

But the bigger problems affect everyone too. It's great that a gay couple can get married. But how much better off are they if they can't get a job and/or afford their living expenses?

And many of the hard-won advances are now being rolled back again. Look at all of the changes in voting access -- which is voting rights -- in the last few years.

[malthaussen]

108. Rights are being extended to more excluded people...

... at the same time those rights are becoming meaningless in the face of growing fascism. Or in other words, now that we don't value them, everybody can have them.

And I don't really think "fascism" is an exaggeration. Corporate control of government is nearly absolute. And with that corporatism, a new definition of "the people" is rising. The rich rulers know no borders and do not care about the people of the state where they happen to have a headquarters. They are a separate entity, intent on making all of us, regardless of ethnicity or "national" identity, equally their slaves. The State is becoming an obsolete idea, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, concomitant with this, the ideas of individual liberty and dignity are also becoming obsolete.

And let's not even get started on the vicious hatred of women that is becoming so obvious these days. I cannot imagine male Yale students in 1970 gathering outside a women's dormitory and chanting "No means yes and yes means anal!" I was a young and horny 16 in 1972, as were my friends, yet nobody I knew would have even entertained such nonsense.

-- Mal

[me b zola]

115. Wish I could recommend your post:

"Rights are being extended to more excluded people...
... at the same time those rights are becoming meaningless in the face of growing fascism. Or in other words, now that we don't value them, everybody can have them."

"...the ideas of individual liberty and dignity are also becoming obsolete"

[Skittles]

195. you're missing the point

this is the point:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/business/the-vicious-circle-of-income-inequality.html?ref=business&_r=0

[OldHippieChick]

43. We are old farts

That is part of the problem. We have fought racism, sexism, the Viet Nam War and many other "isms" and wars and keep thinking it's over. We're tired We capture the flag, but the enemy attacks from the other side. It's depressing and we keep waiting for reinforcements. I go to precinct meetings and everyone has gray hair. We still have to march, but our knees are weak and we'd really like to sit down on the beach and let the waves tickle our toes. I don't really think it's gotten worse. We've made lots of progress, but I'd gladly pass this baton if there were just someone behind me racing to take it over the finish line.

[Armstead]

65. In other words maybe we also need more young farts to get off their asses?

[OldHippieChick]

67. More bluntly put, but

YES!!! They spend their time looking down at their electronic devices and need to look up and around every now and again.

[tridim]

46. Born during Nixon, Raised during Regan...

Things have gotten MUCH better. I'm LOL'ing at the pessimists. Sorry.

[Armstead]

66. Things are really better now than the 80's?

Okay if believing that makes you happy...Go for it.

[tridim]

69. Yes, the 80's SUCKED.

Pretty much from top to bottom.

Culturally it was conservative hell, and 30 years later it is finally being acknowledged by the media and rejected by the majority of the people.

What did you like about the 80's?

[Armstead]

73. 80's sucked, but the same things that sucked then suck much worse now

[tridim]

78. Reagan certainly sucks less

Because he's dead. He can no longer fuck up our country.

I can't think of a single thing that sucked in the 80's that sucks more now.

[Armstead]

80. Bad Corporations have become infionetly larger and more powerful, for one

Many smaller, moire human business have been wiped out in the waves of merger mania and consolidation.

Therefore they are less accountable, have much more of a stranglehold and are able to get away with things that they couldn't have dreamed of in the 1980's.

Just one example.

[tridim]

88. Was late-80's darling, Enron held less accountable?

There have been lots of "bad corporations" since our country's founding. It's not new, and they aren't less accountable today, not by a long-shot.

The 80's represents the birth of asshole capitalism. Today, millions of people are fighting against it, publically. That is a good thing.

[Armstead]

96. Not enough are fighting it....Most are accepting it as "the way things are"

Enron was a tiny little bundle of spit compared to the really big bad corporations that are above the law now.

[reformist2]

120. The '80s are Lib/Dem Achilles' heel.

If there's one topic where we sound like idiots, it's when our side goes into overdrive bashing the 1980s.

[tridim]

123. Do you feel the same way about Reagan bashing?

Does that make us sound like idiots IYO?

I'm not really bashing the 80's per-se, I'm saying they sucked relative to now.

[Skittles]

154. WTF

[kelly1mm]

166. Since Democrats were in control of the House for every single second of the 1980's, I

tend to agree with you. All the nasty things Regan is accused of doing had Democratic buy-in.

[KansDem]

52. I'd like to add to the wise and thoughtful comments on this thread...

I turn 61 in a week. Never before have I seen the kind of incivility demonstrated on the public stage. Just a few observations:

--False "prophets": A national radio personality calls out a woman on his show by calling her a "slut" and suggests she post her sex videos for all to see. And in turn this national radio personality has a bust dedicated to him on display in the Missouri state capital;

--Police murder citizens: Police break into an aging vet's apartment, alerted by a false alarm for medical help, and kill him; Police kill a 13-year-old with a toy gun; Police beat to death a mentally-ill young man;

--Private citizens murder fellow citizens and walk free (SYG);

--Attacks on non-violent, peaceful protesters: Non-violent protesters corralled and pepper sprayed; peaceful university students pepper-sprayed like insects;

--The call for mandatory drug tests for food-stamp recipients and vaginal probes for women seeking abortions;

--Voter suppression and fraudulent voting machines;

Just a few off the top of my head. But these examples demonstrate that civility has been eroding for some time now, and civility is required in a government "of, for, and by" the people.

Political discourse has become nothing more than insane shouting matches marred with lies and "talking points."

Democracy is in its death throes...

[marions ghost]

200. good examples

& hundreds more would not be hard to come up with...

I know a lot of people but I don't know too many people who are truly happy with "things." Which says a lot about life in the good ol USA.

Most people are struggling and working hard not to let things get them down. It's like treading water...

[Locrian]

53. it's worse, but....

but consider that the more 'stable' systems are the less prone they are to changes. So the instability and chaos we are seeing has to happen if there is a chance to jump to a better system.

Of course, if it 'snaps' back to the old system, then the energy gets released in really *bad* things....

[fredamae]

54. I'm an "older fart"

than you---things are worse----and they're Much Worse, not because of PBO--but because of Congress as a whole.

Yes, Pres Obama has a few screwy ideas---Keystone, Chained CPI, Not Prosecuting or Breaking up Banks etc...but If we had a doable, functioning congress? The other stuff would be easily "fixed".

No, this is different and worse because there has Never been a congress as Calculated With Intent toward Economic Destruction For Corporate Benefit in the History of our country(imo) and we'd Better Wake The Hell Up-Fast.

[Armstead]

68. I agree -- but the public keeps electing those bastids.

That is what's ultimately the most frustrating part of it all. We are collectively collaborating in our own demise.

[fredamae]

75. Yes, we do...

because all we have to choose from are those crappy, crooked candidates that are groomed and hand picked long before we get to vote in the primaries. At least I see that as the Leading problem.
We need to make a Lot of changes in that whole process - both Dems and GOP- so those with "no name recognition, small bank accounts and portfolios" can have an equal chance to ask us to elect them....
First we need to recognize/accept the problem, then organize with-in our party's, change some policies and rules...
Then we need to get rid of the Electoral College-shift to a National Popular Vote and let the people decide--this way Every persons vote will count--not just the ones in Swing States--that too frequently boils down to just one County! That's just wrong, imo.

[CrispyQ]

57. I've come to the conclusion that

as a collective we've realized that humanity is totally FUBAR'ed, so we're partying like it's 1999.

I wouldn't be so pessimistic if it weren't for climate change. There is no political will to address this issue & every new study shows the effects of warming are escalating faster than our models predicted. I was at a networking meeting where a woman scoffed at climate change because it had been so cold. I told her to Google Australia & find out what's going on down under. The ignorance of the average American is stunning.

I no longer believe we'll get our government back via the ballot box. The electoral process is too corrupt & compromised.

[FarCenter]

61. You are an old fart

None of the current senators is as bad as Joe McCarthy.

Current RW radicals are no worse than the John Birch Society.

The KKK is a shadow of itself.

No urban riots have burned a significant part of a city in the last couple decades.

The environment is much cleaner, e.g. air, water, solid waste disposal.

Cars are much safer and the number of deaths / million miles is way down.

Air travel is much cheaper on an inflation adjusted basis.

I could go on -- but you need to look at the data.

[Armstead]

70. I am but....

Some things get better. Some get worse. That's always the nature of life.

But it's the cumulative direction that's important.

Many of out current Senators and Reps are as bad as Joe McCarthy. Their strategy is different. That's all.

The John Birch Society used to be a minority. Now variations of their opinions are the mainstream or at least hold the reins of power.

KKK? I'll give you that. Except that their modern equivalents are just a little bit more subtle.

Instead of urban riots we have gang bangers and politically apathetic nihilistic rappers and playahs.

[Octafish]

62. Richest the planet's ever been...

...and its Austerity Time for the 99.99-percent.

It's ALWAYS Austerity Time.

[Armstead]

71. There's austerity and there's austerity

Some austerity is good.

Enforced excessive austerity on the masses to supply the excesses of a tiny minority at the top, not so much.

[Octafish]

85. Great idea, yours. Unfortunately, the law says they can't live with less.

I, too, remember the judge who gave the rich kid probation after he killed four people while drunk.


Like Tom Jones sang about Emilio Largo:

Thunderball

He always runs while others walk
He acts while other men just talk
He looks at this world, and wants it all
So he strikes, like thunderball

He knows the meaning of success
His needs are more, so he gives less
They call him the winner who takes all
And he strikes, like thunderball

Any woman he wants, he'll get
He will break any heart without regret

His days of asking are all gone
His fight goes on and on and on
But he thinks that the fight is worth it all
So he strikes like thunderball

http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107859185699/

It really is as if the James Bond villains won the world. The thing is, Ian Fleming didn't think the bad guys would come in the form of the U.S. Government, Bush Crime Family Network.

Most importantly: It's not your imagination, Armstead. Here in Detroit, every body is ticked off, except some of those who've got theirs.

[jeff47]

72. It's always BAD before it gets better.

Change isn't easy. As a result, societies just keep barreling down the road that they were on, until it gets BAD. Then that society changes course.

This:

And its not just DU. Just about Everyone I know in the 3D world is also frustrated, angry, demoralized...hopeless at the state of things.

Heck even one of my freeper friends feel similarly.

means that things are BAD enough that change will be coming. It'll take a while, but it will be done.

The "Reagan Revolution" could happen only because people were similarly discouraged and down by the end of the 70s. The corporatists used that opportunity to shift our country's path, but it took a long time to move down that path far enough to get close to their vision for the country.

Our current downtrodden state means a similar "Revolution" is brewing - a strong desire to change our country's path. Since we're already on the corporatists's path, change means we will be moving away from what they want.

It will take a little bit for politicians to abandon the old path, and then we'll have to walk down that path for a while before things get better. But it will happen.

[Armstead]

77. I keep hoping that, but I don't see it happening

I hate to say this because it runs counter to a belief I have long held on to.

But it seems the worse things get, the dumber we get. Instead of people moving towards pushing for positive change, we're digging deeper into our Ipods, watching Duck Dynasty and numbing ourselves in various ways to hide from what is happening, while we continue to feed the corporate beast,.

Hopefully you will turn out to be correct though.

[jeff47]

86. And that is our "instant gratification" problem.

We call it the "Reagan Revolution", but society didn't change in January 1981. It took a while to work our way down this path.

Similarly, it's going to take a while to change to our new path, and then work down it. And it is not going to be something where you wake up one morning and everything is fixed. It's going to be something where you wake up ten years from now and you realize things are significantly better.

Polling shows we're on the cusp of a new revolution. The millennials are coming of age and hate "Reaganomics". The boomers who brought about "Reaganomics" are starting to shuffle off this mortal coil. As a result, even if we do nothing at all society will be changing for the better.

And it's not like "the kids" are actually doing nothing at all. Yes, they're staring at electronic screens, but they're using those screens to replace the meetings you went to as a kid.

[Armstead]

101. Again, I hope your optimnism bears fruit

But with a few worthy exceptions, it seems like most of the kids staring at their screens are playing computer games, gosspiing about their "ho" friends, looking at racy videos or making drug deals. And most are so fatalistic they are beyond apathy about gthings like politics or economic justice.

But I do hope I am wrong and you are right.

[marions ghost]

201. The Boomers did NOT "bring about Reaganomics"

correction--the WW2 generation brought us Reaganomics. And I could write an essay to prove that, but you know it's true. The Boomers were at the mercy of the older generation during the 80's, and a lot got screwed by them. Except of course, your Dubyas and the like. But don't blame the whole generation for Reaganomics. That is wrong.

[jeff47]

202. You are arguing that boomers blindly followed the WWII generation

Which is rather problematic. Especially since the WWII generation favored unions. If the Boomers were blindly following the WWII generation, Reagan would have been destroyed by his union-busting.

Look, "back in the day", boomers were about 30% "hippies" and 40% "Nixon Youth". That 10% deficit has more-or-less remained the same through the years. As a result, boomers were an essential part of bringing about the "Reagan Revolution".

But don't blame the whole generation for Reaganomics.

That 10% deficit is what made Reaganomics a viable political strategy. That doesn't "blame the whole generation". It means the Boomers on the left were outnumbered.

[marions ghost]

208. Not a question of "blindly followed"

--more like dragged along...The conservative corporates of the WW2 generation got in with Reagan and boy did they make those naughty younguns pay. Most were not political, just scrounging for higher education and jobs. Funding cuts in so many areas. Hell. Just as bad as today.

I dont know where you get your percentages--"hippies" vs "Nixon youth" --10% deficit?!?! Ridiculous. Most people were just young, not wealthy, looking for jobs in a hard economy and having to knuckle under to the PTB. They were not Nixonites whatsoever. They did not "create" Reaganomics. They did have to live with it, and most, even conservatives, hoped Clinton would turn it back, which he couldn't. Nobody in the 80's could have foreseen the Selection of 2000, which did more to bring Reaganomics to fruition than anything before it.

The Boomers were not outnumbered--they were outsmarted--by the WW2 generation + young boomer conservatives in the drivers seat. Get it straight.

I don't think you lived it, didja?

[jeff47]

210. The people you knew are not "most people".

You are using the same fallacy of someone saying "Nobody voted for Reagan, because nobody I know voted for him".

Look, here's a graphic to help illustrate what happened:
http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-12/

You'll note the actual WW2 generation voted much, much, much more Democratic than average. Which kinda makes it hard to claim it was the WW2 generation that led the Boomers astray.

Most were not political

That would be the 30% not included in the numbers I listed.

I dont know where you get your percentages--"hippies" vs "Nixon youth" --10% deficit?!?! Ridiculous.

A whole bunch of different polls came to roughly the same results. Hippies were 20-30%, depending on the poll. "Nixon Youth" were consistently in the low 40's.

The Boomers were not outnumbered

The boomers are not a monolithic group. As you yourself admit by separating the younger boomers.

At least, they're not during that sentence. In the rest of your post you are claiming they're monolithic.

I don't think you lived it, didja?

I got to watch from the ignored hellscape that is GenX. It's nice that people are talking to our issues now that Millennials are having them.

[marions ghost]

213. Your graphic proves my point

1980's--Dixiecrats (Southern Dems, older WW2 demographic) turned Republican, helped by the oil crisis. I saw this happen w my father-in-law. No way he should have voted Reagan. Not true Dems, sorry. Not Liberals. Southern democrats were anti-Union DINOS. Get it?

Late Boomers and early Gen-Xers--the younger generation also went R but wised up when they got to Clinton. (see graphic). So your generation got sucked up in the Reagan "happy days" but saw the light in the 90's. We all got screwed in the Selection of 2000. (Gore won).

The Millennials, raised (well) by the Boomers, went heavily Dem in the 2000's. Applause.

So what is this generational bias? Makes no sense to blame the boomers more than any other generation. As for this "hippies" vs "Nixon youth" fiction....I don't think most people were either.
Like people today--most were not ideological, just trying to make a living. Yawn. This is a false construct.

It's not productive to divide generations---we're all in this, young, old, or in-between.
We have common enemies.

[jeff47]

214. My graphic that started with the 1994 election proves what happened in the 1980s.

Uh-huh.

Methinks you need to look at the graphic again.

So your generation got sucked up in the Reagan "happy days" but saw the light in the 90's.

Nope. We quickly learned we were not going to get anything from politics. So left-leaning GenX stopped bothering to go to the polls. Right-leaning GenX were thrilled, and kept voting. Even today turnout among GenX is lower than Boomers and Millennials.

So what is this generational bias? Makes no sense to blame the boomers more than any other generation.

I'm not.

Once again, conservative baby boomers outnumbered liberal baby boomers. That doesn't mean boomers as a whole caused a turn to the right. It means conservative baby boomers used their numerical advantage to turn to the country to the right.

As for this "hippies" vs "Nixon youth" fiction....I don't think most people were either.
Like people today--most were not ideological, just trying to make a living. Yawn. This is a false construct.

You and the people you know do not an entire generation make.

I'm sure the people who protested the Vietnam war are thrilled to learn they were never ideological.

We have common enemies.

And ignoring how they won the past helps them win the future.

[librechik]

76. YES! n/t

[Armstead]

79. Yes to I'm an old fart, or the world has gotten worse...or both?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[librechik]

82. I've been waiting for somebody to set me up like that, A--

my favorite wisecrack==

IMO--things are not only worse, they are terminal. And nobody's in the emergency room yet. Not even in the ambulance.

[rwork]

104. I think

the depression or recession feeling comes and goes with different people...

I turn 70 soon and feel that 61 may be the prime of life..

[stuntcat]

81. Things have gotten much worse. But today will look like *HEAVENLY FAIRYLAND* when compared w/ 2050.

I'm glad I'm as old as I am. I dread the war, suffering & Earth-rape I'll see in the next few decades I have here.

[WinkyDink]

87. WORSE. People are awaking to the fact of the 1%, of their insatiable greed and destructiveness.

Destroying the globe's workers; destroying our environments, land, sea, and air; destroying entire species of flora and fauna; destroying cultures through economic depredation and wars---all while flaunting and taunting.

[L0oniX]

89. Always been bad ...it's just changing to another bigger bad.

70's? Oh ...I can tell you how bad I thought it was when I was facing the draft.

Yea IMO it is much worse now. No one respects old people and their accumulated wisdom anymore and no one feels safe to let their kids roam the neighbourhood knowing that the neighbours will keep an eye on them all. No one say "hi how are you" when you walk by their homes. Young people now know they don't have a prosperous future. Theirs a lot more poor people now and it's approaching the likes of the late 30's.

[democratisphere]

90. "Things" are REALLY BAD and "Things" will continue to get MUCH WORSE.

"Things" include: -Societal Breakdown
-Tremendous Overpopulation
-Loss of Privacy
-Government Spying on All Citizens
-Stagnant and Declining Wages
-Currency Losing Value
-Incredible Shrinking Volumes in Packages with Ever Increasing Prices
-HUGE REAL UNEMPLOYMENT
-Lower Standard of Living for the Masses
-Rewriting of the Constitution Without Amendments
-Global Warming (YES! GLOBAL WARMING!) and Climate Change
-Droughts and Dwindling Water Supplies
-Destruction of Vital Ecosystems and Species
-A Congress that NEVER gets ANYTHING Done
-AND ON, AND ON, AND ON......

You are NOT an OLD FART; you have put up with this kind of crap for more than 6 decades and you are REALLY sick of it. Incidentally, my dog just peed on your lawn!!

[Armstead]

95. I'll send your dog to the pound,

Not really. ')

But yes, I have put up with this for too long and I am really sick of it.

I could put up with the tiredness with it. That's what old farts do. But the seeming lack of progress --- and the actual backsliding -- is what is really irritating.

[Ikonoklast]

91. Yes.

[Rex]

93. I think we crossed several thresholds during the BFEE years

many of us thought there would be a rollback to oversight and regulation, but no it seems corporations have truly taken over the government and the media and now we live in a plutocracy.

We are still stuck in the 80s when 'greed was good', trickle down economics was just starting to destroy the middle class and never looked back.

[OregonBlue]

98. When the oligarchs got their own TV network (Fox) things got worse quickly.

[bvar22]

110. They don't own just FOX.

They bought them ALL,
along with both political Parties,
and last week, Congress let them buy the Internet as well.

[Armstead]

126. Sad but succinct summation

[Drew Richards]

99. I dont know you tell me...link

http://m.

[Armstead]

102. Thanks for the chuckle

I hope a sense of humor will keep me from becoming a hardcore old fart

[Drew Richards]

105. Been there...my emotions are like yours and its coming in waves with more frequency...but

I think if I give in I might as well die and not live through anymore of this nightmare...then I get a cup of coffee and watch a sunrise and say, fuck them and fuck everybody.

I fought, bleed, came home and got clubbed and gassed 70-71..things in 73-74 looked like a true change...then everybody got swallowed by the machine...

What im trying say is I have paid my dues and am too old to go through it again.

So I have check out of society as it were...

Creating a self sustaining farm, and working until I have enough to pay my taxes and be left the hell alone...

Fuck em all at this rate everybody will be dead in 50 years and I will of course be long gone before that.

[Drew Richards]

112. Oh and to answer your other question...yes you're an old fart. Now get of my lawn!

[TBF]

106. Income inequality is biggest global risk -

You are not imagining it:


Income inequality is biggest global risk, World Economic Forum says

By Jim Puzzanghera

January 17, 2014, 6:25 a.m.


Worsening income inequality is the risk most likely to cause serious damage around the globe in the coming decade, the World Economic Forum said in a report ahead of its annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland, next week.

The widening gap between rich and poor "raises concerns about the Great Recession and the squeezing effect it had on the middle classes in developed economies," the group said in its Global Risks 2014 report.

While a severe income disparity has taken place in the U.S. and other developed nations, globalization "has brought about a polarization of incomes in emerging and developing economies," the report said.

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-world-economic-forum-income-inequality-20140117,0,5617460.story#ixzz2qxZmqD9q

[Armstead]

124. ...and the World Economnic Forum is part of the club that created the mess

Bunch of elites who make themselves feel better with platitudes while helping to build the architecture of oppression.

[BelgianMadCow]

130. DING DONG

one dead witch not a spring makes.

No offense to witches, it's just a Thatcher reference.

[TBF]

134. The fact that they admit it is very telling -

it means they are not scared that people know. They know how powerful they are.

[Demo_Chris]

109. Two things give me some hope: The Internet, and that younger generations are not boomers...

Younger generations do not share the Boomer's cultural values of unconditional selfishness and greed, and the "leave nothing behind but smoking wreckage" self-entitled party-till-you-drop ethics that defines the Boomer generation.

Anyone who has paid any attention at all has seen this disaster coming for decades. It's been like watching the towering white wall of a tsunami sweeping towards shore, knowing that you are personally powerless to stop it and that when it hits it will obliterate everything. The hope, for younger people, was that somehow we would survive it, and when the party generation was gone, begin the process of rebuilding.

Rebuilding, as in paying off the twenty trillion in debt the Boomers racked up and handed off to their kids and grandkids. Rebuilding, as in fixing the infrastructure that the Boomers inherited and then watched crumble. Rebuilding, as in rejecting the ignorance and intolerance of their religions, and perhaps finally accepting that all men and women, all races and genders, all sexual orientations, are EQUALLY deserving of respect. Rebuilding the jobs and businesses that the Boomers outsourced once they rounded the corner and headed towards retirement. Rebuilding our reputation with the rest of the world by ending the wars of aggression the Boomers love so dearly. Rebuilding from the smoldering ashes of the Boomer's great party.

The hope was that they would leave SOMETHING we could use to begin the process -- some scraps and debris we could use to cobble together our lives. But it seems that the Boomers found a market for that as well, and they are grinding up the ashes and rubble and selling it to China. So I don't know what else there is but hope. The people who burned it down won't have to deal with any of this. We will. But we'll remember.

[malthaussen]

113. You know different Boomers from I...

... most of the Boomers on DU, for example, fought in the streets and in the rice paddies for justice and freedom for all, despised material corruption, and believed that love was the answer. Typical kids, in fact. You're blaming a whole generation for the actions of a subset of that generation that is far from representative, and was busy getting its "own" from day one. Yeah, a bunch of Yippies became Yuppies, but a bigger bunch continued in their peace-and-people-loving ways. They just had no power.

Furthermore, Reagan and his cronies were no Boomers, and by the time the actual political power went to the (non-representational) Boomers, the damage was already going systemic. The corporate babies and greed-heads were in control, and remain in control. These people are in all generations -- even the rising one -- and have always had the same agenda, and always will. Good luck to your generation in extirpating your own. But I would sincerely suggest you not confuse a class difference with a generational one. That's part of how they win, you know -- by dividing those not in their tight little group of privilege into hostile camps.

-- Mal

[Demo_Chris]

135. Statistically the class difference IS a generational one...

Who do you think has all the money?

[malthaussen]

144. Rich families.

In general, one who studies demographic history learns to expect that an individual who has worked for forty years will have accumulated more real and moveable property than an individual just starting out. That is not a difference of class.

I'm really not sure what your point is, here. Are you suggesting that every member of an age-cohort starts out with the same access to wealth, education, and privilege, and that the elderly wilfully attempt to withhold these from the rising generation? If so, perhaps you can explain how the Boomers managed to wrest so much from their parents, who were the possessors of wealth when the Boomers were just starting out? And how do you account for the many rich people who are not Boomers, being either older or younger than that generation? But as I say, I don't understand your point, which is hopefully very different from this.

-- Mal

[nolabels]

197. I think his point was that the boomers were and always have been brasen boorish class........

who always thought they were right no matter what anybody thought or said...........


Some also said if the shoe fits, wear it

[Armstead]

121. Well I woukldn't paint all Boomers with that broad a brush. But we certainly....

...didn't follow through on the better half of our natures. Maybe we are to blame for not giving the next generation more to base hope on.

Unfortunately, despite some wonderful exceptions, I see the younger generation as equally self-centered with an added layer of defeatism and nihilism.

If the next generation is going to do any better than we did they're better wake up and shake off their own bad attitudes

[malthaussen]

146. "We didn't follow through on the better half of our natures."

Dude, not to get nasty or anything, but I find that mildly offensive. Who is this "we" of whom you speak? Pick the biggest scumbags in recent political history -- Gingrich, Reagan, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor -- there is not a Boomer among them. Okay, we have to claim Boner reluctantly, he was born in 1949, but he is hardly a representative of our generation. I'll hold to the point I made upthread, there are scum in every generation, and in politics the scum tends to rise. Did you vote for Uncle Ron? Did you support the people who wanted to bring our country back to the Gilded Age and erase a century of progress? No? Then how did you fail to follow through on your better nature? Did you support women's rights, minority rights, worker's rights? Have you always been a true-blue Democrat? Then how did you fail to live up to your better nature? I doubt there is a Boomer in DU who hasn't done his best to live up to Gandhi's principle of being the change you desire. The problem, I suggest, is that you bought into the idea we had ceaselessly pounded into our brains when we were young: that if you work hard, keep your nose clean, and fight the good fight, you will inevitably win. That is as fallacious as the idea that hard work, etc, will make you rich. And if you believe we didn't follow through on our better natures, then I'd suggest you're also buying into the idea that, since we didn't stop the madness, we are to blame, because if we had tried harder we would have won. Old fart? Well, guilt-tripping is a privilege of the old, also. Though come to think of it, I have plenty of young friends who are pretty good guilt-trippers, too.

-- Mal

[Armstead]

199. I stand by my point...But I don't think its generational. Just a.......

issue of basic values. Some people have good values and some people have shitty one...or a mix of them. It's alwesays a diverse spectrum of people.

I remember one of the things that "enabled" this corporate takeover was a shift in attitudes of too many Boomers in the mid-70's, when it shifted from social change to "I have to start with myself" and "work within the system" which opened the door to yuppiedom and the "greed is good" epidemic of the 80's.

Also, in our defense, we were all hammered by problems in the 70's that seemed intractable -- high unemployment, stagflation, the gas wars, earlier versions of the fiscal crisis, and the emergence of the global economy. This make many people afraid, and allowed corporate fascists and their political stooges to begin setting the exploitation of workers, deregulation and other crap into high gear. And people bought into the Orwellian propaganda. "We're merging to protect competition." ..."We're laying people off to protect jobs." etc.

As a result too many Boomers became what they had originally opposed as they got into the system.

And of those who held on to different values and opposed the Supply Side train, we were ineffectual. We never learned how to compete in the marketplace of ideas and politics effectively. So the CONservatives were able to drive the dialogue -- and they still do.

[MH1]

111. Increasing population, increasing access of individuals to increasingly destructive technology ...

+ increasing desperation as inequality increases and poverty increases.

That's a bad, bad mix.

Wish I could say something more positive, but that's how I see it.

(and I didn't even mention the environment in that equation)

[Nye Bevan]

117. Ah, the good old days.

Slavery. The Civil War. Jim Crow. Vietnam. Watergate. Whip inflation now. Morning in America. Tear down that wall. Competence, not ideology. Read my lips! Harry and Louise. The Defense of Marriage Act. Gingrich's Contract with America. Bush versus Gore. Find those WMD's. Fallujah.

Things just ain't what they used to be.

[Armstead]

119. You are correct in one way --

Yes it is never ideal, but as we get older we tend to romanticize the past -- especially our own.

My mother was convinced the world had gone tio hell in a handbasket aroiund 1965, which i now think of as the good old days. To her the good old days was the era of The Depression and WW2. Hardly wonderful eras.

But within my span of life, I never have seen the of systemic and entrenched rottenness that goes beyond any specific problems or evils. The majority of the population seems to be -- or wants to be -- increasingly powerless against the large powerful forces that want to subjugate us.

But maybe in 2030 some DUer will post fondly recalling the good old days of 2014.

[Samantha]

122. Although a Democrat won the last two Presidential elections

the Country is being run as if the Republicans had won. I was saying about a year and one-half ago that I remembered how bad the days were when Newt Gingrich was the Speaker and Clinton was President. That were really bad days. Everyday, a new fresh batch of excrement came flying out into the faces of the public. Some of the laws passed were just so bad, I don't even want to talk about them.

So awhile back, as I started out, I remember thinking these days are those days. Today, I think these days are worse than those days -- and that is truly saying something. And part of it is that for many suffering, there is no hope. Talk is cheap and we get a lot of that, but little more.

The one exception is the Affordable Care Act. For some, this legislation is a miracle, flawed as it is. But it will save lives. And that counts tremendously. What some people have gained in health care, though, they have lost in security of home, adequacy of food, inability to keep their homes warm in the winter and the resources to help educate their children properly. It does feel like we live in a third-world country, and we are still on a downhill slide.... Who knows where it will all end....

And some of the influences which have wrought these changes are known and despised by most decent people, regardless of party -- The John Birch Society and other white supremacy groups, the NRA which refuses to even abide by the standards recommended by a huge majority of its own membership, the Koch Brothers -- I guess I better stop here because it is depressing to me just to write this and to know I could spend the rest of the afternoon enumerating all of the negative hands we see molding our laws, our politicians, and thus our destinies.

So no, Armstead, you are not an old fart, you are in the middle of your life and you along with all of the rest of us in the Country deserve better.

Sam

[Armstead]

125. That's a big partr of my current frustration

It seems like who is symbolically "in charge" politically, the same club of bastids keeps calling the shots.

Why are we even having a serious discussion about how much we should be slashing public services, for example, when these are the kind of timers in which they are needed more than ever?...... especially when the wealthy and corporate America are not paying anywhere near their fair share of the tab to help make it possible to afford such things.

[Nye Bevan]

127. Really? You think the Syria crisis would have been resolved peacefully under a Republican pres? (nt)

[Samantha]

132. I was discussing domestic issues mainly but I did not make that clear

I don't think bin Laden would have been taken out under a Republican either ....

Sam

[nadinbrzezinski]

129. Things have gotten far worst than they used to

[Arugula Latte]

133. About 35 years ago, corporations put us in a pot

They have been turning up the heat little by little. What are these bubbles and why do I suddenly feel excruciatingly warm?

[sabrina 1]

136. No it isn't just you. THIS is perfectly stated

Its gotten so bad it almost seems to be transcending the usual political stuff. It doesn't matter whether President Obama is good, bad or indifferent. ITs bigger than him. Its getting bigger than the other D vs. R battles. All that stuff seems more and more irrelevant.

Polls show this to be true, the largest voting bloc now in the country is not affiliated with either party. The approval rating for both parties is low. And the young are the least likely to identify with either party now.

Remember when we would all get so excited about what this Republican or that Republican had to say? How excited people got when one of them was seemingly about to be 'caught' doing one thing or the other? But now, all that seems so trivial in light of the major issues we were probably ignoring while we were busy being distracted.

No it isn't just you.

[Armstead]

181. I'm kind of feeling that way about Chris Christie

Good to see him getting a little pushback....but it seems as inconsequential as a reality TV show.

[sabrina 1]

185. Yes, me too. In the past I would have been so excited to see the exposure of a right wing

bully. But now I ask myself 'I wonder who he pissed off'? After all while what we are learning is pretty despicable, we've seen much worse get swept under the rug. War Crimes, Torture, Lies about War, Wall Street Corruption etc. IF they are playing the game right, they are protected. Christie is being taught a lesson and used as an example for anyone else who gets too arrogant, imo.

And if he learns the lesson, this story will die and Christie will go on to be the Republican nominee.

And you think YOU have become cynical! L0L!

I just can't get too excited about anyone being held accountable anymore. IF they are it won't be because of their corrupt behavior. Hell corruption is IN these days.

[Corruption Inc]

137. You have a "freeper friend", that's depressing

and the problems are almost intractable as we are a corrupt country full of criminals who start wars for profit, create torture camps, spy on everyone and let them all go as we trade civility for corruption.

Either criminals start getting held accountable for their crimes or the country will collapse like the former USSR did. The banks own politicians and the military controls their actions. This is not a democracy. For now, most people can simply avoid all the propaganda and the criminal structure built up around it by shopping locally, not investing in Wall Street, not joining the military, etc... but as the economy gets worse those options start disappearing.

The U.S has become significantly worse over the last 15 years, you aren't imagining it.

[arely staircase]

139. I have asked myself the same thing recently

and concluded the two aren't mutually exclusive. sort of like the old saying - just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

[rhett o rick]

140. Move to Colorado or Washington the State. nm

[Armstead]

182. Stay high all the tiume you mean?

I used to live in Seattle...It made the 80's more bearable being there.

Now live in Massachusetts. It's too damn cold, but at least the immediate surroundings are much more politically palatabnle than many parts of the country.

[Egnever]

141. Turn off the TV

I suppose it depends on your definition of worse.

But despite what the TV tells you every day. Many things are much better today than they were at any point in Human history.

Also you are an old fart. Every generation thinks the world is getting worse.

Go outside smell the roses, there are plenty of them out there.

[Armstead]

183. But the roses smell like farts

Sorry

[Doctor_J]

143. We have no one on our side (working/middle class people)

That's where the desperation comes from. The last five years have put the light out. There was so much hope and promise and optimism in November 2008, and the president and Reid and Pelosi either couldn't or wouldn't act on the anti-Republican tidal wave that swept the party into office. The only real chance at this point is a lot of shit blowing up, and that's not going to happen, so...

[bvar22]

145. Sadly, that sums it up.

I actually bought into a little of the Hope & Change and the anti-DLC/Clinton BS that was being shoveled.
[font color=white]......[/font][font size=4]Obama's Army for “CHANGE”, Jan. 21, 2009[/font]

[font color=white].....................[/font][font size=4]"Oh, What could have been."[/font]

[Doctor_J]

148. I really thought it was happening

When Olbermann flipped the west coast blue at 10:00 I actually choked up and became a little disoriented, and spouse started to bawl. I swore that health care, strong labor unions, a resurgence of the middle class, and a deep dent in DC corruption and corporatism were just around the corner. At this point I literally have no hope that it's going to turn around during my life time.

I'm now hoarding my money in a hope to spend my last 10-15 years in a civilized country.

[bvar22]

163. Moving to a civilized country sounds good.

In 2006, my Wife & I cashed out and moved to an isolated part of the rural South to spend our remaining years.
We live there now, and produce a good percentage of our own food.
We sometimes miss the amenities of the City,
but have never regretted our decision,
but it is not for everybody.
The isolation can be deadly for those who need lots of other people.

We had considered moving to another country. I have some contacts in Costa Rica,
and they say life there is good,
but they live in Ex-Pat compounds in Condos ,
and CondoLife has never appealed to us,
so we decided to stay in the states.

We have adopted an independent, sustainable, green lifestyle,
reducing our carbon foot print,
producing more and consuming less,
with an active focus on Local Humanitarian Issues.
In those areas, we can SEE and enjoy a results from our work,
and that is a good thing.

Plus, it is beautiful, unspoiled, and fertile here.
It is easy to grow lots of good tasting, healthy food and keep lots of critters.
Life close to the earth is healing and healthy.
We occasionally read aloud from Whitman's Leaves of Grass at sunset.
So far, so good.

I had hoped that when we got here I could just walk away from National Politics,
and stop caring about what happens to the Party I joined in 1967,
but have been unable to do so.
I still find the current conservative Direction of the Democratic Party to be very discouraging.
I still care, and haven't been able to let go of the things I have fought for for all those years.
I am deeply embarrassed by the Party, and the Country we are passing on to our children.


Good Luck.

[bvar22]

147. It is really difficult to feel "hope" when THIS is going on.

65 percent of working families are living from paycheck to paycheck.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/01/10/why-conservatives-old-divide-and-conquer-strategy-%E2%80%94-setting-working-class-against-the-poor-%E2%80%94-is-backfiring/

Study: "Trade" Deal Would Mean a Pay Cut for 90% of U.S. Workers
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2013/09/the-verdict-is-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-a-sweeping-free-trade-deal-under-negotiation-with-11-pacific-rim-coun.html

95 percent of the economy’s gains have gone to the top 1 percent
http://billmoyers.com/2014/01/10/why-conservatives-old-divide-and-conquer-strategy-%E2%80%94-setting-working-class-against-the-poor-%E2%80%94-is-backfiring/

Billionaire wealth doubles since financial crisis
http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/11/12/Billionaire-wealth-doubles-since-financial-crisis/5011384268135/?spt=hts&or=12

The Top .01 Percent Reach New Heights
http://www.demos.org/blog/9/13/13/top-01-percent-reach-new-heights

US Wealthy Have Biggest Piece of Pie Ever Recorded
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/09/11-6

Rates of unemployment for families earning less than $20,000 - have topped 21 percent
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_JOBS_GAP_RICH_AND_POOR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-09-16-08-11-23

Gallop: 20.4% of Americans now “going hungry”.
http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/12/20460846-1-in-5-americans-struggling-to-put-food-on-the-table?lite

Obama Appoints Bain Capital Consultant Jeff Ziets to Top Post
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023662209

Obama selects former Monsanto lobbyist to be his TPP chief agriculture negotiator
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023662210

The Totally Unfair And Bitterly Uneven 'Recovery,' In 12 Charts – HuffPo
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023662029

Larry Summers Gets 'Full-Throated Defense' From Obama In Capitol Hill Meeting
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014553343#post1

Wall Street will get away with massive wave of criminality of 2008 - Statute of Limitations
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022516719

Income gap widest ever: 95 Percent of Recovery Income Gains Have Gone to the Top 1 Percent
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/09/10/one_percent_recovery_95_percent_of_gains_have_gone_to_the_top_one_percent.html

Older Workers:.Set Back by Recession, and Shut Out of Rebound
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/booming/for-laid-off-older-workers-age-bias-is-pervasive.html?smid=tw-share&_r=3&


THIS ^ does NOT happen by accident.
It is the result of carefully planned and implemented Economic Policy.
It requires careful preparation, marketing, buying the right politicians, message control, courts packed with Conservative Corporate Rights Judges, and the marginalization and suppression of any opposition.

Back in the 60s & 70s, and even into the 80s, things WERE getting better foor the Working Class & The Poor (the 99%).
A parent could legitimately tell his/her children that if they worked hard and stayed out of trouble,
they could do better. There was REAL "hope",
and REAL, measurable advancements in the right direction toward better things.
This is no longer true,
and it has become a very visible reality for life in the USA today.
Things ARE getting worse for most Americans who Work for a Living.
Possibilities for the future are becoming increasingly grimm for anybody capable of reading the Writing-on-the-Wall.

Life without "hope" is always grim.
We used to have reality based hope.

[Doctor_J]

187. Hey, another one popped up today

Remember how the BOG was OK with TPP "as long as the environmental protections are good and strong" (I guess that trumps 90% of working people getting pay cuts). Anyway, guess what!

Pacific Trade Deal “Backtracking” on Environment Safeguards

[BeyondGeography]

152. America doesn't do stagnation well

On the plus side, it'll have the rest of time to figure it out.

[Armstead]

184. It wouldn't be so bad if we decline to a second tier country

Takes off the pressure tio be Number One.

Alas, I fear we may be heading further down the slope than that if we don't wake the hell up.

[Warpy]

156. I've been paying attention a lot longer and while some things have improved

we have totally lost economic and political justice in this country. A cabal of rich men has taken over and they no longer give a damn if anybody knows it. Anybody who complains loudly enough to be effective gets brutally crushed. See: OWS.

Anger is indeed building, especially among kids just starting out under a huge burden of education debt. That cabal of rich men has finally forced the first generation into debt peonage and that is what causes revolutions.

The only question now is whether another peaceful revolution will be allowed. Those rich men are all in their 70s and 80s now and feeling the chill hand of death, so there is still a chance for that.

I want to be dead and dust if it's not peaceful.

[Enthusiast]

157. Armstead, we are the same age.

Our perspective must be similar.

Things are worse this time.

The reason things are worse is because corporations have conspired with government to send our manufacturing overseas. And they have been doing it for thirty years now. This has undermined the living standards and opportunities of the American people.

[Armstead]

186. yep. and the youn ger generation doesn't seem to have the moxie to change it.

[Brigid]

158. Perhaps Ted Kennedy put it most poignantly.

A couple of years before he died, he was on "The Daily Show, " and he said to Jon Stewart, "We used to be able to get things done in this country. What happened?" I've never forgotten that.

[Nye Bevan]

161. Like Hillary "got health care done" in 1992? (nt)

[The_Commonist]

159. I think we are at or approaching a tipping point.

I'm 51, and one of my earliest vivid memories is my folks watching Dr. King's coffin being pulled by a horse. Another one was a couple of months later when my father ran into the apartment yelling "They killed Bobby Kennedy!" And a couple of months after that when my mother was a delegate from New York and got arrested and spent the night in jail in Chicago. I would say things were pretty bad then. That summer, I remember hearing gunshots in the neighborhood, and I would lie in bed with my face to the wall, "in case they wanted to shoot me like they shot Bobby and Martin." Yeah, things were bad then.

And then they get better and they get worse and they get better and they get worse again. I suppose that's how humanity, and history work. Things are bad now. They will get better. Then they'll get worse again.

I gotta tell you though, I know they get a lot of shit, but I think these kids today are terrific! The Millennials. I know, work with and hang out with a bunch of them. They might just save the world, if we give them the chance. The biggest problem they have is that all the money has been stolen out from underneath them. But they don't seem to care all that much, from what I've seen. They are willing to try other things, build alternative systems...

Ooops... one of those terrific Millennials just walked into my office, and I have to give her a hand now.

[Skittles]

170. I work with a lot of Millennials and I like them too

[RKP5637]

204. That, is our hope. Without that, we are basically doomed. The current

path is not going to end well. As you said, the money has been captured, so alternative systems are needed. I have hope in our youth. I think modern communications have allowed light to be shown on some pretty dark corners that use to remain hidden, hence it's harder for the roaches to hide in the corrupt system we have today.

[Doctor_J]

207. I hope so, but the Millenials have NEVER TURNED ON A RADIO WITHOUT HEARING LIES AND HATE

in their entire lives. They have a lot of deprogramming to go through if they have any hope of rescuing the country.

[Arugula Latte]

212. I don't think they buy propaganda like the older folks.

The Fox watchers/believers tend to be the geezers.

I love this younger generation, too. It's waaaaay better than my Reagan Youth generation.

[Hotler]

173. My answer in two sentences.

I have no hope. I see no future.

[LukeFL]

174. I suggest to supply with extra water and cans

Of food, batteries and flashlights

You just never know..

[kelliekat44]

176. "Things" have gotten worse because there many more "old farts." nt

[WillyT]

177. Worse...

[Armstead]

189. DAMN, I wish so many people didn't agree with my OP

I think I'd prefer to just be an old fart and enjoy my old fartdom on its own terms, but with the knowledge that the world is in good hands.

Oh well, crank up the Led Zepelin and get off my lawn.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

206. Since the 1990s it has felt as if the mean and dumb are taking over the country

For the past several years, I deeply regret not taking the chances I had to emigrate when I was younger. Now I'm old enough that nobody outside the Third World would take me.

[AverageJoe90]

211. Old fart(no offense). Things aren't ALL getting worse.

We've made a few important strides in the last few years on quite a few fronts. This struggle is far from over, and sadly, we're not going to win every battle right away. But the war is far from lost. Let's not give up now.

[liberal_at_heart]

215. Economically things are much worse. We no longer live in a democracy. We live in an plutocracy.