In your hearts, you know its bullshit - scripted bullshit.

[arendt]

We are facing economic meltdown, climate change, and a trillion dollar meatgrinder of Iraqi occupation.

So what are the issues in the primary: Who dissed whom? What celebrity/politician endorsed whom? Which incomplete, flawed alternative to UHC can be sold to a desperate and gullible public? The media sets the script and the candidates fall over themselves to follow it - the first fill-in-the-blank; a historic hyperbole. And now this from our sponsor.

This campaign is utterly beyond taking seriously. May the best bullshitter win. AFAIC, you can all pelt each other with feces until your arms fall off. You obviously love the smell of it so much.

Call me when someone addresses the real issues.

arendt

[LittleClarkie]

1. Nah, I'd rather talk about smoking and crying and who's rally was spiffier

I could just fucking cry. Literally cry.

[MADem]

2. That "HIDE THREAD" business works real well!! NT

[busymom]

3. you can all pelt each other with feces until your arms fall off.

Best quote of the year so far!

[ruggerson]

4. oh hannah

buck up

[havocmom]

5. I share your pain

and disgust

and frustration

I never went to a high school reunion cuz I didn't like this shit when I was 14 and I haven't grown any fonder of it in the years since.

ISSUES?

The nation and world has some serious problems and we get neener neener neener?

The amazing part is the people who don't understand why Gore won't play this fucking game anymore.

[Fovea]

6. Another way it seems like 68

when we had the great society but the war rolled it flat.

The media talked about the hippies, but it was the SDS that was more important.

Not allowing the will of the people to shape policy for two decades and more caused 1968 to be the year it was, and here we are again.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. Exactly

This has got to be one of the most utterly devoid-of-substance Presidential campaigns since the "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too" campaign of 1840.

[f the letter]

8. K & R

Thanks for saying what we're thinking.. it is a truly amazing primary season this time around

[Extend a Hand]

9. I think we're screwed

no matter who wins. But in a meltdown situation I'd rather have Hillary or Obama than any of the repubs. I'm afraid in a meltdown under what passes for "republican leadership" we'd lose what freedom we have left. I've chosen to support Obama, in part because I think Obama will be better at giving people hope in dark times.


p.s. you forgot peak oil in the imminent catastrophe list

[arendt]

11. Right about Peak Oil. Its amazing how many things are going wrong that we don't talk about. n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

26. sad, for the last time, it's SCREWN.

sheesh. Peeple will thing your a moran, or sumtin.

[smoogatz]

10. That's politics, baby.

It was ever thus.

[arendt]

12. Not really. Usually, people knifed each other over REAL issues. n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

15. Et tu, arendt-eh?

I hear ya.

[smoogatz]

17. Well, the problem is that on the real issues—Iraq, healthcare, the economy,

global warming, etc.—there's barely a RCH of difference between them. Rather than admit that and do all the debates holding hands, they have to "differentiate" themselves. But the range of options for doing that is narrow, unless you want ot risk pissing off their corporate paymast--er, the base. Seriously, unless you have a real insurgent candidate like Ron Paul bouncing around, primaries are usually poo fights between ideologically more-or-less identical candidates.

[demokatgurrl]

30. Agreed.

The debates were really a waste of time. I watched one, that was enough of a Wolf Blitzer sideshow to tide me over for the next 4 years.

[redqueen]

28. Idiocracy...

[arendt]

13. As usual, Jon Stewart nails it: two Jews talking: "I like the shiksha." "I like the schwartze."

That's about the depth of substance in this campaign.

arendt

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

14. Hurray!

[Tatiana]

16. We need to be talking about trade and record trade deficits.

We'll all be working for India and China and Canada, and the UK pretty soon.

[madrchsod]

18. hillary this ---obama that

meanwhile bush is going to spend every fucking penny we will have in the next 30 years.the senate and house act like bitches in heat waiting the big stud bush...

fuck`m ,i`m voting for dennis tomorrow.

[ProgressIn2008]

19. It is indeed, scripted bullshit, as the rest of us wonder how to pay the heat bill this month.

[unkachuck]

20. 3 things....

....1) New Left ideology to replace global capitalism

....2) Strong grassroots political party with an effective grassroots money-machine

....3) Un-purchasable leadership, ideology-driven

.....nothing is going to substantially change....current lefties have proven they haven't the ability to put it together....we'll remain in this scripted sideshow until some future generation does....

[arendt]

21. Kick, for all the curmudgeons and Lewis Black fans, like me. n/t

[cali]

22. LOL.

more pretentious dystopian nonsense from you.

[EFerrari]

23. It's not going to happen. This is pageant.

The issues are addressed never or in small, local gestures.

[blindpig]

24. So, what is to be done?

The professional political class has no interests other than bidness as usual, both for their self preservation and the aggrandization of their masters. Edwards was saying some of the right stuff, people were listening, he was silenced. I think it is past time to dispense with waiting around for some guy or gal on a white horse to lead us to the promised land, that is not in their job description. We are on our own.

This is a good thing. Instead of waiting to be handed a leader we must raise our own leaders, become our own leaders. Only in this way can the real concerns of the people be addressed without compromise with those whom we oppose because there is no compromising with them, their agenda demands our subjugation.

To hell with depression, what we need is righteous anger. Doubly to hell with naval gazing and "self-improvement", if we change our political/social/economic environment then our lives will be improved. We got to talk to people, we got to organize. It'll mean work, it could get ugly, but what choice do we have?

[arendt]

27. Buy copies of "The Shock Doctrine" and hand them out. Be prepared when it happens in the U.S. n/t

[marions ghost]

25. yes I have to agree

and the weird thing is, people buy this as "more real"...as a better way to choose candidates. All this distraction from the real issues sells very well. The real issues are too scary.

Whoever hasn't seen the movie Idiocracy...this would be a good time to see it, if you can stand it. We have reduced our political theatre to The Gladiators.

[ClericJohnPreston]

29. In a word

This whole process is a JOKE.

I said we were in deep trouble and I stand by that remark and post.

I have no horse in today's contests, except to see if Edwards can pick up some delegates. The man was silenced. Enough said.

I'll watch as two status quo candidates go at each other. No matter what their partisans argue, they are merely two different flavors of the same corporate candidate. The system won't allow for REAL change. Unfortunately, that will only come with a major upheaval.

[ClericJohnPreston]

31. K&R

[waiting for hope]

32. John Edwards tried to -

Look what happened. Now the other two are praising him for bringing issues to the table. This is what we are going to be forced fed until something breaks, so, do what millions of others have done, sit on your couch and watch Dancing with The Stars.