The Left needs to take back control of the dialogue

[Hydra]

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth."
-Lenin

In the matter of America as it is today, none of us who live here are blameless. Some cheered as we ran roughshod over the UN and the rest of the world, some of us were silent, and some of called for the dismissal of such insane plans...some even killed themselves to try to prove a point.

The result is well known, as it should be. We are constantly reminded as more and more evidence comes out that Bush was never looking for anything other than an invasion.

"But I protested!" You might say. "I spoke out!"

Yes, but the blame is on something more fundamental than that.

"A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.

America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.

Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. And we responded with the best of America — with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could."

George W. Bush

WE ALLOWED HIM TO TAKE CONTROL OF THE MESSAGE after he had allowed one of the worst attacks on American soil to occur. And from that point, he and his people have held on to the message, controlling the dialogue and the options available to us.

We have yet to take the dialogue back, and that is by far the worst thing we could have let happen.

Think about how this has affected us. Since Bush sets the terms of the debate, his side can't lose. See for yourself:

Dems are "Weak on Terror" - This from the dufus that told the CIA “All right, You’ve covered your ass now.” when they tried to warn him about 9/11.

Saddam is linked with Al-Qaeda - even though Saddam apparently had no love for the organization.

Bush Claims his hydrocarbon law must be passed for peace to be assured in Iraq, while saner minds recognize pillage when we see it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/20/65928/2934

Bush tells the dems that if they don't gut FISA, he'll blame the next terrorist attack on them.
http://www.madison.com/post/entries/249841

There are just a few examples. By allowing the Right to have the high ground, we have allowed them to run our country into the ground in pursuit of more wealth and territory.

This MUST NOT continue. We cannot go further right without ending up in a quasi-religious dictatorship. These people never had the answers and still don't. We've allowed them to marginalize us and ideas, to the detriment of our nation and any nation America chooses to assimilate.

If you doubt the seriousness if this problem, just see what one of Bush's aides said:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

We are reacting to their moves, and as such, we can never get ahead of them.

Now, out of the doom and gloom, someone has stolen the dialogue from Bush- Al Gore.

Al Gore's efforts on behalf of climate change have gotten the message out, despite Bush's efforts to discredit or silence it. This is also currently in danger of being silenced.

A new Cold War may be brewing due to Bush's imperial adventures and insistence on pursuing a "missile defense shield" on Putin's doorstep. Putin may be a monster, but he was a monster content to stay home until we started making a mess in his neighborhood. Now, he has made clear that he is planning on staying in power and has no problem with america's intention to play by "law of the jungle."

A new cold war would place even more of the dialogue in Bush's hands...is that really what we want?

[bobbolink]

1. We are also very culpable for shooting our own.

Attacking each other, and sneering at our friends is certainly not gaining us any ground.

It's a short leap from there to letting the RW steer the runaway train.

When we've run over our friends, we don't have them to count on, so... we don't step out to speak up.

"When will they ever learn..."

[Hydra]

2. It's sure not "we're all in this together" here in america

no wonder there hasn't been a storming of the bastile yet.

[bobbolink]

3. No kidding. Poor folk are left out in the cold, literally and figuratively.

And, yes, we poor folk don't stick together very well, either.

:(

However, it's usually when there is some glimmer of hope when the bastile gets a battering.

[L. Coyote]

4. True History and False Paradigms, the Foundation of American Imperialism.

Where to start? Columbus "discovered" "America"

It was discovered over 10,000 years earlier, and it had a name before the Europeans named it after a European explorer.

The very foundations of history are lies repeated so often they are accepted paradigms, false assumptions.

The United States of America is, under a false paradigm countervening true history, a great nation instead of a band of freebooters killing Native Peoples and seizing their territory under the banner of their god's Manifest Destiny.

The United States was built on lies, murder, invasions, and conquests.
Will there ever be a reconciliation with the nation's true history?

The root of the problem, false national paradigms, must be overthrown by true history.

[AuntPatsy]

5. I agree with you, why do we run from the truth of history?

History Revisited is sometimes more along the lines of history reinvented and that includes religious doctrine all should be re addressed.