Like Lucy and Charlie Brown.

[Joe Fields]

Over the course of a few decades now, I have had a recurring dream. Some people might call it a nightmare, but I think I'll choose to call it a vision. In this dream, I am forced by the mayor of some nameless hamlet to run on train tracks, while being chased by a train. The tracks are in a figure eight, and I am not allowed to leave the tracks, lest I be immediately shot by the town authorities. It must be great sport in this town, because the townfolk all turn out for the occasion, dressed in their finery. The mayor is resplendently dressed in top hat and tails.

As you can imagine, it is a foolish exercise, with a most predictable outcome. I am able to outrun the train for a spell, but after awhile the train inches closer, closing the gap between me and a doomed fate. I always wake up, just before the train runs me down.

I liken my vision to what is happening in this country on many fronts. It is hard for me to believe that I am alive during the time of the rapid decline of this great American empire. You DU'ers know the details chapter and verse, as they are pointed out every day in so many threads. But even more disheartening is the realization that, as we stand at a crucial crossroads in our history, all of the roads seem to lead right back to those figure eight train tracks, to which doom seems inevitable. Our economy is in great peril. So is our environment. How many people will lose their homes, or their jobs in the next couple of years? Or both? What a great many of us are going through is like being involved in a car crash, and seeing it unfold in slow motion. We see what's going to happen, and there is no way to stop it. We desperately need accountability in our government, yet we have none. The most cherished possession Americans have, the constitution has been rendered meaningless. And there is no branch of government to help keep all these things from happening to us. We are once again in the "guilded age," where corporations have their way with the world, and everything else be damned. Soulless corporations who promote war, death and destruction, just so they can get a piece of the no bid government contract pie. And as long as the investors are happy, who cares if a million Iraqis die horrible deaths, under the jack-booted authority of a "righteous America?"

Who will save the world from ourselves? Well, I once naively thought it would be the democratic party leadership. We used to be the good guys. We were the ones in the white hats. We put Americans back to work during the great depression. We started Social Security, to help insure that retirees weren't thrown out into the streets, destitute and hungry. We started Medicare, to keep older people healthy. These are some of the things I grew up believing about my democratic party; things I was most proud of. Things are so much different now. The lines of distinction between the two parties has become muddied. Do Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer wear white hats? Not from my vantage point. At least we know what to expect from the republicans. We KNOW they are going to screw us. But ever since we took control of congress over a year ago, our democratic leadership has acted toward it's own rank and file just like Lucy, holding the football for Charlie Brown. Every time we have trusted them to do the right thing, they have continued to pull the football away from us at the last second. They have been great on rhetoric, but wholly complicit with the Bush administration in their actions.

I don't know. The system may be so broken that no one can fix it, but then no one really is trying. It really doesn't do us a lot of good to have a Dennis Kucinich or Chris Dodd or Russ Feingold, when 99.9% of congress is against them. I can't help it, and I know what I'm about to say will turn a lot of you off, but I look at the field of viable candidates on our side of the fence, and I believe in my soul that not a one of them are equipped or resolute enough to fix the many ills of this nation. I'm not sure they will even try. Not one of them are willing to address the crimes of the Bush administration and restore accountability. Not one of them has stood on a soapbox and shouted at the top of their lungs, for all to hear that we will not be complicit with illegal and immoral actions from this White House. And it is truly scary, because I can think of maybe one other time in my life when things were so critical and in need of serious leaders with serious solutions. Only this time there is really no one to answer the call. And the train keeps inching closer and closer.

I've been a democrat all my life. I come from a long line of democrats. I'm not very proud to be one right now. Our only saving grace during this period in time, is that when I look across the street at republican presidential hopefuls, they scare the hell out of me even more. I will definitely vote democrat in November, but it will only be the lesser of two evils. This is my opinion, and I could be wrong. But I doubt it.

[in_cog_ni_to]

1. I hear ya.

I'm not liking my coming choices either.:(

I always seem to pick the losers.:cry: Wes Clark, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards. :( It so sucks.

[Joe Fields]

2. Up until this year, I actively campaigned for the dem nominee for

president. I just can't do it this year. The MSM decidedly chose to ignore my choice, Dennis Kucinich. He never had a chance, and I can't, in good faith trust any of our top three candidates.

[Joe Fields]

3. I wonder...

Am I on everyone's ignore list?
:shrug: