"Dysfunctional Democracy" - the best answer I've seen, by far

[autorank]

Dysfunctional democracy

The underlying issue is that the GOP flat out doesn't regard democracy as legitimate. Everything from the 'voter fraud' fraud to DREs that "misregister" Democratic votes as Republicans (but never the other way around) stems from this. It's impossible to have a functional democracy and good governance if half the power elite and 30+% of the population hold anti-democratic, illiberal, ideologies that range from Straussianism and theocratism to outright fascism.

As far as the GOP is concerned, democracy is a tool to legitimate their right to rule rather than a legitimate means to make collective political decisions. Until Republican elites are prepared to accept democracy as a legitimate means of making collective political decisions then there can be no improvement in American politics.

Wandering Cynic October 18, 2008 - 6:42pm

[autorank]

1. Kick

[Hubert Flottz]

2. They want to have the only voice in America.

It's their way or nothing to the neoCONs...

And they have all the money.

But money is not everything.

[malaise]

3. K &R

Great post

[Me.]

4. In 2004

The fundies told themselves that if they lied in the service of good, as they saw it, it was all right and not really lien at all. It spread like an infectious disease and why Con candidates can get out there and lie right into your face with their straight talking mouths.

[trudyco]

5. I don't think all Repubs are the same - at least in the rank and file.

My family member appears to be xenophobic and thinks Dems are just as corrupt and tend to be wishy washy and unable to accomplish anything. I haven't figured out what it is they think the Republicans have, but having grown up in a very liberal family it isn't the "Right is Might" that attracts them. Mostly they think Repubs are conservative and they, being conservative, figure the Repubs are one of them.

Anyways, not all of the 30% are for ignoring the rule of law. In fact, they are kind of the opposite. It's just that they are listening to ? Fox? and therefore are misinformed.

[autorank]

6. The 30% follow the 'elites' as per the poster. Fox is one of those 'leets.

The rank and file gets on board, as you say, based on misinformation from Fox, Rush, etc.

I read a story in Fox about a month ago about some pirated Iranian freighter in Somalia just loaded
with deadly material, probably headed somewhere to do very bad things. The US was oging to board the
vessel, etc. The pirates were dying of a mysterious disease, probably 'radiation' -

It was all fantasy. The ship was released after the ransom, it sailed off, and crew members gave
interviews - no crew members died and there was no mention of any radioactive or poisonous cargo. No
U.S. naval vessel approached it, etc. What world does Fox live in? What world do people who believe Fox live in/

This is Fox - F stands for fiction. When you've got a distortion machine like that the base
constituency, I think more like 20% will believe anything. We don't have anything like that on the
left. Even the hard core will ask questions about their own party (as evidenced on this forum).

In any event, I thought that the statement was crystal clear - you can't play with someone who
has no recognition of the rules; for whom cheating serves a higher goal.

[annabanana]

7. yup yup... You just don't give the running of the government to people

who don't believe in government and expect it to work.

[autorank]

8. And look what it got us

1980-1988 - Huge federal debt, layoffs galore, corporate greed to the max. Ignorant administration on the environment, energy, education, Iran contra. One thing positive -- the Secretary of Defense was derisively known as "Gandhi with guns" - Caspar Weinberger. Their foreign policy was all secret and nasty stuff and bluster but they wouldn't commit to the big ones.

1988-2002 - More debt, more layoffs, corporate greed a little less public but kickin' it. And a stupid war to protect territorial integrity for a country that was barely a countr. Nothing positive.

2000-2008 - The Horror, across the board. Everything bad or worse, catastrophic.

These folks hate the government, you are so right annabanana. And they have no problem working their election magic shows to keep in place.

[annabanana]

9. They can't imagine the concept of the "common good", . .so they

dismantle it at every opportunity in order to claim it for their own.

[autorank]

10. Robin Hood in Reverse;)

[formercia]

18. You can only prop up the Ponzi scheme for so long

How many empires in History have fallen from the same MO?

[truedelphi]

20. THough I keep wondering why it is that the black ops money allowed

The stock market to fall BEFORE the election.

Maybe they needed some 7 or 8 billion from the Bailout Bill to play their end run game around the Obama victory. With payout money for the Registrar of Voters in Counties where the Repugs need them, it could add up to being an expensive job.

[formercia]

21. They could have the money at any time

The boys can cough up a few Billion without much impact on their game plan. I think they lost control of the situation when Societe Generale in France unwound all of the back room trades. This set in motion a whole slew of margin calls and things went down hill from there.

http://media.www.bgnews.com/media/storage/paper883/news/2008/01/28/World/Unauthorized.Trading.Results.In.Loss.Of.4.9.Billion.Euros-3170441.shtml

Unauthorized trading results in loss of 4.9 billion euros
By: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted: 1/28/08
PARIS - Societe Generale said yesterday that a trader who evaded all its controls to bet $73.5 billion - more than the French bank's market worth - on European markets hacked computers and "combined several fraudulent methods" to cover his tracks, causing billions in losses.

The bank says the trader, Jerome Kerviel, did not appear to have profited personally from the transactions and seemingly worked alone - a version reiterated yesterday by Jean-Pierre Mustier, chief executive of the bank's corporate and investment banking arm.

But, in a conference call with reporters, Mustier added: "I cannot guarantee to you 100 percent that there was no complicity."

Kerviel's lawyer said the accusations of wrongdoing against his client were being used to hide bad investments by the bank related to subprime mortgages in the United States.

[truedelphi]

23. Thank you for posting this interesting info n/t

[formercia]

27. How it all started

The demolition charges were all in place....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEWTTbtl82s&NR=1

[truedelphi]

28. If the election magic show succeeds, then what??

This time it is not even close!! Unless as a late Oct surprise, they can provide footage of Obama helping Che Guevaerra back in Che's jungle days - but even there - most Americans would know Obama had not been born yet.

chirs Matthews is already talking about what an Obama Preisdency might look and feel like. And he was using the Kennedy administration has his model for the youth and intelligence that Barack will bring.

Also Yahoo at the Main Page had this (This had to be horrendously horrible for that headline writer to post - they have tried to re-play Martin Luther King Jr's infidelities and the fact that people of non-white races will be the majority by 2035 every time they mention Obama.)

Latest Election Polls and Coverage (From Yahoo)

Poll Averages
McCain (R) 43.2%
Obama (D) 50.1%

Projected Electoral Votes (270 needed)
McCAin 167
Obama 344
» More: Full Coverage State-by-State Polls Register To Vote

[bertman]

11. Recced. In principle, I agree with the statement, but I'm not so sure we should limit this to

the GOP. From what I have seen since 2000, the Democratic leadership is complicit. What have they done to keep our democratic processes free from voter registration caging or disenfranchisement? What have they done to stop the use of these godawful voting machines that THEY KNOW are owned, programmed, and operated by Republicans? What did they do in the intervening EIGHT years since the Republicans stole TWO PRESIDENTIAL RACES?

Until a couple of weeks ago, you would have thought caging and suppression were some kind of wrasslin' hold. Now, here at the bitter end, the Obama campaign is starting to react to specific threats. I hope it's not too little too late.

BUT, my point is that it is not just the GOP, but the ruling elites of both parties. They could care less what the "people" think. It's what their corporate paymasters want that matters.

The sooner we recognize this and do something about it the better off we all will be.

I'm hoping Obama is going to help change it, but i'm not counting on it.

[autorank]

13. I agree

"What did they do in the intervening EIGHT years since the Republicans stole TWO PRESIDENTIAL RACES?"
Well, the first thing they did was issue a report, the DNC's report on election irregularities in Ohio. 200 pages, slapped together, with 100 pages of obscure statistics "provoing" Kerry lost in Ohio. I was amazed but educated quickly.

Doing nothing regarding election fraud, when you're involved and aware, is really doing something. It encourages the perps.

As for 'rasslin - you do your suppression hold, in the big caging match. Then you take your opponent for the last ride;)

[bertman]

19. I think Obama's gettin into position to put a Sleeper Hold on McCain's sorry ass.

[puebloknot]

26. Ironic that the Repubs have managed to claim that meme, as though ...

... they give a rat's a** about what's going on with the common folk. And although I'm allowing myself a little whiff of hope right now with Obama, I perfectly agree that the Dems have been conspiciously AWOL for a long time now.

Sometimes, in moments of despair, I think that it is going to take the collapse of the whole corrupt system for change to happen.

[texpatriot2004]

12. They don't like all those "secret" donations of less than a $100

from all the regular folk either. They don't want the regular folk registering to vote and they certainly don't want them voting, as their massive voter suppression indicates. They seriously don't like Democracy. So, can we quit spreading it around the world then? Why do the Republicans hate us for our freedoms?

Nice to see you Autorank :patriot:

[autorank]

14. IN Cognito

I shouldn't admit it, but whenever I'm going to make one of those "secret" donations, I put on
a hat, sun glasses, and a trench coat -- convert to hunt & peck typing -- and go through about 10
proxies;) Gotta do the stealth thing. Amazing statement from people who take money from anywhere.

Nice to see you:patriot:

[texpatriot2004]

30. LOL. How I enjoy your wit and wisdom :-) nm

[cliffordu]

15. kick

[althecat]

16. Agreed.... two paras that make a whole lota sense...

:toast:

[althecat]

17. kick

:kick:

[crickets]

22. Kick -nt

[autorank]

24. Kick

:kick:

[puebloknot]

25. It's elementary, my dear Autorank!. GOPers are schooled early on ...

... that they live above the "madding crowd," and that they have some kind of higher calling which precludes their having to be bothered with annoyances like honest elections -- the opiate of the people.

I propose internment camps where dissenters from democracy have to sit under a low-hanging, yellowish light bulb and read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights until they understand that resistance is futile. It will only be torture if there is organ failure.

I keep hoping for some kind of "divine" intervention, but the Space Brothers are slow in getting here to Planet Earth to rescue us from our ways, and every version of God I've heard about is turning in his/her sleep as we suffer down here below. So I guess We the People (the pro-American variety) are left with our mutual struggle to keep our democratic republic afloat.

Trying to breathe in Santa Fe, I remain,

Yours truly, etc. :)

[Laelth]

29. Agreed.

The Republic party has outlived its usefulness by about 28 years. The GOP is now a threat to our Constitution. They do not believe in democracy or fair elections.

-Laelth

[Joe Chi Minh]

31. I wonder if history might see it more as an interregnum, Mike. No regent, though.

Just lords of misrule running amok, planet-wide.