I asked a friend if she regretted voting for Bush...

[The Backlash Cometh]

A friend who recently was diagnosed with breast cancer found out that another friend in the area also was diagnosed with cancer and discovered that there was a cluster of five homes alongside her home that had the same thing happen. So, the message was sent to me to find out what I could about the area. I told my friend that there was very little I could do except to share old information that I knew about the area from old soil and water tests. I told her that the EPA, under Bush, is set up to keep that very kind of information out of the hands of the public. There was an article to that affect yesterday which I intended to link for this post, but I can't find it in my bookmarks.

Anyway, the point is, I asked her, now that she knows how Bush turned out, does she regret not voting for Gore? Her response was that the news says that he is exaggerating everything. I asked her what news? She said CNN. I asked her who said it, because, maybe it was a guest speaker? She said, everyone is saying it and, anyway, she doesn't trust any politician. "They're all crooked."

So, here is my suggestion. It's time to put down the misinformation media dog. It's time to hunt down those people who, for over a decade now, have been trying to water down the message of the coming climate changes. To do this, you need to start protecting the messengers, as well as discrediting their critics. Because, until we finally all agree on one authority on the subject, we will not be able to move as one body.

ON EDIT: I found the link:

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/36514449.html

[midnight]

1. Why is Dana wearing her black eye without covering it up with

makeup? As far as I'm concerned the media is sporting a black eye for not reporting the news, but suppressing it.

[gratuitous]

Your "friend" has breast cancer, and you twit her about her vote?

Nice. With friends like you, I'm sure she'll make a full recovery.

Of course, if it was me, I would say through gritted teeth that while your "good wishes" were very much appreciated, could you kindly get the fuck out of my life (or what's left of it)? But then, I'm sort of funny that way, I'm sure, and no one else would agree with me.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

3. Elections have consequences.

It's not mean to point out to people that they voted for the cause of their problems.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. I certainly see your point of view and it is valid.

I don't get the sensitivity award on this one, but, the point is that my hands are tied. I can't help her because there is no where to go for information that you can trust. There is no where to go for the information because in the last eight years the present President has tampered with the federal agencies to keep that information from the public. She, and just about everyone else on that street, voted for Bush. And now they're coming to me for answers?

And by the way, they found a lump, removed it, put her through chemo, but to my knowledge, there was no malignancy.

[Atman]

2. Standard GOP claptrap

"They're all crooked" is the Bush voter's favorite rationale. It seems to absolve them of any responsibility for their ignorance.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

7. I hear that axiom from so many people.

It is a b.s. justification. They voted for Bush because they wanted a tax cut or see brown people get blown up Over There.

[ClassWarrior]

10. Bingo.

The Party of Nixon has been pushing that meme for years. It provides cover for their crimes and corruption.

NGU.

[Kookaburra]

4. I'm sorry about your friend's cancer

Sounds like she's still rationalizing. "They're all crooked" seems to be their mantra when they realize their "men of God" are nothing but a bunch of snake oil salesmen.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. She's not an overly religious person.

Personally, I enjoy talking to her because she seems to respect my opinion, even though I am usually in the minority, in so many ways. But, she hangs and has always hung around a Republican well-to-do group. I know she would change her opinion if only she could sort out the pundit agendas.

[mitchum]

16. And has that "Republican well-to-do group" given her the scraps that she so eagerly waits for?

She is a tool and a fool.

[SheilaT]

6. A coworker of mine

voted for Bush both times, even though she seems generally to hold progressive views. And she does not regret it, maintaining that things would have played out much the same way no matter who had been elected.

I disagree with that view. I also recall, in 2000 after Bush was selected by the Supreme Court, people saying it will be all right in the end because he would surround himself with good and competent people. Hah! I knew even then that he'd surround himself with cronies, although I had no idea how truly terrible it would be. For the past three years now, every time I see photographs of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Gonzales, and many others, it feels a lot like seeing photographs if Hitler, Eichmann, Bormann, and Goering, those remarkable evil leaders of Germany.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Exactly on the nose.

I think we need to start supporting Gore. Until they realize the incredible mistake they made, they won't give him the respect and attention he deserves. And right now, we need everyone to listen to what he has to say.

[Locrian]

12. support

Absolutely - we need to actually support Gore. And we need to know what we are up against.

The free market disciples, anti-global climate change, anti government groups ALL read from the same playbook:

The use "populism" to oppose any restraint to their continued rape and plunder. They portray ANYONE who want to impose rules / regulations as "enemy" to the people. When in fact they have orchestrated the most massive shift of power FROM the people ever. They use "false" folksiness, false "respect" of common values, etc. They of course have people saying that "they are all the same" because "they" have demonized and gov, regulatory, scientific, institutions.

It was the same in the 1990s' dot com boom when we all got suckered into thinking "markets" would free the world and make everyone rich. Remember all the putrid eTrade, dot com millionairs, Forbes, market hype??? And it was all smoke screened as a overthrow of the "old" elite by those brainy / zany new whiz kid internet stat-up entrepreneurs. And the trend is NOT away from this - but more and more of the same: deregulate, dont interfere.

It is the same f-ing game plan for all of this because it ALWAYS comes down to power and money. Dont interfere with markets - they are all powerful natural force that must not be regulate. Regulation or GOV is bad; whether its' fascist, communist, socialist, democracy - DOESNT MATTER and it their eyes ITS THE SAME - since they all regulate. Ditto for climate change, ditto for FDA, EPA, ANYTHING that stands in the way.

This is what we have to overcome; being suckers for those in power. We need to find some way to shut down the media mouthpiece, the feedback loop of false "populism" that is merely pandering to fears, anxieties, and false hope. We need to take back the rule of law, and create a truly OPEN public discourse not colored by 24/7 "talking points" and media free market leg humping.

And I agree that it will be very PAINFUL for people like your friend, or others to wake up and realize they BOUGHT INTO this over the years. Sure, they were coerced, bribed, blackmailed whatever. But there can be NO reason now to continue to take it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Something about deregulation that even they weren't aware of.

This is a little tangent here, but, we still have yet to find out if any of the neo-cons got caught in that Madoff Scandal. Because it would be interesting to see if the neo-cons eventually get defeated by deregulation.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. LINK TO THE EPA ARTICLE

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/36514449.html

[sam sarrha]

14. she is victim to the ReThuglican mind control machine, my brother who lost all his Police Captains

retirement for 30 years of service due to Bu$h.. but the ReThugs were able to prevent him from going to the other side by conning him into a totally Cynical frame of life.. they were down to 26% approval and still got nearly half the vote.. it is their damage control Physiology Operations

"Conservatives" are unfortunately Born that way.. it isn't a Choice, they lack 'Fluidity in their

thinking, QUITE POSSIBLY because of Organic physical deficiencies in essential cognitive structures of the brain.

my personal view of this subject..if we cant legislate out the Phenomenological IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY http://bitbucket.icaap.org/dict.pl?term=IRON%20LAW%20OF , then we must consider that.. they need to be put in walled Reservations and prevented from breeding, its the only way to humanely deal with them. we are all Doomed if they are left to continue to FUCK everything up and profit from it,they are obsessive compulsive sociopaths and some psychopathic and all out of control." :shrug:
-------

search info.. brain differences

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/376166/brain_d...
"snip....Data analysis shows that liberals are about 5 times as likely as conservatives to show brain activity in the areas of the brain related to detecting conflicts between habitual tendency and a more appropriate response. Liberals are also more than twice as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.Simply put, liberals tend to think much more than conservatives before acting, whereas conservatives tend to be much more habitual and conforming to established traditions...snip"

search info. Democrat brain differences
http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.m...

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10se...
"Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research who was not connected to the study, said the results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity."

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

notice the difference in substance of the articles

search info for liberal brain differences
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid...


search info for conservative brain differences
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+concervative++bra...

---------------


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&cha...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy


http://bitbucket.icaap.org/dict.pl?term=IRON%20LAW%20OF...
xt

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.m

[mitchum]

15. I have as much compassion for your bush-loving friend...

as she apparently does fo others.
Stuff happens.