I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time...

[F4lconF16]

[Fred Sanders]

1. He is describing the Tea Party, not the majority of America. Not at all the majority.

To me it appears so bad only because a handful evangelical fools and idiots and ever so gullible 5th Graders in Iowa and NH are being pandered to by one of two parties in a two party nation, all amplified by a lazy and horse race pining "free" press.

No longer able to fear monger over the economy the corporate media turns to scary Muslims as the backup plan to keep The Fear alive and jumping.

Perception is reality. Up is down. A MIRV nuclear missile is the "Peacemaker". The corporate media have been in charge of reality for far too long. Which is why Americans must always percieve a threat, domestic or foreign - always to grease the wheels of profit and the massive and obese military and the industries that depend on fear and war.

Fear is the axle grease of war.

America is not corrupt and lost, just the Republicans.

Obama and the Democrats are doing just fine.

And you knew the economy was doing just fine as soon as the corporate media en masse decided that foreign affairs and rag tag militias in pick up trucks and scary videos half a world away were suddenly much more important than the economy...remember when it was the reverse?

[oberliner]

5. "the corporate media turns to scary Muslims ...."

Yeah I guess the corporate media should ignore what is going on in Kenya, Yemen, Syria, etc because it involved Muslims being "scary".

[Fred Sanders]

6. So...you reveal the true nature of your objections by picking out one line....thanks for that.

How is America threatened by these rag tag militas fighting local wars?

There are all kinds of scary groups in the world - even scary Christians, like Russia, for starters. How about the scary Christians right in America?? Plenty more scary "Christian" groups and militias in Africa. Also some Scary Buddhists, in Burma. Some Scary Hindus, in India.

Scary Jews, in Israel, like Bibi...what real threat are any of them half a world away, to America?

Other than Bibi and his 100 nuclear weapons threatening to start a war that is.

[Bluenorthwest]

14. Sagan's quote says all who live by superstition and darkness are scary. Your assertion is that

some who do horrible things because of superstitious religious beliefs are not scary, that claiming they are is just a media game.
You, Fred, looked at a quote about belief based culture being scary and suggested that belief based culture is not scary. No one here held up Islam, you did. To me, Sagan is very clearly speaking of all belief systems, new age, traditional religions, anything where reason is trumped by belief.

[oberliner]

32. Scary fundamentalist Christians are extremely popular targets of disdain here

Scary fundamentalist Muslims ought to be as well.

When scary fundamentalist Muslims slaughter young men, kidnap and rape young girls, and threaten to continue to do the same on an even larger scale, that offends me as an American/human being and I feel like the news ought to report about it.

Same thing when fundamentalist Christians, Jews, or Hindus do the same.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

81. "I feel like the news ought to report about it."

They do.

I'm old enough to remember when someone arrested for child molesting was reported as "contributing to the delinquency of a minor". That made it sound like Fagin and The Artful Dodger.

We get our crazy in living color now.

[sabrina 1]

60. How many White People have Muslims killed as compared to how many Muslims the Western

Imperial nations have and still are killing?

[zeemike]

7. "America is not corrupt and lost, just the Republicans."

That is so naive...if it were just them we could and would win.

This is not a high school football game where you cheer for and love your team and boo and hate the other team...but they insist that it is and we must.

Sometimes I think our social and intellectual development stops when we get out of high school...at least those who think it was the best years of their life.

[woo me with science]

20. Predictable "2+2=5" corporate propaganda to try to divide us into our Red and Blue Teams.

Beyond pathetic at this point. *Of course* it's not just the Republicans.

Mass spying on Americans? Both parties support it.
Trans-Pacific Job/Wage Killing Secret Agreement? Both parties support it.
TISA corporate overlord agreement? Both parties support it.
Drilling and fracking? Both parties support it.
Wars on medical marijuana instead of corrupt banks? Both parties support it.
Deregulation of the food industry? Both parties support it.
GMO's? Both parties support it.
Mass propaganda aimed at Americans? Both parties support it.
Austerity for the masses? Both parties support it.
Cutting social safety nets? Both parties support it.
Corporatists in the cabinet? Both parties support it.
Bank bailouts? Both parties support it.
Ignoring the trillions stashed overseas? Both parties support it.
Tolling our interstate highways? Both parties support it.
Corporate education policy? Both parties support it. Privatization of the TVA? Both parties support it.
Immunity for telecoms? Both parties support it.
"Looking forward" and letting war criminals off the hook? Both parties support it.
Deciding torturers are patriots? Both parties support it.
Militarized police and assaults on protesters? Both parties support it.
Indefinite detention? Both parties support it.
Drone wars and kill lists? Both parties support it.
Targeting of journalists and whistleblowers? Both parties support it.
Private prisons replacing public prisons? Both parties support it.
Unions? Both parties view them with contempt.
Trillion dollar increase in nuclear weapons. Both parties support it.
New war in Iraq. Both parties support it.
New war in Syria. Both parties support it.
Carpet bombing of captive population in Gaza. Both parties support it.
Selling off swaths of the Gulf of Mexico for drilling? Both parties support it.
Drilling along the Atlantic Coast? Both parties support it.
Arctic drilling for Shell Oil? Both parties support it.

We have united oligarchy, not divided democracy.

[mountain grammy]

29. Oh stop with the hyperbole already..

please! You might as well be on fox, you've bought it all lumping all Democrats in with Republicans... oh yeah, that nasty Elizabeth Warren. She a Dem so she must be supporting your list, along with all Democrats. For pete's sake, give this up. It's simply too simple and not true.

[JaneyVee]

38. Seriously, why even post that BS on a site called Democratic Underground?

Would be better off over at Infowars.

[Surya Gayatri]

39. Oh là là, l'hyperbole, cà brule!

Oh là là, the hyberbole, it burns...

[woo me with science]

47. The policies speak clearly for themselves. And that's a hell of a list.

All the silly tag-teaming in the world wailing "hyperbole!" does not change what this corporate Democratic administration has been shoving down our throats for years now, and that Hillary Goldman-Sachs would continue to do to us.

And while Elizabeth Warren's message on the banks is important and welcome, even her policy agenda does not clearly challenge the wars and the surveillance/police state that are dismantling democracy in this nation.

We don't just need to be more economically comfortable within an authoritarian state. We need restoration of our democracy and our Bill of Rights.

We need reform of our elections. We need restoration of our civil liberties. We need an end to the surveillance state and the militarization of our police forces, and the private prison industry, and the endless wars for profit. We need an end to the odious propaganda machine that spews bullshit defense of the outright subversion of our democracy with secret government. We need a candidate like Bernie Sanders who is not afraid to use the word, "oligarchy." Actually, we need a candidate who is not afraid to use the word, "fascism."

And they're not finished yet. The corporatists, including Obama and corporate Democrats, are not finished assaulting us yet. The TPP is being aimed at all of us and our children as we speak.


You, of course, will continue. But all the "2+2=5" in the world does not change the filthy corporate money flooding both parties and the resulting betrayals of Americans that that list shows, and that we have observed with our own eyes for years now.

Reject Third Way propaganda. Reject denial and rewriting of history.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5767160

[mountain grammy]

52. The very first time in my life I heard the expression "both parties are the same"

was from a conservative Republican some 30 plus years ago. You remember, when Democrats voted for Reagan in droves because "both parties are the same." Now that hasn't worked out so well for any of us, has it?

No thank you, I will not perpetuate the Republican lie. You go right ahead.

[haikugal]

58. The second of two great posts..I thanks you!

You lay it out. There is much for us to unite for and recover.

The OP is wonderful..we need to be reminded of all we've lost and why we lost it.

I'm with you.

[George Beerlover]

86. I'm with you, grammy!

In my dystopian vision, the country's on fire, and not from arson or war.

[treestar]

88. It is just so pointless

and they never have an answer for it or any positive thing to assert. We're supposed to think of ourselves as helpless victims of this 1%.

[StarzGuy]

48. I've been arguing that for years...

...both parties are members of the 1% and could give a shit about the 99% peons. Yes, perhaps the DiNO's talk a good game but watch what they actually do. Now that they are in the minority they can and do spout how far the inequalities have become all the while knowing that their votes don't add up to a hill of beans. They're not in power. However, there is a sense of entitlement among the whole lot of them. After all they all are the millionaire 1% class that abuse their office for personal financial gain. Bob Menendez is a "prize" example of what I mean. Changes need to be made in order to rescue the rest of us, the 99%

[woo me with science]

49. Well said.

The Red versus Blue propaganda does not fly anymore. We have observed the behavior of corporate politicians for years now, and they are complicit across party in the looting of this nation and the subversion of democracy.

They are relying desperately on propaganda to try to keep us divided into our Red and Blue teams so that we will continue to defend anything our team does.

It's not working anymore. That list of policies is damning. And it's the result of the systemic corruption of both parties by corporate money.

[bvar22]

62. You left out a lot!

I didn't find you list hyperbolic in the least.
Those that are attacking you should pick out a few items and
demonstrate to those of us simple minded folk WHY any particular statement from your post was hyperbole.
I found it to be a depressing compilation of life in America.

DURec for Post # 20 by woo me with science.

[JEB]

78. That is exactly correct. eom

[bvar22]

63. You left out a lot.

I didn't find your list to be hyperbolic in the least.
I found it to be a depressing compilation of life in America, and a frightening direction for the future.

Those that are attacking you should pick out a few items and
demonstrate to those of us simple minded folk WHY any particular statement from your post was hyperbole.


DURec for Post # 20 by woo me with science.

[samplegirl]

74. Really?????????

Still not voting for Rand Paul.

[newthinking]

31. This!

Part of the dumbing down of the US is making us into an angry and confused divided state. And this phenominon is happening on both sides of the divide.

[marmar]

18. Even studies from bastions of Ivy League stodginess such as Princeton and Brown.....

...... say that the United States is an oligarchy. Our political process has been bought by money. We have a large part of the Democratic Party endorsing a trade deal that sells out national sovereignty to corporations.
No, the Dems aren't the neo-fascist homophobic, sexist, racist freaks that populate the Republican Party, but I'd hardly describe it as "doing just fine." The system is corrupt to the core. That's just reality.

[Fred Sanders]

25. In the meantime, until the agreed corrupt system is thoroughly overhauled, isn't it time for some optimism?

Does Obama look like he has given up?

If Obama is not the mirror opposite of the fascists...is that reason to abandon him and his Party and to then drown ourselves in "what can we do" sorrow and pessimism?

Obama sees the vast gulf between the parties, he is the example of that gulf..so should we.

Let Obama do what he can for now and let the legacy continue after 2016...I mean, really, look at the one remaining option.

Pining for progressive perfection now while the fascists attempt a coup is what the fascists want.

Get rid of the fascists first, then demand perfection.

Get Obama's back NOW....the future will be here soon enough.

[marmar]

28. I think the gulf is vast on social issues. On militarism and corporatism especially, not so much.

But no, we shouldn't give up, and we have to infliltrate the Democratic Party with the populism it once fought for. But we've also got to be realistic about where it is. Just look at people who've held key positions in the administration - alums from Goldman Sachs, Citigroup etc. Whose interests do you think they'll represent first and foremost?

[KingCharlemagne]

66. All due respect, Fred, but recent surveys suggest that as many as 70%

of Americans believe that angels actually exist. That, my friend, is a solid majority in favor of . . . a belief in the existence of angels.

Those of us who believe in the values of Enlightenment secular humanism must play smart defense in order to preserve the Enlightenment's gains.

[ybbor]

2. He surely was a genius!

I was unaware of he prophetic abilities.

Turns out he was pretty much dead on. I believe we are at this point today.

[sammythecat]

91. I'm with you on every word you said n/t

[mnhtnbb]

3. The Dark Ages are returning.

[Fred Sanders]

4. Really? How so? Isn't getting you to think that way the goal of the fascists? Why cave so quickly?

[Bluenorthwest]

15. “You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages--they haven't ended yet.”

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

[onecent]

22. YOU are 100% correct and Carl Sagan didn't even know what a tea partiest

was. This man was a genius.

America is going to hell RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES....PEOPLE...If you don't believe it, believe it for your grandchildren. It is upon us...BIG BROTHER IS ALREADY HERE.

Sagan was a genius....and he could see it coming...AND IT IS.

[jtuck004]

40. I think they have been here for some time. So slow that people are able to intentinally

pretend they aren't, fooling themselves.

It's gonna get much darker, and we are gonna deliberately take ourselves there.

[teach1st]

8. Some context for the quote in the OP

From The Demon Haunted World, by Carl Sagan, pages 27 and 28 of the PDF (The book was originally published in 1995.)

Popularizing science - trying to make its methods and findings accessible to non-scientists - then follows naturally and immediately. Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the world. This book is a personal statement, reflecting my lifelong love affair with science.

But there's another reason: science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number one video cassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. Beavis and Butthead remains popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning - not just of science, but of anything - are avoidable, even undesirable.

We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements - transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting - profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

http://www.boerenlandvogels.nl/sites/default/files/demonhauntedworld.pdf

[F4lconF16]

9. Thank you.

Context is always welcome. A good addition to this thread.

[1StrongBlackMan]

10. I was just saying to myself ...

before I give this a second thought, I'm gonna have to find the Book and a secondary reference to the books and quote, as it's prescience very well could be attributable to the internet phenomena of just writing stuff and attributing to someone we like (and if we really want to be believed, invent the quote AND a title for the book that it came out of. )

[F4lconF16]

11. Ha, I wish I was imaginative enough to come up with that bit of genius...

Sadly, I am not

[1StrongBlackMan]

26. Ahhh ...

I misunderestimate yourself!

[treestar]

89. Someone must understand science

If anything it is valued over the liberal arts. I don't see why he thinks this disaster is going to come.

[JHB]

12. Ooh! I get to correct a typo by Carl Sagan!

"...key manufacturing industries have been shipped away to other countries..."

[awoke_in_2003]

64. You do realize...

that Sagan did not type the text in the picture? Whomever transposed the words he wrote in Demon Haunted World (which, I can assure you, has no spelling errors) to the picture made the typo.

[JHB]

69. And do you realize...

...that I was being somewhat facetious by calling it a "typo"?

Sagan was concerned that the industries would slip away. But many of them didn't passively "slip away", outdone by foreign competition. They were actively sent to other countries, outsourced and offshored, not by crystal-clutchers and horoscope-readers, but by bean-counters and corporate raiders. People who reduce "what's right" to a single factor: how much money gets sent skyward.

[awoke_in_2003]

70. Yeah, he underestimated

the greed that runs this country.

[Quantess]

13. Religious extremists are on the rise.

He didn't see that coming. Civilizations are going backward with the help of backward religions.

[padfun]

17. Oh yes he did.

That's the part that says superstition and the demon haunted part.

[Quantess]

23. You're right, he came close.

Although horoscopes and crystals seem harmless next to violent muslim extremism.

[Igel]

37. And yet neither crystals nor horoscopes are well-established parts of MSM religions.

I don't know of fundies that go with astrology--most of them put it to one side. Nor are crystals part of most fundie belief systems.

For astrology you just go with kooky in general--although I will say that a lot of the revival is from the '60s and early '70s, when both hippies and Nancy Reagan embraced this bit of revival of anti-science weird. "Age of Aquarius" was hardly a bankers' redoubt.

Crystals are mostly New Age with roots in various kinds of superstition, none of which strike me as being esp. churchy.

I don't think Sagan was picking sides in left- versus right-kookiness. He was taking the side of rationalism against mysticism. Take the kookiness with autism, anti-vax, GMOs, global climate change. "We" like to think that if it's kooky, it's (R) and fundie. But much of the anti-vax crap is distinctly left-of-center. Autism non-science is equal opportunity. Most anti-GMO--where the consensus among researchers saying it's okay is up there with the consensus saying that humans are responsible for much of global climate change--is left, while anti-climate-change folk are typically on the right.

By being blind to an entire flank of anti-science kookery it's allowed to fester, and not just allowed--the kooks are great, intelligent, wise people when they support the rationalists among us. Then turning around to our allies and saying, "What? You've been insane all the time" smacks of a certain kind of self-proclaimed insanity.

It pays to note, though, that most of us would fail an absolute rationalist purity test. At least irrationalism that has no possible short-term consequences isn't a big issue; it's worse when it's public figures spewing the goofiness or a majority trend.

[haikugal]

61. Well said..

The attack has been both subtle and continuous for 30+ years now. Confusion is intentional and all the while education has been starved of resources leaving us more vulnerable to woo and anti science from both left and right.

This is intentional.

[Art_from_Ark]

83. Argh

There is no consensus on the safety of GMOs. Much if not most of the GMO research is funded by corporations that have a stake in a positive outcome of the results. To link bona fide concerns about GMOs with belief in magical properties of crystals is disingenuous.

"Rigorous assessment of GMO safety has been hampered by the lack of funding independent of proprietary interests. Research for the public good has been further constrained by property rights issues, and by denial of access to research material for researchers unwilling to sign contractual agreements with the developers, which confer unacceptable control over publication to the proprietary interests.

"The joint statement developed and signed by over 300 independent researchers, and reproduced and published below, does not assert that GMOs are unsafe or safe. Rather, the statement concludes that the scarcity and contradictory nature of the scientific evidence published to date prevents conclusive claims of safety, or of lack of safety, of GMOs. Claims of consensus on the safety of GMOs are not supported by an objective analysis of the refereed literature."

http://www.enveurope.com/content/27/1/4

[jtuck004]

41. "violent muslim extremism." > Lol. Nothing compared to violent American extremism. n/t

[Quantess]

46. Yes, if you want to change the subject away from oppressive, backwards religions.

I love how you're not supposed to say anything negative about muslim extremists on the DU...

[jtuck004]

51. You can say, more or less, any fucking thing you want, I don't care. But pretending that we aren't

as backward and ignorant as they are, but with different branding, seems like a two-faced opinion to me.

One could argue, just not sure how our blowing up of small children playing in the mud in Iraq is any less backward. And, frankly, we imprison and ruin the lives of millions of people of color, unjustly, including children, at an astounding rate far exceeding that of white folk (privilege, you know). There are many other things, but if that's not oppressive and backward by a so-called "christian" nation, don't know what is.

Your standards are, clearly, different, and I celebrate the fact that they are. Still think it is propaganda.

[Quantess]

54. Yes, the subject at hand was Carl Sagan's prescience about superstitions and religions.

You're changing the subject, but please do go ahead. There are so many atrocities committed on a grand scale by humankind, that we could take all day to list them all.

Also, I forgot that at the DU we are required to comment that "Christians are just as bad" when making a disparaging remark about Muslim extremists, who by the way, just mowed down about 150 people in Kenya.

Yes, it's true that the US created a lot of problems in the middle east. So what, that doesn't make Muslim extremists beyond reproach!

[jtuck004]

72. "doesn't make Muslim extremists beyond reproach!" < Doesn't make them any worse either.

How many surrendering Iraqi's were our soldiers ordered to murder, shooting them in the back when we illegally invaded their country?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death

A Mai-lai every month...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

Your contention that anyone is worse than us is seriously anachronistic thinking, and more a part of the problem than anything. But if it gets you through what passes for your day, go for it.

Waste of time for me, however.

bye

[Quantess]

73. Muslim Extremism beheads gays, beheads women for just being themselves.

Yes, I say with full confidence that Muslim extremists in 2015 are worse than Christian extremists in 2015.

[awoke_in_2003]

65. You do know...

that it is oppressive, backwards religions that are causing havoc in our country? Muslim extremists are not writing laws in this country to curb women's reproductive right. MEs are not writing laws in this country that make it OK to discriminate against LGBT people. This, and other things, cannot be laid on the doorstep of Islam. This is no defense of that backward religion, just pointing out that we have plenty of backwards religious people here, too- and they are much more dangerous to American lives than MEs.

[Quantess]

67. I am aware of this.

I don't currently live in the USA, so I have a somewhat different perspective than most DUers. I live in Europe.

Muslim extremists are out of control, and I am geographically closer to the hotbed of violent, oppressive, action than most other DUers are. Christians here don't even show up on the radar, so to speak.

[awoke_in_2003]

68. Ah, I hear you, then...

if we (secular nations) don't start clamping down on extremists in our midst we are going to regret it. My post may not be popular, but there are people that will do anything to create theocracies around the world. Right now they may be a small percentage of the population, but they breed more often. In America we have the "lovely" Quiver Full movement. There goal is to have as many children as possible, and women are viewed as nothing more than baby machines.

[Quantess]

71. Religious extremism is bad for everyone!! Religious extremism is the bane of human civilization,

as far as I'm concerned. Atheists are 100% better people, in general, when compared to religious extremists.

The whole thing about women being vile and dirty and shameful... I am a woman and there is NO WAY I am EVER going to be okay with what extreme or even moderate Muslims believe about women!!!

I get so sick of this stupid notion that DUers have a gag order about speaking out about muslim extremism, when they are downright HORRIBLE to women and to gays!

[teach1st]

21. I think he did see it

I think he did see it:

Page 264 of the book:

Some of mainstream Christianity and Judaism embraces and even anticipated at least a portion of the humility, self-criticism, reasoned debate, and questioning of received wisdom that the best of science offers. But other sects, sometimes called conservative or fundamentalist - and today they seem to be in the ascendant, with the mainstream religions almost inaudible and invisible - have chosen to make a stand on matters subject to disproof, and thus have something to fear from science.

[F4lconF16]

24. He absolutely did.

If this particular quote didn't make it clear enough, his entire life did. Sagan was very outspoken against religion--and religion of all types, not just extremists.

[SCVDem]

16. Let's just take one issue

There are two options to mediate the major drought in California and the Southwest.

Do like Rick Perry and the TP did and hold a prayer rally (to aleviate Texas' drought),


OR

get the people up to speed on the science of humankinds effect on the ecosystem and accept the concept that we are in for a new normal and adapt.

Adapt means change and that is not conservative or religious thinking! Change the direction of the KXL pipeline to east/west and pump water instead of oil. Stop fracking and minimize coal use. Every home in the country should have solar panels.

It seems America is the only backward country in the world which does not respect science or the method.

My foreboding starts in a year when our reservoirs run dry and all I see are prayer groups killing us with inaction and politicians feeding their base while we die. A divided America cannot survive.

I miss Carl Sagan!

[mountain grammy]

27. Well said.

I miss Carl Sagan too, but there are new voices sounding the alarms. Problem is, only a few of us are listening.

[newthinking]

33. Which was part of his point (unfortunately)

[mountain grammy]

36. Yeah...

[NickB79]

44. And yet, you sorta clutch at your own crystals in your response without knowing it

Change the direction of the KXL pipeline to east/west and pump water instead of oil.

That idea is about as effective as praying for rain, given the sheer volume of water required to make a dent in the drought.

[Pooka Fey]

85. Major drought in CA - Democratic Gov Jerry Brown exempts Big Oil - Fracking to continue

Last edited Sun Apr 5, 2015, 07:44 AM - Edit history (1)

I see faith based solutions on both sides of the aisle - faith in God on the Right, and faith in Money and Campaign Contributions on the Left -(this faith is shared by the Right of course).

I don't see respect for science anywhere in the equation. I see an America united in its own destruction. Neither of the 2 political parties is addressing this.

The inaction you wrote about is not ONLY the result of prayer groups. It is just untrue to pin that inaction on your political and social opponents. The Democratic party leadership is doing a fine job stabbing us in the back regarding the CA drought, all the while chanting about their commitment to science. Commitment to (or faith in) science does not equal taking action in a rational manner, evidently.

Brown's mandate, announced Wednesday, directs cities and communities to cut down their water consumption by 25 percent, but does not make any requirements of the state's numerous oil companies, including those which practice the water-heavy fracking method of extraction, nor of large-scale farming operations.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6458557

I'm frustrated at this hopeless situation, not at you personally. Peace.

[blackspade]

19. Presient as always.

He had such hope for the human race, but we insist on pissing on ourselves like toddlers.

[world wide wally]

30. Too brilliant for Americans.

They prefer Sean Hannity anyway

[Thespian2]

35. Agree.

Many Americans have been conditioned to Fear and Hate. The Hannitys of the country fill in the blanks concerning who to Fear and Hate.

[whathehell]

76. Not this American, nor the majority who voted AGAINST a Sean Hannity type presidency.

Let's stop foolishly putting ourselves down as "dumb Americans" when
it is mainly the Right who deserve that insult...We're not part of that minority of the country.














lumping themselves in with

[world wide wally]

79. Love what you say, but that "minority" seems to win the elections

[whathehell]

82. They won the last two midterms, but we won the last two presidential elections. n/t

[world wide wally]

84. yeah. I know

[whathehell]

90. You do?

Then why incorrectly claim that the minority "wins all the elections"?

[world wide wally]

92. Maybe because the minority (Republicans) control, the House, the Senate, and something

like 35 house legislatures?

[whathehell]

93. I hope not, lol, since it still doesn't change the number of elections they've won..

[cyberswede]

34. Well, the prescience there is depressing.

[jtuck004]

42. Can't tell the kids we didn't know, as we watch them swallowed by the

country we created for them.

Later generations gonna empty our graves, cremate the remains, piss on us, and then burn the history books on their way to removing any painful memory that we even existed for anything other than breeding them.

Perhaps China, after they remove our government and right-size our education, showing how they improved on it, while we were busy yammering about terrorists, not realizing WE were the real problem.

Welcome to your future, kiddies.

[valerief]

43. He nailed that. Teh Stooooopid reigns supreme today. nt

[MisterP]

45. eeeh, there was WAY more astrology and summonings in the Renaissance than 5th-8th centuries

[LiberalArkie]

50. I am so happy that in 2008

the Democratic party was able to get rid of the patriot act and close Guantanamo and clean up the U.S. Tax code to help the middle class and the poor. Just think how bad it would have been if both parties were the same.

[elleng]

53. We're there now.

I have 2 daughters, around 30 years old, and 2 grandsons, around 1 year old.

[moondust]

55. Societal collapse

could drag on for a long, miserable time.

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

[blkmusclmachine]

56. Theocratic SLAVERY is in our kids' future, unfortunately:

[blkmusclmachine]

57. Image URL: https://thatsmyphilosophy.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/7-mountains.jpg

Comments are my own.

[captainarizona]

59. I disagree

Things are slowly getting better and no I am not crazy. The republicans have won the popular vote vote for president once since 1988. That was in 2004 when john kerry and the unions were ambivalent about the immigration issue and bush got 44% of hispanic vote. Democrats won't let that happen again. arizona and texas are slowly turning from red to blue over half the babies born in those states are hispanic citizenship up the dreamers and bye bye republicans. Every month a 100,000 minority kids turn 18 voting age and 15,000 republicans die to go burn in hell. Do the math! The corporate republicans have and are scared to death because the tea baggers tell the chamber of commerce boys you are going down on the titanic with us or we will primary you out! Redistricting in 2020 will get us the house back and gerrymandering in northern states makes republicans vulnerable to a democratic wave election. We need to concentrate making the corporate democrats behave themselves to get with the program.

[WillyT]

75. K & R !!!

[spin]

77. Carl Sagan was a prophet and I just thought he was an astronomer. (n/t)

[marym625]

80. K&R!

Thank you for this!

[treestar]

87. Technology isn't in the hands of a very few

And where is this coming from? What is he objecting to - capitalism?