If (and it's a big if) Kerry loses in November, I will blame...

[Paragon]

[Walt Starr]

1. The buck stops at the top

If John Kerry loses, John Kerry must take full responsibility.

[Lindacooks]

2. What about Nader?

eom

[Paragon]

6. Added.

Even though someone somewhere will blame Michael Moore, I took him off and replaced him with Ralph.

[Somawas]

3. I'll blame myself

for fucking off here instead of passing out literature, bumper stickers or whatever else I could do. Driving folks to the polls, if necessary.

[Andy_Stephenson]

4. I would have said BBV instead of

Diebold...most of the big three are in BEd with the GOP. A full 80% of all votes cast this november will be counted by two brothers. Bob Urosevitch of Diebold and Todd Urosevitch of ES&S. Both operatives for the GOP IMHO.

[Paragon]

7. Done.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Bush first and foremost.

No matter how the numbers break down, I will never know if we can trust them.

[redqueen]

8. The American People -AND- The Media

They have a duty, and they are not doing it.

"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them."
Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.

"The only security of all is a free press.The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure."
Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823.

"The most effectual engines for pacifying a nation are the public papers...A despotic government always keeps a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invent and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers . This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper."
Thomas Jefferson to G.K. van Hogendorp, October 13, 1785.

"Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it."
Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1786.

"I am for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents."
Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799.

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."
Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804.

"Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust them for light."
Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1799.

"Considering the great importance to the public liberty of the freedom of the press, and the difficulty of submitting it to very precise rules, the laws have thought it less mischievous to give greater scope to its freedom than to the restraint of it."
Thomas Jefferson to the Spanish Commissioners, 1793.

"This is a country which is afraid to read nothing, and which may be trusted with anything, so long as its reason remains unfettered by law."
Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Milligan, 1816.

"Our people, merely for want of intelligence which they may rely on, are become lethargic and insensible of the state they are in."
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1777.

"The materials now bearing on the public mind will infallibly restore it to its republican soundness...if the knowledge of facts can only be disseminated among the people."
Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1799.

"I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world of their time, whereas the accounts they have read in the newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them...but no details can be relied on."
Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807.

[Hoping4Change]

9. If Kerry Loses consider this ominous warning....

In another forum Burtworm quotes a speech that states the following:

"If the American electorate, knowing what it knows and, above all, having seen what it has seen, proceeds to reelect George W. Bush in November, the moderating distinction between the American administration and the American people will be eroded or perhaps erased -- with what violent consequences no one can predict."

To even contemplate Kerry losing is a nightmare. Kerry has got to win.


http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/06/17/anti_americanism/index_np.html

[Mountainman]

10. The voters make the decision.

If they vote for Bush enough for him to win, it's their stupidity.

I wish we could buy billboards across the nation and on them list Bush's mis-accomplishments and lies with dates and references.

People don't remember what has gone on in the last 3 years. There attention span is as long as the next Paris Hilton reality show.

[vi5]

Where is the option for "the self defeating left"?

We have the numbers. More people believe what we believe. The far right sucks it up and takes 50-75% of what they want rather than holding out and demanding 100%.

If our side does not realize that then we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Kerry and the DLC

The "play it safe" strategy didn't work 2000, or 2002. Kerry is nibbling around the edges trying to get the "moderates" while avoiding the real issues. He's trying so hard not to offend the "center" that his "message" (whatever it is this week) has been muted to the point of silence.

Of course the DLC apologists will blame the left for not supporting their weak candidate.

[gWbush is Mabus]

12. it's all about the media

it's what people see and hear and talk about to their friends

look at how the media crushed dean.
look at how the media props up bush.

they may make this a "horse-race" for ratings, but in the end
it will depend on how blantantly the propagandize in the last 2 weeks before the election.

and it will be BAD.


remember CNN actively campainging for Swarzengroper in the last week of that election?

[AntiCoup2K4]

13. Combination Kerry & the DLC

The DLC for corrupting the party leadership with their treasonous neocon agenda, and Kerry for going along with it. And for not giving John Q. Sixpack any reason to believe he's different than Bush (which he still could do, but certainly hasn't done yet)

[LTR]

14. Kerry

He is practically being handed this election.

In the coming four and a half months, Bush is going to implode. People will tire of 'political correctness'. He can easily seize this.

The only other person I could blame would be Jeb Bush, depending on whether history repeats itself in Florida.

[freetobegay]

15. Other

I'll blame some people right...

[Warpy]

16. Why not a category for the real culprit?

DIEBOLD!

[Paragon]

17. BBV

[i_c_a_White_Ghost]

18. the people of this country want garbage

then they get garbage. As long as they have their Suv's and creature comforts why should they care. This country is heading straight down.

[Armstead]

19. THE MEDIA

I have enough faith in the majority of the Ameican people to believe that if they really were presented with the full, objective truth that they wold toss Bush out on his ear.

That includes many of the non-rabid moderate conservatives who would be appalled if the full picture were presented -- not only of the administration, but the whole right-wing infrastructure and who is behind it.

But the media are such lapdogs that they avoid and spin to make the administration look good. They have not even allowed legitimate questions to be raised about policy.

Only the most sensationalist and simnplistic crap gets through their filter.