Perception versus Reality

[trof]

e-mail from a young friend this morning-
trof:
Who do the Democrats have in the pipeline?? Obama and Hillary Clinton?
I don't think the country is ready for that! We have entered a new day where
the Republicans rule decisively.

Is this what it felt like during the Reagan years?? All I remember is
General Hospital getting interrupted with news of the assassination attempt.


Alex:
No, not what the Reagan years felt like to me.
Compared to this, the Reagan years were a mild annoyance.
Today feels to me like the day John Kennedy was assassinated. After the
initial shock, and the reality of it had sunk in, I realized that I was
seeing the end of a short, but hopeful, era.

Today I see the end of another era. It might not have been a true era, just
my perception of it. As we have all now learned, perception is all.
Reality doesn't matter any more. Witness the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
and all the other Karl Rove manifestations.

Anyway...in my mind I've seen the end of what I guess I'd call the politics
of statesmanship. That period when more-or-less honorable people could
honestly disagree. Besides being messy and difficult to bring off, physical
assassination is no longer necessary. Personal and character assassination
work just as well. Maybe even better. No fallen martyrs left behind whose
memory will rally the troops.

Sorry for the doom and gloom, but this country has gone off in a direction
that I never imagined it would. It follows a theocratic leader who is only
there because of the people, tactics, institutions, and corporations
described in "Too Little, Too Late".
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110304.html

When things seem dark, I've always thought "Well, we've been through bad
times before, we'll get through this". I'm not so sure this time. This may
eventually pass, and maybe in your lifetime, but not in mine.

[JitterbugPerfume]

1. trof

that is exactly how I feel too

like a stranger in a strange land

[trof]

2. As Chester A. Riley would say:

"What a revoltin' development THIS is."
Hi Jit.