Is America dead?

[mmonk]

[dorktv]

1. *stops digging grave* Uh no?

[Erika]

2. The GOP have sold out the country

to corporate globalism and Bush relishes the title of the corporatist God of the planet. He shuts down funding for our needy but increases the funding for war mongering. Yes, America, via Bush and his supporters, have been lobed an arrow in the heart.

[pdurod1]

4. Dems are next

We need someone to rise outof the ashes.

[GetTheRightVote]

3. The Republicans are trying hard for it, but we will & must fight them

they are so evil and selfish.

:kick:

[mmonk]

7. Sounds good, but

I can't remember a time where there was no real journalism in the mainstream, where so many follow blindly, where tuth cannot penetrate, where political opposition has been so weak, and where there is so little debate or sense of curiosity on issues where this country is going to be changed into something most of us have never known.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

18. Yes, I feel like it is, for exactly the group of reasons you've stated.

You put it quite succinctly.

[Tux]

5. No

It's more like a zombie. Mindlessly wandering toward anything to can feast upon till that source is gone.

[autorank]

6. Nah,it's just the "walking pneumonia and the boogie woogie blues"

We're overdoing our case of vicarious PTSD* and letting the crooks steal everything that's not nailed down. There is a shift taking place and the rebound will be both glorious for a revitalization of creativity and social justice and extremely ugly for the current perpetrators. Count on it. It's building from the ground up (DU is a big part of that effort) and spreading. Look to 2006 for some real gains for social justice. By that election, the wimps will be pushed aside and we will have a true peoples' party. The fraud artists will have much less latitude. By 2008, the righties (as Big Eddie calls them) will be in full retreat. They'll be lucky if they get off with just "show trials."

(*as opposed to the real PTSD experienced by New Yorkers (CT and NJ too), Washingtonians, and our troops in Iraq)

[Journeyman]

8. Written 31 years ago. . .

from Points for a Compass Rose by Evan S. Connell:

Listen. I heard just a little while ago
that U.S. fighter bombers attacked
and destroyed a primary school,
killing eight children.

Is the dream dead?
Is Nixon mad?

When asked to compare America with a previous nation
Arnold Toynbee replied that it corresponds to Rome
under Cicero during the final days of the Republic
because of the inconceivable power it employs
to the distress and suffering of so many people,
because of a Constitution which once was admirable
but is now invalid, because of disorder at home
and, above all else, because of violence.
Plague creeps down our doors;
a foul odor spreads.

To Edward Gibbon I am indebted for pointing out
that the inhabitants of a declining empire
could be lured into military service only by dread
of punishment or hope of profit, however miserable.
Obvious parallels present themselves.

In June of 1775 a resolution was passed by the Congress
disclaiming any intent to invade Canada. A month later
an invasion was secretly authorized. In April of 1970
we were assured by Secretary Rogers that no Americans
would be sent into Cambodia. Within 5 days what happened?

Will our last liberty be the option to believe or disbelieve?

There are those who think we prepare a vial of rage
for ourselves to drink; vengeance is being stored.
Look. We’ve sown bombs like seeds across the Orient.
Would you care to predict the harvest?

Look. Relocation Centers are being planned
for those adjudged inimical to National Security.

Let me explain. The U.S. antipersonnel “leaf bomb”
is a raggedly shaped little device customarily painted
in one of four colors, depending on the terrain:
deep red for clay, green for planted fields, off-white
for sandy soil and charcoal-colored for mud. So sensitive
are these miniature bombs that they can be triggered
by the touch of a child’s foot.

Are you listening? There’s a chemical laboratory
at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where government technicians
devise bacteria and toxins suitable for infecting
millions of people anywhere in the world. A pamphlet
titled Military Biology and Biological Agents
lists a number of diseases which can be distributed
efficiently and quickly. Among them are cholera,
diphtheria, staphylococcus food poisoning, tetanus,
typhoid and gas gangrene.

Well, my friend, whether or not you choose to reply
we’ve accumulated a quantity of thoughts and events
worth classification. Suppose we register first,
because this was the foulest night of an evil year,
those U.S. soldiers in Vietnam whose features
Heironymous Bosch delineated five centuries ago.
List them just beneath the rulers responsible,
whose names ought not to be forgotten: Johnson,
Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, Rostow, Nixon, Laird, etc.
Parenthetically, you might mention the satyagrahi
whose nature exacts from him implicit obedience
to the highest known law — that of conscience.

State that every particle of matter in the universe
has some attraction for every other particle.

I suggest that you write with colored ink
what we are taught by K’ung Fu-tzü:
Each of us is meant to rescue the world.

[Melynn]

9. America isn't dead, it's on life support

If an another neo-con President gets elected in 2008, then the country will be dead.

[kevsand]

10. This just in...

Al-Jazeera is broadcasting an audio tape purporting to contain a message from America. The CIA has not yet been able to confirm the identity of the speaker, but has released the following transcript of the spoken content: "I'm not dead yet. Feeling much better actually. Thought I might go for a walk."

[Davis_X_Machina]

11. In a Dr. Who sense, yes. n/t

[Lady Sonelle]

12. Perhaps

Barren branches lash the wind
Beneath a gibbous moon.
A chimera lies partly shaped
Within a rusted steel cocoon,

The worm that ate voraciously
Below a summer sky
Gave its life in hopes to be
The riotous butterfly.

Change came late and half complete,
Shame gnawed upon the heel of pride
Within that tomb (or cancered womb)
The wings of Hope, malformed, have died.

The skyborne, doomed ne'er to flight
Starved a'bornin', unshaped, dead.
The earthbound hails its victory,
E'n as it rots, tail to head.

America the Beautiful the dutiful,
The damned, the liberal, conservative
The innocent, the scammed.
Dead in its own preservative.

Lady Sonelle

[leftofthedial]

13. no, but . . .

Murka has stomped hell out of America

[eagler]

14. The good ,free America is dead.

nt

[Toucano]

15. I've never seen "Weekend At Bernies", but

I'd say America is Bernie. The GOP is carrying the corpse around pretending it's alive still. We Dems are saying, "I think I saw a twitch."

[Grooner Five]

16. America is alive and thriving

regardless of which party is in the majority. That's why millions of people immigrate here both legally and illegally each year, many risking death and injury, to carve out a better life for themselves.

[neweurope]

17. The educated are somewhat reluctant to come to your country right now.

There's been some lamenting on this.

To the others here whose views I mostly share (sorry but I have to say it): I think it's your illusion of America which is definitely dead. The outside world to a large degree has for decades seen the USA als they present themselves right now. It's just gotten worse under the Bushistas, and America has done away with her mask.

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

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[thebigidea]

20. christ, you might as well have syrupy background music

[donheld]

19. Sometimes i feel like the US is as they say "brain dead"

Maybe it's on life support. After this past Nov 2 its brain cannot be functioning right.

[porphyrian]

21. Better not be, the bitch owes me money. - n/t

[Dangerman]

22. Just pray it won't...

As long as Bush and the freaking GOP is in charge, America being dead... It looks that way.

We've got to stop Bush and his maniacs and fast, before it's too late!