66% of our economy depends on us buying plastic trinkets...

[Deja Q]

Heating costs up 40%

Xcel energy wants a 8% regulatory decrease that will mean 11% electricity increases for us

Gas prices stable but will rise again

Talented people losing good jobs due to offshoring and only if they're lucky do they find another one; that one paying half the previous wage at best and probably lacking in benefits as well.

Jobs going.

Education costs skyrocketing. Then add in the pansy corp
Healthcare fleecing us to death (the irony)

Bankruptcy "reform" now puts Americans in a real bind, in one that even the writers of the Bible would blush over - and to say the Bible is far more tolerant and forgiving of debtors is an understatement. While there are some good things about the reform, the way it was implemented is going to do far more hurt - to far more people than the instigators of this atrocity had been thinking. Especially as many of them merely write off debts that cannot be repaid. They get it all back and far more via tax breaks anyway.

Large companies creating new products that will only hurt and kill small businesses. Microsoft's Windows Live and Office Live might help do that; http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5927345.html is one article. One of many.

Also, when a CEO says he deserves bigger salaries and bennies because of the risks his position has... when he screws his company into the ground, take note as to how judges deal with the situation. More and more often judges are allowing workers' wages, benefits, and pensions to be cut or eliminated while the CEOs still get their golden parachutes. The CEO made big mistakes. Yet they can still keep the universe at our expense? Excuse me, that's a huge ethical and moral issue that's beyond disgusting.

And all of this is in the hands and purview of our elected officials. We elect them to make the best choices for us. Elected officials who tell us they are Christians. Even "compassionate conservatives". Their words say one thing, but their actions say quite the opposite - loudly.

and our elected officials doing NOTHING to help us out... but they have no qualms giving themselves pay and benefit raises; the last time they did that was a couple months ago and only ONE said "Nay".

You bet I'm angry. Our system has been taken over by the antichrist and his ilk.

Anyone who isn't angry is a thickheaded pansy dork who needs to be put into the mental asylum because their brain cells have obviously atrophied beyond usability.

Sorry, I had to vent. It's all we can do. And I'm sure they'll take that away from us too.

[Birthmark]

1. I think that's a pretty fair assessment of where we're at.

Interesting times.

[Deja Q]

5. May we live in them...

:(

[losdiablosgato]

9. No, may we live through them

[panader0]

2. "thick headed pansy dork"

LOL that's a good one, I may have to borrow that one.

[ldf]

16. the pansy is a beautiful flower

and i feel your love when you use pansy as descriptive of another person.

:sarcasm:

:spank:

[Burma Jones]

3. We are in the last throes of a diminishing empire

As we sink and the Chinese rise, the powerful among us are trying to take everything they can out of the palace.

We are exhibiting the behavior of a society that believes it has no future....

[Deja Q]

4. if that's the case, why has nobody pressed the button?

[Burma Jones]

7. Because if you push the button, the looting stops......

[kwolf68]

23. Brilliant

We are exhibiting the behavior of a society that believes it has no future....

I simply could have never come up with a better description of our reality.

[Hubert Flottz]

6. Are you better off than you were 5 years ago?

Ask the GOPers around you that question OFTEN.

[losdiablosgato]

11. No and that is the question we need to lead off the next election with

It is real simple. If you want to see the end to the war, Alito's and GW you have to win elections. To do this I think we need a social moderate who has a very stron pro labor/middle class/working class economic agenda. Keep in mind that since 1964 only 3 democrats have been president and then only for 16 of the 41 years. They all were moderates, church going, and had a pro working class economic idea. And if you think not I just remind you of this can we afford to have Justices Stevens, Kennedy, and GInsburg replaced by a republican? If we lose in 2008 at least two if not all three will be.

To put it bluntly the democratic party prospered when the people saw it had a moderate social bent and a pro working class policy. Lets go back to basics and what has always worked for us.

It may not get us all we want but it is a damn sight better the anothe rethug.

[Hubert Flottz]

12. "This is no time for finger pointing?"

They have more money to campaign on and they own the media. Unless we repair the election process and stop the corporate buying of politicians souls ON BOTH SIDES, the country will continue it's downhill slide. Moderate Democrats are the left wing of CORPORATION USA! A democrat that tells me he's in favor of globalization is just a DINO! LOOK, what the lopsided trade agreements have done to the working people in this counrty. More of the same spells DEAD END!

[losdiablosgato]

13. Agreed. But we will not win with a far leftest in todays world

Like it or not we need moderates who really do want to look after the best interests of the middle class.

[Deja Q]

14. I think we're toast either way.

We've gone past the point.

Even if what is going on is population control/eradication, so the elites get to keep everything, the damage to the planet's ecology is already done.

Don't forget, those wacky people have been talking of global warming for 30 years and it's only becoming a visible problem.

[porphyrian]

15. Why do you presume "moderates" look after the middle class...?

...moreso than "far leftists?" The "moderates" our party keeps offering up look after corporate interests moreso than the middle class. They just haven't been on a quest to eliminate the middle. A liberal candidate would put the people before the corporations. How is that looking after the middle class less than the "moderates?"

[losdiablosgato]

17. I said a moderate THAT does look after the middle class

[porphyrian]

18. Well then, why can't a liberal that looks out for the middle class win?

I don't get it.

[losdiablosgato]

20. I am convinced that you must meet people half way on social issues

To be able to win. A far left winger will in a national election, not be able to win. People knew dang well the rethugs were against them on economic issues, but they voted values and for them anyway. A moderate could get enough of the values on his side to win.

[porphyrian]

21. Well, we just don't agree then.

Those who voted values were suckered, and they know that now. Being liberal doesn't mean pushing homosexual marriage, drug use and abortions on people that don't want it, it simply means allowing it for those that do, and not necessarily without restriction. Properly presented, there's no reason anyone wouldn't vote for a liberal. The problem with promoting a moderate as our only chance to win is that it reinforces the right wing bullshit that liberals are somehow bad or ineffective leaders. I don't buy it, and neither would a newly-awakened electorate, given half a chance.

[losdiablosgato]

24. To be blunt we are 3rd and long.

How long would it take to educate everyone? 5 years, 10 years. I do not think a liberal can win even with a pro middle class agenda. It is a matter of trust. Many people do not trust us anymore. Why, there are many reasons, but there it is. I know of people who all my life were dems who hate the party now. They hate the rethugs but they see it as danged if they do and danged if they don't. We need to reconnect with the middle and working classes or we will continue to lose. In those 5 or 10 years how much damage will a rethug do?

[porphyrian]

25. We've been attempting to get "moderates" elected since Clinton.

It hasn't worked yet. Why do you think repeating this tactic once again will work now?

[losdiablosgato]

26. Gore and Kerry were not seen as moderates

We need some new blood and fresh ideas. If not we will lose whether they run to the middle or the left. Example it is dang hard to convince with a few staged bird hunts that you are pro hunter and gun when you have 19 year history of voting against the 2nd amendment.

[porphyrian]

28. Are you suggesting we offer someone more conservative...

...than Gore or Kerry to appear "moderate" to the masses? We do need new blood and fresh ideas, and they are to the left, my friend, not the right.

[losdiablosgato]

30. Let me tell you a story

In 12-2001 my Grandma died. She was the last of a dying breed, the yellow dog, lived through the depression democrat. She was until Clinton. She voted gladly for him in 1992, she reluctantly voted for him in 1996 and she refused to vote for anyone in 2000. Why you ask. She told me they were just to far to the left for her. Like it or not people do have values that trump their pocket books. If you do not meet at least some of those you will lose. And like it or not the average person in this country has moved a bit to the right. We have to adapt or die.

[porphyrian]

32. "Adapt or Die"

Exactly. That's why we can't afford to move any further right. In fact, we should make a hard left. Most people are neither moderate nor conservative, they have just been confused by the terminology due to the republican propaganda campaign to malign everything "liberal." However, most people DO agree with liberal politics when it comes to keeping government out of their personal lives. The republicans have simply framed the arguments to their advantage. Nobody wants the government to tell them whether or not to have an abortion, but the right has framed the argument so that it's over whether or not abortion is morally correct. Nobody wants to be told by government what religion to practice, but the right has framed the argument so that it's about whether there should be prayer in school or "under God" in the pledge. If the middle class isn't stupid, why wouldn't they understand this when it was framed differently?

[losdiablosgato]

27. Running as a moderate will not do it

The middle class is not stupid. You need to be a moderate to get their support.

[porphyrian]

29. If the middle class is not stupid, why did they re-elect bush?

If the middle class still exists by the next election, they will be a minority anyway.

[losdiablosgato]

31. Stupid no, placing values ahead of their pocket books yes

Kerry lost for I believe three reasons.
1. His positions were not clear.
2. What did come out was not what the middle wanted to hear, sounded like rehashed 1970's ideas.
3. He did not address people concerns on values. He did not get down to ht ebread and butter issues.

[porphyrian]

33. Well, you're wrong.

Kerry lost because:

1. The elections were rigged.
2. The corporate media assassinated him.
3. He was too "moderate" and unwilling to commit to a liberal or conservative stance.

His positions were clear. Saying they weren't was just a bullshit right-wing talking point smear that worked on people who got their information from corporate media, yourself apparently included.

[losdiablosgato]

35. We will have to agree to disagree, but....

I can asure you if you say this to some moderates they will blow you off anf you candidate. Keep in mind you have to find common ground before you can move the middle.

[displacedtexan]

8. OK, this is not intended to offend Chinese Americans, but...

When did "Buy American" become "Boost the Communist Chinese Economy?"

Everyone (except big biz) loses with this economic approach: American workers, Chinese workers, and even consumers (cheap crap is exactly that).

[Deja Q]

10. Whitey has exploited non-whites for hundreds of years.

If we (as a country) were humanitarian, we would have liberated the Communist countries. When somebody is oppressed, NOBODY is free. And that's the harsh truth.

But we're capitalists. We care more for low low prices and we don't bother to think what makes them low. ('we' is a mere generalization, DUers seem to know what's going on.)

Case in point is the Chinese woman who died after working a 24-HOUR SHIFT. :wtf: utterly disgusting. Don't forget from 2004, * was HAPPY for an American woman with THREE jobs! :wtf: A slip of the tongue? Or the mind?

Corporomerica is the new fascist empire and borders are invisible to them. We're all expendable, disposable commodities to them. And people should have paid attention during the 1970s as to who was going to China and why. A liberal of the time could no go because they'd be branded a commie. That much was obvious. A capitalist goes over and nobody seemed to think of offshoring and exploitation of the Chinese people. Which is precisely what had happened.

[hunter]

19. The Titanic has hit the ice.

But don't worry. Everything will be all right.

Here, have a plastic trinket.

And don't forget, Jesus loves you!

[canadianbeaver]

22. almost thought I saw "plastic turkeys"......lol....eom

[progressivebydesign]

34. I don't shop for for sport any longer.

Sadly, most any day you can look at places like Walmart and Target and see that people just shop for fun now. Between that and television, I guess it fills their empty lives with something.