Is the USA dead?

[helderheid]

I want to hope.

[ej510]

1. No, but its on life support.

[LonePirate]

2. Yeah, it has never recovered from the tragedy of 2000.

[RC]

5. And the Repugs are standing on the hoses and reaching for the plug.

[helderheid]

9. I think it's been on life support a long time and I'm as pollyana as it gets. :(

[peace frog]

25. and the patient is getting weaker by the day

[Trajan]

3. No .... But it is time to fight harder ....

The give up in DU is thick today ....

[leftstreet]

4. The USA is on the Austerity Highway to Hell n/t

[OhioChick]

13. It sure as hell is n/t

[CBHagman]

6. No.

http://healthymind.com/s-distortions.html

We all tend to think in extremes...and when traumatic events happen we think that way even more. Here are some common cognitive distortions. Take a look and see if any of them are getting in your way.

All-or-nothing thinking: You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

Mental filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.

Disqualifying the positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. You maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

Jumping to conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

Mind reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you and don't bother to check it out.

The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that things will turn out badly and feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

Magnification (catastrophizing) or minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the "binocular trick."

Emotional reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."

(SNIP)

From: Burns, David D., MD. 1989. The Feeling Good Handbook. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.

[RKP5637]

20. Excellent!!! n/t

[villager]

7. well, some of the scaled-down countries that arise on the North American continent circa 2050

...could have some promise.

Some of them.

[Tesha]

24. I'm hoping that Ecotopia/Cascadia and New England break away long before that.

I'd like to see it well within my lifetime.

Anybody know Vera Aldwin's current address? ;-)

Tesha

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lint Head]

8. We are governed by fascist corporations. How long are we going to

sit on our lazy asses?

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Depends... fully on you and me

if we sit on our assess it is going to change in ways that none of us can predict... but not nice and not good.

If we decide we have had enough, organize, and fight... perhaps not.

[helderheid]

11. I've been fighting for years.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. So have I so time we revise tactics

I suggest the tea party has something to it, apart of ... funding.

They Primary people from the RIGHT... time we do the same. For that we need a parallel party that will run OUR candidates from the left.

We also need to start considering strikes, national, local et al... work slow downs and all the rest of the tactics we have not used in over a generation.

Yes, we will have people hurt... even killed... but so did our predecessors.

[XemaSab]

12. Um... hope which way?

:P

[helderheid]

18. LOL

I hope we are stll alive!

[mmonk]

14. The one I knew most of my life is. This is not a democratic republic today

in any sense of the word. I'll never forget never having debt discussions because the public sector was funded. I'll never forget that no matter how bad things were, we were still going in the right direction which allowed for real hope, not a marketing slogan.

[roamer65]

15. It died in November 2000.

[RKP5637]

19. Yep, died in November 2000, but diseased in November 1981. n/t

[Tesha]

26. Actually, December 12th, 2000 when the Republicans on the Supreme Court picked our next President.

[RKP5637]

16. It's relative to whom you are in the USA IMO. Some are doing just fine in their

belief raping and plundering the country is good, and others, the majority I fear, are being raped and plundered. And then there's a third category that never knows what's going on, the ones in a poll that always say, "I don't know."

[babylonsister]

17. No. There will be a new drama next week. Trust me.

;)

[Zax2me]

22. No. If it were, we would be at war.

Some country - multiples most likely, would have invaded to pick over the remains to consume.

[The_Casual_Observer]

23. We are in 3 "Hot" wars right now, perhaps you haven't noticed.

& they are costing billions of dollars a month.

[Tesha]

28. There's no need to invade; China, through their debt holdings, could bring down our government...

...any day they felt like it.

Why would they (or anyone) be so crude as to use
military force?

Tesha

[Iggo]

27. If it can't tax its wealthiest citizens and corporations...

....then Yes.