Originally Posted by mandelbrot5

Interesting shifts in the wind:


PEGGY NOONAN

Third Time
America may be ready for a new political party.

Thursday, June 1, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Something's happening. I have a feeling we're at some new beginning, that a big breakup's coming, and that though it isn't and will not be immediately apparent, we'll someday look back on this era as the time when a shift began.

All my adult life, people have been saying that the two-party system is ending, that the Democrats' and Republicans' control of political power in America is winding down. According to the traditional critique, the two parties no longer offer the people the choice they want and deserve. Sometimes it's said they are too much alike--Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Sometimes it's said they're too polarizing--too red and too blue for a nation in which many see things through purple glasses.

In 1992 Ross Perot looked like the breakthrough, the man who would make third parties a reality. He destabilized the Republicans and then destabilized himself. By the end of his campaign he seemed to be the crazy old aunt in the attic.

The Perot experience seemed to put an end to third-party fever. But I think it's coming back, I think it's going to grow, and I think the force behind it is unique in our history.
This week there was a small boomlet of talk about a new internet entity called Unity '08--a small collection of party veterans including moderate Democrats (former Carter aide Hamilton Jordan) and liberal-leaning Republicans (former Ford hand Doug Bailey) trying to join together with college students and broaden the options in the 2008 election. In terms of composition, Unity seems like the Concord Coalition, the bipartisan group (Warren Rudman, Bob Kerrey) that warns against high spending and deficits.
Unity seems to me to have America's growing desire for more political options right. But I think they've got the description of the problem wrong.

Their idea is that the two parties are too polarized to govern well. It is certainly true that the level of partisanship in Washington seems high. (Such things, admittedly, ebb, flow and are hard to judge. We look back at the post-World War II years and see a political climate of relative amity and moderation. But Alger Hiss and Dick Nixon didn't see it that way.) Nancy Pelosi seems to be pretty much in favor of anything that hurts Republicans, and Ken Mehlman is in favor of anything that works against Democrats. They both want their teams to win. Part of winning is making sure the other guy loses, and part of the fun of politics, of any contest, of life, can be the dance in the end zone.

But the dance has gotten dark.

Partisanship is fine when it's an expression of the high animal spirits produced by real political contention based on true political belief. But the current partisanship seems sour, not joyous. The partisanship has gotten deeper as less separates the governing parties in Washington. It is like what has been said of academic infighting: that it's so vicious because the stakes are so low.





The problem is not that the two parties are polarized. In many ways they're closer than ever. The problem is that the parties in Washington, and the people on the ground in America, are polarized. There is an increasing and profound distance between the rulers of both parties and the people--between the elites and the grunts, between those in power and those who put them there.
On the ground in America, people worry terribly--really, there are people who actually worry about it every day--about endless, weird, gushing government spending. But in Washington, those in power--Republicans and Democrats--stand arm in arm as they spend and spend. (Part of the reason is that they think they can buy off your unhappiness one way or another. After all, it's worked in the past. A hunch: It's not going to work forever or much longer. They've really run that trick into the ground.)

On the ground in America, regular people worry about the changes wrought by the biggest wave of immigration in our history, much of it illegal and therefore wholly connected to the needs of the immigrant and wholly unconnected to the agreed-upon needs of our nation. Americans worry about the myriad implications of the collapse of the American border. But Washington doesn't. Democrat Ted Kennedy and Republican George W. Bush see things pretty much eye to eye. They are going to educate the American people out of their low concerns.

There is a widespread sense in America--a conviction, actually--that we are not safe in the age of terror. That the port, the local power plant, even the local school, are not protected. Is Washington worried about this? Not so you'd notice. They're only worried about seeming unconcerned.

More to the point, people see the Republicans as incapable of managing the monster they've helped create--this big Homeland Security/Intelligence apparatus that is like some huge buffed guy at the gym who looks strong but can't even put on his T-shirt without help because he's so muscle-bound. As for the Democrats, who co-created Homeland Security, no one--no one--thinks they would be more managerially competent. Nor does anyone expect the Democrats to be more visionary as to what needs to be done. The best they can hope is the Democrats competently serve their interest groups and let the benefits trickle down.





Right now the Republicans and Democrats in Washington seem, from the outside, to be an elite colluding against the voter. They're in agreement: immigration should not be controlled but increased, spending will increase, etc.
Are there some dramatic differences? Yes. But both parties act as if they see them not as important questions (gay marriage, for instance) but as wedge issues. Which is, actually, abusive of people on both sides of the question. If it's a serious issue, face it. Don't play with it.

I don't see any potential party, or potential candidate, on the scene right now who can harness the disaffection of growing portions of the electorate. But a new group or entity that could define the problem correctly--that sees the big divide not as something between the parties but between America's ruling elite and its people--would be making long strides in putting third party ideas in play in America again.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father," (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.

Damn good article. Thanks for posting it.

She's right. She's 99.8% spot on. I wouldn't have thought she was capable of it. I would've been wrong.

This is another point in favor of the Summer of '05 being a threshold. That is undoubtedly when the change she's describing occurred.

The New America. From the MARC train betweem DC and
Baltimore.

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

via Fred on Everything

That's a real poster?

Maybe this one will go up next:


(clicky da picky)

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

The New America. From the MARC train betweem DC and
Baltimore.

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

via Fred on Everything

Disturbing.

Kirk Cameron has a ministry. It was on Nightline.

I hear Tina Yothers is starting a militia.

Anyone seen Winnie from the Wonder Years?

Originally Posted by Linus

Kirk Cameron has a ministry. It was on Nightline.

It'll cost ya $99.95 to save your friends!

As much as I have talked against M$ and Gates in the past, I actually like Gates himself. It's just his views on the politics and economics of software and IP that I disagree with. Godspeed to his efforts at charity and education.

Microsoft's Gates to Leave Daily Role

un 15, 7:36 PM (ET)

By ALLISON LINN

(AP) Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, right, looks at Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer after Gates...
Full Image


REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - Bill Gates plans to withdraw from day-to-day duties at Microsoft Corp., so he can focus on his charitable foundation while others run the company he co-founded and guided to industry dominance and vast personal wealth.

Gates, 50, said Thursday he will remain the company's chairman after transferring his daily responsibilities over a two-year period.

The move will end an era at Microsoft, which Gates founded in 1975 with childhood pal Paul Allen and has been the public face of ever since.

The Redmond company on Thursday laid out a plan for other high-ranking executives to take on Gates' duties. Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer also noted that recent corporate reorganizations have been designed to move more responsibility to lower-ranking executives, so the company could more quickly make decisions without Gates and Ballmer.

But, in an interview with The Associated Press, Ballmer conceded that there was no way to replace Gates.

"If we think anybody gets to be Bill Gates, I don't think that's a realistic hypothesis," he said.

Gates stressed that, although he was giving up day-to-day responsibilities beginning in July 2008, he would still play a role at the company.

"I'm not leaving Microsoft," he said.

Gates also said he had no plans to give up the distinction of being the company's largest shareholder.

"I'm proud of that," he said.

Microsoft Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume Gate's title as chief software architect and begin working with Gates on overseeing all software technical design. There are three technical officers at Microsoft.

Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie will immediately take the new title of chief research and strategy officer and will work with Gates in those areas. Mundie also will work with general counsel Brad Smith to guide Microsoft's intellectual property and technology policy efforts.

Gates' decision comes at a difficult time for Microsoft. The company recently said it was delaying the new version of its Windows operating system yet again, and it is struggling to compete with Internet giants such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. Investors also were caught off guard this spring when Microsoft announced plans to substantially increase overall research and development costs, and sent share prices tumbling.

But Gates said Microsoft is always facing new competitors and challenges and the recent spate didn't affect his decision.

"There isn't any time in our history when there haven't been questions about Microsoft," he said.

Gates is ranked by Forbes magazine as the world's richest man, with an estimated wealth of about $50 billion. That great wealth, he said, also brings great responsibility, and he repeated his often-spoken desire to give away the bulk of his fortune to charity.

Gates said he didn't realize when he started the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 what potential there was for addressing some of the world's greatest problems, such as global health and education. The foundation is now the world's largest philanthropy, with assets totaling $29.1 billion.

"Just as Microsoft has taken off in ways I never expected, so has the work of the foundation," he said.

Gates dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft with Allen in 1975. He took Microsoft public in 1986 and was the company's chairman and CEO until 2000, when he assumed the role of chief software architect and Ballmer, a college friend and one of Gates' early hires, took over the role of chief executive officer. Ballmer will remain responsible for all day-to-day operations and the company's business strategy.

The world "has had a tendency to focus a disproportionate amount of attention on me," Gates said, when in reality, Microsoft is a company with an extraordinary depth and breadth of talent.

"Our leadership team has never been stronger," he said.

"Bill and I are confident we've got a great team that can step up to fill his shoes and drive Microsoft innovation forward without missing a beat," Ballmer said.

Ballmer said he had no plans to step down soon.

"I'm in it for the long run," Ballmer said.

For the past six years Gates has focused on Microsoft's software development as the company's chairman and chief software architect.

Ozzie, 50, worked on the first electronic spreadsheet, VisiCalc, in the early 1980s. In 1983, he joined Lotus Development Corp. - Microsoft's archrival at the time - to develop Lotus Symphony, a business software suite.

He later founded Groove Networks, where he developed Groove Virtual Office. Microsoft acquired Groove Networks in April 2005 and named Ozzie chief technical officer.

Mundie, 56, joined Microsoft in 1992 to create and run its Consumer Platforms Division, which was responsible for non-personal computer software. Mundie also started Microsoft's digital TV efforts. His current responsibilities include global technology policy and a variety of technical and business incubation efforts.

Ozzie and Mundie will continue to report to Gates. At an unspecified time during the two-year transition period, they will shift to reporting to Ballmer.

The news was announced after financial markets closed. Earlier, shares in Microsoft rose 19 cents, or 0.87 percent, to close Thursday at $22.07 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Shares lost 9 cents in after-hours trading.

Judging from Alvin Toffler's appearance on the Tavis Smiley show tonight it would seem the Awakening never ended.

He had me all excited about sensors (they'll be everywhere: sensing), and shared his groovy thoughts about doing what you love man, just being you.

I was certain that at any moment Cathy Lee Crosby would walk out on stage in her ruffley skirt and rumpley, pointy toe brown boots, or maybe Chimpanzees. No night of late 70s television was complete without chimpanzees, or orangutans.

All that was missing was my Batman pajamas, matching underoos, and my drunk father stumbling in at ten o'clock with 500 bucks worth of strange meats promising to take my older sister and all her friends to Vegas.

Did you bring us records dad? No son: I brought meats.

In constrast to the 1990s, when Bill Clinton stated that "The era of big government is over," Obama is saying that the era of small politics is coming to an end.

The End Of Small Politics

Sen. Barack Obama
June 16, 2006

Barack Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois. These remarks are excerpted from a speech Obama delivered at the Take Back America conference on June 14, 2006.

We meet at a time where we find ourselves at a crossroads in American history. It’s a time where you can go into any town hall or veterans’ hall or coffee shop or street corner and you’ll hear people express the same anxiety about the future. You’ll hear them convey the same uncertainty about the direction that we’re headed as a country. Whether it’s the war or Katrina or health care or outsourcing, you’ll hear people say that, now, surely we’ve come to a moment where things have to change. And there are Americans who still believe in an America where anything’s possible; they’re just not sure that their leaders still do. They still believe in dreaming big dreams but they suspect maybe that their leaders have forgotten how.

I remember when I first ran for the state senate – this was my very first race – back in Chicago … people would say, you seem like a nice young man. They would look over my literature. They would say, you have a fancy law degree, you teach at a fine law school, you’ve done fine work, you’ve got a beautiful family – why would you want to go into something dirty and nasty like politics? Why would you want to go into politics?

And the question is understandable and it bears on today because even those of us who are involved, even those of us who are active in the political process and in civic life, there are times where all of us feel discouraged sometimes, where we get cynical about the prospects for politics because it seems as if sometimes that politics is treated as a business and not a mission, and that power is always trumping principle, and that we have leaders that are sometimes long on rhetoric but short on substance, and so we get discouraged. And every two years or fours years maybe we do our bit and we knock on doors or pass our literature, or we go into the polling place and hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils, but we don’t feel in our gut sometimes that politics and government is going to improve our lives. At most we hope it does us no harm.

And I am not immune to those feelings. But, you know, when I get in that funk, I think about a person I met the day before I was elected to the United States Senate …[M]y staff comes up to me and says, senator, before you go up, there’s this woman who wants to meet you. And she’s driven a long way and she’s a big supporter and she just wants to take a picture with you and shake your hand. And I say, well, that’s not a problem. And so I go offstage to a back room and I meet this woman. She explains that she has supported me since I announced for my race. She shakes my hand, we take a picture, she tells me that’s she’s proud of me. And she had already cast her ballot at that point absentee, and she was really appreciative of the work that I was doing and wished me Godspeed.

And none of this would have been exceptional except for the fact that this woman, named Marguerite Lewis, had been born in Louisiana in 1899 and was 105 years old. And so ever since I met this frail 105-year-old African American woman who found the strength to leave her house and come to a rally because she believed that her voice mattered, I’ve thought about all that she’s seen in her life. I thought about the fact that she was born at a time when there were no cars on the road and there were no airplanes in the sky; born in the wake of slavery, in the shadow of Jim Crow, a time when it was far more frequent for African Americans to be lynched than to vote. I thought about how she lived through a world war and a Great Depression and another world war. And then she saw her brothers, her uncles, her cousins coming back from that second war and still have to sit at the back of the bus. And I thought about how she finally saw women win the right to vote. And how she watched FDR lift millions out of fear and send millions to college on the GI Bill and bring folks out of poverty, and how she saw unions rise up and give them a foothold into the middle class. And she saw millions of immigrants travel from distant shores in search of this idea that we call America.

And she believed in this idea of America, despite the cards that she had been dealt. She believed in this notion of a more perfect union. And when she saw, in the distance, breaking out the civil rights movement over the horizon, she thought, well, maybe it’s my turn now. And she saw women who were willing to walk instead of ride the bus after a long day of doing someone else’s laundry or looking after somebody else’s children because they were walking for their freedom. And she saw people of every race and creed – young people get on buses and travel down to Mississippi and Alabama to register voters. And she saw four little girls die needlessly in Sunday school and saw how it catalyzed a nation. And at last she saw the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. And she saw people lining up to vote for the first time and she got in that line and she never forgot it. And she kept on voting in each and every election because she believed.

She had seen enough over the span of three centuries to know that there’s no challenge that is too great or no injustice too crippling or no destiny that is too far out of reach for America when it puts its mind to it. She believed that we don’t have to settle for equality for some or opportunity for the lucky or freedom for the few. And she knew that during these moments in history there have always been people who have been willing to settle for less, but they’ve been counteracted by people who’ve said, no, we’re going to keep on dreaming and we’re going to keep on building and we’re going to keep on marching and we’re going to keep on working because that’s who we are, because we’ve always fought to bring more and more people under the blanket of the American dream.

And I think we face one of those moments today in a century that is just six years old. Our faith has been shaken by war and terror and disaster and despair and threats to the middle-class dream and scandal and corruption in our government. The sweeping changes brought by revolutions and technology have torn down the walls between business and government and people and places all over the globe. And with this new world comes new risks and new dangers. The days are over where we can assume that a high school education is enough to compete with for a job that could just as easily go to a college educated student in Beijing or Bangalore. No more can we count on employers to provide health care and pensions and job training when their bottom lines know no borders. We can’t expect oceans that surround America to keep us safe from attacks from our own soil.

But while the world has changed around us, unfortunately it seems like our government has stood still. Our faith has been shaken, but the people running Washington haven’t been willing to make us believe again. Now, it’s the timidity, it’s the smallness of our politics that’s holding us back right now – the idea that there are some problems that are just too big to handle, and if you just ignore them that sooner or later they’ll go away, so that if you talk about the statistics on the stock market being up or orders for durable goods being on the rise, that nobody’s going to notice the single mom who’s working two jobs and still doesn’t have enough money at the end of the month to pay the bills. That if you say “plan for victory” often enough and have it pasted – and the words behind you when you make a speech, that nobody’s going to notice the bombings in Baghdad or the 2,500 flag-draped coffins that have arrived at Dover Air force Base. The fact is we notice, we care, and we’re not going to settle for less anymore. …

I don’t think that – I think George Bush loves this country. I really do. I don’t think his administration is “full” of stupid people. ... The problem is not that the philosophy of this administration is not working the way it’s supposed to work; the problem is that it is working the way it’s supposed to work. They don’t believe – they don’t believe that government has a role in solving national problems because they think government is the problem. They think that we’re better off if we just dismantle government; if, in the form of tax breaks, we make sure that everybody’s responsible for buying your own health care and your own retirement security and your own child care and your own schools, your own private security forces, your own roads, your own levees.

It is called the “ownership society” in Washington. But, you know, historically there has been another term for it; it’s called “social Darwinism” – the notion that every man or woman is out for him or her self, which allows us to say that if we meet a guy who has worked in a steel plant for 30, 40 years and suddenly has the rug pulled out from under him and can’t afford health care or can’t afford a pension, you know, life isn’t fair. It allows us to say to a child who doesn’t have the wisdom to choose his or her own parents and so lives in a poor neighborhood, pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. It allows us to say to somebody who is seeing their child sick and is going bankrupt paying the bills, tough luck.

It’s a bracing idea, this idea that you’re on your own. It’s the simplest thing in the world, easy to put on a bumper sticker. But there’s just one problem; it doesn’t work. It ignores our history. Now, yes, our greatness as a nation has depended on self-reliance and individual initiative and a belief in the free market, but it’s also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, our sense that we have a stake in each other’s success – that everybody should have a shot at opportunity.

Americans understand this. They know the government can’t solve all their problems, but they expect the government can help because they know it’s an expression of what they’re learning in Sunday school. What they learn in their church, in their synagogue, in their mosque – a basic moral precept that says that I have to look out for you and I have responsibility for you and you have responsibility for me, that I am your keeper and you are mine. That’s what America is.

And so I am eager to have this argument with the Republican Party about the core philosophy of America, about what our story is. We shouldn’t shy away from that debate. The time for our identity crisis as progressives is over. Don’t let anybody tell you that we don’t know what we stand for. Don’t doubt yourselves. We know who we are. And in the end we know that it’s not enough just to say that we’ve had enough. We’ve got a story to tell that isn’t just against something but is for something. We know that we’re the party of opportunity. We know that in a global economy that’s more connective and more competitive that we’re the party that will guarantee every American an affordable, world-class, life-long, top-notch education, from early childhood to high school – from college to on-the-job training. We know that that’s what we’re about.

We know we’re the party – we know that as progressives we believe in affordable health care for all Americans – and that we’re going to make sure that Americans don’t have to choose between a health care plan that bankrupts the government and one that bankrupts families, the party that won’t just throw a few tax breaks at families who can’t afford their insurance, but will modernize our health care system and give every family a chance to buy insurance at a price they can afford.

Progressives are the folks who believe in energy independence for America, that we’re not bought and paid for by the oil companies in this country. We believe that we can harness homegrown alternative fuels and spur the production of fuel-efficient hybrid cars, and break our dependence on the world’s most dangerous regions. We understand that we get a three-for: We can save our economy, our environment, and stop funding both sides of the war on terror if we actually get serious about doing something about energy. We understand that.

We understand, as progressives, that we need a tough foreign policy, but we know the other side has a monopoly on the tough-and-dumb strategy; we’re looking for the tough-and-smart strategy – one that battles the forces of terrorism and fundamentalism but understands that it’s not just a matter of military might alone, that we’ve got to match it with the power of our diplomacy and the strength of our alliances and the power of our ideals, and that when we do go to war, we should be honest with the American people about why we’re there and how we expect to win.

We understand as progressives that we believe in open and honest government that doesn’t peddle the agenda of whichever lobbyist or special interest can write the biggest check. And if we believe in all these things, and if we act on it, then I guarantee you America is looking for us to lead. And if we do it, it’s not going to be a Democratic agenda or a liberal agenda or a progressive agenda; it’s going to be an American agenda because in the end we may be proud progressives but we’re prouder Americans. We’re tired of being divided. We are tired of running into ideological walls and partisan roadblocks. We’re tired of appeals to our worst instincts and our greatest fears. So I say this to you guys, that America is desperate for leadership. I absolutely feel it everywhere I go. They are longing for direction and they want to believe again. …

Originally Posted by Mr. Reed

In constrast to the 1990s, when Bill Clinton stated that "The era of big government is over," Obama is saying that the era of small politics is coming to an end.

The End Of Small Politics

Sen. Barack Obama
June 16, 2006

Barack Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois. These remarks are excerpted from a speech Obama delivered at the Take Back America conference on June 14, 2006.

We meet at a time where we find ourselves at a crossroads in American history. It’s a time where you can go into any town hall or veterans’ hall or coffee shop or street corner and you’ll hear people express the same anxiety about the future. You’ll hear them convey the same uncertainty about the direction that we’re headed as a country. Whether it’s the war or Katrina or health care or outsourcing, you’ll hear people say that, now, surely we’ve come to a moment where things have to change. And there are Americans who still believe in an America where anything’s possible; they’re just not sure that their leaders still do. They still believe in dreaming big dreams but they suspect maybe that their leaders have forgotten how.

I remember when I first ran for the state senate – this was my very first race – back in Chicago … people would say, you seem like a nice young man. They would look over my literature. They would say, you have a fancy law degree, you teach at a fine law school, you’ve done fine work, you’ve got a beautiful family – why would you want to go into something dirty and nasty like politics? Why would you want to go into politics?

And the question is understandable and it bears on today because even those of us who are involved, even those of us who are active in the political process and in civic life, there are times where all of us feel discouraged sometimes, where we get cynical about the prospects for politics because it seems as if sometimes that politics is treated as a business and not a mission, and that power is always trumping principle, and that we have leaders that are sometimes long on rhetoric but short on substance, and so we get discouraged. And every two years or fours years maybe we do our bit and we knock on doors or pass our literature, or we go into the polling place and hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils, but we don’t feel in our gut sometimes that politics and government is going to improve our lives. At most we hope it does us no harm.

And I am not immune to those feelings. But, you know, when I get in that funk, I think about a person I met the day before I was elected to the United States Senate …[M]y staff comes up to me and says, senator, before you go up, there’s this woman who wants to meet you. And she’s driven a long way and she’s a big supporter and she just wants to take a picture with you and shake your hand. And I say, well, that’s not a problem. And so I go offstage to a back room and I meet this woman. She explains that she has supported me since I announced for my race. She shakes my hand, we take a picture, she tells me that’s she’s proud of me. And she had already cast her ballot at that point absentee, and she was really appreciative of the work that I was doing and wished me Godspeed.

And none of this would have been exceptional except for the fact that this woman, named Marguerite Lewis, had been born in Louisiana in 1899 and was 105 years old. And so ever since I met this frail 105-year-old African American woman who found the strength to leave her house and come to a rally because she believed that her voice mattered, I’ve thought about all that she’s seen in her life. I thought about the fact that she was born at a time when there were no cars on the road and there were no airplanes in the sky; born in the wake of slavery, in the shadow of Jim Crow, a time when it was far more frequent for African Americans to be lynched than to vote. I thought about how she lived through a world war and a Great Depression and another world war. And then she saw her brothers, her uncles, her cousins coming back from that second war and still have to sit at the back of the bus. And I thought about how she finally saw women win the right to vote. And how she watched FDR lift millions out of fear and send millions to college on the GI Bill and bring folks out of poverty, and how she saw unions rise up and give them a foothold into the middle class. And she saw millions of immigrants travel from distant shores in search of this idea that we call America.

And she believed in this idea of America, despite the cards that she had been dealt. She believed in this notion of a more perfect union. And when she saw, in the distance, breaking out the civil rights movement over the horizon, she thought, well, maybe it’s my turn now. And she saw women who were willing to walk instead of ride the bus after a long day of doing someone else’s laundry or looking after somebody else’s children because they were walking for their freedom. And she saw people of every race and creed – young people get on buses and travel down to Mississippi and Alabama to register voters. And she saw four little girls die needlessly in Sunday school and saw how it catalyzed a nation. And at last she saw the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. And she saw people lining up to vote for the first time and she got in that line and she never forgot it. And she kept on voting in each and every election because she believed.

She had seen enough over the span of three centuries to know that there’s no challenge that is too great or no injustice too crippling or no destiny that is too far out of reach for America when it puts its mind to it. She believed that we don’t have to settle for equality for some or opportunity for the lucky or freedom for the few. And she knew that during these moments in history there have always been people who have been willing to settle for less, but they’ve been counteracted by people who’ve said, no, we’re going to keep on dreaming and we’re going to keep on building and we’re going to keep on marching and we’re going to keep on working because that’s who we are, because we’ve always fought to bring more and more people under the blanket of the American dream.

And I think we face one of those moments today in a century that is just six years old. Our faith has been shaken by war and terror and disaster and despair and threats to the middle-class dream and scandal and corruption in our government. The sweeping changes brought by revolutions and technology have torn down the walls between business and government and people and places all over the globe. And with this new world comes new risks and new dangers. The days are over where we can assume that a high school education is enough to compete with for a job that could just as easily go to a college educated student in Beijing or Bangalore. No more can we count on employers to provide health care and pensions and job training when their bottom lines know no borders. We can’t expect oceans that surround America to keep us safe from attacks from our own soil.

But while the world has changed around us, unfortunately it seems like our government has stood still. Our faith has been shaken, but the people running Washington haven’t been willing to make us believe again. Now, it’s the timidity, it’s the smallness of our politics that’s holding us back right now – the idea that there are some problems that are just too big to handle, and if you just ignore them that sooner or later they’ll go away, so that if you talk about the statistics on the stock market being up or orders for durable goods being on the rise, that nobody’s going to notice the single mom who’s working two jobs and still doesn’t have enough money at the end of the month to pay the bills. That if you say “plan for victory” often enough and have it pasted – and the words behind you when you make a speech, that nobody’s going to notice the bombings in Baghdad or the 2,500 flag-draped coffins that have arrived at Dover Air force Base. The fact is we notice, we care, and we’re not going to settle for less anymore. …

I don’t think that – I think George Bush loves this country. I really do. I don’t think his administration is “full” of stupid people. ... The problem is not that the philosophy of this administration is not working the way it’s supposed to work; the problem is that it is working the way it’s supposed to work. They don’t believe – they don’t believe that government has a role in solving national problems because they think government is the problem. They think that we’re better off if we just dismantle government; if, in the form of tax breaks, we make sure that everybody’s responsible for buying your own health care and your own retirement security and your own child care and your own schools, your own private security forces, your own roads, your own levees.

It is called the “ownership society” in Washington. But, you know, historically there has been another term for it; it’s called “social Darwinism” – the notion that every man or woman is out for him or her self, which allows us to say that if we meet a guy who has worked in a steel plant for 30, 40 years and suddenly has the rug pulled out from under him and can’t afford health care or can’t afford a pension, you know, life isn’t fair. It allows us to say to a child who doesn’t have the wisdom to choose his or her own parents and so lives in a poor neighborhood, pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. It allows us to say to somebody who is seeing their child sick and is going bankrupt paying the bills, tough luck.

It’s a bracing idea, this idea that you’re on your own. It’s the simplest thing in the world, easy to put on a bumper sticker. But there’s just one problem; it doesn’t work. It ignores our history. Now, yes, our greatness as a nation has depended on self-reliance and individual initiative and a belief in the free market, but it’s also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, our sense that we have a stake in each other’s success – that everybody should have a shot at opportunity.

Americans understand this. They know the government can’t solve all their problems, but they expect the government can help because they know it’s an expression of what they’re learning in Sunday school. What they learn in their church, in their synagogue, in their mosque – a basic moral precept that says that I have to look out for you and I have responsibility for you and you have responsibility for me, that I am your keeper and you are mine. That’s what America is.

And so I am eager to have this argument with the Republican Party about the core philosophy of America, about what our story is. We shouldn’t shy away from that debate. The time for our identity crisis as progressives is over. Don’t let anybody tell you that we don’t know what we stand for. Don’t doubt yourselves. We know who we are. And in the end we know that it’s not enough just to say that we’ve had enough. We’ve got a story to tell that isn’t just against something but is for something. We know that we’re the party of opportunity. We know that in a global economy that’s more connective and more competitive that we’re the party that will guarantee every American an affordable, world-class, life-long, top-notch education, from early childhood to high school – from college to on-the-job training. We know that that’s what we’re about.

We know we’re the party – we know that as progressives we believe in affordable health care for all Americans – and that we’re going to make sure that Americans don’t have to choose between a health care plan that bankrupts the government and one that bankrupts families, the party that won’t just throw a few tax breaks at families who can’t afford their insurance, but will modernize our health care system and give every family a chance to buy insurance at a price they can afford.

Progressives are the folks who believe in energy independence for America, that we’re not bought and paid for by the oil companies in this country. We believe that we can harness homegrown alternative fuels and spur the production of fuel-efficient hybrid cars, and break our dependence on the world’s most dangerous regions. We understand that we get a three-for: We can save our economy, our environment, and stop funding both sides of the war on terror if we actually get serious about doing something about energy. We understand that.

We understand, as progressives, that we need a tough foreign policy, but we know the other side has a monopoly on the tough-and-dumb strategy; we’re looking for the tough-and-smart strategy – one that battles the forces of terrorism and fundamentalism but understands that it’s not just a matter of military might alone, that we’ve got to match it with the power of our diplomacy and the strength of our alliances and the power of our ideals, and that when we do go to war, we should be honest with the American people about why we’re there and how we expect to win.

We understand as progressives that we believe in open and honest government that doesn’t peddle the agenda of whichever lobbyist or special interest can write the biggest check. And if we believe in all these things, and if we act on it, then I guarantee you America is looking for us to lead. And if we do it, it’s not going to be a Democratic agenda or a liberal agenda or a progressive agenda; it’s going to be an American agenda because in the end we may be proud progressives but we’re prouder Americans. We’re tired of being divided. We are tired of running into ideological walls and partisan roadblocks. We’re tired of appeals to our worst instincts and our greatest fears. So I say this to you guys, that America is desperate for leadership. I absolutely feel it everywhere I go. They are longing for direction and they want to believe again. …

Wow.

Why does Mr. Obama sound like he's already running for President???

Looking after each other....

Obama was describing what Garrison Keilor (A Prairie Home Companion) terms a social compact. A political movement that uses that as part of its platform will have a shot at becoming a Regeneracy coalition.

I think it's probably too early for Obama, maybe even too early for him to be HRC's running mate. (I would guess she chooses someone older, but not quite fossilized, and southern to be her vice president in 08.)

You could see him becoming Hillary's vice president in 2013 though.

That's about the clearest I've heard a democrat speak in a very long time.

Apparently they do stand for something/

Al Gore for President in 2008; Hillary Clinton as his running mate & assassination insurance.

Barack Obama in 2016. By then he'll be ready.

Originally Posted by Linus

I think it's probably too early for Obama, maybe even too early for him to be HRC's running mate. (I would guess she chooses someone older, but not quite fossilized, and southern to be her vice president in 08.)

You could see him becoming Hillary's vice president in 2013 though.

Probably, because it would certainly help having had a full term in the Senate before moving on... call it paying your dues, if you will. But certainly not too early on account of his age... Obama will be 48 in Twenty-Oh-Nine, 2 years older than Bill Clinton was when he took office in '93.

Everyone here seems to have adopted Conventional wisdom, that the Democratic nominee will be HRC, but I'm not convinced... nor that if she is, that she'll win. In that case, B.O. (he'll really have to start using his middle initial if he wants to be Prez) could end up the front-runner in the Twenty-Twelve Democratic primary season.

Circling the wagons........kinda.

More adult children returning to the nest
It's a cultural custom for some and a financial need for others
By SUZETTE HACKNEY
Detroit Free Press

DETROIT - Since 1970, the percentage of people ages 18 to 34 who live at home with their parents increased 48 percent nationwide, from 12.5 million to 18.6 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

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The return-to-the-nest movement is the focus of the movie Failure to Launch, starring Matthew McConaughey as a 35-year-old living at home with his parents, played by Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw.

But there's no need to turn to Hollywood for tales of children who have returned to their parents' homes or never left in the first place. It's playing out in basements and spare rooms and carriage houses all over.

"I'm thinking this may be a trend," said Neal Hartshorne, 42, who lives with his parents in the Northville, Mich., home where he was raised and works in a stained glass shop as a craftsman. "In this economy, a lot of people are needing help. I don't make much money, so it's not sensible for me to move out."

Hartshorne is what real estate representatives often call a boomerang kid — those who tried life on their own but came back to the nest.

Harry Hartshorne, 80, Neal's father, said he never thought of kicking his son out and doesn't think Neal is motivated enough to find the additional employment necessary to live on his own.

Harry isn't complaining. His son's presence allows him and his wife to travel and not worry about the house. Neal cuts the grass, shovels the snow, does his own laundry and cooks for himself. For tax purposes, Neal pays $50 a month in rent.

Experts say certain ethnic groups and cultures — Asians, blacks, Hispanics and Italians — have particularly close family ties and produce adult children who stay home longer and are less likely to move far away.

The norm of later marriage and adult children taking over the family business took an about-face beginning in the 1950s. People started marrying and moving out at "extraordinarily young ages."

Now they seem to be reverting to the earlier pattern, said Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

A marriage ending and a small child to raise were enough to prompt Peter McLeod to move back into his parents' Novi, Mich., house 12 years ago. Now his son, Brandon, is nearly an adult at age 17. Still, Mc- Leod's father, Bruce McLeod, 74, is trying to make his grandson happy by renovating the basement into a bedroom.

Although Peter McLeod has worked at IBM through a temporary agency for about five years, he does not pay rent.

"I figured they'd move in for a couple years until they got on their feet. Well, that's never happened," Bruce McLeod said. "Right now, I think it would be better if they weren't here, but we're not going to kick them out."

This seems to say Third Turning:
http://www.cleveland.com/search/inde...l?nnusa&coll=2

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Al Gore for President in 2008;

I agree.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Hillary Clinton as his running mate & assassination insurance.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Gore would be safe from all sides!

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Barack Obama in 2016. By then he'll be ready.

Something like that.

Originally Posted by antichrist

That's about the clearest I've heard a democrat speak in a very long time.

Apparently they do stand for something/

It is a great message. I hope Mr. Obama can back it up with his actions.

Thanks for the post, Mr. Reed. Refreshing.

The writer of this blog posts looks like he could be an early Boomer, or perhaps even a late Silent. Is this is one of the "moderate first wave" Boomers, then his last wave counterpart must be a little frightening. The rhetoric continues to reach new heights. Perhaps, he has been watching a little too much Full Metal Jacket (Drill Instructor: What makes the grass grow? | Recruits: Blood! Blood! Blood!)?

The Trumpet Summons Us Again

To Actors, Bloggers, Financial Angels, Writers Activists, Patriots and Venture Capitalists

Ignore the spinmeisters of the consultariat class of the Democratic Party. That Francine Busby did not make a Paul Hackett-like stand in the district of a corrupt Republican was a kick in the butt to Democratic strategy, and a red-alert call to arms for all who oppose one-party rule in Washington.

The source of the American crisis, the cause of our discontents, the opportunity for change and the dangers of failure all follow from one simple truth: George W. Bush is a war president and the war he wages is what Pat Buchanan declared in 1992: a culture war pitting American against American, a partisan war that treats American neighbors as domestic enemies, and a political war that uses every weapon of money, slander, abuse of the system and personal destruction in a single-minded quest for total power.

I have written elsewhere that America stands on the brink of an epic and historic election that will be remembered for generations. I believe the Democrats will win control of the House and make a run for the Senate with the possiblity of a landslide. However, the hard lesson of the Duke Cunnigham seat is that even with such enormous disapproval of the President and the status quo, a well-funded, aggressively fighting, and totally committed Republican machine can prevail even in the district that is a hallmark of Republican corruption in Congress.

Considering the stakes, it is outrageous that Republicans outspent Democrats two to one, again; that Republicans dominated the machinery of elections such as absentee voting, again; that Democrats failed to issue a convincing rally cry to voters, again; and that Democrats were not only victimized but were complicit, again, in a last-minute smear.

Does anyone seriously believe that Francine Busby was calling on illegal immigrants to vote illegally? Apologize? Sure, the people who should apologize are those who tried to intimidate blacks into not voting in Ohio through deliberately planned long lines, not those who try to inspire young Hispanics to be active in politics. With enough spinmeisters to fill Yankee Stadium, the best the Democratic Party could do was have an underfunded candidate issuing closing-day apologies for urging people to participate?

We are the majority, and we should start acting like it. We are on the side of truth, and we should shout it from the rooftoops. We are believers in the passionate patriotism of true freedom and democracy and it is high time we fight for it, fully understanding the power and money behind those who debase our institutions and demean our neighbors.

George Bush's aggressive war against fellow Americans has divided our country more than at any time since the Civil War, launching one preemptive attack after another, against other Americans, building to a 2006 election that will be as bloody and decisive as the Battle of Gettysburg.

Make no mistake, if George Bush can translate 31% support into another victory of one-party rule in America he will be emoldened to even more radical assertions claiming unilateral and inherent power to violate laws he disapproves of, and to violate the constitution and Bill of Rights when they stand in his way.

He will feel even more emboldened to wage foreign war at will and ignore the Congress and courts when it suits him. He will be even more aggressive in seeking to pack the courts for a generation with judges who will legalize whatever he does in the tradition of King Louis and Richard Nixon: if the President does it, that makes it legal.

In the world of George Bush and his partisans, even if a Democratic Congress acted with generosity seeking national unity, which I hope and believe they would, there is a deep and dark nightmare in the Republican soul about the secrets that would almost certainly emerge, and the devastating consequences that would almost certainly follow for those who committed such deeds.

So, here we stand, with the electoral Battle of Gettysburg approaching, with two competing visions of America, with much blood destined to cover the grounds, with great and titanic stakes that will define the fate our generation.

So, to the actors, bloggers, venture capitalists, angels, activists, and patriots from the studios of Hollywood to the military families of middle America to the visionaries of the internet who are the Lexington and Concord colonists of our times, I propose:

It is time for a new alliance, new spirit, new engagement and political and entrepreneurial drive that can mobilize and monetize the 50% of America that is totally appalled by the state of events, the 80% of independents who deeply want a better way, and friends of democracy everywhere.

It is time to make a stand and mobilize and empower, politically and financially, the many ten of millions of Americans who are deeply committed to change and highly organized around blogs, sites, networks and groups. In fact, George Bush's domestic wars have created the largest and most powerful movement in waiting that has ever been assembled in the history of the Republic.

Looking our politics and media, how many of us have thought, like John Adams in the play 1776: "Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see? What in hell are they waiting for!"

Consider the numbers: George Bush assumed office after the 2000 election with a 48% Party and a divided nation, and from that moment on, he has waged his civil war, and as he did, his support has fallen to 42%, then 38%, then 32%. As the concentric circles of his support shrank, the concentric circles of opposition rose, from 48% to 55%, then to nearly 70% with the one-party Congress support falling to the historically unprecedented and humiliating 20%.

As Bush and his partisans wage their endless preemptive wars against other Americans, the potential of our power only rises, if only we would recognize it.

Just in recent hours, our war president escalated his attack against patriotic and law-abiding Hispanics who sing our anthem in Spanish, then our commander in chief launched his armies against gays. Not to be outdone, his partisan air commander, Bill O'Reilly, implied the Marine heroes who took Iwo Jima committed war crimes, to downplay Abu Ghraib and Haditha, while his special forces agent, Ann Coulter, charged that the widows of 9-11 seem to be enjoying the death of their loved ones. Every new slander broadens our reach and intensifies our commitment.

In fact, the greatest under-reported story in recent history, the greatest potential for patriotic change in decades, and one of the greatest untapped business opportunities since the cave men first traded coconuts, this this: From every direction outside the inner elites, the masses for patriotism change are congregating, new institutions of media and politics are being born outside the comatose insider establishment. The Gettysburg Battle of 2006, which we did not declare but intend to win, will be the transforming catalyst for the next era of American politics, media and entertainment.

Politically our aspiration is not only to prevent the democratic Armageddon of a one-party state, but to set the stage for the historical reaction that inevitably follows such times, a new era of patriotic reform reminiscent of Theodore Roosevelt, FDR and JFK and to create new waves of community, media and entertainment that will challenge and supplant the comatose status quo.

I'm new here, and this is self-serving but true, but on any given day there is more diversity, truth, insight, excitement, and even entertainment on HuffingtonPost than on Fox and the Fox-Lites put together. To sites such as consortiumnews, alternet, smirking chimp, and others there is mass migration of eyeballs seeking deeper and truer commentary and news than one ever finds from the cable talkers or the editorial page of the Washington Post.

The mobilizers, motivators and aggregators dailykos, democracynow, firedoglake and countless others have far greater eyeball share, and far more engaged participants, than Fox, CNN and MSNBC combined and are a force for change of immense potential political power, and enormous potential monetizing power, with their numbers and commitment, to expand their mission and capability any way they choose.

In their fusion of principle, media and mission, these are the Tom Paines and Ben Franklins of our times, the pamphleteers and believers and activists who led to the Lexington and Concords. They are the Ed Murrows of the earlier days of television who created the fusion of media and ideas that advanced America from the red baiting of Joe McCarthy, to the slow-moving change of Eisenhower, to the explosion of inspiration, art and social change of JFK and the New Frontier.

After leaving politics around 1990, I became involved in the public-affairs side of the entertainment business, including major business with the agency representing Frank Sinatra among others. Today there are many important parallels with the early stages of the Hollywood-Washington activism of the JFK-Sinatra years.

Many actors, including George Clooney, are beginning to look like Sinatra circa 1959, when he stood up for Sammy, supported civil rights, and at the peak of his artistic powers, rallied artists to the cause of JFK. I believe we have entered a new era of activism and engagement in the entertainment industry with artists standing for good causes, studios green-lighting motion pictures about big themes and issues, and songwriters performing stories and creating new anthems for our times.

From Brokeback Mountain to Clooney's film about Murrow to Al Gore's documentary about global warming, the revival of activism by talent is paralleled by important product touching great issues. When Fox or MSNBC claims Hollywood Hates America, they are only attacking what they fear. In my experience Hollywood Loves America, artists from left to right believe deeply in the freedom of art, and thought, and the obligations of citizenship and it is no coincidence that artists from more liberal Kris Kristoffersen to more conservative Mel Gibson have much to say for the spirit of hope over the politics of fear.

The next great wave in politics, media and entertainment will be the realization that the crisis and abuses of recent years have created an enormous, highly motivated, increasingly organized mass of new media, activists, eyeballs that will realize their own power, attract financial angels and venture capitalists to expand their power to propagate ideas and promote change.

The sheer numbers, quality and commitment that these groups and sites attract create not only the power to mobilize votes and promote ideas, but to monetize these masses and frontally challenge through internet television, the power to promote music and motion pictures, the capability to revive publishing and support authors, the opportunity to expand the reach of Air America and gain the rightful place of the majority in cable and satellite television, and satellite and digital radio. There is enormous potential power for a new wave of documentary film addressed to this mass market of believers, major power for any form of pay-per-view entertainment cross-marketed to these huge principled audiences, incredible win-win potential for any project that combines the Hollywood publicity machine with the new American idealism machinery of hope.

These many tens of millions of highly engaged hearts, minds and eyeballs have the power, if they choose to exercise it, to create affinity ecommerce sales machines, box-office drivers for major motion pictures, music and books that appeal to their sensibilities with potential for win-win revenue sharing.

These mega-blocks of principled patriots have the power to win the battle of ideas, spread alternative policies from advocates of change, attract corporate advertisers with greater numbers than right wing propagandists, collaborate with each other to increase shared power and revenue, create new media and invade old media, and get out the vote and mobilize workers in unprecedented numbers.

The dark side of our crisis is the preemptive civil war initiated by Bush. The red-alert warning is the defeat in the California Congressional election that proves that ideas, organization, commitment and the will to fight and win must all come together.

The great hope, and the great moment, come from the under-recognized truth that we are the majority, we are the future, we are the heirs to the printing presses that published Franklin and Paine, who now carry the banner of the Murrows and Sinatras who paved the path to their New Frontier, as we will establish ours, when we realize our power, and use it for good.

I don't think that the Social Mood for the next 4T will begin until 2009-2010 somewhere. Whatch out for President Hillary! & :!: I don't think that Hillary will be the next "Gray Champion" Just my opinion. I don't know of what Hillary's personal challange is.

All of our Gray Champions had a personal challange:

1) George Washington: Chance to be a king, but didn't take it & allowed the USA to be a democracy instead.

2) Abraham Lincoln: Greatly risked his life & eventually gave it to give the Blacks more rights.

3) FDR: Struggled with extreme physical pain from crippling polio, but still led the USA in a cheerful way: a metaphore for how the USA dealt with the twin crisis of the Depression & WWII.

We are dealing with some senerios today that, in my opinion are more more scary than the things we had to deal with in the past 60 years:

• The cold war had is moments, but people didn't go bezerk about it
  
• The Vietnam war was tragic, but it didn't bring the USA to a naition threatning crisis
  
• The economy still thrived after Sept. 11th & Katrina.

Today:

a) China could go to civil war (they have up to 100 riots/day-we never hear about this in the meda): if China does, there could be a military government in China & this government could turn on the USA. All I can say is, Chinese Generals: keep Buying, Buying, & Buying real estate in the USA so you won't bomb your own land!

b) Muslum control & thus indifference to terrorsts in the leadership in Europe: The population demagraphics of Europe is becoming more & more Muslum: by Middle Easterner immigration, mass converting to Islam, & increasing family size of Muslum families which will in turn, by demagraphics alone, make the majority rule as Muslum in European countries: especially France! The native Europeans are not having kids & emptying out the Christian churches at the same time. Just wait 20 years!...That's all that it will take & there will be the same nation that capitulated for a second time (just like they lost/fell to Hitler in WWII) to a dangerous (the UBL) side: & I'm talking France here!.


c) Hitler-in-a-headscarf: UBL (Usama Bin Ladin) & others are gathering support-terror camps are sweling from 10s to 400-500s in Samolia & Pakistan (Crapistan). Adolf Hitler claimed that he will be back in the 2020s: about 80 years after Hitler dealt rule-by-terror in WWII: 80 years: the time-frame of the Saculum.

d) Coutnries like Mexico/Venesuela hostile & unfriendly to the USA: Venesuela: taking that oil away: in time, no oil imports to USA; Mexico: export poverty to USA.

e) Exploding budget deficit: 10-15 trillion dollars within the next 20 years. What will the government DO? China, is financing some of this debt & WILL collect!

f) Real estate prices too high: lead to devaluation of home prices for sellers; buyers all ready bankrupt from making the explodingly high morgtate costs for their current homes--can't afford to stay in their own home: must move to an apartment: demoted to apartment status! Even though house prices fall, there won't be buyers able to afford them. (especially cash strapped Gen X!)

g) Gold, Bonds & Stocks all are going up in 2006. The last time that this happened was in 1925-1929!

Warinig Signs of END-OF-THIRD-TURNING:
Were are in a Third Turning...

-when "On the Record" with Greta Van Sustern (or Gareta Van Screechtern--She has a very screchy voice) popularity drops,

-the Minutemen get replaced with the National Guard,

-Right & Left wing values camps go to war:
Lawers Vs. Businessmen/Religous Leaders via the USA govt. (lawsuits/constitutional crisis/police-millitary involvment with religious relics/government funding)

-China govt. begins to go unstable,

-childern are watched like hawks watch their young (this is beginning to happen! just watch the actions of how the schools are becomming: metal detectors & strict rules!)

&

-slowly, but surely, France falls to indifference to UBL-led terrorists, even has supportrs in the French government to UBL!


__________________________________________________ _________
"Vote Democrat and get the pain overwith" --Devil's Advocate

Lou Dobbs on the new North American Union

Originally Posted by Lou Dobbs

The Bush administration's open borders policy and its decision to ignore the enforcement of this countries immigration laws is part of a broader agenda. President bush signed a formal agreement that will end the United States as we know it. And he took the step without approval from either the US congress or the people of the United States.

The larger scheme.

Here is another article giving clues that America's 3T-era consumption binge is ending, and a new elder Boomer regime of austerity and midlife Xer regime of thrift is beginning.

America's Auto Revolution

Oil hit $74 a barrel on Monday, and new car sales tanked (again) in June. Americans are revolting against higher gas prices by cutting back on the purchases of larger gas-thirsty vehicles, a year long trend that isn't likely to change anytime soon.

This quiet American Revolution (not exactly what Chevy had in mind) could push us towards a more worldly view towards driving and fuel consumption.

Poor SUV and truck sales are raining on the parade of Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler, according to Bloomberg. GM sales fell a whopping 34 percent between May and June, and were off 13 percent from a year ago. Overall vehicle sales dropped by almost a million units from last year.

Bad news for the auto industry, but good news for environmentalists since fewer new car purchases means less older cars to hit the scrap heap. Since new vehicles get about the same mpg as the cars they would replace, there will be no tears shed by the greenies.

The Right to Drive Huge Cars And Use All the Gas I Damn Well Please is almost as ingrained in the American mindset as the Right to Bear Arms, but perhaps the 21st century will see a slow but permanent shift towards smaller less-consumptive vehicles and concern for fuel economy.

Yes, there will always be the individualists who will have to have the keys to their SUVs ripped out of their cold fingers (probably as the result of a rollover). Maybe just maybe someday the word Expedition will revert to referring to Lewis and Clark's trip.

Originally Posted by Mystic 1

Lou Dobbs on the new North American Union

Originally Posted by Lou Dobbs

The Bush administration's open borders policy and its decision to ignore the enforcement of this countries immigration laws is part of a broader agenda. President bush signed a formal agreement that will end the United States as we know it. And he took the step without approval from either the US congress or the people of the United States.

The larger scheme.

Holy Sh*t. I've looked around the net on this and find that it's almost exclusively far right and far left that are mentioning this. Dobbs seems to be the only person in the MsM sounding the alarm on this.

While looking, I came across a great Dobbsian expression: "Corporate Supremicists". Cool.

Thank you so much for posting this.

Originally Posted by Mr. Reed

Here is another article giving clues that America's 3T-era consumption binge is ending, and a new elder Boomer regime of austerity and midlife Xer regime of thrift is beginning.

America's Auto Revolution

Oil hit $74 a barrel on Monday, and new car sales tanked (again) in June. Americans are revolting against higher gas prices by cutting back on the purchases of larger gas-thirsty vehicles, a year long trend that isn't likely to change anytime soon.

This quiet American Revolution (not exactly what Chevy had in mind) could push us towards a more worldly view towards driving and fuel consumption.

Poor SUV and truck sales are raining on the parade of Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler, according to Bloomberg. GM sales fell a whopping 34 percent between May and June, and were off 13 percent from a year ago. Overall vehicle sales dropped by almost a million units from last year.

Bad news for the auto industry, but good news for environmentalists since fewer new car purchases means less older cars to hit the scrap heap. Since new vehicles get about the same mpg as the cars they would replace, there will be no tears shed by the greenies.

The Right to Drive Huge Cars And Use All the Gas I Damn Well Please is almost as ingrained in the American mindset as the Right to Bear Arms, but perhaps the 21st century will see a slow but permanent shift towards smaller less-consumptive vehicles and concern for fuel economy.

Yes, there will always be the individualists who will have to have the keys to their SUVs ripped out of their cold fingers (probably as the result of a rollover). Maybe just maybe someday the word Expedition will revert to referring to Lewis and Clark's trip.

But at least this time around, there are smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles made even by GM and Ford that buyers can switch to. All that's required is some retooling by the auto companies, and they'll be ready to rock and roll. This is in stark contrast to the late 1970s, when such vehicles had to be engineered quickly from scratch, resulting in some of the shittiest excuses for automobiles ever produced in America.