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Thread: Evidence We're in a Third--or Fourth--Turning - Page 453







Post#11301 at 04-26-2007 01:06 PM by The Wonkette [at Arlington, VA 1956 joined Jul 2002 #posts 9,209]
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Quote Originally Posted by David Krein View Post
There are also no Safeways anywhere around here. But I checked, and there is a Costco in Des Moines, about 150 miles from here, so Iowa must not be totally bereft of high commercial culture.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42
There must be a Whole Foods in Iowa City or Ames. If not, then the owner of Whole Foods is insane.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008







Post#11302 at 04-26-2007 01:27 PM by cbailey [at B. 1950 joined Sep 2001 #posts 1,559]
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School lunches are unhealthy

The National School Lunch Program was created to feed the under-nourished [US GIs and get them fit for World War II.



Standards Proposed for Healthy School Food
April 25, 2007

Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Whole-grain crackers, low-fat yogurt, fruit and water could become the school snacks of the future, driving out fattening fancies such as cola and fried chips.
The Institute of Medicine yesterday recommended new standards for school snacks and foods that sharply would limit calories, fat and sugar while encouraging more nutritious eating.

Concerned about the rise of obesity in young people, Congress asked the institute to develop the standards. Lawmakers now will consider them, as will state and local school officials.

"Making sure that all foods and drinks available in schools meet nutrition standards is one more way schools can help children establish lifelong healthy eating habits," said Virginia Stallings, head of the committee that prepared the report.

"Foods and beverages should not be used to reward or to discipline for academic activities or behavior," said Stallings, director of the nutrition center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Food sold in school cafeterias under federally assisted lunch programs already must meet nutritional standards. The institute's recommendations cover items considered competitive with those foods. Examples include snacks in vending machines and other food and drinks sold at school but not under the federal program.

Selling these foods is a money-maker in some communities. Janey Thornton, president of the School Nutrition Association, said she expects complaints about losing this source of money if the recommendations are adopted.

"Shame on us if we try to balance the school budget based on the nutritional health of kids," said Thornton, whose organization represents school-food-service directors.

The standards would not apply to bag lunches that students bring from home.

Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, said the recommendations "offer a tool kit for local, state, and federal policymakers who already know that we need to do much more - to promote sound child nutrition and prevent childhood obesity."

But the Center for Consumer Freedom worried that the report could lead to a government "no child with a fat behind" program.

The center, which describes itself as representing restaurants, food companies and individuals, attributed the growing rate of obesity to a lack of physical activity, rather than overeating. *
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/nati...hool_food.html
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt







Post#11303 at 04-26-2007 02:55 PM by David Krein [at Gainesville, Florida joined Jul 2001 #posts 604]
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Whole Foods???

Sorry Jennie - Crazy they must be. I doubt that Whole Foods is anywhere in the state of Iowa. They are not in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, or the Quad Cities (all of which I have phone books for) and they are not in the on-line yellow pages for Des Moines or Ames. The Coralville Hy-Vee has an organic section, and IC has a New Pioneer health food co-op, so I guess people whose tastes veer in that direction have a place to go. I fail to see the attraction of such (but then I always liked Alar on my apples). By the way, you must have guessed that Gang Lu would be all over the local news again in the wake of Virginia Tech last week.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42
"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your Tears wash out a word of it." - Omar Khayyam.







Post#11304 at 04-26-2007 03:19 PM by The Wonkette [at Arlington, VA 1956 joined Jul 2002 #posts 9,209]
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Quote Originally Posted by David Krein View Post
Sorry Jennie - Crazy they must be. I doubt that Whole Foods is anywhere in the state of Iowa. They are not in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, or the Quad Cities (all of which I have phone books for) and they are not in the on-line yellow pages for Des Moines or Ames. The Coralville Hy-Vee has an organic section, and IC has a New Pioneer health food co-op, so I guess people whose tastes veer in that direction have a place to go. I fail to see the attraction of such (but then I always liked Alar on my apples). By the way, you must have guessed that Gang Lu would be all over the local news again in the wake of Virginia Tech last week.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42
Ugh! My Dad was close friends with Dwight Nicholson, who lost his life to that thug.

I remember New Pioneer. So that's still around! Great.

Another place in Iowa that would support a Whole Foods is Fairfield, home of Maharashi International University.

Sorry, I'm seriously rambling now.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008







Post#11305 at 04-26-2007 03:39 PM by Bob Butler 54 [at Cove Hold, Carver, MA joined Jul 2001 #posts 6,431]
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Quote Originally Posted by David Krein View Post
Sorry Jennie - Crazy they must be. I doubt that Whole Foods is anywhere in the state of Iowa. They are not in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, or the Quad Cities (all of which I have phone books for) and they are not in the on-line yellow pages for Des Moines or Ames.
I just visited the Whole Foods Store Finder Page. (Phone books? Do people still look in phone books to find outlets of chains?) Anyway, they have a nice drawbar widget which has a whole bunch of states on it... but not Iowa.







Post#11306 at 04-26-2007 03:53 PM by Child of Socrates [at Cybrarian from America's Dairyland, 1961 cohort joined Sep 2001 #posts 14,092]
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Quote Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54 View Post
(Phone books? Do people still look in phone books to find outlets of chains?)
::Puts librarian hat on::

Yes, they do. I did it myself just the other day when I was looking for a branch of my bank that was closer to where I happened to be that morning. Didn't have internet access at the time...sometimes low-tech solutions work just fine.







Post#11307 at 04-26-2007 03:54 PM by David Krein [at Gainesville, Florida joined Jul 2001 #posts 604]
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I googled Whole Foods but the store finder page did not appear. Of course, a literate person always reaches for a book when the answer is not readily available elsewhere.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42
"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your Tears wash out a word of it." - Omar Khayyam.







Post#11308 at 04-26-2007 04:37 PM by Bob Butler 54 [at Cove Hold, Carver, MA joined Jul 2001 #posts 6,431]
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Quote Originally Posted by Child of Socrates View Post
::Puts librarian hat on::

Yes, they do. I did it myself just the other day when I was looking for a branch of my bank that was closer to where I happened to be that morning. Didn't have internet access at the time...sometimes low-tech solutions work just fine.
They do? Amazing.







Post#11309 at 04-30-2007 12:56 AM by Bob Butler 54 [at Cove Hold, Carver, MA joined Jul 2001 #posts 6,431]
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"Buying the War" as a Catalyst?

A few days ago, there was brief mention in these forums of Bill Moyers's Buying the War program on PBS. The comment I remember is that it is a good summary of the deceit and lax reporting that occurred prior to the invasion, but it isn't really news to the reality based community.

Yes. "Buying the War" is a good piece. Not spectacular. Not transformational. A good piece.

Then I got pointed to an anonymous blog. An interesting comment. If the comment is true...

I'm watching Moyers' Journal, and Jon Stewart is the guest, with Josh Marshall from TPM to follow. It's caused me to reflect on the fairly recent past, and I am getting an almost cellular sense that something very profound is beginning to bud.

I have to say that a remarkably intimate, yet expansive, community of thought seems to be forming across television, film, and the Internet. There's a rather quiet, yet intense, movement of thought and expression building. It focuses not so much on any particular ideology ("right" or "left"), but on a common, critical-mass thirst to dispel the deception, irrationality, and utter hubris that has been corroding our proud country for what seems like an eternity.

An undeniable intellectual and social confluence is rapidly gaining momentum and solidarity. This solidarity is amazingly organic, not hierarchical — its only guide is the sixth sense of skepticism, outrage, and, yes, reason. It transcends party. It is oceanic, atmospheric. An intellectual, moral, societal, and psychological gestalt as ancient as humanity itself, kept underfoot by a long winter, but indelibly germinating once again with the thaw.

It is literally everywhere now. The voices of blindness and rage cannot shake me anymore. I haven't felt such hope in a very long time.
If someone asks me for a short description of what a fourth turning is, I might point him to Lincoln's Second Inaugural. Lincoln did a better job of defining what that crisis was about, and by implication any crisis, than any similar short bit by Strauss and Howe.

In the future, if anyone asks me to define what a 'regeneracy' is, I'd be tempted to point at the above anonymous quote.

Now, let's see if said individual was imagining things.
Last edited by Bob Butler 54; 04-30-2007 at 01:03 AM. Reason: Tweak for clarity







Post#11310 at 05-10-2007 08:54 AM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
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Unhappy Let Loose The Dogs of Not-War

Our Commercial Republic's pet poodle (UK) is to be put down in late June?

What sort of Caledonian terrier will we replace him with? Will it be house broken? Will be a Scottie or a Yorkie? Gordo or Cammie?







Post#11311 at 05-10-2007 05:52 PM by herbal tee [at joined Dec 2005 #posts 7,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari View Post
What sort of Caledonian terrier will we replace him with? Will it be house broken? Will be a Scottie or a Yorkie? Gordo or Cammie?
If the conservative party continues to lead in the polls, the Brown dog will prove to be a sacraficial lamb.







Post#11312 at 05-10-2007 06:20 PM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
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Question Not 1/20th of a Ģ's worth of difference

Quote Originally Posted by herbal tee View Post
If the conservative party continues to lead in the polls, the Brown dog will prove to be a sacraficial lamb.

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Peter Hitchens
1. There is no Tory recovery. You will look in vain in the papers for any turnout figures on the English local elections, but I am prepared to bet that the turnout was extremely low. Since Ted Heath wrecked English local government in 1974, fewer and fewer people have been interested in council elections, or even know who their councillor is. Most decisions on spending and policy are now taken in Brussels or London anyway, so it makes precious little difference how you vote.


2. The Tories are not an opposition. There is no substantial difference, socially, morally, economically, educationally, in crime policy or immigration policy or foreign policy, or on the EU, between the Tories and New Labour. What would be the point in shedding a single drop of sweat to replace a government you dislike with its identical twin? There is no answer to this, and the tribal Tories simply ignore it when it is pointed out. Or -even more absurdly - claim that Mr Cameron has a secret agenda which he will reveal if he becomes premier. This is an extremely childish fancy, and there is no evidence for it at all.


3.Yet on the other hand, there is a unique, unrepeatable opportunity to build new political movements in Britain - or there would be, if people would take that opportunity. First, there are still enough British men and women alive who remember what it was like to live in an independent free country, properly governed, in which children were brought up and educated, criminals caught and punished, and our borders secure. Second, it would still be surprisingly easy to restore these conditions. Neither of these things will remain true for very much longer, which is why we cannot wait for the (inevitable) collapse of Tory and Labour Parties, which -unaided - may take 20 years.
12 pence or a shilling?







Post#11313 at 05-10-2007 09:34 PM by herbal tee [at joined Dec 2005 #posts 7,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari View Post
Sounds like a country in the 3t/4t cusp. Not too surprising.







Post#11314 at 05-14-2007 04:32 PM by Mr. Reed [at Intersection of History joined Jun 2001 #posts 4,376]
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Youth Voters in 2008

The Boston Globe is reporting that the youth will be a powerful political force for the E2K elections.

Youth voters a force in '08 race
9/11 and Iraq war spur participation

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | May 13, 2007
NEW YORK -- Young voters, who for decades played a marginal role in electoral politics, have emerged as a powerful new force in the 2008 elections and are poised to determine the next president as a result of an explosion in political activity among youth, according to pollsters, political organizers, and young voters themselves.


Spurred into action by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq, youths 18 to 24 years of age have dramatically accelerated their participation in politics, both at the ballot box and on college campuses. After a steady decline in youth voting since the close of the Vietnam War, young voter participation increased from 36 percent in 2000 to 47 percent in 2004, representing a huge jump. Analysts also project that the final statistics from 2006 will show it to be a record year for youth voting in a midterm con gressional election.


The Internet has accelerated the trend, giving young people a cheap and efficient tool to organize rallies, recruit volunteers, and exchange information about candidates. With passions high over the war, national security, and global warming, young people today are shaping up as a political power bloc that could exceed the influence of antiwar protesters in the late 1960s and early 1970s, pollsters and analysts predict.
Further, the current crop of young voters is trending more Democratic -- unlike the previous generation of youth -- giving the eventual Democratic nominee a key advantage in the general election, according to two independent surveys of young voters.


"We've got the potential for this to be like SDS on steroids," said John Della Volpe , director of polling at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, referring to the Vietnam-era Students for a Democratic Society.
In surveys and in interviews, young people said they were shocked out of complacency by the 9/11 attacks, which led the young in both major parties to worry anew about their own security as well as the role of the United States in the world arena. Since then, the war in Iraq has provoked an antiwar movement among youth, at the same time that a smaller portion of conservative young people is looking for a candidate who can defeat Al Qaeda elements in Iraq and eventually extricate the United States from the country.


In the 1980s and 1990s "we did go through a period of unrivaled prosperity" and no attack on US soil, said Ian Christie , a 19-year-old freshman Democrat at Fordham College. "People checked out. And we got selfish. I realize now that there's too much at stake around the world to check out."
Joe Hack , a 20-year-old government major at Georgetown University, said his vivid memory of 9/11 fueled his work with the College Republicans. "I'll never forget it -- driving with my father and seeing that black smoke," said Hack, who is from Bayonne, N.J. "That's why I'm passionate about prosecuting the war on terror."


Young people are driven by a strong moralistic streak -- not so much on conservative social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, but on matters such as poverty, climate change, and the genocide in Darfur, according to polling by the Institute of Politics, which has conducted an ongoing survey of young people since 2000. Both pollsters and young people interviewed by the Globe said that college students are also becoming more involved in volunteer work (the institute found that two-thirds of young people were doing some kind of community service) although the impetus for the activity was sometimes rooted in improving college applications.


In the Institute of Politics study, the major issue for young adults ages 18 to 24 of all political persuasions was Iraq and the war, followed by global warming -- which surprised some political organizers who thought young people would be more concerned about self-interests such as paying for college and getting jobs after graduation. Asked what foreign policy matters should occupy the next president, young voters listed the crisis in Darfur after stabilizing Iraq.


Even students and other young people who disagree about how to handle the war in Iraq speak about the conflict in moral terms, with antiwar activists bemoaning the deaths of both soldiers and Iraqi civilians and conservatives arguing that the United States cannot abandon Iraqis to a civil war.


And the young voters are irritated with what they see as partisan gamesmanship on world problems. Students in both parties said they often worked together on issues such as Darfur, and held heated but civil joint debates on matters such as Iraq. Republicans who do not want former vice president Al Gore to run for president nonetheless praised his view that the current generation needs to leave the environment habitable for their grandchildren.


Despite the venomous rhetoric on young people's favored form of communication -- the Internet -- young voters said they are most interested in finding a candidate who can unite the nation and get things done.


"These old people in politics, they let their own personal vendettas [out] against each other," said Michael Sanon , an 18-year-old Brooklyn high school student and registered Democrat who said he is undecided on a presidential candidate. "They have their own private wars going on, which is distracting from the issue at hand -- making the world a better place," said Sanon, who hopes to study law.


Josh Luger , a Columbia University junior who cochairs a student group supporting Rudolph Giuliani , a Republican and former New York mayor, for president, said he wants the next president to find a compromise on Iraq instead of bickering over whether to pull out or stay.


"I don't see this as a partisan issue. I see it as a problem to be solved," said Luger, 20.


Young voters favor Senator Barack Obama of Illinois among the Democratic contenders and Giuliani among the GOP candidates, according to the Institute of Politics survey. College supporters of both men cited a mutual desire to elect someone they said was not mired down in Washington politics and who could unite the country.


While the jump in young voters stands to have a big impact on both parties' primaries, Democrats are well positioned to benefit from the trend in the general election. Unlike the previous generation -- the voting patterns of which largely mirrored the electorate as a whole -- the current crop of young voters is increasingly Democratic, according to a survey of "Generation Next" by the Pew Research Center.


"This is the first time since the 1970s that young people have voted significantly differently than the rest of the country," favoring Democrats more heavily than the rest of the electorate, said Andrew Kohut , director of the nonpartisan Pew center. "I think it's the times. It's the war."
Pew's research found a similar increase between 2000 and 2004 in the participation of young voters, from 42 percent to 54 percent.


While final numbers have not been released, early data on spikes in regional voting indicate that young voters played a pivotal role in electing Democratic senators Jim Webb of Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana in 2006, victories that helped give Democrats control of the US Senate, Della Volpe said.


Both political organizers and the presidential campaigns have become more adept at getting young people involved, as well, Della Volpe and others said. In previous campaign cycles, it cost a campaign $3 to mobilize a young voter, compared with $1 per voter for an older citizens, according to David King, associate director of the Institute of Politics.


But the Internet, combined with savvier organizing techniques, has changed the dynamic. Instead of using the "Rock the Vote" model -- a campaign to make voting hip -- organizers realized they needed peer-to-peer efforts to engage young people by door-to-door canvassing, Internet outreach, and phone banks.


"You can't expect to have MTV throw rock concerts and have candidates put on a T-shirt and talk about what underwear they wear, that would get young people to vote," said Jane Fleming Kleeb , executive director of the Young Voter PAC, referring to an event when a young voter asked President Clinton if he wore boxers or briefs.


Advocates for young voters are also reaching out to their constituents who are not on college campuses, using the Internet to connect young people at community centers and other noncampus venues. The nonpartisan group Generation Engage has launched an elaborate campaign of "I-chats," in which political leaders across the political spectrum hold Internet video meetings and answer questions from participants in cities across the country.


The group's website offers other videos as well, drawing 70,000 hits a day, said Adrian Talbott , cofounder of Generation Engage. "Young people -- especially those without college experience -- do not suffer from a lack of interest. They suffer from a lack of access," he said, which the group is seeking to fill through its virtual town meetings.


Students especially are difficult to reach through traditional direct mail and computer-generated robo calls, said Chris Brooks, a George Washington University junior who organizes College Republicans events through Facebook and other online sites. "The Internet is the only way of getting in touch with college students these days," he said.


A majority of young people don't even bother with phone lines, the Pew Center and the Institute of Politics found, preferring cellphones and e-mail.
Students have sometimes been ahead of the campaigns on Internet organizing -- a student group for Obama started on Facebook -- but campaigns are following, recruiting young people to their campaign staffs to reach the critical demographic, said Jessy Tolkan of the Energy Action Coalition, which has chapters on 500 campuses.


This election cycle, young voters said, they intend to make their voices heard. "The role for young people is to be the truth-tellers" on issues such as global warming and the war, said Nathan Wyeth , a Brown University junior active in energy issues. "It's young people who are going to be inheriting the consequences."
"The urge to dream, and the will to enable it is fundamental to being human and have coincided with what it is to be American." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
intp '82er







Post#11315 at 05-14-2007 07:56 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Reed View Post
The Boston Globe is reporting that the youth will be a powerful political force for the E2K elections.
Excellent news, also a sign of an approaching regeneracy, especially this:

Young people are driven by a strong moralistic streak -- not so much on conservative social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, but on matters such as poverty, climate change, and the genocide in Darfur, according to polling by the Institute of Politics, which has conducted an ongoing survey of young people since 2000. Both pollsters and young people interviewed by the Globe said that college students are also becoming more involved in volunteer work (the institute found that two-thirds of young people were doing some kind of community service) although the impetus for the activity was sometimes rooted in improving college applications.
But the Boomers, as is typical, will concentrate on that last part as proof that we are a bunch of narcissists.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#11316 at 05-15-2007 08:57 AM by Bob Butler 54 [at Cove Hold, Carver, MA joined Jul 2001 #posts 6,431]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
But the Boomers, as is typical, will concentrate on that last part as proof that we are a bunch of narcissists.
Well, y'all know how to game the system, but the broken system isn't your fault. Older generations mucked it up.







Post#11317 at 05-25-2007 09:34 PM by Tristan [at Melbourne, Australia joined Oct 2003 #posts 1,249]
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Gore Blasts Trivial Media

"The f****** place should be wiped off the face of the earth".

David Bowie on Los Angeles







Post#11318 at 05-25-2007 10:29 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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He's looking more and more like GC material. Damn it Al, RUN!!!
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#11319 at 05-26-2007 01:45 AM by Mr. Reed [at Intersection of History joined Jun 2001 #posts 4,376]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
He's looking more and more like GC material. Damn it Al, RUN!!!
Well, he HAS had more than 15 years of practice since Generations came out..
"The urge to dream, and the will to enable it is fundamental to being human and have coincided with what it is to be American." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
intp '82er







Post#11320 at 05-26-2007 03:08 AM by Tristan [at Melbourne, Australia joined Oct 2003 #posts 1,249]
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Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Reed View Post
Well, he HAS had more than 15 years of practice since Generations came out..
I have a feeling he could run in 2012, he decided the 3T is still going on and by 2012, the 4T will have started.
"The f****** place should be wiped off the face of the earth".

David Bowie on Los Angeles







Post#11321 at 05-26-2007 07:20 AM by herbal tee [at joined Dec 2005 #posts 7,116]
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Are Republicans leaving the culture wars behind?

Another sign of the times or why Guilaini may win the GOP nomination.

If this trend continues, those have always maintained that the culture wars would spill over into the 4t will have a lotta black bird to eat.







Post#11322 at 05-26-2007 09:26 AM by Tristan [at Melbourne, Australia joined Oct 2003 #posts 1,249]
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Millennial voting bloc

In 2008 the Millennial generation will make up around 12% of the voting population. That proporation could be higher among voters who actually turnout to vote, since Millennial voter turnout is higher than other generations.

In a close election, he/she who can energize the Millennials can be assured of victory.
"The f****** place should be wiped off the face of the earth".

David Bowie on Los Angeles







Post#11323 at 05-26-2007 11:30 AM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by Tristan View Post
In 2008 the Millennial generation will make up around 12% of the voting population. That proporation could be higher among voters who actually turnout to vote, since Millennial voter turnout is higher than other generations.

In a close election, he/she who can energize the Millennials can be assured of victory.
And we are trending heavily Democratic. I think we are heading to a quite spectacular election next year as youth voter turnout surges, as in, the morons in the media will be thinking the race is going to be close because they assume low youth voter turnout, only to have egg on thier face as a high youth turnout gives the Republicans a crushing defeat.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#11324 at 05-27-2007 01:30 AM by Mr. Reed [at Intersection of History joined Jun 2001 #posts 4,376]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
And we are trending heavily Democratic. I think we are heading to a quite spectacular election next year as youth voter turnout surges, as in, the morons in the media will be thinking the race is going to be close because they assume low youth voter turnout, only to have egg on thier face as a high youth turnout gives the Republicans a crushing defeat.
So far, the Obama Movement (Howard Dean 2.0?) is looking unprecedented.
"The urge to dream, and the will to enable it is fundamental to being human and have coincided with what it is to be American." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Post#11325 at 05-27-2007 01:37 AM by Mr. Reed [at Intersection of History joined Jun 2001 #posts 4,376]
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Nervous Breakdown

During and after the Katrina catastrophe, I believed that the nation experienced a nervous breakdown. But according to the essay I found, a new nervous breakdown may be gathering energy.

Our national nervous breakdown has begun


The country is reaching critical mass and even if you were not a witness to Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck's near cat fight on national television, you likely have noticed a palpable national nervous breakdown building all around you. I don't mean the rabid hate and death threats issuing out of the right wing circus and its bigots of patriotism or the pundits of malevolence who get paid to spew forth venom on Fox.

No, sadly that rhetoric is the normal condition of bitter, self-hating, and corrupt mental midgets striving for attention in a world where they can no longer disguise themselves in bed sheets and declare themselves to be the superior race. While O'Donnell and Hasselbeck had a tiff, to be sure, it was Fox guest Curtis Sliwa who actually threatened violence, openly and on national television expressing his wish to take a baseball bat to O'Donnell and beat her like a "human piņata."
Violent Hate
Obviously such misogyny is normal for men of little intellect and commonplace among the Fox propagandists. But it is not what these lunatics say that is at issue; rather, it is how the country reacts or does not react that is of concern.
Historically, the normal reaction of the civilized world towards these ethically vacant kooks has been to cast them to the periphery of society, from which their deranged and violent world view can do little harm.
After all, hate unchecked but so carefully publicized was one of the major contributors to the rise of Nazis. No, the normal reaction of even a mildly ethical society would be to make someone like Sliwa an outcast among decent people, and certainly to keep him at a distance from the female citizenry. One has to wonder if he beats his wife or girlfriend when she gets a bit too mouthy. In our culture, however, with its politics of hate, such rhetoric is treated as normal Worse still; there is no reaction from a society which claims to have "values" and the ear of "God."
Desperation
But our national nightmare and our soon to be national nervous breakdown are far beyond the prevailing normalcy of the culture of hate and the almost open-armed acceptance of it by uber-nationalists and sane people alike. We have entered a whole other stage of panic and fury, one in which our pompous President actually threatens a journalist's children on television in a sort of wink-wink mob-like suggestion that one might find coming out of the mouth of Tony Soprano:

Hysteria

Or take the meltdown by House Republican leader John Boehner over the Iraq appropriations bill that seemed so bizarrely unrelated to the topic at hand:
"I didn't come here to be a Congressman. I came here to do something," Representative John Boehner said. "And I think at the top of our list is providing for the safety and security of the American people. That's at the top of our list. After 3,000 of our fellow citizens died at the hands of these terrorists, when are we going to stand up and take them on? When are we going to defeat them? Ladies and gentlemen, if we don't do it now, if we don't have the courage to defeat the enemy, we will long, long regret it"
Leaving aside the absurdity of this statement in which the war in Iraq is falsely implicated in the attacks of September 11, what prompted a grown man - always tanned and composed - to suddenly cry like a child on the House floor? Surely he knows that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with the attack of September 11? Surely he must know that it is, in fact, precisely the war in Iraq that has taken our national focus away from those who have attacked us? And surely he knows that he has managed to omit yet another 3,000+ Americans and over 600,000 Iraqis who have died at the hands of a corrupt and dishonest administration? Yet he cried, shaking to contain himself, and delivered this torrent of nonsense on national television. Why? Is it guilt over the lies coming out of his mouth? Is it panic at the thought that no matter what he does, Dick Cheney will have his war anyway?
From all angles, there is a real and palpable feeling that the nation is in near panic over the corruption and dictatorial flavoring this country is being smothered in. And even the leaders of this corrupt stew are feeling something in the air.
While the President is reigning as the bully-in-chief and in desperation threatening a reporter's children, and Boehner is sobbing while stating lies as a matter of fact, and grown men have resorted to threatening to beat to death a celebrity on national television, even the nation's aristocracy is not immune and is falling apart at the seams.
All Prevailing Fear
From my own direct experience, even the genteel class is splitting at the seams. I recently attended a high school reunion for a school I did not attend (nor could ever afford) as a guest of one of the graduates. The school in question was St. George's and the moneyed Americans present there were a mix of Republicans and Democrats, from varying degrees of wealth, yet all could be easily described as blue-blooded to the bone. Although I attended as the date of one of the privileged, the writer in me could not resist the opportunity to observe the nation's nobility mingling in their element and note their conversations when they believed themselves to be insulated from an outsider such as myself.
Obviously in genteel circles I would be considered nothing short of a bad mannered, eavesdropped, intruder. I do not mean to imply that I was treated rudely, because I was not. Nor do I mean to imply that everyone with whom I spoke was snobbish and bad tempered, because they were not. But the general feeling I had was that this world was not one I could ever understand or socialize in regularly.
More importantly, this coterie of the privileged provided me with an understanding of just how near collapse the national soul is. Because when even that 1% whom the rest of us - mortals - have generally blamed for the nation's ills is as frightened and worried as we are, then something of a critical mass, a ballooning crisis is near.
The people I met at this event were horror stricken by the direction of where this country is heading and mortified by the abuses of power. There was anger and near panic in their voices when our conversations would wander into politics and the war in Iraq or the attacks of September 11. They are as frightened and worried as the rest of us, angry beyond words, and finding themselves embarrassed by the vehemence of their anger.
The Republicans with whom I spoke that evening proudly identified themselves as such, but passionately defended their party from what one of them called the "jackals" who are in the White House and Congress.
Uncertainty
Yes, there is a sense that an all pervasive concoction of violent hate, desperation, fear and massive hysteria is nearly ready to explode across the nation. No one knows what to do or how to respond beyond their most base emotions, and hope seems to be a mirage built on commercials of cotton candy safety provided by Big Brother. People are falling apart, lashing out, and doing it no matter what their level of income or political leaning.
Journalists are outraged too and cannot fathom what more they can report to a seemingly irrelevant Congress and a quietly desperate nation.
The nation is tumbling toward pandemonium with each scandal and each lack of response from the other branches of government. With each outrage and abuse of power, more and more quiet disillusionment is turning into chaotic emoting.
Do you feel this as acutely as I do? Perhaps not, but I have the benefit of my own experience, living in a country of jackals who found themselves amidst a seething nation far too long abused, frightened, and angry. When the Soviet Union finally fell, it did not fall peacefully; and worse, it fell into chaos and into the hands of criminals. But it was still the oppressive regime that fell and the good guys - that is, us - who won the Cold War. What happens when the good guys fall, imploding under the weight of mass corruption and a populace teetering near deranged anger? Does it matter that Rosie and Elizabeth had a spat, when the rest of the nation is barely keeping a grip on its sanity, trying to cope in a fabricated reality in which 2 + 2 = whatever we are told?
What is next, then, in this land of mass media produced fuel for a fire that is already raging strongly in our national conscience? I am unsettled and fretting, because I have been here before and the smell of it frightens me... the smell of the desperations of those in power and the smell of "enough" from the powerless.
"The urge to dream, and the will to enable it is fundamental to being human and have coincided with what it is to be American." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
intp '82er
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