After the country-ripping agony brought by the losing quagmire of Vietnam, the one thing we swore never do again was get in another losing quagmire. Imagine, then, that the very next real war we got in - not several wars later, with the resulting fuzzy memories - the very next one was a losing quagmire. Vietnam, on the scale of incompetence, was a 10. Bush, with the Vietnam lesson fresh in his face, converted a mere 10 out of 10 into a 100. We see this. All his Big Lie crap can't stop us from seeing this.

America today should be papered with the slogan, BUSH: INCOMPETENT LOSER. I mean it. Unless he is stopped he has vividly demonstrated to us the real ability to create majorities; even if, like with Gore, they're in fact minotities. Do not forget what this man has done to us and see what he is trying to keep doing.

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I realized after my last post that if Bush is such an INCOMPETENT LOSER, how come he kept getting us to elect him President of the United States?

It's because he's also a good parlor magician. That's all you apparently need to get elected President of the United States.

So, do not forget both that he is an INCOMPETENT LOSER and a GOOD PARLOR MAGICIAN; and that this latter capability can have lethal consequences.

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It is a misreading of values, "conservative values," to think the word means anything like what we liberals might think it means. We approach the word intellectually, thinking it has to do with a consistent set of moral principles. No. An error of liberal journalism. Conservatives use the word "values" to mean "sensibility." That is, the conservative church-goer and the conservative honky-tonker have the same "values," though one is adamantly sober and the other is adamantly drunk; though one is adamantly in favor of marriage as the only place for sex, if there, and the other does a pick-up in the pick-up and may subsequently go the abortion route. Both voted for Bush; both share his conservative cultural/political sensibility.

Because they're Christians awash in hate, contradicting the love of Jesus, we see that their values are fucked. But their sensibility is entirely of a piece.

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The article is good, but it suggests that if the Republicans knew they were wrong, they'd end the war. Our present situation is about power, not about what is right.

A bad manager does not want to be right, since employees know the right thing to do and spend their time doing it, leaving the manager no one to order around. No, the only way a bad manager can demonstrate his power is to make sure his underlings do the wrong thing. Voila.

We can only hope that some day a majority of Americans decide they're tired of being forced to do the wrong thing. Perhaps they'll remember we've fought a revolution and a civil war over this. Perhaps not. It's both a political and a mental health issue. We're all bozos on this bus. I say "all" because we too participate in being forced to do what is wrong.

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Horace said: "To all that which thou provest me thus, I refuse to give credence, and hate." Here is the attitude cementing Republican use of raw power against common sense. The more thou provest, the more Republicans denieth and continueth. And, apparently, the more we complyeth.

A comment, perhaps an aside, though, on the graphic at the beginning of the article. There's no Afghanistan. I haven't heard it said before, though many must have, that Iran must be a great deal more skittish about us because our occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq surrounds them. Imagine if you will radical Islam occupying Canada and Mexico; that it might make us more than usually peevish. And dangerous.

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The old male/female paradigm of the traditional family - conservative's dysfunctional family values - has the man busy outside working and bringing home the bacon and giving the orders. He may also be out there drinking and drugging and fooling around. Wifey is at home, indoors, keeping the home fires burning, following orders, and waiting on everyone, including hubby when he comes home.

He, incidentally, becomes increasingly more debilitated by being waited on and she gains more and more control. Both like this. And so the pathology plays itself out.

No surprise that, as an extension of this tradition, men tend to be the alcoholics and women tend to be codependents.

One of the natural consequences of feminism is that women out in the world do more of the things that men have been doing.

Interestingly, breaking down rigid roles seems to result in a corresponding increase in the number of codependent men.

Not to deny the horrors of alcoholism, or, it should be said, of codependence, feminism's balancing things out does in the long run aid chemical recovery for all. But we do get to watch things play themselves out in the tabloids.

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I am a Democratic member of the Democratic Party and am not fond of what you describe Diane Feinstein doing. However, I am glad that she, and even Al Gore's running mate, are Democrats rather than Republicans. We are all frustrated by the fact that our narrow Congressional majority can't push our beliefs more into fact. But reacting to the fanatical Bush by becoming the fanatical Nader will have the same suicidal results now as in 2000. Join your Democratic brothers and sisters, my friend. Work within our alliance. Learn what you can do to reduce your own politically suicidal tendencies. Hang together or hang separately.

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