Maybe che pasa and those like him are not holier than thou are as it were intellectually posing but stating their belief in the realities of the situation.

-- Jkalos

Just so you know, JKalos, I'm making this short reply to basically your entire post, not just the bit I've quoted.

I understand and agree with many of your sentiments and the reasons you stated for being pissed and disgusted to the rafters, and not seeing much reason for realistic hope for any great turn around coming soon enough. Too late for many already. They're dead or ruined or physically or mentally destroyed.

LWM's reply to Ondelette - who wrote a realistic and more than plausible theory about how things are - was closer to the truth about me in regards to how optimistic or not I am. After all, I lived through and watched and suffered through what happened to our corrupted political system during the long hard slog of the Vietnam era. Watching all of that hell unfold - for so damned long - causes one to question that our government can be righted. Now, we've watched another batch of years go by with our country under the thumb of a more corrupt administration than I ever imagined possible. And without the enablers in the congress and in the press, it wouldn't have been possible.

There are glimmers of hope, though, and I honestly do believe that our efforts to see them through will be rewarded.

We're counting on you.

-- One disgusted Democrat

It is disappointing to read the extent to which Democrats abetted the administration in its crimes. On the other hand, the rampant hypocrisy of the current Democratic Congress has been obvious during the past year.

The DCCC and members of Congress assert that all they need is a bigger majority so they can stand up to the Republican minority. However, with few exceptions they have been doing nothing more than paying lip service to what the weekly polls tell them we want to hear; they haven't been trying and don't even seem to have a worthwhile agenda.

I'm betting there are still a lot of Joe Lieberman's in the closet. At least Lieberman was honest enough to stick by his convictions; honesty and forthrightnes are worth a lot in my book these days.

I can tell from where I am how deeply all this affects you. I have noticed it on several occasions. I wish you would go to the library and get some books on the subject, PoliSci. Particularly electoral statistical analyses and voting theory. It's all over my head but you have the skills to make real sense of it. It would help you focus on something constructive and take your mind off all this, assuming you find this area of study entertaining. I always like theoretical physics as a distraction.

I am not in need of psychoanalysis by any credible assessment (and I dismiss as meaningless hallucinations those assessments that do find me to be). Electoral statistical analyses will not produce hope, have you seen "was the 2004 election stolen?"? Personally, w/resp to electoral statistical analyses, unless and until the media releases the VPN/Mitofsky results and promises to always do so, they don't deserve a shield law. Instead, they should go to jail for shielding election fraud.

I don't need my mind taken off of "all this", either. I'm an "eastern philosophy" guy, I can believe in multiple things at one time (I can even pray and be an atheist simultaneously, it isn't very hard), and I don't believe hope is necessary for right action, or to elude depression. I also believe things should affect people, so I don't need a distraction -- theoretical physics is too much hard work to be distracting anyway, and I'm far closer to ingesting Calabi-Yau for breakfast than I wanted to be right now anyway.

"All this" is very important. There are two bright never-go-there lines drawn by the good peoples of the U.N. -- torture and genocide. It's important to me that these two cease to exist before global warming turns us into raging savages as the food and water dwindles. I did actually put up a solution to the global warming long term, sent it to several places, got no response. Several of us (from here, Jim White, RMP, and I) did contact organizations with the hope of bringing charges against those in our government who are facilitating or practicing torture -- it's still in the works but you'd be surprised how luke warm a lot of the legal crusaders really are to do that. Wanna do some theoretical fluid physics? Look up Rayleigh-Benard problems on the sphere, or Turing instabilities (also on the sphere). That is the reason for the lack of hope, not some overdose of cerebral histamines. But I do believe in right thought and right action, and I will go out and vote, and I don't believe the two parties are the same.

To modify a biker 1%er expression, "Work for the best, expect the worst."

Is that people here are not realizing just how much effect our presence is having on the debate if not yet the outcome.

Remember:“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Well guess what folks. We're right smack between laugh at and fight on the progression. Don't underestimate whats happening.

Remember too that attrition will also take its toll in the long run. Many of the "beltway elites" we've been railing against are older than I am and I'm already older than dirt.

The key battle at this point however remains minimizing the damage. I guess what I'm trying to say is DON'T WASTE YOUR VOTE!

Just imagine a President Rudy if you need convincing!

I know what I would do, Glenn. Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi has unconditionally taken impeachment off the table*.*No qualifiers or contingencies that I am aware of?

By that logic, Bush could invade Iowa and impeachment would still be off the table.

I hope the checks and balances are in the mail...

at least,

bah.