So why the hell aren't people, for the most part, mad at Bush for the way things are going? Sure, not everything that's gone bad lately has been his fault (e.g. the economy), but can anyone realistically say he's made things better?

In any case, this anti-incumbency sentiment would seem to be good news that the right democratic candidate witht he right message, can capitalize on big time.

"Sure, not everything that's gone bad lately has been his fault (e.g. the economy)"-- I meant completely his fault.

You've got to remember, that these are just simple farmers, these are people of the land, the common clay of the new west. You know . . . morons.

When the majority of even literate Americans choose "infotainment" over news and "shoppertainment" over locally owned and operated businesses, why would we expect any less than govertainment from our state and federal bureaucrats?

We are at an all time low of civic literacy, and completely vulnerable to manipulation by the marketers of democracy. Politicians have been reduced to products, but most of us don't even read the friggin' labels.

This pervasive feeling of discontent is dangerous because it isn't anchored. That means it's up for grabs. Unfortunately, Karl Rove's memes are far more attractive than those of the Dems. They offer simple, quick, effort free solutions - perfect for an instant gratification society.

I hope that the the blogosphere will continue to provide a calmly focused, rationally angry alternative to shit like FOX. However, I'm worried that very few of the unwashed will ever get the message.

Perhaps continuing job loss is an unexpected boon in that it will give more people time to actually think critically and dig beyond the pap offered by the mainstream media.

Naaah.

Whom.

This pervasive feeling of discontent is dangerous because it isn't anchored. That means it's up for grabs. Unfortunately, Karl Rove's memes are far more attractive than those of the Dems.

Sure. But the ancient political pattern is to blame the incumbents. The Reptiles are the incumbants, not the Dems. So if the voters aren't going to blame the GOP for the failure of all those "easy" solutions, who are they going to blame? The Jews and Freemasons?

Don't answer that...

Way OT, but I hope that all yoooz in the Bar are cheered and inspired by the sterling example of the good people of Bolivia who as we speak are taking back what's rightfully theirs :

Bolivian leader urged to quit, BBC, 14 Oct 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3191346.stm

A BBC correspondent in the region says the civil unrest is fuelled by wider issues than the gas project. Peasant farmers want land reform, the elderly want better pensions and workers want more money.

The Bolivian president's free-market reform strategy, centring on good relations with the US, has bred particular resentment.

If they can do it, why not us?

So if the voters aren't going to blame the GOP for the failure of all those "easy" solutions, who are they going to blame?

Yeah, the incumbents should get the blame for those things they've clearly caused - the ballooning defecit, record recruiting numbers for Al Qaeda, diminished credibility, etc. Unfortunately, the reptiles have established themselves so firmly as the "anti government" party, that people who voted for Bush last time will easily be convinced that:

A) His government reforming policies haven't been given enough time to work and...
B) Most of the problems were created in the prior big gummint administration.

Still, if asked "are you better off than you were four years ago?", it seems logical to expect most people would answer "no." So I guess if everyone who voted in the last election voted next time, we'd have a victory for the Dem's candidate for the simple reason that GW won't have won any of the opposition over and may have lost a few of his original supporters.

That seems rational. Why am I still so worried?

yeah agree, it makes me nervous, how rootless this disgust may be. The prevailing comment from people out here (who should know better) is "I don't care what they say about Ahnuld, he is not a politician".
Well, it, that sentiment, may be what we are up against, but it also misses the point.

Damned if I know what is coming. Normally I'd say the bastards will be voted out, this go round, too early to say.

I'm not a politician. I'm guaranteed to be swept into power in 2004.

(Who said anything about an election?)

What worries me is not blaming incumbency, or an amputated limb--but the venerable System itself.

What worries me is an opportunistic attempt to sweep the decks clean, to point to efforts to do right by us hamstrung by crufty legislation and liberal judicial review gone mad with power. What worries me is recalls and redistricting are just trial runs and toe-dipping. What worries me is that the Texas Republican Party Platform is as much a rough draft as it is a wish list.

What worries me is the prospect of a second Constitutional Convention.

Channel surfing today: Fox is gushing with good news from Iraq. People are employed making big tubs to hold water and making furniture legs when the electricity is on and sanding when it is off. Brief comment about the bombing, showing blood in the car.

Chaney's speech was very effective with its emphasis on terror and mass destruction last week.

Just my opinion: Colifornia will not go for Bush even though the State went overwelmingly for Arnold. What is of major concern is computer voting, apparently in some cases there is no paper trail, which leave a high possibility for fraud. What happens when the electricity goes out as it did twice on 10/7 in my neighborhood. Don't have the link, but earlier in the week there was news about the Governers race in Georgia; the Democrate lost despite what the polls said was going to happen. Oregon's gone to mail- in ballots.

After the 2002 midterms, I was completely disconsolate, faced by the prospect of George W. Bush with unchecked power. The sole silver lining was the knowledge that finally they had enough rope to hang themselves.

Sadly, these cowboys were given so much rope, they were sure to hang plenty of others too, all while looting the Treasury. I expected it, and they met my expectations.

I submit that they've already committed the crimes that will find them hanged.
-----

PS: All references to "hanging" in the above post should be interpreted in in a strictly metaphorical sense. -ed

>If they can do it, why not us?

Because they don't have billion-dollar infotainment corporations professionally adjusting their view of reality.

In any case, this is an infantile tantrum from an infantilized electorate,* and by definition it's not so much directed as others as a demand for attention.

So there's nothing inherent in it that will drive things toward a "good" result. We can only hope the timing of any major thrashing works out for us few adults left.

*Actually, I'm picking up the "infantilized" characterization from the British media. It would seem more accurate, to me, to look at America as a country dominated by spoiled adolescents.

So far the GOP has proved to be remarkably adept at creating and exploiting free floating anxiety. Davis was blamed for the sins of Pete Wilson. The stupid term limits that keep CA being run by amateurs lead them to elect novices. The disgust with Clinton's sex life lead them to love GWB who condones insider trading, corporate theft and outing CIA agents. Looks to me as if GWB is safe for 2004.

Four in 10 said a third major political party was needed.

And across the blasted and wasted reaches of the deep American heartland, heads raised up here and there as though summoned by some distant bugler, their tattered spirits galvanized once again by their shared heroic vision of a small white man on a big white horse.

Perot-bots to the fore! Ross for Boss!

Perot really is crazier than a shithouse rat on angel dust. But his intercession did help spare us a second term of Bush the Elder, and I'll forever be fond of *anyone* who contributed to that. By the middle of 1992, I just didn't think I could hit my head against the wall any longer.

Oh, lordy, now I have Dana Carvey's devastating impression unstoppably echoing around in my forebrain, of Ross Perot having phone sex.

(nasal Perot whine)

"What'm I wearin'? What *am* I wearing? Jehosaphat, young lady, it's ten o'clock in the evening, what would I be wearin' other than my pajamas?"

There are more reasons than the lack of a Fox lapdog (hey, that's cute.) We can't do it because the left is congenitally unable to harness anger. We need to get the message across to Joe Sixpack and Jennifer Soccermom that THEY ARE BEING ROBBED! And it's the GOP that's robbing them. Those four words. Say them over and over. The hell with details.

Hey Edverb, I never qualify my comments when I say Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Wolfowitz will hang.

I like the idea of Condi's jaw popping from the noose, the funky angle it'll give to her hood.

Hanging implies judicial process--arrest, arraign, convict, hang.

If you want to impeach before all that, by all means do so.

Advocating process is not sedition or endangering the life of the president with threats. Just becuase they might not like the sentencing doesn't mean its wrong to say it.

I suspect that part of the ugly past which is going to rear its head up against Bush is the old campaign finance reform issue. Every time the Repugs boast of how many millions Bush raised at a hot dog dinner, that catches the public's attention; the very people who don't have jobs, health insurance, or a govt that gives a damn that they don't. There is no more obvious clue that Bush is in cahoots with big business and big money than these boasting claims of how much is going into the purse from those who want to maintain this status quo.

I constantly hear from Joe Sixpacks the words "taking our country back." I am not sure what they each have in mind by that statement, but it doesn't bode well for an incumbent. But most of the anger I see seems to be directed against Ashcroft and his PATRIOT Act.

It may just be that the candidate who is seen as having the least political credentials and instead is more of a "regular guy" will be the one favored by a vast majority of grass roots voters who are tired of the perceived manipulations of professional politicians.

We have a long time to go before the election, and a lot can happen both domestically and internationally. But I agree with kip that a second Constitutional Convention could be the worst thing to come out of what appears to be a general dissatisfaction with the system and a desire for reform.

People do realize that the Presidency, the House, the Senate, a lot of the Judges, the majority of state Governors, and the majority of state legislatures are Republican, right? I mean, there are very few places where one could logically blame the Democrats any more. If you think the country sucks right now, you have only one place to point the finger of blame ...

Oh, and as far as I am concerned, the word 'whom' no longer exists in active usage in the english language. :-)

paradox: Hanging implies judicial process

Huh. My family tree has some strange fruit.

"Four in 10 said a third major political party was needed."
Frankly, that what seems the most interesting and the biggest hope, long-term speaking. As long as, as I interpret it, it's mostly progressives pissed off at Repubs and the usually lame and uneffective Democrats. The Dems have moved to be a centre-right party nowadays, and it's time at last to get a real left-leaning 3rd party in the country. Many of these might end up voting Dean, by lack of a better option right now.

Bolivia: very interesting. Another potential source of gas that goes very wrong. I don't think the economy will like that much.
Of course, next month we'll learn all these pesky peasants are stalinists. Er.. wait, USSR is dead. Make that a bunch of Saddamites, rather.

Re: Hillary
What I find fascinating is that the Republicans are constantly frothing about Hillary running for President. They must assume that she is unbeatable! Why else would she be such a threat?

Re: Bolivia, etc.
The most interesting political experiments and progressive politics in general are taking place in South America: Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia (Cochabamba, for example). The Bush Administration is having fits. Most impressive and worthy of our support.

A colleague of mine here at St. Lawrence suggested that the 'angry American' syndrome directed at Bill Clinton might stem from the stigma associated with hating minorities; because it is no longer acceptable in the public space to hate minorities, Bill Clinton came to symbolize them, and thus incurred the wrath of unfashionable prejudice. I have to agree. Moreover, I would add that as American culture becomes more publicly and politically characterized by non-white non-Christians, the conservative movement feels very anxious about their growing irrelevance, and feeling irrelevant is the fuel of neurosis. I'd say the current crop of right-wing screwballs could be accurately understood as neurotic: "I will NOT be ignored!"
Sounds like O'Reilly to me.

I remember reading an interesting take on the French Revolution. It wasn't that the aristocracy were too conservative in their views; the rural population came to hate the radical, new, "sophisticated" means of life and land management proposed by "enlightened" nobles. Despite their poverty, many felt that their way of life was threatened. Could it be that there are many too "conservative" Americans unable and unwilling to confront the new world? Not that they are necessarily wrong, just that they are on the other side of history.

French Revolution was me. I keep forgetting to put BOLLOX REF!

[grins]

Hey squiddy, you know I had to write it that way, hombre.

Sorry I had to delete your comment, p mac, but Tacitus is persona non grata around here.

Well, whom are you to say that?

Well, whom are you to say that?

The bartender.

as American culture becomes more publicly and politically characterized by non-white non-Christians

Don't you mean non-whites AND non-Christians? Most minorities (except perhaps Native Americans) are Christians. Many Asians are Christians, Latinos are usually Catholic, and the African-American identity is closely bound up with Christian evangelism.

Christianity is also spreading in Africa:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/africa/14CHUR.html

That the right-wingnut racists can't accept and assimilate non-white believers in the same faith on an equal basis is sad. Though I would like to see racial demographic statistics of sects like the Southern Baptists.. If they are practically all white (as I suspect), it suggests their real convictions are based on racism and the Christianity is largely a sanctimonious cover.

There is a genuine, growing healthcare availability/affordability crisis in the US, which is going to require the government to intervene. Corporations are fleeing the healthcare benefits scene. Only Bush among presidential candidates has no plan. If Democrats cannot exploit anger over this, they should go out of business.

Are the voters on the edge of one of their periodic anti-incumbent tantrums, ala 1974 and 1994?

The years you cite were simply the years in which voter anger (first with Watergate and then with the Clinton's bungled first two years) overwhelmed the inherent incumbency advantage. IMO, jerrymandered districts and the many other advantages of incumbency have largely offset and hidden the extent of the public's frustration (or in some cases, have made use of it) with our corrupt, intractable system.

At the executive level, the anger at "politics as usual" is more evident than at the Congressional level. In a sense, I'd say that Nixon's landslide in '72 was an early expression of voter dismay, in that case with the cultural eruptions of the '60s (people bought Nixon's law & order BS). Carter and Reagan are obvious examples of the people turning toward "outsider" candidates. I'd say that the only year in which an outsider didn't play a prominent role in winning or deciding the presidential election was 1988, and that's only because both H.W. Bush and Dukakis were perceived as insiders. Poppy's dimwitted son also claimed the White House in part based on the lie that he was an outsider who'd corral and hog-tie those unruly Capitol beasts. The victories of Ventura and der Schwarzengroper, and the success so far of Dean are further examples of the anti-incumbency / pro-outsider voter desperation.

Billmon, you said "GOP is the gummint" with no reference to your nearby blog on voting machines. If you owned all the machines, wouldn't you BE the gummint too?

The unstaunched bleeding sore here is that way too little attention is being paid to the FACT that voting doesn't matter any more. It is a scam. Has been since Bushco proved that the process can be easily bypassed in 2000.

The only way it can be fixed is through violent revolution unfortunately, as the candy-ass Dems are tighly stuck to the same $$$sponsors as are the Reptiles.

Vote-em-outa-office? Fugeddaboudit. Not possible dear.

This is much simpler than you make it out to be. As long as a critical mass of people are worried about their jobs, the country wants "change." The "change" is never specified, because "change" just means they want more money and job security. All the rest, they don't give a flying frijole about. As long as they can get a bigger SUV and a snazzier home entertainment system, that’s all that matters. They don't pay attention to national or world affairs, they only care about which movie star is humping which. We are too fat, too rich and our fear of losing it runs everything. If we continue our somnambulant, self indulgent ways, leaner and hungrier societies will pass us by. Our days as world leaders will soon be over.