Whats your biggest fear?

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Fears are fears...

I think it's interesting that among the biggest fears listed here are those that involve our country and it's direction and how deeply people care about the perception that rest of the world has of us. We are no longer percieved as the beacon of freedom and justice that we once were. There are not enough words to express the sadness that many Americans are feeling when they hear the numbers of not only our own young men and women killed on battlefields around the world but the horror and grief we feel when numbers of Iraqi citizens killed are greatly more than we have been told. The latest conservative estimates of Iraqi citzens killed is now well over 600,000 (more than were killed in our own civil war) but of course, the Iraqi "government" has now put a lid on all information of the actual dead that are recovered. If we are even close to the low side of that number minus the numbers that are actually al-qaida scumbags, we have to accept the fact that what we have created in that country is nothing short of a holocaust. Not only are the numbers of Iraqi dead now kept secret, this administration has from the beginning kept the American people sheilded from grieving for their own fallen heros by forbidding any coverage of their caskets being returned to their homeland for internment. With this administration's ongoing "how dare you question us" attitude (as plainly evidenced by Donald Rumsfeld's press conference today), fears of insects and ventilation fans seem a little petty, but it's important, and as Steve said, and healthy to face your fears.

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It all really comes down to a few simple core issues.

Do you believe that torture is wrong?

Do you believe in the Constitution?

Do you believe in nation-building...in other peoples' nations?

Do you believe that science has the capability to save lives?

Do you wish to be manipulated by living in a spirit of fear?

Do you like wallowing in debt, and having to march in lockstep to the whims of other nations' leaders and ideologies?

Do you enjoy having your life-and-death concerns used as a "wedge issue"?

For gay people, and people who do not wish gay people harm, to vote Republican in this election, is like chickens casting their votes for Colonel Sanders.

Please think twice about supporting the Republican party this year.

We need a new government.

We need new parties, new choices, fresh visions, inclusive of all Americans.

(And we can all purge the Democratic party-later.)

We just won't survive through much more of the same.

All you need to know is that Iraq was based on a lie, and then,

everything else falls into place.

Thanks for listening. I know many want to stick a fork into this topic, but this is serious business. We have a personal investment in the outcome, whether we realize it or not.
 
Amen Steve! And Tom Anderson, I agree 100% with your statement. It may shock some of you, but I will honestly say that these last couple of years since the midterm, Bush's performance was less-than-stellar and I have been quite disappointed in him. This is not the same president that addressed everyone following the 9/11 attacks, I'm sorry. Concerning the war in Iraq, his intentions of gaining ground in the Middle East to keep a closer watch on Iran were good, but unfortunately they looked better on paper. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that a society who has lived, for all intents and purposes, a barbaric lifestyle under a brutal dictator, will adopt democracy overnight. Because of this, there is still turmoil and unrest, and of course we know the added cost all too well. What REALLY upsets me, however, is that his stance on illegal immigration is just too damn lackadaisical. Guarding the borders with HISPANIC National Guard troops and using surveillance will not address the problem! Incidentally, Rick Perry's views on this are the same as Bush's, which is why I truly hope he does not become reelected as governor next year and we see some "new blood" in office. Kinky Friedman has commented previously about cracking down on illegal immigration, provided he wins the election. Yes, it sounds good for the campaign, but whether that plan will be put into ACTION is something we'll eventually find out.

Personally, I am curious to see how a Democratic presidency will resolve these current problems. When I think of the Clinton administration regarding terrorism, the first thing that comes to mind is two words: USS Cole. What a great job of retaliation the United States did there.

In both in 2000 and 2004, we had to choose the lesser of two evils. The current administration is by no means the best, but it's better than socialism. I can't even imagine what would have happened had Al Gore been president during 9/11. I'm hoping that a decent, honest, hard-working candidate will be on the presidential ballot in 2008, and if not 2008, then in subsequent elections. Political party will not matter; you better believe that I will be voting for them.

--Austin
 
Yes...Oxydol you are right on the money!

Does anyone else feel duped? I mean the guy goes into Iraq to finish what his daddy should not have done in the first place...he still has not captured enemy number one...I would support the war if he would send his daughters over there to fight...everytime he opens his mouth he sounds like a moron...he wins the 2000 election in a state where his brother is the governor...his family is for oil and big business...I don't know about you but this administration is not for the people...and doesn't the Constitution begin with "We the People"???? I am an American citizen and I deserve respect from the politicians who I financially support. I think that the taxpayers derserve a little restitution if not in tax refunds then in jail terms for those responsible. I am all for America...I am just not too proud to be an American right now in history...just wait 20 years...this will all come out in the wash...no pun intended!

--Tom
 
USS Cole

Remember the timing involved, the bombing investigation wasn't even finished until December of 2000 and no lame-duck president starts a war in an election year to be handed off to the next president. Instead, the information and evidence was handed over the incoming Bush administration, who in turn, did nothing.

I suspect Al Gore would have listened to advisors and military experts as to an appropriate response to the 9/11 attacks which would have also pointed to BinLaden and Afghanistan and acted accordingly, just like Bush did. I would also venture to guess that Iraq would have never been part of the response to 9/11, since it had absolutely nothing to do with it.
 
My question to supporters of the Bush Iraq war is always, then why didn't we go into Saudi Arabia, then, where thirteen of the hijackers? What about Pakistan?

And why would our ports suddenly wind under foreign administration (here it is the UAE), against the peoples' will, and with the full force and support of the Bush Administration?

It was ALWAYS part of the neocon equation to establish a PERMANENT presence in Iraq. Please read the "Clean Break" memo, which establishes much of the groundwork for a neocon-inspired reordering of the Middle East in its entirety (google "clean break netanyahu") and the Project for the New American Century document, which clearly lays the Republican blueprint for everything that has been done, including the plan's need for a "new Pearl Harbor".

We need checks and balances....we do not have that now.

We need oversight.

We really do need a new government.

Let's stop supporting these thieves and the fools that are loyal to them with our hard-earned tax dollars, and figure how to build a new one, together, now.
 
Do you remember the day after 9/11?

The world was with us. We were all together.

We all tried to help each other, support each other.

Well, that goodwill was squandered. We were manipulated and used, not by any "Islamo-fascists", but by our own leaders, and forces beyond our purview.

There are those that attempt to use our frustration and anger against us, to stifle us, once more.

I assert, this anger is righteous anger, as sanctified as my sexuality is a divine gift from God. I know from these people, I know how they operate.

We must channel our energy and apply our unique skills and life experience toward a new energy, an effective catalyst for change.

I'll be holding my nose voting for at least one Democratic candidate I have little patience for. But vote I will, for there is no guarantee we won't be the next "moonbat lib'rulls" on the list (I have had no end of hate mail since the marriage bill went through in New Jersey yesterday-I'll spare you the highlights)....

The truth we've been given to work with right now is not a comfy cushion, a heated throw over a favorite, familiar sofa.

This is tile, iron, cold steel, and stone, led by the very avatars of hate, eyes thin slits of ice.

It was not MEANT to feel good, for the neocons did not MEAN for themselves to be revealed.

We need to scrub the floor, scrub the neocons OUT.

One day, again, we'll be able to polish the floor, and marvel at its beauty, the way we did before.
 
bin Laden

How hard is it to find an old man, attached to a dialysis machine, in the middle of a desert?
 
I'll stay out of the politics-but there are lots of nasty critters here esp at where I work.the Black Widow spiders LOVE the transmitter blower rooms-for the most part its HOT and DARK-and they love that.When I clean the blower rooms-bring the sites BIGGEST Shop Vac and slurp up ALL of the spider webs and dead bugs.Next would be the nasty "bitey" snakes around the site-esp during the mid shift in the summer-the CottonMouths,Copperheads are out-and next the Snapping Turtles.I am losing count of how many Cottonmouths I have killed-if they would only stay out the areas where I and other have to go.Those definetly bite first and discuss it later.the snapping turtles LOVE to eat the nasty snakes-when I kill or stun one-throw it into a drainage ditch where a GIANT snapper lives-the snake is gone the next night!At home keep an eye out for the Brown Recluses-Have sucked more than one into a vac-Usually one of my NSS Model M1's-the spider leaves a funny spot on the paper bag-same with the sow bug like roaches.Any bug that goes into the M1 goes thru its GIANT suction fan.Another time I found some sort of baby snake in the Mini Emptor of a trade in Kirby G4.It was well dehydrated.
 
Austin------

Speculation is healthy but it is NOT fact.
Speculating about how someone would react under extreme duress is a good way to prepare for it. Sometimes we don't have that advantage---especially when life throws us a catastropic situation to deal with----such as 9/11.

I recall Bush's "deer in headlights" speech on 9/11.
He was shaking in his shoes.
He never dreamed what responsibilities would be dumped on him that day----AND other government agencies such as the NSA and the folks at the Pentagon most likely "explained" to him how it would be from here on out whether HE liked it or not. Yes, there are agencies more powerful than the President who are charged to protect us CITIZENS-----no matter what the President says or does----and they will do so.

Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else knows how Al Gore would have reacted to the events of 9/11 and we never will.
And just like Bush, we will never know what instructions would have been given to him by those more powerful than him.
 
Do we live to eat or do we eat to live?

My biggest fear is...

~That I will be so self-absorbed in making a living that I will forget to LIVE.
~That I will hurt someone unintentionally and never know it.
~That my heart will become cold and bitter as I mature.
~That the world powers will anihilate us with nuclear weapons out of some misguided sense of ego and control.
~That I will be the type that says of adulthood "Is that all there is?" rather than "WOW look how much there is..."

That someday I will stop speaking to the universe/almighty and forget to say "Dear XXXX (insert deity) THANK YOU for everything and everyone I have, and everything I don't have"
 
creepy crawlies, and just a little politics

Matty - Huntsman spiders are harmless. My cat Monty is real softy, a few days ago he saw a huntsman spider walking across the floor, before I could stop him he ran across and grabbed the spider in his mouth. He let out a yelp and spat it out, it ran away and I scooped it up on some paper and put it out. Monty got a tiny raised mark (less than a mosquito bite) on his lip but was completely fine. (For overseas folks, Huntsman spiders are big and look like a tarantula, but are harmless.) Also, the stories about the ulcerous spreading wounds from white tailed spiders are a load of rubbish. University researchers about 5 years ago discovered that white tails are also harmless, the ulcers and necrosis that won't heal are caused by a soil microbe entering small cuts, the microbe and white tails like similar soil conditions so that's why people thought that white tail bites caused those horrible rotting flesh woulds.

In our old house we have"colonial style" windows (a window made up of several small panes with wooden bars between) which are a pain to clean so I don't bother too often...the spider webs accumulate on the outside, and we sometimes get a treat of having blue wrens hovering against the glass while they pick up caught insects from the webs.

And politics... I am a VERY political person, a member of a political party (the Australian Greens) but I am a bit shocked at the aggression in this thread. WE should be able to express diverse and contradictory opinions without getting nasty about it or turning on each other. That is a fundamental trait of a pluralistic democracy. There is a certain level of respect due to any human being no matter how much we disagree with them. Attack the issue, not the person.

I'm not sure if "how to vote" cards are distributed at polling booths in other countries, so forgive me if I explain the obvious...
In Australia the voting system requires a number to be entered against the name of every candidate on the ballot paper. (we don't have electronic voting - ballot papers are always kept in case of a challenge to the result.) So you put 1 against your favourite candidate, 2 for your next preference, 3 next and so on till there is a number against every name on the paper. Some state elections you only have to number up to 5 but all federal and most other states you must number the whole lot, your worst candidate you put the last number. In senate elections there can be dozens of candidates so it is easy to miss a number and invalidate your vote, so parties always give out leaflets as you enter the polling office. Each party or independent candidate ususally has a couple of helpers at each polling office handing out "How To Vote cards" favouring their candidate. My partner and I always hand out for the Greens. Most voters take a HTV card from each representative, when they enter the privacy of the booth they choose the HTV card to suit the candidate they like and copy it across onto the ballot paper, then put their ballot into the box and put all the HTV cards into the rubbish bin. This is a huge waste of paper but has become an essential part of the system - about 90 percent of votes usually follow a HTV card. Any party who didn't hand out HTV cards would be annihilated at the polls, so they are sort of a "necessary evil." (there are alternatives which I won't bore you with but they are not yet legal...)
Anyway...One thing I enjoy about the Aussie way is how even fierce rival parties get along. As a "Greenie" we try to do the environmental thing by recycling HTV cards. There are strict limits as to how close party helpers can get to polling booths (so we can't corruptly influence voters in the booth) so we can't go in to collect used HTV cards. We put up a cardboard box with a hand written sign on it urging voters to carry their used HTV cards outside and dump them in the box, where we will re-use them. We sort the jumbled mess of cards into a pile for each candidate and give them back to their helpers (our rivals on the day) so that they can continue to hand out the leaflets for our rival candidates, as well as us retrieving our own leaflets for re-use. Usually it ends up with all rival groups taking it in turns to sort and return, though occasionally some won't participate, usually only the really hostile anti-environmentalists. There are likely to be ten or more people all wearing opposing badges and supporting rival candidates, but we all chat to each other, there is little unpleasantness even though we are bitter political rivals. We cop some flak from the occasional rude b but that is unusual. My partner was elected to council a few years ago and was open about being gay, after he lost out in the next election (by a mere 27 votes...!) we were handing out at a Fed election and one person gave him a few words of anti-gay abuse but that has only happened once and the helpers from the other parties all offered kind words of support (my partner was pretty shaken at the time) and condemned the rude voter.
So we can agree to disagree without getting aggro about it.

Voting is compulsory in AU and in most elections over 90% of the population do vote. (If you have a strong moral/religious objection to voting you can be exempted but generally it is accepted as a duty of citizens to vote.) The logic behind this is that generally people who don't choose to vote are from lower socio-economic and educational backgrounds, who generally vote more towards the left, so by making voting optional you automatically skew the vote to the right compared to what the WHOLE country actually wants. Also where voting is optional you get the problem of parties or candidates offering inducements to get reluctant people to vote, ("pork barrelling") which again corrupts the process. So I wholeheartedly support compulsory voting. You get many benefits from living in a democracy, with those benefits come a few responsibilities such as voting, paying taxes and jury duty.
Anyway I'll hand the soapbox over to the next speaker...

Chris.
 
How Appealling Gizmo - Chris

I'm sure I don't think enough about moving to another country. The voting system there Sounds GREAT. As does the way it is handled in Canada. How did America get so screwed over.

As far as people turning on each other- In America , sadly, it is a pathetic way of Life, don't you know. Good Dramatics make for excellent viewing on TV. not by me, but I guess there are others foolish enough to enjoy that.

All to often I find that republicans, such as beloved(?) relatives seem to think the world revolves around their ideals. Which aren't ideals at all but, "just the way it's been done for a time". Some people get stuck in a rut and just can't get out until someone or something has to push them out.

I think of my adoptive parents, or the republicans with the foley scandal. They may know things are wrong but they just don't have the energy or perhaps the knowledge to change.
That is Frightening to me. Turns my stomach.

I knew in 1988, george bush SR. was bad news. Ironically, By todays standards, he would have been Welcome in the White House, hello.
When 2000 came along I was like, WHAT? why would ANYONE choose the son of someone who got 19% in 2002 and has the track record that gb jr. has of failure BEFORE he cheated his way into the White House.
So the last 6 years have been a living Hell. And as bad as I know things were going to get in 2000, had no idea..... OMG. don't get me started on the frauds of 2001. It is like what happened to 1995 and 1998?
I still am wondering, what fantasy land people who would have voted for such a fraud, are living in? Were not going back to 1950 !

Someone explain that to me.
Was the Hype people saw through fox propaganda and the like so intoxicating.
I mean in 1988 the Fairness Doctrine as relates to Honest Media was removed. There has been NO obligation of the media to tell the truth since then. If it a coincidence the truth is spoke on "the news" that is fine. I don't think most Americans realized that.
I remember in 2000 after the election, miraculously CNN and fox news changed their formats. Hmm. And what a turn off it was. People are catching on now I think.
but is it too little too late? 2 general rule of life right now- if a republicans says one thing you should assume the opposite it true. And certainly do not connect your self esteem to republicans in anyway.

Thanks Chris for your experience, It is something to not only hope for HERE, but for ALL of us to make the EFFORT to work towards.

America has a ways to go to catch up to the 'QUALITY of LIFE', not the RICHes found in posessions(we certainly have that down pat), that other countries have.
 
Washertalk...thank God someone said it! I have finally found someone else I can honestly agree with! Thank you for your most recent post...it has given me the strength to carry on until '08! I feel so out in left field and I hoped and know that there are other people out there that can take their blinders off and smell the crap floating in the republicans terms. Lets get some new blood in there. You even brought up stuff that I had forgotten about. Thanks again!!!!!

--Tom
 
"WE should be able to express diverse and contradictory opinions without getting nasty about it or turning on each other. That is a fundamental trait of a pluralistic democracy."

Gizmo, I'm in agreement with you on this.

The only problem is, we in America don't happen to be living in a pluralistic democracy.

When democracy is restored, and fundamental human decency has been returned by choice and not chance, that will be the time for pleasant dinner conversation and intellectual discourse.

Right now, America is under attack-attack from within. And with so many fence-sitters terrified to lose one dollar of their personal riches or one notch down the social scale, I'm strong enough and self-sufficient enough to carry not only my own burden, but that of my brother's as well.

Why shouldn't I?

Why shouldn't I help stop this slide into this police-state, never-ending war-mongering, torture-loving culture of corruption if I can?

I already know it is the art of the possible.

Everybody's made their own choices, and I respect that.

I've made mine, and I aim to go the distance.
 
Is anybody sacred of

a particular foodstuff? I knew a girl at school who was petrified of touching oranges and citrus fruits. The rough peel frightened her to death. Also the poor lass was freaked out by feathers. Very very odd behaviour in my book but I understand her so i cant say too much. Nick
 

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