Tanks Michael, I appreciated tat.

If I had beaten the old man you'd of never heard of the kid and you wouldn't be in this mess.

With all due respect (or vituperation) to Dukakis, I don't think that's true, mostly because I see W as a symptom rather than the disease. The Republican party has become a pretty much straight-ahead far right authoritarian party. If you look at this season's GOP candidates, all of them would be disastrously bad presidents. Had we kept W out of the White House (by defeating his dad in '88), some other similar wingnut wacko would have eventually got in and perpetrated similar malfeasance.

One of the huge problems facing the country is the fact that one of the two parties has become utterly unfit for power. They can't be allowed to have the Executive for even a single term, or they will cause massive damage. Unless we can either eliminate of reform the GOP, they will stand as a clear and present danger to constitutional democracy in the U.S., and will put us right back where we are now just as soon as they claw back to power.

I never thought I would say this to someone named "jimbob", but you make an excellent point.

Aarggh! It should have been transcribed as

you'd've never heard of the kid

It's perfectly decent English, if informal.

Good points, jimBOB.

I was thinking tonight that the two parties have distinct roles. Generally, Americans elect Republicans when they feel either comfortable or uncertain. They elect Democrats to rescue them from the disasters fomented by Republican administrations.

McCain stands a good chance of winning only because the majority of Bush chickens coming home to roost haven't cleared the horizon -- or because voters are still covering their eyes.

Along the same lines, the prospect of "change" is as terrifying to some as it's welcomed by others.

I think Thursday is critical for Barack Obama. He has to come out and rock the world. He has to tell America just who he is and what he stands for.

Do you think Dukakis has flashbacks whenever he sees a tank?

I bet he keeps asking himself why the hell he ever put on that helmet.

it didn't stop me from voting for him, but I think I agree that the rise of the radical Republican right probably was inevitable. Hopefully, Bush and Cheney will be the Gettysburg that signifies the high-water mark for this unpleasant, and most destructive, group of criminals.

The lesson of JimBOB's response is well taken.

McCain is such an idiot that I'm forced to the conclusion that no objective mind would even consider voting for him. I know there are a few "honest" fascists who would do so, even clear-eyed, but the rest of the minions are programmed by the Far-Right media organs, such as Faux "news" and Limbaugh.

What this means is that our boy Obama is working with a handicap. He can't directly go out against organs of the media, without being effectively labeled a crybaby, so he's got to wait until they do something truly egregious, like putting up a topic panel with his head in a noose, or something of that order.

Mostly, they don't work that overtly (though many in their well-programmed audience would cheer if they did).

Instead they work through the Three Laws of Propaganda: Identity, Reliance, and Betrayal.

Identity: Cast yourself (Faux "news") as the "same" as your audience. Doesn't matter that the talking heads in question are millionaires, while their audience is middle-class at best, and more commonly struggling-class. Just pretend that the things they care about are the things that make YOU mad.

Reliance: When the audience has accepted Identity, make sure that you continually assure them that you are a source they can trust, (Fair and Balanced). Once they trust you, you can feed them any old crap you want to, and they will accept it with shouting approval, so long as you are "one of them."

Betrayal: This stands for two separate betrayals, one real and one imaginary. The imaginary betrayal is pinned on those who do not agree with your message. Those people have "betrayed" your target audience by not agreeing with whatever horse-shit you're serving up.

The real betrayal, of course, is that you have enlisted your audience's trust, and then used it to promulgate lies, while doing your best to look trust-worthy.

The practice of propaganda is the continual recycling of these three principles, in a mix so rich that it leaves your target audience with no time to really think out what they hear.

These propagandists are the real enemies of progress, in this campaign. McCain as currently constituted would immediately melt as soon as someone spilled water on him, if his mindless backers were not exposed to Limbaugh and O'Rielly for hours every day.

The real enemy is ignorance, and those who fertilize it and use it for their own ends.