If turnout was at 2008 or 06 levels, would Coakley have won?

Of course, Jon should answer that, but based on some reporting I’ve heard, it’s possible she would have.
I wish the pres and his staff could understand that – not to mention Tweety – many, many Obama voters frorm 2008 simply stayed home. As a protest, despite Tweety’s inability to comprehend why they would. See the Survey USA results, I think, is where that is shown.

thanks

You got that right, Jon,
I think these numbers below support what you are saying and show what really happened in MA on Tuesday.
The same voters who buried McCain didnt vote this time. They stayed
home.
Sure there is a drop off to be expected from a presidential general
election, but this was all over the air and papers. If people didnt
feel betrayed they would have showed. Even if 15% of Obama’s margin
had showed up, Coakley would have won.
Almost million MORE folks went to the polls in MA in 2008 and all of
them voted for Obama.

Scott Brown got the same vote total as McCain, but Coakley got 900k
fewer votes.
Dem turnout and independent turnout just disappeared.

MA Election results
2010 election
1,168,000 brown
1,059,000 coakley
20,000 others
2,247,000 total

2008 election
1,109,000 mccain
1,904,000 obama
100,000 others
3,113,000 total

Brown wins with about the same vote as McCain got.
Where were the 900k or so voters that didnt show up at all and who
just a year ago gave Obama the win?
Brown ran identical numbers to McCain, but Coakley drew 900k fewer.

Dems and independents and youth and the cities just didnt turn out.
Youth is disillusioned and progressives and Dems in the cities are heartsick with Obama for talking tough on Corporations, HMOs, Big Rx, and
Wall Street. But then playing kissy face with them.

There are about 1.5 million Dems, .5 million Goopers, and 2 million
no party in MA.
here is a look at the city vote:

http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2010/senate/results.html

As you can see all these big cities are way below 50%, while the burbs are all big turn out:
boston, lawrence, lowell, springfield, worcester, fall river, new bedford.
etc.
that will hold up the theory of dem vote way down and many just tired of it or sending Rahm a message.
Rahm says progressives and lefties got no where to go. That may be true, but they can stay home and they did.

Keep listening to Rahm and the rest of your Corp. brain trust Barack and you’ll for sure be a 1 termer.

youth can see through fake brands – that might have something to do with it.

Only one of many reason why Ds are toast. Supremes decision today is far more potent, but economy, HCR, etc, etc.

The only way that might have been possible would be if Obama had not reneged on all his campaign promises and Senate Dems had actually endeavored to assemble an HCR package that was not just a thinly disguised gift to big insurance and pharma. In that case people would have had good reason for enthusiasm and turned out to support the Dem candidate.

But who could possibly have predicted that completely selling out the voters who elected them might backfire on Democrats..?

I hardly blame young people for not caring. What’s in it for them—except unsolvable problems? Obama must look like a selfish user to them.

Duh !

We are tired of these fucking mealy mouthed politicians. I’ve been saying it for a while, and its time to get started with it. We need to start looking at funding Green or Socialist party candidates that actually have a shot of winning and stop solely supporting the dumb ass DLC.

Not to mention the difficulty they have in finding jobs, even if they have a college degree.

Before November Dems will promise every voter a pony.

Of course if elected they’ll pretend they never said anything of the sort.

The musical “Hair” answers…And it really is almost the same answer as in the ’60s

hey, I used to walk five miles in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to vote for Mondale and Dukakis.

Cry me a river.

American youth is historically cynical. Miraculously, 2008 broke that cynicism.

What have they seen since 08 to dissuade their mistrust? Nothin’.

Thanks for starting the ball rolling at my diary. Got a discussion going.

Democrats fail to act in accordance with the agenda they said they would advance and youth voters (and Independents) stop voting for them.

DUH.

Democrats will then blame this somehow on Republicans.

DUH.

Republicans will use this opportunity to come back from crippling minority status to regain the majority.

DUH.

Rinse. Repeat.

Heh.

Didja have to jump out of planes and stuff for Dukakis?

Because the young folk just want more bipartisanship and to get along with the Goper grandparents.

I think I did, or maybe it was just really good weed.

Here is a personal story that might say something about the youth vote:

My 17-year-old son was very excited about Obama last year and would have voted for him if he could. Almost all of his teenaged friends felt the same way.

One year into the Obama presidency, he sees little or no difference between Obama and Bush, and is convinced the current governmental system is irretrievably broken.

I have a similarly hazy memory ’bout that.

Once he was literally “in the tank” I just threw up a little in my mouth and tuned out until the vote. And we went to the polls “impaired” because we knew the Dems would lose to more R’s.

At least we bothered, but I do not blame the youth one whit. Not one bit at all.

I think it is hard to overestimate the depth of frustration and just plain depression among all those who voted for Obama. Obviously some have no compunction about voting for a Republican while those who do understand the depravity of the mainstream GOP do.

Young folks are used to being disappointed I imagine mostly just find something else to do.

Fall of 2008 it was to be audacious and have hope. That turned out to be a loser. What do you folks think the young people are more preoccupied with now? Gotta get them back. We need their wisdom.

Well, your kid is right. Good job on raising a clear thinker.

Obama stirred up the youth vote to vote for him and how did he reward them? He said lets turn them into insurance company serfs! Someone asking for your support claiming they are going to create progress and then as soon as they win they try and turn back the clock on you to the dark ages isn’t exactly motivational. The Obama administration for months has used demagogic attacks on the very people who elected him, so of course that is going to keep people at home or to vote for the other guy. Coakley latching onto the Obama bandwagon isn’t exactly going to motivate the youth – “vote for me so that the first thing I do in Congress is turn you into a serf” isn’t exactly a reason for the youth vote to turn out for her.

Me either, in fact I applaud them… especially if they would hit the streets and make more songs like I posted last night.

Who knows? I’m still trying to wrap my cranium, puny as it is, around the 900,000 DEMS that are said to have stayed home and not voted . . . . I don’t get that number, still, despite two days of posts, linky’s and more.

Who WERE them 900,000?

Half the eligible voting population turned out to vote, that’s HUGE in these days!

2.2 million voted! 4.5 million are eligible!

And almost a QUARTER of all eligible stayed home?

Who?

Given the Obama election turnout in MA, and a lower turnout of the primary for dem’s, WHO ARE these 900K folks that stayed home? And why did they?

I’ve not gotten an answer that really satisfies me yet . . . . any Pups?

Given PAST voter turnouts, if almost a Million stayed home, the one’s who DID turn out HAD to be folks who didn’t turn out in the past!!!!!! Because 50% turnout is GOOD for a special election, or MOST elections! (consider past two decades of national voter turnouts, not just recent, please)

I don’t get it, still.

My pleasure. I checked back and saw things were moving along.

Obama stirred up the youth vote to vote for him and how did he reward them? He said lets turn them into insurance company serfs!

We have a WINNAH!

Hugh’s got me into the weeds. Having fun.

Ok there are some details, and like how you frame them.

Thanks.

But . . . Independents GALORE turned out, to create a 5% win, because R’s alone couldn’t fashion a win for Brown, in that State.

And they DID vote for Brown.

I guess, yours is about the most detailed reason why and who stayed home, but the math is killin me.

A quarter of ELIGIBLE voters in the state stayed home . . . and there was STILL a 50% or better turnout of eligible voters, so SOMEONE was energized to vote that didn’t vote in the primary or in ’08 for the nationial.

A discrepancy I still don’t get.

I think you’re right.

I had a half formed thought last night which I didn’t articulate, but becomes more clear for me today.

Yanno, all politics is NOT legislation. Actually I think most if it is cultural.

So if there is a big cultural movement for fairness, telling the government to “give us what we the people want, corporations can piss off,” that would move the legislative process along quite a bit, without electing anybody.

Musicians and Artists can be really helpful in that regard. I’m thinking Beethoven, who ripped up his dedication to Napoleon of the “Eroica” symphony, when Napoleon turned out to be another dick/despot. It affected people.

I think young people want universal single payer health care, legalization of drugs, amnesty programs for undocumented immigrants, social justice, strong environmental action, and higher taxes.

At least all of my fellow young people do.

I think young people want the people they vote for to act as they said they would and do the right thing. I think that’s all they want. I don’t think they want bipartisanship, they want action. Like a GOOD DEAL of the nation, they don’t want bipartisanship, they want action.

They’re not getting it, so they’re not voting again.

Simple.

Obama blew the best opportunity since 1932 to drive a progressive realignment of the American electorate. The saddest part is that such an opportunity will not come again for at least another generation, since the cohort he energized for 2008 is now lost to progressive politics. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice . . . It will be decades before their children are old enough to rebel against their parents’ disillusioned apathy, and by then it will probably be too late. If it’s not already.

We are all fortunate to have you and Hugh playing in our sandbox.

I’ll stand watch and chase the kitties away (when I was a kid I marveled at the Milk Duds which seemed to magically appear in my sandbox).

HCR got people “fired up and ready to go” but in a bad way. If finally voting after sitting out elections for decades is bad. Ulitmately the progressive movement and (genuinely) progressive candidates should never lose on the issues. no one wants to be property of the banks and insurance companies. Washington Democrats took a popular cause and hosed it up. Poll after poll after poll shows that large majorities want health care and they only trust (or trusted) the Govt to provide it on that scale. Dems try to talk progressive and serve the corporate money cow. not hap’nin in the age of the blog.

I”ve been on the skids job wise off and on since ’03, as have MANY from CA who counted on white collar work.

And a LOT of that middle management and admin work is never coming back, barring radical changes.

Hard times, ma’am.

Voting for Obama in 2008 was a social event, a “group” activity.

Did I not read all about text
Messaging, Internet social sites, fund raising parties?

So where has Obama Corp. Been since it engineered his election thru the use of social networking?

Was va not

Was nj not

Was ms not

Worth the continued application of the political social networking that, or so it was claimed at the time, resulted in enormous sums of cash being raised from hoi polloi

And enormous numbers of young votes being cast for ” the transformer”.

That couldn’t have just been a David axelrod con game could it?
Of course not.

So why didn’t Obama Corp. And the dnc, whom he threw over his shoulder and carried of to Chicago,

Continue the obama campaign’s allegedly successful techniques in order to help dems get elected in
Va, jk, and ma.

I read today that David A wanted the world to know, today, that he had called coakely TWO weeks before

the election to see if she needed Obama’s help.

What a general.

What a strategist.

One problem with the youth vote, is these internet tubes. They are more informed of the corruption, the passing of the buck, and the similarities between both parties. Anything you want to know, is online. So for them, there is no bullsh*tting. “I promise” doesn’t cut it, when they can search online and find out everything you are lying about instantly. Both parties are to blame for this. They’ve created these cynics with their actions. Along comes a smooth talker on a horse with all kinds of promises, they help him get elected, and then he turns into typical Washington politician.

Hey, ya left out the hip deep snow, and BOTH ways.

I hear yas . . ’72, my first national.

And then Geraldine F went batshit loonz last year or so . .

God, it hurt when she did that, her running is the REASON my wife and I had a GREAT dialogue when we first met!

Ferraro helped me score! . . . erm, Ferraro expedited the pursuit of my loving wife and our subsequent long term relationship.

;-)

Yep. We elect them, and they turn around and absolutely abandon the principles people installed them to fight for.

Young people don’t like being deceived by smiling politicians particularly. It’s largely why they don’t vote. They feel like they’re just being used. And hey, 2008 just kind of showed them that they are.

Is it really hard to see why they don’t vote again based on this?

Were the Mild Duds tasty?

American Youth were active as hell from ’65 thru the mid 70′s.

I was one of them.

Youth, and adults alike, went missing shortly after ’75 or so.

Not going to end for workers any time soon. I’m not allowed to do this again, but I could refer to my link at 15 for a more detailed discussion.

And besides the youth vote,

One needs to take a look at the black vote if ms has any substantial number of blacks.

Hispanics too.

It may be that Obama’s extremmely conservative first year is a function of two things:

-knowing his victory margin was inflated by youth and black votes who might never show again

- wanting to be re-elected in 2012.

Thanks, I tired of that one below a few threads . . . and many like it.

Wears ya out . . . *G*

Good weed should make ya fall up, or asleep . .

*G*

Or so I heard, long ago . . .

Sadly, young voters still believe there are two-major parties, not knowing there is but one: The American Corporate Party, with its two-wings(GOP + Dems). The change in the Washington Bubble was the name on the checks from the K-Street lobbyists. Welcome to Corporate America, young ex-voters.

Obama could immediately eschew the corporate donors of the party and revitalize and re-energize the people that voted for him in 2008. But he’s not going to. Young people know that. Old people know that. Middle aged people know that.

Obama has chosen his strategy, and he’s going to stick to it. And it’s going to lead him right back to Republicans in the majority. Democrats will then try to blame young people and liberals and progressives for not voting in order to deflect their failure to LEAD and ACT.

And so creates another bitter, disaffected constituency that COULD have been a force for permanent majority, but who will now approach politics with mistrust and apprehension for another generation.

Democrats can blame whoever they want, but they’re the ones that choose corporate money and corporate well-being over getting real shit done for real people.

When it is easy to have hope, it feels audacious.

When you really experience hope, it feels like death. And then comes transformation.

The question is the direction of that transformation; those on the sidelines work for the winners, whether moral or immoral. Not to decide is to decide.

Youth is cynical because their elder siblings are cynical because their parents are cynical because their grandparents are cynical because Democrats blew it bigtime in 1968 and still haven’t gotten a clue. You know what cynicism is? Failed romanticism. Having or affecting a callus to protect the wound. Radical progressive complacency.

Nothing is moving yet, despite Dick Armey’s millions trying to whomp it up.

No one can say when the dam will burst, but it is likely soon. And we better be ready with our surfboards to ride the rush of history that will overtake us.

And we need to get out our songs and our costumes and our silly hats again. History doesn’t remember you if you don’t have your silly hat.

That thar ain’t no rain shower, that’s a urine storm beating down on our heads.

Put me to sleep, which I have no trouble doing without. Liquor is my mood alterer of choice.

Bitter. Great characterization and not a word I’ve seen used yet.

Young folks elibible to vote, say, 18-25?

Preoccupied with a place to live, food to eat, jobs to work.

Likely hustling any scam they can for money, working on art, music, crafts and such.

Some at home in local JC or a college local, the lucky one’s at a college away (rich).

Some obsessed still with the FB, MySpce and twits.

Some unemployable, with no talents, and living any way they can.

Some getting it done, but self engaged so much, no TIME for politics.

That was MY thang, post 25. Self engaged, self building, no time for politics.

I fucked up.

The young? They are suffering like we all are.

That’s just my thoughts, though, from casual observation of younger folks as I go about my days.

Must be what they mean by “trickle down.”

A tad gritty.

Sounds about right to me.

Seems like I recall reading about this young generation as a pack/group think/act type… who are loyal to a fault. Until they are not, then they reject you and never look back.

You mean “tinkle down.”

Just trying to be real, man.

I’m honestly always interested in another avenue that will genuinely work, but insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I vote Democrat, I get Republican policy.

This does not compute for me.

This same simple construct is going through the heads of millions of voters that will be sitting out because they don’t see the point.

And it’s not our faults. We voted like everybody told us we should! We cast our vote, we did our duty, and it’s doing fark all to get shit changed. So we realize that we were used. And we decide not to be used again. So we don’t vote again.

Yeah, people will blame the youth vote for not voting again, but to be honest, that’s just bullshit from people that don’t want to take personal responsibility for their actions (in other words, the people that GOT THE VOTES)

It’s always ‘wait, we’ll get it done, just bear with us, just wait, just wait’

Well, some people don’t want to put their faith in lies and excuses.

Just trying to be real, man

Mam, for future ref.

But yes, bitter is exactly what pols deserve when they behave this way. But what to do next.

Kids are as sharp as the adults . . . refreshing.

I don’t read so well due to eyesight.

Could you break up your sentences and thoughts and ideas with some carriage returns>

Thanks.

Hoss, that was some seriously ‘engaged’ shit they did . . . brutal, but fully fucking engaged!

Good on them!

The shock of the topics too a while to get over . . . the messaging was that good.

I’d comment that politics and social drives go hand in hand, and play back and forth thru the ages.

Sometimes the politics trump, sometimes the social drives of the people trump.

Generally, I see it all as class warfare, have’s and have not’s, it makes it simple for me that way.

And I’m always for the have not’s. Mostly.

Stuff ebbs and flows, history teaches us this . . . pendulums swing back and forth . . .

That’s the lens I use to view it all thru, class warfare.

That’s the first thing you’ve posted I concur with fully.

And I salute you for that opinion.

It’s one I share.

Perhaps, together, we can all demand change.

I’d stand shoulder to shoulder with that comment of yours.

In the streets. Peaceably, of course.

Thank you for your comment . . . I value that one, greatly.

I’m not sure this ‘window’ is closed yet . . . my point being that, the mood of the general public is rising heatedly in may ways . . . that ‘window’ is getting mighty fucking open, as I see it.

Wadda ya think?

“(when I was a kid I marveled at the Milk Duds which seemed to magically appear in my sandbox).”

BRAIN BLEACH! STAT!!!!

(concurs with Econ and Hugh fully)

Yep, nothing for me to dispute in your reply.

Spot phookin on.

Fortunately even as a kid I didn’t care for Milk Duds, so was able to resist temptation.

I do recall picking gum off the sidewalk (mmmm… grape) when I was three and chewing it but that’s another story.

Do you realize that if you google your screen name, every comment you’ve ever posted here comes up?

I like the Rip Van Winkle story (which I was reminded of in a post by someone about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March 31st 1968/67 speech). In the original story Rip gets kind of surprised to find George Washington has supplanted King George as leader, because he slept through it all. In a different twist to the story, I like to think that Rip wakes up and finds out it is the same old rip-off America, that always gives pre-election promises to help the poor but then strips out the social spending in order to wage wars; that sends money to dictators and military aid to suppress social change in poor countries, and then gets bombed by angry ‘terrorists’ seeking revenge; that doesn’t have money for jobs programs but has money to keep bankers employed; that sweetalks the public to get elected and then does whatever big business wants because the fat cats paid for their campaigns. So Rip wakes up and it is the same old rip-off America. What seemed to be haunting him like a bad dream is a real live waking nightmare. Yeah. But instead of being complacent, he is really angry.

In my case you get a bunch of hits pertaining to rat food. Type in ratfood and FDL though and the comments show up.

I hope you’re right. And I do see a groundswell of populist rage out there.

Bismarck once said something to the effect that the job of the statesman is to put his ear to the ground, listen for the hoof beats of history, figure out which way the horse of history is running, and when he comes by jump on his back and hang on for dear life. Obama and the Congressional Dem party leadership has proven to be totally deaf, unable to hear the horse when it steps on their head. Same goes for many state leaderships. The groundswell of rage is overtly visible in both the teabaggers and the progressives. One in a destructive way, the other constructive. But that groundswell also includes the politically inactive, and as the mainstreet economy continues in the doldrums their number increase. Sooner or later someone is going to get their attention and what scares me is that that someone will be a demagogue of the right. Then its fascism here we come.

Yes Ecahn, been there, and thanks for it all . . . I was there last night.

Like Greatful Dead penned, He Ain’t Comin Back. (He’s Gone)

Truly value when you wade in and share . . .

AIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!

*hacks*

Lost, unconnected other than the pack, doing deeds both good and foul.

Detached from the humanness of it all, due to the technology.

Attracted to a leader of promise who uses the tech, offers sustenance.

One loss, gone, looking for the next shelter, as they are all under assualt more than we ever were in our youths.

Jaded, hard hearted, able to disdain loss of life without a tear. Survival.

All the shit we’ve seen in movies and animae for a few decades now.

Or longer.

I heart for them, as much as I heart for all of us others, middle aged, or more.

Hard times. Here’s hopin . . . huh.

Ahh…thank you, Kelly.

At a more kitchen-table level, my son also told us that he was happy to be rid of Bush because he was sick and tired of his dull old father and mother complaining about the Republicans all the time. *s*

Sure, I’m only voicing my mind. All those issues are things that I want to see, and a lot of my young peers and friends want to see. We voted that way because we thought that’s what our votes were going to represent. We participated and we got spit on once it came time for those who got our votes to govern. Cave, cave, cave, compromise, condescend, cave, compromise, capitulate.

I probably just differ with you on the reality of actually getting these things accomplished under the current system.

Christ, once again I’m talkin to muhself . . . Kelly’s gonna have a field day with this . . . *rollseyes*

The right has been using populism and public outrage for ages.
They’re pretty good at it actually. Taxes, affirmative action, gays, abortion, etc, etc, etc.

Using public outrage is good for them because anger is very easily focused if you give a mob something to be angry about. Now, manipulating public sentiment about specific issues to condemn others is sneaky and dishonest and lowlife, but Republicans are GOOD at that. It works for them. And they’re going to be sneaky, dishonest, and lowlife as long as it keeps them back in power. (Anybody remember the fairly recent blurbs about how the Republican party was heading for permanent minority or regional party status? Yeah. Democrats FARKED that one up again by being easy on themselves and not showing dynamic leadership. Now of course, that would have required them to slap the corporate donors on the hand and legislate against them, so I guess you can’t expect too much. A lapdog will only bite the hand that feeds it if the food stops coming.)

Democrats could very easily be better, and catapult themselves into enshrined political dynasty if they’d simply make themselves better. But they don’t really want to.

If you are young, then I’d only ask you to keep reading FDL, other prog sites, and grow more as you see more offered to you as to how it all comes down.

I’ve been a prog since I was a preteen . . . I had prog parents, I was raised overseas in various cultures.

I’ve had 40+ years of being involved in just UNDERSTANDING what’s at play in shaping where we are at.

Decades of education, experience, radio/tv, liberal profs, classes, and life’s surprises.

I am basically convinced it’s a corrupt world, but I can’t live in it if I don’t have an outlet for opportunity to try to change that.

And history, bless its heart, has shown me that anything is possible . . . and much dies before it fruits.

But it’s that anything that’s possible, that wakes me up every, single, fucking day.

That and wanting shelter, food, and companion.

Now if I could only find work . . .

*G*

Nice chattin with ya, sorry if I was harsh, below . . . I know I was . . . ;-)

You bring a tear. Too true.
Yes we/they need the music and to not trust anyone over 30. Remember that?

La Boheme When the need Monty Python or even Bullwinkle.

It’s cool, no worries, I’d honestly rather have honest and vociferous dissent than tepid and false agreement. Not to say I’d want vociferous and false dissent and tepid and honest agreement, but you get the idea.

I’m not checking out of the game, far from it. I’m actually considering entering the political arena and attempting to crack some skulls, but at no point will I be dishonest about what the effort means or how the politics comes down. To be quite honest, I’d really like to elevate the electorate, elevate the candidate, and elevate the official. I want government to be better, and while I think the avenues of actually accomplishing that are incredibly narrow, I’m not simply throwing up my hands.

You know I am so old I lived through the first Great Depression This second one is no effing better and sure to worsen The young kids now I think are wiser, if cynical, than my generation ever has been. We trusted.

Second it if it means taking to the streets in masses of peaceful protests, and artists make music, movies, songs, films, clips, and pod casts and you tubes and we all turn out by the millions.

It fuckin worked for us then, it worked for Ghandi, it worked for MLK.

It worked for unions, it worked for women’s rights.

History shows, it’s all that works, when yer backs are up against the wall.

History also shows great folks were wiped out with abject and deadly and full supression, too.

But hey, no fight? No potential for gain.

As my fave said, ‘We’re all gonna die, anyways.’ Well, that’s a paraphrase, here’s the text:

“So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars’ll be out, and don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.”

Why die complicitly?

Full Text Of The Close

American Youth were active as hell from ‘65 thru the mid 70’s.

I was one of them.

Youth, and adults alike, went missing shortly after ‘75 or so.

I’m not seeing the same dynamics at work today as there was in the 1960′s.

What I do see is a lot of soon to be unemployed college graduates that are going to have a boatload of free time on thier hands. The only question is: are they going to spend all that time playing MMO’s and hanging out in chatrooms with friends or are they going to roll up thier sleeves and help fix our nation?

Young people tend to be impatient and they also tend to lack sufficent historical perspective to temper thier frustration with setbacks and dysfunction.

Oliver Stone’s new 10 hour series on the history of the 20th Century should be interesting. 10 hours of TV can’t makeup for 12+years of cartoon history taught in our schools but it can inspire young people to open some history books and investigate further on thier own time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jan/10/hitler-stalin-oliver-stone-history

Young people aren’t stupid, they know they are getting the shaft. They just don’t understand what they can do about it. They came out and voted for Hope&Change in 2008 and now they see thier tuition costs skyrocketing and their career prospects plummeting. It’s all very disillusioning to them.

youth can see through fake brands – that might have something to do with it.

you censor this, Winston Smith?

yet your Leader posts the other day:

Some of us enjoy a variety of opinion and the back-and-forth of allowing different voices to express theirs too.

on the internets, contradictions like this do not long remain private.

even you can tell which way the wind is blowing now, vis-a-vis absolute Donkey loyalism, my favorite subject.

you wish to be known as a censorious closed shop, like some other places we know of?

not credibility enhancing, and credibility is inextricable with your branding.

Dang . . . I got a boat load of responses . . .

“A rabbit out of a hat?”

“Kill the moose and skwirrel!”

“Professor Peabody here, with my pet boy, Sherman.”

“Set the wayback to . . ”

Aesop’s Fables, Fractured Fairy Tales . . . .

Adult political and social comment fantasy for kids, and it woiked.

Best. Evah.

Heh, you ain’t young, are ya . . . *G*

Yer 90?

Yep.

And the lesson they learned is ‘I cast my vote, put in my voice, and it was ignored.’

You know how most young people respond to being directly ignored when they put their necks out there?

I’ll give you a hint. The first word begins with ‘F’ and ends with ‘K’ and the second word is ‘you.’

And as for your earlier part, I have a feeling most of them are going to play MMOs and mess with Twitter. The sentiment will be that at least when you invest something in World of Warcraft, you get to see what you get.

My fiancee is a part of the “they are all the same” group. I have been arguing with him for five years saying that they are not all the same. I am sad to say Obama and his ilk are proving me wrong. It now appears that all politicians are the same because nothing has changed except the name on the door of the oval office.

That is why people are going to stay home. That is why Barack will be a one termer. He better get something done soon or he will be a lame duck.

I’m in my early twenties.

I’m just a bit more observant than most people my age. To put it my way, I try to use my immense natural powers of evil for good.

Hell I am not even in that demographic and that is how I feel.

He’s going to be a lame duck. He’s DECIDED to be a lame duck. He can’t have it both ways. He either gets corporate cash, or he gets voter approval. You can’t have both.

He actually STILL has an ENORMOUS opportunity to do the right thing by pushing the right policy and fighting the right battles, but… well. Not gonna hold my breath. He hasn’t learned this far, he hasn’t learned, and he probably won’t.

Jon – this is so true about the youth vote, seen it in my two sons and their friends, they’ve become disheartened. WRT the Dem pols, who knows if they’ll take that message to heart.

Been getting a lot of emails from dscc and OFA, etc. praising their performance, asking for $, whatever. Alsays reply they’ll get no money, they’ll be losing more in 2010 & 2012 because they’ve betrayed progs, liberals, independents, and most of all the youth vote that turned out in great numbers in 2008.

The youth have had their BS meters turned on, and ain’t likin’ what they’re seeing. Said it before, actions talk, bullshit walks, and when we look at Dems – we only see more bullshit. Since Nov 2006.

It’s no different from my times, to these times.

Sure there are HISTORICAL differences, but the same core keys to survival are in place.

18+ today, need food, shelter, education, employment.

They are losing all of that, barring living at home.

We are ALL losing that, many of us HAVE no living at home.

But yeah, I see the younger set 18-25 being politically disenchanted after their shot at Obama.

And that will cost the progs, and the country, a lot in their loss of involvement.

And as they all lose the ability to PAY for the distractions of the cells, iPods, FB’s, MySpace’s, Twitting, and the social graces they so cherish, they will become angry and embittered, like us all..

I welcome them to the progressive side of life, once they figger out, they can’t afford their connectivity and technology and then discover, the corps and govt. are gonna take away free access to the toobs, and their chat.

Interesting comment on our part, and how it shaped my response.

We’re all gonna get hurt. What will we do about it.

Yeah. It’s kind of funny, there are people that theorize that that disillusionment of what was once a wave of voters is part of the overall system, designed to prevent genuine challenges to its continued institution.

If the Democrats were to have voters always voting for them the way they did in 2008, the system would effectively be broken. It’d be a one-party system for the foreseeable future. But by having those votes and then actively frustrating those voters, they alienate them for a while, and enable the minority party to sweep back. And then once the minority has some time as the majority, the minority (now the Democrats) gets to manipulate the once-disaffected who are newly outraged by the excesses of the now majority party, that THEY get to sweep back. And so the cycle goes on and on, appearing as though something as happening when both parties are only advancing the corporate agenda the whole time.

Yer killin me, but I love the spirit, thanks and get it on if yer a prog, we need it.

*G*

No problem.

I do my best not to pussyfoot around. If I were in David Plouffe or David Axelrod or Rahm Emanuel’s positions, I would probably have a few choice words for my fellow Democrats…

‘MAN UP OR GET OUT’

I have a funny feeling Nancy Pelosi’d be one of the only ones that’d actually listen to it.

Damn, that’s MY line!!!

I don’t believe he cares about re election . . . nor do the dem’s.

I believe they will ALL tear and shred all they can for corporate domination, and be voted out and then take jobs as lobbyists or Corporate Chairs Members Of Boards (consulting).

And yet, I still proclaim, we wait and see what the House will present, and how the Senate responds, on HCR, before I’ll fully commit to the ‘failure mode’.

We got two steps left . . . . like the old Lynnard Skynnard tune . . . minus one step.

“Gimme Three Steps”

*G*

Heh, at this point, Pelosi and the Prog Caucus is all that’s keeping us alive for the HCR.

We wait, on them for the final answer as to what we’ll presented with.

Then, the progs move along, knowing what we’re up against.

Young people aren’t stupid, they know they are getting the shaft. They just don’t understand what they can do about it. They came out and voted for Hope&Change in 2008 and now they see thier tuition costs skyrocketing and their career prospects plummeting. It’s all very disillusioning to them.

How can we give them hope?

I am ready as long as I can sit on the corner with a sign. Here is a link to a page with a Java slide show. I am in the 4th photo, the old one sitting in the chair. (The page is old and unattended. I imagine few of the links work.)

I really wish I could share the ‘let’s wait and see’ attitude, but the people in the House that are crafting the legislation do not believe in ‘let’s wait and see’. They’re going to do what they wanted to do all along. And most of that is going to be very nice to the status quo.

Yes, but the best thing that the Prog Caucus can do is refuse to participate in the bullshit the rest of their party and the Republicans want. They could simply say ‘We will vote for single payer health care for all Americans, funded by a progressive tax structure, and with these provisos, or we will vote for NOTHING.’

It’d be a huge bargaining chip, and it would be an outright dare for the rest of the Democrats to try and demonize them at such a defendable position. It’d also scare the fark out of Republicans and force them to DO something instead of be the party of ‘no’.

This really isn’t advanced political thinking, it’s pretty simple. The fact that nobody is using it tends to make me think they’re willfully not using it.

A quibble:

Why use a photo of a dribbling infant to represent the youth vote?

The youth vote is not a baby. They are young men and women.

They are our sons and daughters, and they are looking for leadership to something better.

It’s no different from my times, to these times.

Sure there are HISTORICAL differences, but the same core keys to survival are in place.

18+ today, need food, shelter, education, employment.

They are losing all of that, barring living at home.

In terms of different dynamics I was mostly refering to the draft and the high US casualty rate in Vietnam.

Today, if you want to energize our youth, it’s mostly going to be about the economy(jobs jobs jobs). Once todays youth are engaged, they’ll help with the other issues of our times but the jobs issue is what can really get the ball rolling and form the basis for an avalanche of positive reform.

The only person(s) who collapsed in Mass was Coakley, political malpractice. This was a special election during a lot of college vacations. This site has nmore important things to do than apologize for Coakley, the beach bum.