How bad will things get if Bush "wins" in 2004?

[JanMichael]

I think "Very Bad" is the right answer. The fact is that if they win they will destroy what remains of the rather weak American Social Contract, perhaps even with a Dem controlled House or Senate, maybe not if both houses of Congress are Dem. But either way Medicare, Medicade, Social Security and other Progressive programs will either be "Crowded Out" or left to "Wither on the Vine". I think that's a fact considering what they've already done with issues like Overtime Protection and the new disasterous Medicare Bill.

I also think that the destruction of decent jobs will continue at an even greater, perhaps unpresidented, pace. The WalMartization of the county will accelerate with more people working more hours for less pay and reduced benefits (or better yet plundered pensions years later).

Foreclosures will accelerate as well leaving wonderful, cheap, real estate acquisitions for the banks owned by the Richest 1% of Americans.

On top of these things Progressive Taxation will become more Regressive in nature leaving the bottom 60-85% (or higher) paying a larger and larger share of their incomes for taxes on Food, Gas, Heating, Sales, Property, etcetera.

Workers Rights will continue to be diminished, Collective Bargaining may in fact disappear. Hell I can't wait until they propose to drop the age at which a person can start fulltime work to 12 years.

Let's not forget the Environment, forget clean air and, better yet, prepare to see Water privatised and Halliburton selling you your city tap water. At a profit mind you.

EDITED! Oh yes, WAR, Never Ending, Gawd Forsaking, Bloody, Hellatious, WAR.

Basically leading, IMO, to a Neo-Fuedalist/Corporatist Amerika filled with an increasingly apoplectic population that has less and less to lose by rising up against their Political/Economic Oppressors.

ABB 2004.

PS~ If any of you wonder why I don't want to see that happen, so as to seize the imagine of the People with a vision of a Cooperative Commonwealth, all I can say is that total chaos could go to the Right just as easily as the Left. That's a bad proposition for a highly complex economy consisting of some 289,000,000 people that would suffer greatly ass things got "Sorted Out".

[veganwitch]

1. i can see a nuclear bomb going off somewhere.

i honestly dont know the point of having a child before Novemember 2004.

i know ive put the idea off until then.

[L.A.dweller]

3. Hey, so have I

If bush wins i will not have children. Why make them pay for the mess that these guys have made.

[MercutioATC]

2. I can see me hiding a lot of draft-aged relatives..

...or NOT (if you happen to be a SSS plant)

[democratreformed]

4. Some months back

I received an e-mail saying "This is my plan in case Bush wins".
It had a link that opened to available jobs in Canada.

[Mattforclark]

5. I'll jump off a bridge N/T

[quinnox]

6. Hopefully, I won't have to find out

and Bush will be defeated. But if he is re-elected, although I don't buy doomsday scenarios which seem popular at DU (but hey, it's to be expected, this is the internet) but I have great difficulty seeing a positive and constructive period if Dumbya is president again.

[JanMichael]

7. You think my post is a "Doomsday" scenario?

Hell this is my PG version for, people with weak stomachs, something akin to "A Handmaid's Tale" is the ultimate probable dystopia:-)

[quinnox]

9. No, I was referring to an earlier post

And also in general to the kind of responses I have seen before to this type of question.

I agree with a lot of what your post said.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

8. The USA will be ended as a society of free citizens.

"The experiment is over."

I've heard more than one of them saying democracy has been a two hundred year experiment. I abhor that! The United States Of America is NOT an experiment. It is a SOLUTION. And these sons of bitches have been trying their damndest to destroy everything we as a people hold dearest.

The experiment is over, my freakin' ass. The experiment is just BEGINNING.

[pansypoo53219]

23. hello oligarchy,

and a russia like 3rd world status with lots of big guns for sale.
but the rich will be happy, as they are in Brazil.

[JailBush]

10. Get a job as a teacher.

I spent sixteen years in public education, getting shit on by the establishment the whole time. I was screwed out of a fair salary, insulted and tyrannized, and stabbed in the back by Democrats, Republicans and even my own union.

And it's still getting worse. Public education has effectively been privatized, and the bastards openly talking about PUNISHING CHILDREN while clueless teachers and parents look the other way. Oh, yeah - teachers almost never fight back. They'll allow dictatorial school officials and kangaroo courts to destroy them, their colleagues or their students without even speaking out.

I think public education is a very good model for where the U.S. is headed.

[democratreformed]

13. I can sure identify with you

here as well. When I left the public schools (high school math and science), it was with the firm belief that nothing short of a revolution could fix it.

The thing is - times have been so bad these past couple of years in the private sector- that I seriously considered going back this year. But, in the end, no can do.

God, I hope it doesn't come to THAT.

[Deja Q]

11. What does ABB stand for?

I've seen the acronym used, but am unfamiliar with its meaning.

Thanks!

[Mattforclark]

12. anyone but bush n/t

[roguevalley]

14. Think apocalypse. End of the world.

[UTUSN]

15. Uh, REAL Bad, & Really REALLY Bad??? n/t

[many a good man]

16. "Things have to get worse before they get better"

And boy oh boy will they get worse!

They'll get so bad that even the most self-absorbed and politically-ignorant among us will finally catch on. They will realize Gosh! democracy is a participatory thing where you really hafta be informed. Gosh! if I don't pay attention the rich and powerful will gobble up everything. Gosh! maybe those flaming liberals who wanted to take my taxes were right after all.

Maybe apathy will vanish and the towns people will storm the castle gates with torches and pitchforks in hand. They will realize that America doesn't stand for selfish consumerism, it stands for justice and freedom. And acquiring justice and freedom is a never-ending struggle that requires commitment, sacrifice, and action.

Either that or they'll just sit at home on their fat arses complaining...

[LauraT28]

17. Oh CANADA Oh CANADA!

:kick:
:kick:
:kick:
:kick:

[BiggJawn]

21. Oh, Canada, why are you shipping me back to the clutches of Ashcroft?

"Why? Because we have a treaty with your country requiring us to. You claim to be a political dissident. The US says you're an at-large felon. We have to send you back..."

Don't look North when the shit hits the fan, there's no help from Ottowa for you....

[pansypoo53219]

24. i have contacts in Denmark and their bakery is awesome.

so, i will have to get a man, and i will become an ex-pat. i can't take anymore BULLSHIT.

[tom_paine]

18. Yes, JanMichael...your vision is a bit tame

Actually, I hope things turn out to be as GOOD as you lay out.

I think that Heinrich Ashcroft, Heartless Dick and the rest are just itching to test out their new Police State powers, and will continue to shove shit in our faces until someone does something.

Then, when someone does something, the REAL fun begins for these treasonous bastards.

I think, if and after the re-appointment of Emperor Bunnpyants*, anything is possible. They have the police power, unchecked and ready to go, they have the infrastructure. They have a growing mass of propagandized automatons who will kill when ordered, particularly if given the slightest authority and promise that they can live out their sick and murderous fantasies without reprisal (and, in fact, with the blessings of the Empire).

They have a propaganda machine that is by far the most potent in the world, approaching Orwellian levels and they have the great mass of people harried, hurried, tired, tamed, and ready to accept whatever iron boot on the neck as long as they get to keep their steel-belted radials.

I look at my co-workers, the people I meet, and I see scarcely a single spark of the people who helped to defeat Hitler. What I see are instead the people who allowed Hitler's rise to power and who, when push comes to shove, will cower in their homes while their neighbors are brutalized, taken away, whatever it will be this time around.

I hope I am wrong, and that somewhere deep within Imperial Amerika, the soul of Free America pulses within.

But history suggests it's not bloody likely.

Does this mean I am giving up? NEVER!

[imax2268]

19. two words...

VERY BAD...

[UTUSN]

20. Really Really Bad n/t

[greekspeak]

22. Here's what also might happen

With a "mandate from the people," Shrub will valiantly attack the "rogue nations" of Syria, Iran, and North Korea. North Korea will shove a nuke down our throats, and we will shove more nukes down theirs. No doubt, other "terra-ist" nations will be targeted

More privitization will occur, and more people will be starving

AM radio and cable news will be crowing more right wing propeganda than ever, probably trying to get new constituencies under their banner.

The crumbling wall between church and state will erode further

Public education will be vouchered into oblivion

All of us DUers will be behind bars without due process as "terra-ists."

Crayola will print "white" on black crayons and "black" on white ones. Because black is white and white is black

[JailBush]

25. Vouchers?

"Public education will be vouchered into oblivion"

Vouchers are a red herring; public education has already been destroyed, and I don't think more than thirteen liberals in America give a damn.

[brava]

28. the Fall

"Before the dawn comes the fall" - Albert Camus

It will be bad, very, very BAD... but then look to horizon.

[JanMichael]

31. One of my favorite authors.

Thanks for the quote.

[gmoney]

26. Agreed... just watching a tinfoil-hat DVD

I decided I wasn't quite depressed enough, so I popped in Alex Jones' "911: Road to Tyranny" DVD. Jones is the guy who runs infowars.com and does a somewhat syndicated radio show. He's a weird mix of Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, and Dale Gribble (from King of the Hill), but he presents some pretty compelling evidence about the first WTC bombing, OK City, and 9-11.

If I can paraphrase Bob Dylan, "Something is happening and you may know what it is, don't you Mr. Jones?"

Among the most interesting about OK City is local news footage indicating that there were two even larger bombs inside the building that didn't detonate, and were quickly removed, while the blast pattern couldn't have come from a fertilizer bomb parked in front of the building but had to originate in the building. The ATF agents working there were paged and told not to go into the office, but instead arrived almost immediately afterwards in full gear. And another agent lied that he'd driven 100 MPH up from Texas to get to the scene, when a receipt from a local motel showe'd he'd checked in late the night before. Not to mention John Doe #2, and the book "Final Jihad" which describes a very similar bombing conducted by "Tom McVeigh."

Right after that was when all the barricades were put up in front of government buildings (even post offices) ...they wanted the barricades but needed a reason to install them?

9/11 led to Patriot Act, and maybe PA2. Now Tommy Franks is hinting around about martial law if there is another big "terrorist" strike against the U.S.

Some crazy crazy shit... maybe the tinfoil hat isn't such a bad idea.

[morningglory]

27. Have you seen the movie "Brazil"? eom

[tom_paine]

29. kick

[durutti]

30. I Agree

If Bush gets reelected, there will be an all-out assault on what remains of the social safety net.

[quaker bill]

32. Very bad understates it.

You think he was bad this time. Think four years with no need to worry about re-selection.

If he wins consider the possibility of larger majorities in both houses of congress, as that usually goes hand in hand.

Three or four Supreme Court Justices will need replacement. Count on a Neo-con future for the rest of this generation.

The draft will come back because you can't fight a series of unpopular wars without one.

We are just a handful of votes from losing social security and medicare to 'privitization'.

It is too ugly to contemplate.

[mike_c]

33. worse than any of of can even imagine....

Watch T3. Arnie should have subtitled it "Rise of the BFEE." End of the world. Or at least the end of America. Bush* will destroy us all.

[Donna Zen]

34. For sure

a quasi-state religion. I can't explain why I feel so sure about this, but I do.