My old man still holding fast to the big lie.

[Code_Name_D]

I am heartened by all these stories of former Bush supporters feeling betrayed. But I am still forced to wonder why I do not see much of that here in the Mid-West. Its strange because support for Bush here is still strong, largely because there is little to no audible opposition voice.

Take my old man for example. By no stretch of the imagine is he a Bush supporter. And before 9-11, he would rail against Bush as hard and loud as any of you might. But 9-11 did change that. Suddenly, he supported Bush and his "war against terrorism." And it’s a position he still will not budge from. Oh sure, the Nigear report "worries him" but nothing tangible.

As near as I can figure, my dad no longer distinguished between America, and Bush. So to insult one, you insult the other. With recent events however, I see that some old demons have come back to haunt him. While he was never in Vietnam, he was in the Air force when it just got started. He was telling me how he would go to the bulletin board that would list those who were assigned to go, wondering if his name would ever come up. But it never did.

When he got out, he used the GI Bill and went strait into collage. Right into the anti-war fever. It was quite a shock for him to go from doing your service, to "scum of the earth" and he profoundly resented it. Most likely to this day. And he still believes much of the Vietnam rhetoric as vary little of it has ever been challenged before him. For example, he believes the Gulf of Token was a real incident and it not aware of the more recent revelations sense then. This places his opinion of Vietnam in an odd place of limbo that I have seen with many veterans. They knew that we should have been there, but never seeming to know WHY we should have been there, let alone why we WERE their.

So much of my dad's opinion of America is so pollyannaish that it's impossible for him to question any thing. "America just doesn’t do those sort of things," he would say in regards to the "we are in Iraq for the oil," claim. Combine this with the Dem's passivity (He probably would question Bush more aggressively, if he would just see Leabermen or Gepheardt lead the way in the questions. But as he doesn’t trust Bush, he DOSE trusts Gepheardt.) and the constant and blatant propaganda of Fox News, and it’s a small wonder he holds this opinion.

I told him about Dean and DK, but all he reads in the paper is bad-spin about them. And he won't get on the internet because Fox did several exposés about the "conspiracy theorists." (And at least one of the conspiracy groups that Fox covered later turned out to be a CIA plant. But again, that is on the internet.)

And it also doesn’t help when he sees protectors getting into his face about it. Rather than trying to shout folks down, the protestors needs to be educating the people. These issues need to be taken to the masses, not to congress. But that is a hard sell over here, who are just one step shy of starting to throw fire bombs in the name of reform. (I can just hear Ashcroft wising to encourage these kinds of protestors. All he needs is one excuse to crack down.)

It's vary frustrating from my prospective. Especially when so much real truth is starting to circulate. I have to conclude that this is literally a truth that he can't handle. And the only way to reach folks like these, will be if the Dems go on the attack, and not just the "fringe eliminate." That is one reason why I despise the DLC so much. From my mind, the lies the DLC tells, are far worse, because people truly do trust them.

[maggrwaggr]

1. I was just in the midwest myself ....

where my relatives live (and where I'm from) and I would have to agree, that people are far away from coming to terms with the truth.

It's up to the media to inform people, and the media is just starting to barely wake up, and unfortunately we've got the blatant propaganda arm that is Fox news that a ton of people now watch.

It's really a fucked up mess.

We need to stay on it, to continue to challenge and shame the media into reporting the facts.

I constantly write them and say "you have a constitutional obligation to report the news" and tell them they should do a story on "when journalism died (sometime in the 90's)" and reminding them that they are complicit in the murder of thousands of people by NOT questioning the administration's lies prior to the war.

I blame the media for the crimes as much as anyone else. Without a free press, our government simply doesn't work the way it's intended to.

[Code_Name_D]

2. No oposition press.

The fact is that there just isn't any opposiiton press here. None at all. Zero! Nada! Zilch! About as librial as the radio gets is about sports. Heck, even Florida has Guy James. But the press here is extremly passive and loaded with propaganda, especualy on local issues. And their is no one here to call them on it. Not even vea-web cast.

But that isn't the half of it. The Democratic party just is NOT HERE! Oh sure, their are some local affilates who run the smaller campains for town maror and commisoner and that thing. But these are not suported by the DLC.

Last year, when I tried to get off my butt to be an actual activist, that was my biggest problem. There was no place for me to deposit my efforts. Their is not democratic party here.

I don't know about places like Ms, but this is Kansas, and Kansas is still rather progresive. But the Democratic party has abandoned us completly to the wolfs, and that is why Kansas now stands as a "red state."

With the last few elctions, I noticed that the Democrats one every race here in Kansas where they feilded a canadate. Including our new Govnoner. So the notion that Democrats can not win here, is rediculess. But it just seems that the Dems are more afraid of winning, than of losing.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

3. I support Gephardt too

I wish Gephardt would do as much to question the GOP warmongering as he does question the GOP/DLC "free trade" corporate agreements.