Gay marriage+Abortion+Porn=4 more Republican years

Can't believe that a pollster forgot about gays.

Top propoganda from a leading media magnate. Millions of Americans without healthcare is terrorism, this is the ongoing national disaster.
Address the following US: less money for defense contractors, an end to the faith based organized crime model, tighter, democratic control of appropriation.

Bane Richter June 15th, 2007 12:47 pm
I disagree. Even those with healthcare can see Katrina as a disasterous failing of the system while only a portion of those with good healthcare are concerned about those without. Everyone has the potential to fear a Katrina-like disaster because they know they may be next. Those with good healthcare do not fear for themselves much.

John Zogby,

I concur that Katrina is the defining moment in recent US History. It is our government's response to Katrina that heralded the beginning of the end for the Republican majority. Further, it shocked many conservatives into facing the myth of manifest destiny and their notion of moral superiority, leading them to question the American model at some level.

Going out on a limb, I think that it may well be the epiphany that matures this country into one that takes its place as a member of the collective of nations instead of being the bully.

I hope you're right, Thought Shaman, because something has to change or our children will have to face a hellish future. I agree that Americans are getting uneasy about the direction we're headed, and everyone I talk with feels the corporations are too powerful (except for the working poor - most of those I talk with aren't paying any attention at all. I think they've completely given up).

sbrownn, I can't agree with you. The pool of "well-insured" is shrinking as costs are shifting to the insured with increased employee payments, copays, deductibles and exemptions. And there's always the anxiety of losing a job with good benefits. The majority of Americans want a single payer plan.

I think watching people drown while Bush twiddled shocked people, the response of the rest of the world was humiliating, and the disorganized and chaotic response to a disaster that had plenty of time for advance planning made people think about what if there was no warning.

I do think racism played in that because when Jeb Bush was running for reelection and a hurricane hit Florida, they were ready with food, water, tents, transportation, the works. For voters.

Are we ready for another major disaster (besides a hurricane)? Clearly not. I think it's criminally insane that after all these years and all this money wasted our first responders STILL can't even talk to each other. That should have been one of the first priorities, but as a nurse I see things as a first responder. It's amazing that we are no more ready for a 9/11 than we were before the first 9/11.

Sorry, but that ship has sailed. I think the ADD-infected American voter has already forgotten about Katrina, Enron, Abrahamov, loss of Columbia, failure to recognize 9/11, and all the other disasters that hallmark the Republican party and the Bush administration. Half of them believed the furious spin that none of it was BushCo's fault. They don't see a problem with the Gonzalez story or the executive branch and the supreme court steamrolling over their rights. The only reason they are against the Iraq war is that we're not winning - the rising price of gas is their biggest gripe. The American voter had the chance, after four years of abject incompetence and partisan pandering, to eject Bush in 2004. They didn't, and they won't wake up by 2008, either. Given the choice (ha!) between Guiliani and Hillary, Rudy will win and the country will continue a right-wing death spiral into oblivion.

Could I vote for the turning point being our collective move away from Jimmy Carter's s realism on energy to a more faith based energy policy. It was "Morning in America," we were told by Reagan as he ripped those solar panels off the White House. I think one could reasonably posit that had we followed Carter's lead toward energy independence, there may well not have been a 9/11 as we would have turned away from a petroleum based economy--and thus also be well on our way to limiting global warming. But far be it from to me to suggest to the most churched people in the developed world that they should not substitute faith for scientific realism.

jon
Connecting the dots: from human behaviors to ecosystem decline
http://StudentsForTheEarth.org

As a resident of New York City, I think Mr. Zogby is quite right. As the WTC burned for 12 days (I could see the plume from my front door in Queens), there was some kind of government action that gave the appearance of knowing what was going on (as time goes by, it becomes clear it was merely an appearance).

But Manhattan didn't sink, and the theatres stayed open, and the tourists came (thanks for spending so freely), and the subway ran, and life went on for most.

Then came the hurricanes and the government's true incompetence was there for all to see -- we lost New Orleans. I know there was a big kerfuffle about calling the people there "refugees," but that's how their own government treated them. We Americans used to know how to do things, how to administer, how to accomplish. There's something fundamentally awful in the change. We've become American'ts.

Jon Eden,

While the Carter-Reagan clash on marks a turning point in the realm of energy policy, it did not cause many conservatives who believed that the US was best served by a faith based government to examine their thesis. Instead Katrina did. Our government dominated by "people of faith" failed to deliver supplies, rescue, shelter, and most of all hope to those affected.

The cracks in the republican majority, the swing in public support away from Bush towards the democrats w.r.t. Iraq, the large scale support for government involvement in health care, etc. at the very least gained traction among the public post-Katrina. These go beyond not winning in Iraq or rising gas prices (mentioned by wcdevins).

"I have been saying for some time that the top issue in the 2008 presidential campaign is going to be the Iraq war, with the war on terror a clear second."

I know Bu$h likes to pridefully boast he's commander in chief, of what? Technically, it's a brutal neo-colonial occupation of Iraq, not a War....

Secondly, you can not wage a War against a military tactic which America has a long history of using starting with the indigenous North American Indians.....

No wonder average Americans are totally flummoxed, with this constant misuse of nomenclature...

The deeper question, never a framing/talking point by the corporate media, is whether Americans are upset with the very concept of current federalism, or just the incompetence/waste/corruption of its current leadership. So long as any of us are paying even a dime in federal taxes, we expect it to be well-managed.

I've wondered many times if government agencies are not deliberately mismanaged, as a means of false-flagging or discrediting not their leadership so much -- but their very concept, followed by a private contractor (someone's cousin, no doubt) waiting in the wings to get onto the privatization gravy train.

I mean, it almost reads like a script. Something you want to wreck? Then put an idiot in charge, then subtly blame the whole concept -- not the idiot.

Ah yes, but this assumes there will be a 2008 presidential campaign. Now that "The Decider" has signed into law his right, nay obligation, to stay in command in the event of any and all sorts of national "situations," ranging from war, to disease, to natural disasters, to . . . heaven only knows what else, what makes anyone think he's ever going to go away? Don't imagine that "president for life" is just a cute phrase, friends; it's a real possibility. Look at it this way: what could "The Decider" possibly do at the end of his eight years? Go home and sit on the front porch swing with Laura? He's already run every enterprise he's ever been involved with into the ground. Who's going to want to hire him as a lobbyist? A goodwill ambassador? A corporate CEO? Is there actually anything the man can't ruin? So, why leave when you're already screwing up the best job you ever held?

You talk about Americans wanting a "nimble federal government" and that they'll be choosing their candidate in '08 by that measure, and there is simply nothing in recent history that leads one to think that.

All of the recent elections have been dominated by miniscule sound bites of propaganda that instill or reinforce fear and/or prejudice.

From Willy Horton right down to the drumbeats of 9/11, Americans have NOT shown any interest in understanding even the most basic aspects of the federalism you so quaintly suggest they wish to revise.

And our corporate television monopolies want to keep it that way, so they can continue to reap the profits from the massive fundraising efforts of each candidate. So, transfer of wealth from one corporation to another with the citizens as the manipulated pawns.

To get even more to the point, how many average citizens can name their elected officials? How many are involved in any level of communication with them? How many have ever MET ONE?

Americans have been asleep at the wheel for way too long, and there have been more than enough shocks that SHOULD have awakened them. Yet, we see people blithely cruise along after Katrina and Abu Graib as though we're in some sort of time warp.

Even more appalling is the sleep walk we see in CONGRESS. After what was a very strong '06 election message, we have BUSINESS AS USUAL with the continued funding of Bush's Iraq war and occupation and the REFUSAL to even BEGIN AN INVESTIGATION INTO IMPEACHMENT!!!

Lastly, on this "backdrop of unease over Washington's incompetence" you mention the '08 presidential campaign will be waged against. How about MASSIVE OUTRAGE!!!

To identify Katrina as the turning point seems to me accurate, not merely for the range of failures it exposed,
such as the callous incompetence of the authorities,
and the utter lack of accountability for those thousands drowned by official culpable negligence,
and the gross failure of political opposition even to ascertain the death toll, (somewhere between 1,600 and 6,600 !)
let alone to enforce the clear up and rehabilitation of the refugees.

No, beyond those failings Katrina was the point at which America began to wake up to Climate Destabilization,
and to the leading role of the US in what is liable to be the greatest genocide, by huge anthropogenic famines, that the world has ever seen.

The process of awakening is ongoing.

Just yesterday there was a major new bell ringing, this time from India with a declaration, de facto, for the global climate policy framework of Contraction and Convergence.
The article in the British "Telegraph" paper gives some details :
www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/06/12/eaindia12.xml

India's blunt challenge on per capita cuts of GHG outputs is cogent:
"You do you best, and we'll match it."

Regards

Bill

I agree that Katrina was a turning point in how Americans view their Federal gov't under Bush. For years, people like Bush have been getting elected by portraying gov't not as a solution, but AS THE PROBLEM. If you kept getting promoted the more incompetently you did your job, you'd do as poorly as Bush did with Katrina too. It literally PAYS him to screw up the federal government, and there's ALOT of evidence that that is what has happened to it. From beef and spinach recalls, to illegal Chinese products getting into our pet food, to the immigration problem, to the debacle in Iraq, this administration clearly is under the impression that if the Federal gov't screws things up it can only be GOOD for their party. I believe that in a similar vein, they find it useful to put the federal government into massive debt.

Ubrew: right on. It's Grover Norquist's dream list... drown government (the type that cares about its citizens), but by all means, allow it to coalesce with industry, especially war industry, and then let your nation bleed over the wounds of war for absolutely no worthy cause. We could have been investing in renewable energy, beefing up fuel efficiencies, teaching people to conserve and not giving the reins to the beast to feed off the Middle East oil. These neo cons must have live snakes for intestines.

Katrina is our defining moment because it proved (among other things):

1. African Americans are valued as much as used toilet paper--to be thrown away after being "used".

2. Cronyism trumps competence. There have always been inept political hacks promoted to positions for which their chief qualification was either political patronage or being a relative of someone "connected".

But at least they (or their patrons) were smart enough to have people who knew what they were doing as subordinates and/or advisors. This "institutional memory" of the agency allowed it to keep on functioning.

3. Looting the government coffers through "private contractors". The same imbeciles who couldn't:

find a way to coordinate pulling flooding victims out of harms way,

erecting some kind of temporary structures, and caring for those who had lost everything.

deploy relief workers to handle reconstruction

were able to:

Deploy Blackwater goons @ $100 a day to go around in their bullet-proof SUV's, with ski masks and automatic weapons terrorizing those dazed survivors of that disaster.

Grant a no-bid contract to Halliburton to do major reconstruction work in Mississippi and Lousiana with minimum wages and local workers not required.

Promptly fire or demote any whistle-blowers who called them on their fraudulent dealings federal statutes prohibiting such to the contrary notwithstanding.

Ronnie Reagan would be so proud to see the ultimate fulfillment of his disciples who have taken his admonition in his 1st. innaugural address to heart that "government is the problem" and dismantled the government they were elected or appointed to administer.

We are now living the "conservative dream". Government as a transferral mechanism of wealth from the many to the few for the further enrichment of the few and impoverishment of the many.

Katrina was the wake-up call to show us the disconnect between what conservatives say and what they actually do. The beauty is that no one has to say anything because the evidence is scattered all over two southeastern states for all to see two years after the fact and no doubt will still be littering the landscape in November 08.

Katrina is the poster child for the damage that corrupt people can do to an excellent form of government.

A book about the San Francisco earthquake and the response came out about the time the Katrina response was in the news. It is amazing how much better they were then, especially considering the technology of the time.

I just read your editorial "Will Katrina Be Our Defining Moment?". This is one of the more positive signs I've heard about our common electorate I've heard yet. Kudos to you for going out on a limb (i.e. being ahead of the polling). I think that the Katrina response, more than any other, has exposed, consciously or unconsciously, the deep amoralism which under girds our political/economic system (modern Market theory) and the idea that you sense a deep response in the public indicates to me that 'we' might just opt for a humane theory of government in our near future. (amoralism defined here as the argument that it is Irrational to care about people that you are not related to.) One need only breifly look through the writings of Milton Friedman or Ludwig von Mises to find reference to the 'need' to remove the human sensibility from economic arguments. In case I'm being unclear, I am saying that the Katrina response is a direct result of Market theory in action as the Administration has spent the last six years making the Federal Government more in line with these ideas.
I think that, if you are correct, the public has rightly sensed the 'real-world' consequences of this theoretical point through the Katrina response. Although the 'amoralist' framework I'm asserting is more overt in 'conservative' rhetoric, the failure of any on the 'liberal' side to address it directly means to me that we, collectively, are in a kind of free-fall waiting for someone, anyone to show us 'a better way' whether or not that way leads to the results that you sense the public desires . Of coarse the legitimizing of caring, in a theoretical sense, must be coupled with success in the marketplace, as very few advocates of caring seem to see the importance of, for the response to the Katrina 'failure' to be more than pandering to emotions (pathos in a rhetorical sense). I still remain hopeful that you are sensing a true desire on the part of the public to support a politician who can rationalize caring about us Americans and our society at the federal level.