It hit me looking at the protests in Mexico, and what happened there that there have been no such protests during our stolen elections. Why is it that a poor country like Mexico has so many people taking to the streets, but that never happened here? Are they more educated than we are? Are they more politically aware than we are? Or have they just realized like we have not, that their government is corrupt, and do they unlike us, have a leader who is willing to say so who had an election stolen from him? Why is it that our country has allowed this to happen with no action while Mexicans are taking to the streets by the millions?
I have a few theories. One is that initially the Democrats didn't realize what hit them as in the Gore election, but I don't excuse them for not standing up and protesting the results, and for giving in and with all the election fraud that has gone on since then uncontested. Why Kerry didn't stand up after what happened to Gore, and with what happened in Ohio is beyond me.
The other is that since then and the take over of the Bush regime the Bush administration has probably used the NSA program to blackmail anyone and everyone who has a skeleton in their closet to shut them up. They started spying on Americans in February of '01, almost as soon as Bush took power, and have no doubt in my mind that they used that power to stay in power. The last is that as long as many of our elected officials on the Democratic side have enough corporate money flowing into their coffers and keep the status quo, they just don't care, and are content to stay the minority party as long as it keeps their pockets lined and they keep their jobs.
What it will take to break this cycle is a tough question, but I think what everyone here and on all of the progressive blogs is doing is a good start on how to fix it. Make people informed and don't let them keep their heads in the sand. How to turn that into millions in the streets without turning us into Mexico first with the poverty is something I'd love to see answered, and while we still have a middle class left in this country. It truly scares me that we will become that third world nation before it happens and people will wake up too late to the fact that gay marriage and abortion and flag burning are not the most important issues in their lives, and that their jobs and their democracy are.