They weren't Bob or other real Dems. It was a collection of folks that celebrated the internal divisions of Democratic politics. Once was a musician in Oregon. The other one had a very "fluffy" moderator name, like Phishy or something to that effect.

The thugs won with hardcore ideology. It's long past time for some La Follette progressivism, and ranting the likes of Eugene Debs, which is not a dirty name. The Left is still out there if the Dems ever regain sanity.

:)

interesting and certainly spirited and I wish all this was true. If we treat any of this as its just another passing challenge or just a temporary setback, I think we have missed the entire point.
We have certainly had challenges and moments in our history where wrongs were made right but I hardly think any of that has been on the scale of Iraq, ordained torture and renditions, stolen elections, spying, and the Patriot Act. These are mainly post 9-11 reactions that have undermined the global stage, fundamental drivers of democracy, and a rapidly approaching theocracy on scales never before seen.
We are kidding ourselves if we treat otherwise. This is not something that will be resolved at the voting booth which is also totally corrupted. So I think we could convince millions (are they not yet convinced?) but thats not going to do it.
Today in the polls, most Americans apparently are A-OK with Bush and spying and they are equally A-OK with Alito. Thats very frightening to me and I think it is important to recognize where we are really at right now

Bill, as always said with supreme intellect and wisdom! We must continue to fight, scratch and claw at the very fiber that holds the PNAC and the Bush admin. together till they are in shreds.

I have spent the ENTIRE day, emailing, calling and faxing Senators to filibuster Alito!

I even had my wife on the phone to every female Senator's office, demanding they protect women's rights and not only to vote no on Alito, but to filibuster him till Bush gives up!

"The first casualty when war comes is truth."

Now is the time for all true patriots to come to the aid of their country. The thought of leaving has crossed my mind too, but the best thing is to stay and FIGHT!!!! We must continue to expose the right wing hypocrites. We must take back Congress, and the WH. True a shitload of damage has been done, but no more than when FDR took over our country, and look what he accomplished. Everybody that wants someone to walk out of the State of the Fascist Union speech should write Teddy, he's our best bet to do that. He knows they were in with who killed his brothers and hates the Bush's guts. I wrote him, all of you do the same!!!!!

The U.S. has faced many, many challenges in the past and has come out standing. But not without a heavy price. You're so right when you say we are no where near the end, infact this is only the beginning. People have plenty to be worried about right now however. The last internal struggle worse than this that the United States overcame was the civil rights movement. But that took 100 years just to gain any real momentum and only after enduring a fiery and bloody start.
In many ways, present day U.S. can be compared to pre-civil war America. Strong political divisions. Battles for civil rights, freedom and balance are waged everyday in the American legislature, not all that disimalr to the climate of 1850's America. In the American Civil War, it only took one liberal president getting elected to break the cammal's back.
The reason so many people, my self included, have good reason to be scared out of their mind is because of the extreme polarization of political views in the U.S. When you add in the fact that this administration is so currupt and they are in total power of the government for the time being makes matters even worse. People are scared because the last time people were this polarized, the U.S. erupted in civil war, which was followed by over 100 years of struggle for civil equality.
Just to give you an idea of how scarry this thought really is, I offer you the casualty rates of the civil war. According to http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm the civil war alone saw the death of 620,000 Americans. During that time, there were roughly 31,000,000 people in America (http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h46-am.htm). Thats 2% of the population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 300,000,000 people in the U.S. 2% of that is 6,000,000 people. If that does't scare you, I don't know what will. So yeah, people are scared for good reason right now. People never want to have to go through that much bloodshed again. Especially people like me who would be in the age group fighting another civil war in the future if one did actually errupt (god I hope not).
I would consider myself a history enthusiast, if not buff, and the most terrafying pattern in history, at least that I've noticed, is that it repeats itself, often. And war is very much in human nature. We can say all we want about how we are so much more civilized now and we are protected from all harm by our laws, but it doesn't take much for a society to fall into total chaos and we would only be kidding ourselves, whether we know it or not. Just ask the Romans, Greeks, Germans, Russians, Persians, Jews, Syrians, French, English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Spanish, and any other mighty nation in the worlds history that has fallen apart before. Ask Americans of the mid 1860's. Hell, ask someone who lived through hozings in Selma, Alabama back in the 1960's. It doesn't take much for a civilization to collapse into anarchy, and right now, the political and social conditions in America could easily be read as a foreshadowing for the possible chaos yet to come. So before you go around saying that people who say they want to move out of the U.S. are cowards and are just abondoning Democracy, try a little harder to understand where they are coming from. I myself have no intention of ever leaving this country, but it can be easily inderstood why people would be talking like this right now.
I guess maybe this is just one more freaked out person's view on the possible danger America could be in. It would be wise, however, to learn from the past and not to ignore it. When we do that, we are only hurting ourselves and spelling out our own demise. Maybe instead of always just saying that we are protected by the constitution and there is no reason to believe the country is in crisis, you should stop and think about the possible dangers we might actually be in. The counrty has taken a hard turn to the right, and laws are only good so long as the people who are in control choose to follow the laws.
And in response to the title of this blog "Democracy in America is dead" I think a more appropriate title would be Democracy is under attack in America. As long as people like those who attribute to this blog are around and fighting, it ain't dead yet.

You speak the truth