I'm talkin' about in my life time here in the US, Peter, which spans purdy much the entire post-war (WW II) period... That's where the troubles have played out... The right wing came outta the FDR yearas with blind hatred... They hated the fact that FDR, in essence, put down some rules and tried to creat a society where people had some level of security in exchange for their labors... Horrors!!!

Ever since, these bling hatred of the New Deal have been passed down thru several generations and ***BIG Prize*** has alsways been the dismantling of the New Deal... BTW, the dismantling began with Ronald Reagan and over the last 30 years Boss Hog has never had it so good... Yep, he's seen a massive redistribution of wealth to himslef and his rightie buddies at the expense of the working/middle class... The average working man has made no real progress since 1982 in terms or real wages (indexed)...

Also during this post-war period we have seen the right react very badly to the Civil Rights Act which they now say shouldn't prevent a Woolworth's from allowing balck people to sit and be served at the lunch counter... We have seen the right kill off the very best and brightest of the lefts leaders... We have seen the right kill doctors... We have had to put up with their borish, bullying domestic terrorism... The planned disruption at the town meetings this past August being case in point...

So, yeah... There is polorization but the behaviors between the left and right in these times is a world apart... The left has used arguments... The right has used terrorism...

Now we have the right trying to paint the left/Obama as Nazis... This is what psycologists refer to as "projectionism"... The left ain't the side that is responsible for the holocost that George Bush ordered up in Iraq... The left didn't hire goons to try to harrass and terrorize poll workers in the Florida recount... The left hasn't stolen elections... No, what we have is a major case of the rigth g projecting its bad beahvior onto people who, frankly, understand what Martin Luther King was teaching...

That's the way it is and the left owes no one any apologies here and shouldn't allow the ***BIGASS LIE*** about bad behavior on both side to be uttered without challenging it...

B~