The real problem isn't the Bush regime, but the American people themselves

[billbuckhead]

Us progressive types have been lying to ourselves. We keep thinking that if Joe Sixpack and Mary Mainstreet really knew what was going on in Washington, Wall Street, Iraq, Gitmo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the CIA, Iran, BBV, etc that the public would rebel. I've finally had to resign myself to the fact the way things are is because a real majority of Americans want it this way. "THEY KNOW AND DON"T CARE". Americans have descended into such cynicism, they think that dog eat dog always wins, they can buy their way into heaven and it's better to torture "ragheads" for their oil than to drive a diesel Peugeot or go vegetarian. God forbid Americans have to learn a new skill or live more efficiently. Politicians, journalists, commercial opinion leaders always follow the people on the path of least resistance and this is where they have led. The middle class has only started to rethink this war because the Pentagon started stalking their kids, not because they think torture is immoral or even unChristian. I could go on, but you can pick out your own favorite examples.

I think during the Reagan administration, the unofficial motto of America was, "Whatever you can get away with". The ends always justified the means at some level for a lot of people. Today's Bush misadministration is the ultimate manifestation of American narcissism and selfish uncaring cruelty. Fox News exists because people want to hear what they want to hear.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. A winner. The truth finally comes out. Way to call it like it is, and was

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

2. After the election, I posted something to this effect... that sad as it

might be, in some way, perhaps America (not you and me, but "America" collectively) "deserves" the shrub because he actually represents them, what they are like, their values, more than is perhaps comfortable for us to believe.

[TheGoodCitizen]

4. "They" also deserve..

... A MILITARY DRAFT!

That'll fix 'em! :patriot:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

16. That's only if you really believe that the GOP didn't control...

...the results of the last three elections in 2000, 2002, and 2004.

[billbuckhead]

21. The People knew Al Gore won &Bush lost but thought their stocks would fall

or they would lose their jobs. The average American could care less about the neighbor in the National Guard, let alone poor third world people we bomb from safe altitudes or with robots. The only sacrifices the misadministration asked the people to make during this so called "War on Terror" was to keep shopping no matter how much debt was incurred and to put flags on our gas guzzling cars.

[Just Me]

43. Bullshit!!! You are not talking about "the people" in reference to stocks.

You are talking about "the elite". How dare you impose the money-grubbers' character against our whole people!!!! :grr: I simply reject such hatred against a people, our people, my people.

I am forced to conclude that you MUST keep company with some pretty shallow people. I hang with Americans with more depth of character, principle, life and love,...and they are EASY to find.

[SammyWinstonJack]

67. Well said!

:applause: :applause:

[leesa]

86. Really. Most people I know talk about remodeling their houses or

what stocks are good, or how demanding their kids soccer schedules are, etc...LISTEN to what people say to you. It's really disheartening.

[TheGoodCitizen]

88. It's REALLY bad here in the midwest...

:(

[Zhade]

82. Here's what I wrote after the election - it echoes your thoughts...

Criminal Intent

It isn't the 50,000+ missing absentee ballots in Florida. It's not the Democratic voter registrations disqualified in Ohio by Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell for their lack of heavy paper, or the ones ripped up and trashed by a Republican-funded group in Las Vegas. It's not the minority voter intimidation, confusing ballots, malfunctioning and broken machines, or randomly-reassigned polling places in poor urban areas nationwide. It's not the now-twice-made-infamous felon voter purge lists in Florida authorized by the current president's brother. It's not even the proprietary-coded-by-a-computer-felon, unauditable, unaccountable, owned-in-part-by-defense-contractors touchscreen voting machines that can be hacked with a Palm Pilot and leave no paper trail or chance for a recount. It's not that John Kerry conceded before fighting to ensure that "every votes counts".

No, the fraud and manipulations inherent in this election pale in comparison to the true crime: a majority of Americans do not disagree with their government's actions.

They don't disagree with going to war against Iraq, a country that did nothing to us, never attacked us, and was not in league with those who did attack us.

They don't have a problem with the fact that we were told one thing - we must go to war because we are in imminent danger of being attacked with weapons of mass destruction - and then another, and another, and another (ad infinitum) about why we actually invaded.

They seem to find it just ducky that 100,000 Iraqis have died in the continuing war. The 1100+ American deaths don't appear to give them pause, either.

Did somebody say Abu Ghraib? To half of Americans, torture must be A-OK, because they sure don't seem too embarrassed to brazenly call it "pranks" and "harmless abuse".

Half of the half who voted for George W. Bush have likely suffered under his economic policies. Do they fret, and reconsider their support? Heck no, them gays are runnin' rampant and must be stopped! And 11 states answered the shameful call.

"But remember 9/11!" Ah, that's right. There was that terrible day that changed everything. If only the tragedy could have been avoided! If only Clinton had warned the incoming Bush administration that "in my opinion, the biggest security problem was Osama bin Laden." If only Rice had given Bush a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In United States" on August 6th, 2001! If only there had been warnings to Attorney General John Ashcroft to avoid commercial airlines, thus tipping him off to a plot!

Many Americans must enjoy police-state powers, no health care, enshrining intolerance, corporate conservative-owned news, a dying planet, and hatred of our policies around the world. They seem to thrill to the idea of empire, and argue ceaselessly to justify our place as the premier consumer of the planet's resources at gunpoint. They have no problem with the Bush administration outing a deep-cover CIA agent to punish her husband for telling the truth about one of the administration's many, many lies.

I can think of no other reason, save this: half the American people, having heard even small parts of these stories on the evening news, approve of the way our government is operating. They are Good Germans, ready to give their all for The Cause - even if that cause is, at heart, illegal, fascist, and criminal.

Enjoy, Bush backers! It is your government now. When you destroy the world with your ill-gotten, illegitimate power, just remember that we tried to warn you. When you lose your job because Bush-friendly corporations move jobs overseas, just remember that you voted for the man who doesn't give a damn about you and will sell you out in a minute if you stand in the way of a buck. When your kids get drafted, just remember that you voted for the AWOL chickenhawk who lied us into war for Halliburton and Israel. When your kids die in yet another resource war, just remember that you crowned the man who thinks nothing of wasting your kids' lives for his own personal monetary and political gain.

When you finally wake the fuck up, you'll realize, as I do, that you no longer belong in today's Imperial America. Sadly, through your own actions, you have ensured that it will be too late to do a damn thing about it.

[stepnw1f]

3. Isn't That Blaming The Victim

There are fools, and then there are crooks who take advantage.

[billbuckhead]

18. Americans have to know that they are stealing resources from the weak

Americans are so scared of losing their jobs and insurances and pensions and the equity in their homes and their stock portfolios.

Subconciously white people fear the dark people after ripping them off for centuries at best and even committing genocide at worst. Politicians, big media and preachers play these fears and guilts like some Dante's infernolike video game. The people still have free will but they surrender it for cheap thrills and short term security.

[stepnw1f]

28. I Understand Personal Accountability

I just want to see a balance of the blame. By your title, it seems more critical of the people.

[billbuckhead]

38. Which came first ,"Archie Bunker" or Archie Bunker's audience?

Why do so many Americans think that eternal salvation can be bought for a little money and lot of bigotry du jour? So which came first there, the phony corrupt preachers or the audience for such a message?

[stepnw1f]

50. The Guilt?

That's a personal question isn't it?

[Just Me]

32. Americans are hardly composed of just white people.

I find your allegations against the American people simplistic and fucking atrocious!!! It's shameful that you would impose a broad brush persecution upon all Americans based upon some television-type "cheap thrills and short term security" delusion of American existence which fails to reflect the real lives of real American people.

Maybe, you just don't LIVE among these people you are so eager to condemn. I do. They have to WORK at creating a quality of life that NO ONE delivers to them. We WORK to create a life worth living, without any silver spoons or special privileges or public "influence" or elitist status.

WE ARE NOT THE BAD GUYS!!!! :grr: Maybe, you don't love our people. I do.

I know the "bad guys" who are betraying our people, defrauding our people, exploiting our people. My target is on their backs. I know that our people have been "trained" to trust their government and they are discovering the betrayal AT THEIR OWN PACE. It's not easy to digest that kind of betrayal let alone gather the focus to confront it and demand justice.

Back off. Instead of attacking our people, in such a hateful/hate-filled way, why not prove your passion for justice and do everything possible to empower our people?

[Melodybe]

48. I agree! Thanks Just me, I think that people that believe

this are just to lazy to get off their asses and actually talk to people.

Get out there and talk to some real Americans before you come here and slam them.

The elections were stolen, America is not that stupid.

It helps Bush when you spread the people don't care bull shit. If people had a fucking choice to buy American goods instead of sweat shop ones they would, but people are so god damn over worked and poor they have no choice but to buy the cheap crap at Wal-Mart.

[Uncle Joe]

78. I agree

Al Gore has used a similar analogy when discussing human psychology regarding the environment. Like a frog placed in a pot of water and slowly heated to boiling, the frog will die instead of jumping out. The frog instinctively wants to trust it's environment and does not notice gradual changes, people are the same way regarding not only the environment, but also their government. They want believe in their government, the alternative is too horrible to think about for many people. I believe that most people will come to the correct conclusion if given the truth by the sources that they trust. However when you have a dysfunctional press intent on hiding or obfuscating the truth, it takes much more effort and time to bring the people around, and they come to it at their own pace.

[marmar]

5. Good points...

Your assertion that Bushco is the "ultimate manifestation of American narcissism and selfless uncaring cruelty" is sooo right on. Perhaps a draft will shock people into reality.

[Disturbed]

10. Isn't it usually that way?

The majority of people in most countries are not political. They don't pay much attention to what their Govt. does and have apathetic feelings about that. Hell, millions in Amerika don't bother to vote in any elections, even local ones that effect them directly. The interest is mor toward sports and entertainment. Most know more about rock stars and film stars than about any people in the Govt.

Change usually comes about through a few persistent, dedicated people and not always for the better either. Example: the Fundie movement.

[Gay Green]

24. The ONLY THING that will shock people into reality

is being deported into slavery in concentration camps in a foreign land.

Sorry, but I had to vent my spleen. The build-up in there was getting toxic.

[MGKrebs]

6. Nice post.

:kick:

[napi21]

7. Unfortunately, Americans won't rebel until some event affects them

personally! I've seen it happen, and many times recently.

People who voted for Shrub and kept supporting him, UNTIL...they had to take a pay cut, or lost their job. I guess it's all selfishness.

You're right about the Whatever you can get away with attitude. That's been common for a very long time!

[undergroundpanther]

9. Sad ain't it?

People have been taught by this compeitive,short sighted ,self obsessed culture that winners take all and to care for others you never met is "loser behavior"it's a waste..amnd we are also taught to not risk trusting others or giving things away to strangers..

[napi21]

34. IT's absolutely sad! I'm not sure the people I referenced

really fell into the culture that you referenced though. The ones I speak of supported Shrub because he was a Pub. They blindly believed he was the best for their interests. I guess most of them believed that because of their parents, or neighbors, or who knows what. But when all of us kept telling them they were wrong, and they were going to be sorry for voting for him, they dismissed all our arguments. THEN, Shrubs decisions affected them directly! I hate to admit it, but we did tell them "I told ya so!"

[raccoon]

74. I think the frequent use of the word "loser" so much says

a lot about American society too. It's like a "loser" is the worse thing a person can be.

[Uncle Joe]

79. Exactly, what do call the team that loses the SuperBowl?

Nevermind that they did better than every team in the NFL except one. People use these dumbass statements to take a complex thought or action and bumpersticker it because it takes to much brain work to think alternative ideas. However losers can win as a loser of the Kentucky Derby went on to win the Preakness and the Belmont. As Joe Louis came back to beat Max Smelling, do not be so simplistic as to buy the loser label as a statement in perpetual truth.

[mwb970]

85. I don't know, we got rid of Nixon.

If the media were doing its job, Bush would be in BIG trouble.

[ewagner]

8. I've believed this

for some time....and Pogo said it best:

[KG]

11. we live in a country where myth is sacred and the truth is profane.

[Tux]

12. Seems that way

But Rove really did use cultural issues against liberals. Since Clinton supported free trade with NAFTA and H1B program, that is all we have left. Time to pay attention to Lakoff.

In general, I think people are too concerned about the culture war that will allow the rich to own us over time. People will not go for it. Don't Think of an Elephant is a really good book that all liberals need to turn things around. Americans are decent people but terrorism on 9/11 allowed them to drop their own values for those of Bush. Time for real American values to stand again.

[LiberallyInclined]

13. BING-O!

i've been having very similar thoughts of late- even remebering back to the ronnie raygun years(the first republican i got to vote against- twice!) and how i was sure that the country would eventually snap out of whatever state they were in, and things would be fine(ahhhh...to be young and idealistic).
the Clinton impeachment kinda jolted me back to reality- that so much of the public would take the crap that Henry Hyde & friends were spewing just boggled my mind...
and the past 5 1/2 years have completely wiped away any remaining thoughts that things will get better when the rest of the "we the people" finally wake up and grok to what's going on. it isn't going to happen.
and i'm tired of fighting against the ever-rising tide, and i've come to the realization that it's an utterly hopeless endeavour- and i'll be much better off just making myself comfortable, sit-back, and enjoy the show of watching civilization ooze into the abyss.

anyone want popcorn while i'm up?

[whatever4]

25. Make it a beer, if you would

In fact, just bring that sixpack, thanks

[kentuck]

14. Well said...

We have seen the enemy and it is us...

[BillZBubb]

15. You liberal elitist!

I agree 100% with your post. My experience with the average American is that they either know what's going on and don't give a shit or purposefully don't want to know so they listen to Limpballs or Faux.

They will be moved only by what directly affects them. So, until the BushCo policies kick them in the ass, they are happy because he will protect them from 'terra' and gay marriage, he will kick some Arab butt, and he cut their taxes (or so they've been told).

[Booster]

17. Yep, America is in the gutter and seems a lot of people like being

there - where we used to be intelligent, we are now ignorant, where we used to be humble, we are now arrogant, where we used to be smart, we are now "morans", and there's just too many Americans that seem to like it just fine. Sad.

[Banner_Of_Songun]

19. Exactly

Hundreds of years of US imperialist consumerist-mindset driven education and propaganda has finally succeeded in turning the US people into mindless US imperialist robots cruelly plundering the world for their own pleasure.

The US Progressive is an endangered species and as long as the actual criminal fascist current Bush clique of corporate capitalist criminal cowboys remain in power to lord it over the world will never wake up from the horrible nightmare that is US imperialism.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

20. Most Americans STILL don't know about DSM, and the recent....

...revelations about Rove. Average Americans are sometimes working more than two jobs to make ends meet and don't have the time that DUers take to know what's going on. It's not because they don't care, it's because they simply run out of time on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

Give the American people more credit...they deserve at least that much.

[Uncle Joe]

80. Well said and when the media reported on the DSMs, they

did a a half ass job and many did not include the most damning phrase, that the "intelligence was being fixed around the policy". As the corporate media are intentionally obfuscating at best and lying at worst, makes it doubly hard for the average American to know what is going on.

[Extend a Hand]

22. I'm not sure 'They Know'

I think in many of the A-political cases: 'They don't know and they don't want to know' anything that might be uncomfortable...so they ignore everything except pop 'culture'

[Just Me]

23. I believe your conclusion applies to a minority of the American people.

You cannot convince me that the real majority of Americans want their government to engage in "concealed" horrors against humanity. You cannot convince me that the real majority of human beings aren't willing to learn a better way of living if given the opportunity and knowledge and inspiration to do so.

I find your broad brush demonization of the American people as repugnant as any attack on any people.

So, my response to your persecution is, fuck off!!!

[uncle ray]

27. too bad your last comment will get your post locked

but if the majority of americans DON'T want what is happening, then why is there only seventy some thousand DUers, and fucking MILLIONS of people watching mindless "reality" shows everyday?

[Just Me]

35. Hmmm,...I say "fuck off" to all persecution of any people.

Is that better? }(

[OKDem08]

30. Following the 1st debate performance

of GWB, I still can't believe that he prevailed. My God...I thought it was crystal clear who was the better choice! Why more people didn't see that, I just don't understand.

[tavalon]

56. He didn't prevail

Diebold did.

[billbuckhead]

33. Then, were's the outrage from the Americans about this unjust oil grab?

It's not like America hasn't had a history of doing genocide for gold, land, oil, naval base, etc.

[Just Me]

41. You act like the majority of American people have been informed,...

,...about the government-backed corporacratic exploitations. I assure you that, they HAVE NOT HAD EXPOSURE TO THAT INFORMATION. Do you believe that this information is handed to them? Do you understand they struggle to achieve the unachievable "dream" that does not exist? I really do not know where or how you have lived. But, seriously, I wonder if you hold any understanding of the depth, breadth, humility, and struggle which characterizes the lives of our people.

You pissing on Americans tells me that you either fail to appreciate or simply do not give a shit about their lives, their struggle, their humanity.

[bloom]

65. I think it might be like

75+ years ago and the public lynchings. You wouldn't think that such large numbers of people would go out and enjoy the spectacle. It's mind boggling really - you don't want to believe it.

I think maybe today's torture culture is like that only it is outsourced to Guantanamo and Abu Graib. It's mind boggling that people (the Wall Street Journal kinds of people as well as FOX watchers and Rush Limbaugh listeners) justify this inhumane treatment of people. I think it's like the lynching mentality. People/society is not improving - the people who want to do this are just being more sophisticated about it (using psychologists to tell them what will upset people the most).

The scary thought I just had is maybe Rumsfeld, Luntz, Rove know what we don't - maybe they know that some people approve of (and it's difficult to even write - but think of the lynching crowds) "enjoy" the fact that our country is doing horrible things to people. As long as they feel safe in their own lives.

It's depressing to think about.

[lostnfound]

26. RWer: If only these foreigners would stop stealing our ideas! Me:

Yep, they come here while we are sleeping and take 'em out of our heads..that explains why Americans keep waking up in the morning with empty heads!

[DerekG]

29. Some chilling words from Joe Bageant that supports your assertion

--snip--

Few of us believe that it is ordinary folks who sell a nation into hell, cast it in infamy. In a democracy, “the people” supposedly cannot be the problem. Right now some of the smartest people I know are more convinced that the problem is George W. Bush and the dysfunctional little Adams family he has created (or who created him, no one is quite certain). The problem being of course that they are a danger to human civilization and the planet. The fallacy, however, is believing they are more insane than the rest of us, although a couple of them probably are. Not many healthy, well-adjusted people look at Karl Rove or Donald Rumsfeld without a small flinch of horror and pity. The kind of fear one has of snakes and the kind of pity one has for people who appear congenitally deformed in character. Rather like the kid I knew in grade school that poured lighter fluid on baby birds and lit it. Now we know what such kids grow up to become.

Yet a walk through an American suburb or one of our bland “office campuses” can throw a thinking person into a darker funk than Rummy or Karl “Toad of Darkness” Rove ever will. We should be far more worried about the Good Germans with orderly lives who populate all those office complexes here in the suburbs of our nation’s capitol. They are designers at the defense company in our building who create control systems for fighter missiles, or the government contracted psychologists in the building across the lawn who help write what are essentially military torture manuals and killing protocols . . . or, for that matter, all the people at my own magazine publishing office. We specialize in military history magazines that glorify all wars American and create the state sponsored mythology of our “heroes fighting for democracy around the world.” Meanwhile, company 401-Ks are invested in Halliburton, Raytheon, mass distributed mind suppressants such as Prozac and the like. Thus, from my building I can see the sprawling workplace of other “Little Eichmanns” of which Ward Churchill spoke, and cannot delude myself that I am not one of them.

When and if America is ever hauled before the tribunal it is so richly earning with every Iraqi child mangled and every soul it ships to Egypt to be tortured in unspeakable ways, out of sight of the world, what will be my excuse? Will it be: “I only generated the propaganda because I needed the health insurance that came with the job.” Will that be an acceptable answer before the world? Who among us is guilty and who is innocent? Is the person who makes the night goggles for the American sniper on a Baghdad rooftop guilty? Is the person who made Lynndie England’s CD player guilty, the one they played while leading those naked weeping men around on dog leashes and in hoods? What about American workers who make Kevlar vests? Are they saving lives, or are they enabling killers to do their work more safely? And this is to say nothing of the Americans who wipe the Doritos crumbs from their double chins, lean toward their televisions and cheer on the young “heroes.”

--snip--

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Bageant0523.htm

[Burried News]

75. I appreciate the link. All of us have alot to answer for.

An examination of conscience is always a worthwhile (and humbling) exercise.
Catapault the truth - even if it hurts.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

31. I have three friends

(who are good folks and with whom I go a long way back) who support Bush for reasons varying from "He loves Jesus!" to "well...he must know what he's doing, he knows things we don't." They've got 10 kids among them, all age appropriate fresh meat for the military. If a draft comes, I can see them now, sputtering "But - but, my Aardvark(or Farquhar or...)is planning to go to college (or get married, or start that great new job...)Tsk, tsk, ain't it a shame. If their folks (and the kids, too, 'cause they were all old enough to vote in '04) had each managed to rub two brain cells together... But they don't care. They drive their SUV's to the mall each week to buy whatever, made wherever, cheap gee-gaw that strikes thier fancy. I feel sad for them because they're good people and I love them. I don't want to read one of their kid's obits in the paper or see where a scholarship has been set up In the Memory of (fill in the blank).

[serryjw]

53. I know how you feel

I stopped talking to dear friends after 20 years because I couldn't take it any more. I truly love them, they have always been there for me BUT they have 4 sons of draftable age. They just don't know what they are doing. I know how it would kill them if they lost one of their sons....I just couldn't get through to lifetime republicans.

I have to agree with the original poster. You can divide this country into 3 groups
1) the liberals whom have spent hours tirelessly seeking the truth & getting it out to as may people as possible

2) the kool-aid drinkers whom will support * as their kids are drafted, they lose their job/house/health care/pension.

3) the 50% whom don't vote plus the ones that simply don't give a shit because their lives are just fine.

Honestly it is not pretty. Don't beat up the original poster because you don't like the message......it is the truth

[DerekG]

36. One caveat: most of *us* are not exempt either

Lest anyone here feel a surge of moral superiority, I might ask:

--Did you speak out against the atrocities of the Clinton administration (Plan Columbia; bombing of public infrastructures in Yugoslavia; eight years of Iraqi sanctions) or its assault on the Constitution (First Amendment Zones; the '96 Anti-Terrorism Bill)?

--Are you a war tax resister?

--Do you use gasoline?

[pretzel4gore]

37. i think so too but....

most americans do not, would not, could not support bush, or the nazipoo agenda; most americans are wage earners, if lucky enough to have a job, or poor, or chasing bills from month to month, Most americans, like most people anywhere, are decent people, given the chance. Jeanie Garafalo said she now wonders if reagan actually won the '80 election, or whether geebush beat ann richards in texas gov race; bushinc certainly never won in 2000 ('04 doesn't pertain)....the rightwing trolls have forever been capable of overthrowing their own society's government in the service of some hi falutin bushit that turns out just to be piggy gets (or keeps) while everybody else pays for it...see spain in 1936 (the 'royalists' allied themselves with mussillini and hitler to defeat the republic) or chile in 1973, when the nazipoos allied themselves with the kissinger cia....the popular belief that the US is a 'christian' culture runs up against a plain fact: jesus said that the people are 'a sheep w/out a shepherd' meaning they were storm tossed by emotional currents stirred up by self seeking assholes and there was always to be a war between 'good and evil' or 'truth and lies' or 'life and death' with all the advantages on the negative side (and can anyone deny that?) yet it's the 'christians' who it seems are always on the side of brute governments and police cohersion!
in the version of 'babbit' by sinclair lewis i read, a professor wrote an afterward (edition published in 1960) that said, in effect, that 'babbitt' warned america's ruling elite that if they ever allowed the antisocial rightwing too much freedom, they could very easily lose control of the political and a calamity would result....a calamity.....today the very people who should be leading the charge in getting rid of bush (hell, in stopping the dickwad from power in the 1st place!) are the very ones who have consistantly lied and covered up for and advocated and promoted the guy and his destructive agenda! And the very people who as christians should KNOW that leadership of any kind should at least be suspected of selfishness (being human nature, after all) still as a body put their trust in bush to the extent they threaten anyone who questions bushinc with violence or worse! it doesn't make sense, but that's now normal in georgebushamerica

[billbuckhead]

39. I don't exempt myself from cowardice, my small sacrifices are but a joke

But I think we lie to ourselves when we think our fellow citizens act the way they do because they are being duped.

[pretzel4gore]

46. vast numbers of children

teens, working poor, mentally ill, lost, confused etc....the true rightwinger (a well fed, well educated, well spoken, well dressed, well paid pig who eats too much, shits too much, fukks too much, lies tooo much, talk too much etc) is fairly rare...in 'king of the hill' gribble isn't a true rightwinger, but he THINKS he'd like to be one, and dribble(sp) is only one of four or so guys...i think that fairly typical ..on the simpsons, while neocon fascistic type solutions do occur, it's less because of ordinary people but tradition and custom etc (it's odd that cartoons really do seem to honestly touch upon what's going on then anything else!)

[DanCa]

40. Maybe most americans are naive and want to believe in the chimp?

Hell I would give anything to believe in the Chimp (by chimp I mean any sitting authority figure but not the president per se) but unfortunately I woke up along time ago during the bush senior years. My Aunt voted for chimpy because get this he's a good christian and who wont touch senior's social security insurance. Thanks to the AARP newsletters she now regrets that decisions.
Look at how many people dismiss the fact that the catholic church covered up the sex abuse scandal and brushed it aside by saying it was done by a few rogue priest. People want to believe in a world where presidents dont lie and superman can fly. Cant say I dont blame them. Self Denial is a powerful weapon and the insanitys faux news and limbaughs know how to play on this.

[NuttyFluffers]

42. you describe the cardinal sin of Acedia, aka. Sloth

it is the insidious member of sin. it has roots in selfishness as all sin does, but it "acts" in the most unusual way, by the way of not acting.

it is to acceed to the cruelties and wrongs of the world. it is to wallow willfully in ignorance, to relish apathy, to sublimate through escapism, to defend through elitism; to let evil win by having good doing nothing.

it is not the willful passive disobedience or the willful lack of support of cruel regimes (like boycotts, slow downs, strikes, etc.), it is the permissiveness of that which is wrong, for the sake that "i got me and mine, so screw you." it is a critical symptom of a society in the last stages. humanity, generosity, propriety, etiquette, temperance, etc. are the bulwarks against the evils of the world by insisting the populace be included, a part of society and thus active when wrongs are committed. when society goes into sloth the glue of society has broken, no one will fight and defend against evil, the culture is already dead for it won't be carried in the hearts of the people.

roughly half of america wants the death of america and every ideal that we struggled to achieve (if ever so frail and imperfect). they will not carry the bonds that unite us, they don't care if you live or die, they are ultimately a faction of one, alone and useless. pogo said it right, we've seen the enemy and it is us. silence does equal death, and death is calling for our nation...

[DerekG]

47. Great post

How deliciously primeval of you...

[hvn_nbr_2]

44. I've thought that it is a damning indictment of the American people...

that Dumbya could even be taken seriously as a candidate for re-selection. If the American people had half a brain and conscience, he would have been out of the running based on polls before the first primary.

[Deja Q]

45. Get a gun and shoot them then.

Sorry for the shock tactics, but what can be done?! NOTHING. They won't listen and they're so brainwashed by the NON-LIBERAL media that they won't even consider listening.

We're all stuck in the cesspool they clearly want.

The subject line is SARCASM... just in case any shithead lurkers try to say it isn't...

[Melodybe]

51. Then what is the fucking point then?

I should just stop working my ass off for the cause, I should just join them?

I don't think so.

Get out there and talk to people, talk until your face is either blue or bloody, anything less means you are part of the problem.

Write letters to the editor, hell if you don't get published, make you own newspapers or flyers to pass out, organize big parties where you talk politics and get drunk, do something, anything.

I am currently trying to organize a millions against the media march for Feburary 1, 2006. The 10th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act in NY, DC, Atlanta, LA, Miami, and Chicago.

I have a few people in LA and Atlanta (thanks you know who you are)so far, I post all the time about it, but people here aren't volunteering shit. My inbox isn't full, and don't fucking tell me that maybe no one likes my idea, with as much fucking bitching about the media around here give me a better one than millions of people standing outside the office of CNN, FOX, The New York Times, and the Washington Post and telling them we don't believe in them anymore. Telling them and anyone that can see us marching that they WILL try to steal the elections in 2006. Telling them that they have been lying to us for a long time and we won't buy their bull shit anymore.

Hell if you can't volunteer to help organize you could help me with writing up proposals or the website I'm doing. I have to write up proposals for the state Dems in NY, CA, GA, FL, IL, and DC, cause they are interested in helping, but I don't have a fucking clue of how to go about it. I registered www.millionsagainstthemedia.com and now I have to fill it with a mission statement and pictures. I have no clue, as to what I'm doing and I am just one freaking person, with 2 toddlers running around. I'm not rich, I'm not powerful, I'm not anybody, but that isn't going to stop me from making it happen.

Do something, anything, then at least you can sleep with a clear conscience. Cause if you don't do shit then you're no better than the people you're ragging on.

Hypnotoad this post is not directed at you BTW. Only the first 3 lines are responding to your post.

[pretzel4gore]

84. it's hopeless!

my hero is the sergeant in the first 'Alien' movie, who saw that everything was totalled and there wasn't any way out, so he expressed himself helplessly! With the Alien killing off the crew one by one, looking deadlier by the moment, he said 'omg! we're so screwed, everybody's doomed, we might as well just lay down right here!' and 'why try to fight it? it'll just make the Alien madder and meaner!' and 'we're so fukked, it's goddam ridiculous!' and 'man, we done like dinner, we've had it!' etc
he said it all, for america and for the world!
:wow: :scared: :thumbsdown: :shrug: :tinfoilhat: :cry: :headbang: :banghead: :rant: :hide: :patriot:

[newswolf56]

49. I disagree. The real reason Americans so distrust...

...anything and everything progressive is that America has learned through bitter experience that whatever it is, the oligarchy will pervert it so that those of us on the lower rungs of society always bear the heaviest and most painful burdens -- while the plutocrats of course escape unscathed. NAFTA, Social Security, Medicare, the fuel crisis, Iraq, Kyoto -- the list of real and incipient betrayals of American working families includes every issue since the Right began its relentless (and now mostly triumphant) war on the New Deal.

For intellectuals to condemn Americans because of their (carefully propagandized) economic fears is to merely further the oligarchy's campaign to divide us all -- and steal an ever-increasing portion of the nation's wealth as we squabble among ourselves.

[Freedomfried]

52. American narcissism!

so busy admiring himself, he fell into the lake and drowned

[halsaxby]

54. Lobotomized Nation

Yep, they've dumbed us down to what seems the point of no return. The lower and middle classes have been rooked, by the neocons and organized religion, into putting their own heads on the block.

In exchange for the prevention of gay marriages and a halfhearted promise to ban abortion, here is some of what Joe Lunchbucket has received:

- The exportation of his and his neighbor's jobs to the third world. Opting to trade your family's standard of living for an increase in some corporation's profit margin is idiocy.

- A marked decrease in liberty. The Patriot Act was a head first dive down the slippery slope.

- An illegal war, fought by the poor to further enrich the wealthy.

- Bankruptcy reform that has virtually eliminated any protection that he had against financial castrophe.

- Tort reform which allows corporations to produce dangerous products with increased impunity.

- Brazen fiscal mismanagement of federal deficits which will be haunting us for a long time.

I could go on and on....

[Ron Green]

55. It's nothing new, is it?

I agree with you, and I further maintain that it was always thus. Stories of an informed electorate, a thoughtful congregation, a wise polity are just that: stories, designed to raise us above our fear and enmity, but never completely successful.

Plato knew this, of course. Remember what he had Socrates telling Crito about most people believing in revenge, an unthinkable action to thoughtful men like Socrates and Crito, but the way of the people nevertheless.

The people will never be able to govern themselves, but they can allow themselves to be ruled more fairly if the propaganda is controlled by the best and wisest rather than the most avaricious.

[Melodybe]

57. Here is my reply to this entire thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4055408

[omega minimo]

58. Maybe reconnect those dots

You're on the right track and have touched on important influences. Your view, though, seems unsympathetic, with an assumption of callous intent, rather than mindless complacency. The different styles of resignation in posts #13 and #29 reflect the insidious creep of the current level of zombification in the American public.

It didn't happen overnight. These are important ideas to consider. If we have any hope of reaching people, the solutions will be found in looking at HOW these manipulations work on well-meaning people.... The posts above about "sloth" and "good Germans" are clues.

People are overwhelmed and disempowered and NO ONE can keep up with the barrage of bullshit every day. Post #13 is where a lot of people are. That person waited like me for 25 years for people to SNAP OUT OF IT. And yes, Americans are complicit in "letting them get away with it." #13, like a lot of Americans, is ready to enjoy life in the moment, as the Big Picture gets crazier every day. :popcorn:

:kick:

[autorank]

59. Don't buy it, not at all.

First of all, Bush lost the fucking election. Look at Baiman, or much better, the TruthIsAll analysis on DU. This was fraud. The American people turned out Bush by about 4-7 million votes. It's all there. Bush stole it but how the hell do you get that on the front burner if the news media is locked down.

The level of opposition to Bush is remarkable considering we do not have working press in this country, no DSM, no Rove's a leaker/bum stories; no Bush AWOL; no Bush nutso; no nothing.

DON'T BLAME THE PEOPLE WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE ANY, ANY INFORMATION.

THAT'S LIKE SAYING PEOPLE WHO DIE WITHOUT EVER HEARING ABOUT & ACCEPTING JESUS CHRIST AS THEIR PERSONAL SAVIOR, DESERVE TO GO TO HELL.

And give a majoritiy of voters credit for turning out the bum with the little information that they had!

[Jose Diablo]

60. Right after the last election

there was a thread that asked the question, "Are the citizens responsible for what the country does?"

I think, in the end they are. We could say the election was a fraud, but so was the one in the Ukraine. Why did the Ukraine have another election but we didn't. It is because in the Ukraine there was people, lots of them, demanding another election.

The RW fanatics KNOW what is happening. They KNOW, but they would rather get what they think is theirs. Our country has been ripping-off 3rd world resources for at least a half a century. Truth be known, it is not just the RW that know this and go along.

The reconciliation will come. The bill is in the mail.

Our country has received the leaders it asked for. The leaders and the people both are responsible. That is why it is vital that people understand how important the vote is. In the end, the people pay for the wrongs the leaders do in the country's name.

[emulatorloo]

61. MAYBE YOU ARE WRONG -- Read This -- Bush voters and Multilateral Treaties

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20263/

The World According to a Bush Voter
By Jim Lobe, AlterNet. Posted October 21, 2004.

A new survey reveals that Bush supporters choose to keep faith in their leader than face reality.

Snip

<In particular, majorities of Bush supporters incorrectly assume that he supports multilateral approaches to various international issues, including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (69 percent), the land mine treaty (72 percent), and the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming (51 percent).

In August, two-thirds of Bush supporters also believed that Bush supported the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although that figure dropped to a 53 percent majority in the PIPA poll, it's not much of a drop considering that Bush explicitly denounced the ICC in the first, most widely watched presidential debate in late September.>

[bklyncowgirl]

62. Interesting post.

The American Dream has always been, on its most basic level, about the ability of a person to work hard and get rich. It's something that's ingrained in us.

Of course it's a myth. Most Americans are not going to get rich. But the thought that we could makes us believe conservative ideas that in reality are hurting us as individuals. The conservative movement has made it it's mission to foster these myths and turn them into a comprehensible world view.

Progressives have been doodling around with the idea that the people are really with us and eventually they'll come around. We've rested on our laurels and failed to present a compelling comprehensive world view to compete with the notion of each man for himself. Worse yet, we've failed to deliver on the things people care about. I personally think that supporting NAFTA was the worst thing Democrats could have done.

About 40% of Americans are hardcore conservatives--they'll never agree with us. About 40% are liberals more or less--whatever the hell that means. About 20% are up for grabs but getting them to go change is going to take more than high minded rhetoric. Progressives have to appeal to people's base instincts and self interest.

If we don't we're just going to be out there singing "Love me, Love me, love me I'm a liberal"

[sadiesworld]

63. When we have a free press, a democratic party that opposes

wars built on lies, and a general election presidential candidate who says no to job-killing trade agreements, I'll take a closer look at your blanket condemnation.

[hollowdweller]

64. Cause and Effect- Back during the Vietnam era people said

We aren't winning because we aren't fighting a no holds barred war. If we didn't have our hands tied we could win.

After 9/11 I found a lot of people supported the Iraq war because "we need to hit them back so hard that they stop doing this stuff" Most knew Iraq wasn't responsible for 9/11, but if we hit "them" (the Arabs) and killed a bunch of THEM in return all the arabs would think "don't mess with US". That is like bombing Canada because they are mostly caucasian and thinking the US would stop.

Also I have heard people condemn Saddam for committing genocide in one breath, and then say we should say, nuke Fallujah to get them under control, which is essentially the same sort of thing Saddam did to get them under control.

The good news is the media is BEGINNING to do their job and people ARE starting to understand the dynamics of this whole terrorisim thing better.

Still people when hit want to hit back which just prolongs the conflict. The media needs to hilight that essentially we are following the same game plan as Israel, and it hasn't really worked for them either.

[USAcitizen]

66. I think you give

Joe Sixpack and Mary Mainstreet too much credit. They haven't a clue what is going on. They don't listen ar read real news. They depend on the Ring-Wing Spin Machines to get they propaganda which they think is news. They live in small town America and have no clue how the other side lives. Too put it in short terms, the are either just plain stupid or misinformed. Either way, the right depend on them to believe everything they they say and come to the polls to vote away their fears.

[Toots]

68. Zogby just did a poll and 50% said even if Bush* LIED they would not

want him Impeached. You are absolutely correct. Half the people in this nation don't care what foul deeds are done to get their way. As long as their side wins everything is fair game even being unAmerican. Republican is better than American anyday in their world. Republicans hate America for it's freedoms. They don't believe those Freedoms are a healthy thing and want Big government sitting in your Bedroom.

[elaineb]

69. I know it can feel awfully good sometimes to throw in the towel but...

here are some thoughts to hopefully counteract your despair.

(Not judging you, by any means! I've felt this way often myself, but then I take a deep breath and think about the short but revealing history of this country. Are we not slowly--maybe agonizingly so--but surely progressing?)

Here are some thoughts off the top of my head that suggest perhaps "Americans" aren't so hopeless as you fear. Some of my figures are probably not right, but I think they're close.

Almost half the voters chose Kerry over Bush. That's IF there wasn't fraud perpetrated. Perhaps it was much more than half. Bush's approval rating, last I heard, was at about 45%. That's NOT GOOD. Congress is controlled by Republicans, and Congress' approval rating is even lower (I think it's at 30-some percent?).

Bob Taft, Republican governor of my home state of Ohio, had an approval rating BEFORE "Coingate" of 19%. I can only imagine it's dropped into the single digits by this point. I used to have the feeling that most Ohioans are even more politically apathetic than the nation as a whole, but when I see figures like this, it gives me some hope for my waffling, indecisive, flip-flopping, middle-of-the-road state's electorate after all. If the Democrats don't capitalize HUGELY on this in the next gubernatorial and state house elections, then you can be more certain than ever that something's funny about those ballot boxes.

I don't have figures, but don't most of us suspect that the number of users at FR is rather pitiful compared to the large, involved, and committed community at DU? Anybody ever tried to guess their numbers?

I agree that most Americans are basically self-interested, but can't that be said for most human beings? (Question's rhetorical but the answer is yes!) And it's not a given that Americans HAVE to see some direct benefit to themselves on a given issue to support that issue. I think MOST Americans are decent people, and will support rights and benefits for others, as long as it doesn't harm their own interests. Most Americans support Social Security, but one could say that's self-interest. But isn't it also true that most Americans support abortion rights, and even civil unions? I know it doesn't make a lot of us happy that full and unadulterated civil rights for every American are still in the indefinite future, but there isn't yet a perfect society on earth. We're all working towards it! It takes time! And a hell of a lot of work, which is why I understand the temptation to give in to despair sometimes. It's so easy and tempting to want to sit back and say "hand me the popcorn."

I think it's very easy to fall into pessimism because of the way things look at the moment, because their "side" is often so loud, vociferous, and nasty, which leads one to think that their numbers are large. This is purely speculative, based on people I know or have talked to, but I honestly think the hard-core, Bush-über-alles crowd whose mind's will NEVER be changed are at best 20% of the population (but I really think it's more like 10%). Assuming 50% at the last election already opposed Bush and his policies, that leaves 30-40% of the population whose minds can be changed. If we don't try to do that with people we know who are non-hard-core Bush supporters whenever the opportunity presents itself, then we haven't done the simplest and easiest thing we can do to change things. There are a hell of a lot harder, more time-consuming, and more exhausting things that true patriots are doing every single day to make a better and more just America, and I'm in awe of and salute their dedication, spirit, and love for the principles that we all hope and believe this country stands for.

I know we're trying to scale a mountain of lies, greed, and injustice right now. Sometimes it feels like every foot we climb up, another ten feet of shit are piled on the top. But there are millions of us who are trying to stay committed to the task, and it's up to us to get millions more to join us. I sometimes think we'll never succeed without better Democratic/liberal leaders and a far, far better news media. If that's true, it might take longer than we think, but these things ARE do-able. I don't know when the media is going to come around, but most in the MSM have to be getting the message by now that a majority of the public is fed up with them. I think many on DU have given anecdotal evidence of ways in which the MSM seems to be slowly (if glacially) improving. Getting better leaders is, of course, entirely in our hands.

You used the term "progressives". Isn't a fundamental optimism built into the word "progressive"? Let's stay strong and fight the good fight. I think future generations will either be blessing us or cursing us, depending on what we do right now.

[Name removed]

70. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Peace Patriot]

71. I'm thinking of those poor, black, elderly people in the Ohio urban areas

who stood in line ten hours to vote. You're going to give up on THEM?

It's too easy--and it's very naive--to dismiss all Americans as greedy, stupid, lazy or sadistic. I agree that the Bush Cartel presents us with a brutally revealing mirror of the worst face of America, and reflects--indeed, glaringly reflects--fundamental truths about what our government does, and what it is. But I don't agree that that is the same thing as the American people, and that most Americans agree with injustice and war.

I could quote you many, many, many statistics--showing overwhelmingly American disapproval of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic--way up in the 60% to 70% range. But I will just quote one: 63% of Americans disapprove of torturing prisoners UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. What this statistic means to me is that the vast majority of Americans are not easily scared, despite huge efforts and unrelenting propaganda aimed at frightening them. They are sticking to their own ethics, sense of decency, and belief in lawful and peaceful behavior, despite all.

That is the American that I know and love. And we are the majority, by far.

What has happened in this country--and it is a quite deliberate plot--is that the majority cannot get its will enforced. And we need to look at the mechanisms of power in order to understand why and how that happened, and to change it--to RESTORE democracy.

A key mechanism that has been wholly corrupted and taken over is the vote, or rather the counting of our votes--which, in 2004, was conducted by two companies, Diebold and ES&S, both run by far rightwingers, using SECRET, PROPRIETARY software. Our elections have been privatized and completely coopted in the service of corporate war profiteering. With electronic voting, they can decide who runs for office and who wins, at the touch of a keyboard, and the evidence is overwhelming that that is what occurred in 2004, and also in the 2002 by-elections.

Other methods have been used to control American elections--including the utter corruption of corporate campaign contributions--but THIS one, electronic voting, is invisible, occurs at the speed of light, and is virtually undetectable, except by use of inferential evidence (such as exit polls, and election numbers that don't add up--like an unknown local judge candidate getting more votes than John Kerry).

I won't go into what I think of the Democratic Party leadership on the matter of Bushites controlling the vote count with "trade secret" software. Suffice it to say that the corruption associated with electronic voting is bi-partisan (consider Dem Christopher Dodd, a member of the Bilderberg Group, and a key actor in promoting unaccountable electronic voting systems), and also has a strong local component: local/state election officials succumbing to lavish lobbying and future job offers, and to the heady power of controlling the huge business deals that our election systems have become. (It used to be a largely VOLUNTEER effort--running the polling places on election day, counting the vote.)

So, rather than reviling the MINORITY of Americans who may be greedy, stupid, lazy or sadistic, how about helping the MAJORITY of Americans who disapprove of torture UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES to get their will enforced?

Join state/local election reform movements, and get Diebold and ES&S the hell out of your county or state! Put elections back in the public venue!

State/local jurisdictions still have constitutional control over election system purchases and procedures, and ordinary people still have some say at the state/local level. ACT NOW before the Bushites try to grab that local power.

We may have to go back to a paper ballot/hand count system, temporarily--in order to clean house--and then later try to design an open source, accountable, verifiable electronic system. AT THE VERY LEAST, we must achieve a paper BALLOT backup of electronic vote counting, a mandated 5% audit (automatic recount), and NO SECRET PROGRAMMING CODE.

This is a doable, realistic project, involving people power. And I think we should have faith that Americans, once they realize what has happened to their voting system, will support demands to reform it. Americans have been given serious DISINFORMATION about this matter--from both parties. Help them understand what has happened. Spread the word!

Have faith, my friends. Yeah, people can be scumbags. Don't we know it! They can also be magnificent, generous, open, fair-minded, tolerant, truth-seeking, cooperative and loving. I think that most Americans are--or want to be--these better things. And I think that these better things would be reflected in our government if the majority's will were being done.

For further information, and action ideas, go to the DU 2004 Election forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

72. Correct. Bush didn't make America. Bush is a reflection of America.

Arrogant. Self-righteous. Convinced of it's infallibility. Rich. Powerful. Ignorant and proud of it. Narcissistic. Swaggering. Smirking. Loud mouthed. Unintelligible. Selfish. Greedy.

Look at Bush and you see America if not all Americans.

[Arugula Latte]

73. Isolationism, nationalism, jingoism, crappy educational system,

embrace of irrationalism and religion, corporate hegemony, non-stop propaganda, whorish press, violent history, contempt for intellectualism, arrogance, absence of international wars on U.S. soil, dearth of high culture, capitalism run amok ----- It's an ugly mixture taking us to this ugly destination with this criminal president and this evil, fascistic administration.

[Lexingtonian]

76. A more empirical analysis

would be something like this: people act according to their needs. Some people need and insist on ideals, others have given up on them. What people need is not pretty and varies a great deal- sometimes it's material things, other times it's a catering to damaged parts of egotisms common to the group, and only occasionally is A Magnificent Plan To Solve Real Problems.

A second empirical thing is that we all live within personal history, ethnoreligious subsociety history, economic history, and national social history. Young people, to whom everything seems new, think that there's no context in which society works as it does, that "if Joe Sixpack and Mary Mainstreet really knew what was going on" everything would be different. Something would be different, but I think idealists would be shocked at how little.

It took me a long time to see it clearly, but the way politics appears to me now is that it's a slow, loud, and painful negotiating away of old ideas. It takes bloodshed to vanquish some ideas and their venal proponents, unfortunately, though even bloodshed doesn't have magical efficacy and only very little changes whatever the amount expended in many instances. Lenin and Mao became emperors and theocrats, of which Deng Xiao-ping and Boris Yeltsin were still varities, not despite their peoples but because no other form of government could be effective- it's what their societies wanted and needed, even if the excesses are grotesque.

Here in the U.S. the end of the colonial/Settlement society has come into sight. Brown-skinned/Native people are intermarrying Settlers/white people and ending the semi-European face. The bastardized 'Christianity' of medieval Europe, useful in covering the crimes of Settlement with "morality" and faux Messianism, is failing against the nontheism and humanism of Modernity. The colonial Corporation, the institution created to plunder a continent of its material resources in the name of impoverished European immigrees, has nearly run out of land and minerals. The last great Western European involvement, the beating back of the Asian Hordes (aka Cold War) is accomplished and only beating back the far lesser Desert Hordes (aka War on Terror) and recapitulation of the ineffectual Crusades, is also done as a historical task.

What we have now in hardline Republicanism a la Bush is a Last Coming of the colonial overlord class and the exploitation, which entails exposing and grinding down, of all the political and psychological detritus and resentments that are the insufficiently dealt with residues of American history up to our time in the minds of Americans. That's the story of all these conservative 'backlashes'- the full exposure of hidden hatreds, their satiety, and then their disintegration as important. It's no accident that as a country we've been rearguing and reenacting all the fights of the past lifetime since Nixon figureheaded a change in political dynamic. He probably began things with 1920s issues- gold standards and such. Carter's and Reagan's terms were rearguings of the inadequately resolved political issues of FDR's terms and WW2, Bush Sr.'s those of Truman, Clinton's those of the Eisenhower Fifties (McCarthyism, Friedan era feminism, Hungary). With Bush Jr. we've seen an acceleration- in the past five years we've reargued/reenacted the Sixties and are presently up to the anemic political issues and arguments, and misere, of 1974 or 1975.

Conservatives only know the Past, understand it only superficially, so their dwelling on it and reenacting of it when they have the power to do so is perhaps not psychologically surprising. If you look at it in an broader picture, it's even more clear that what the Far Right does is always champion old ideas and ends up destroying their viability and relevance. It's a Kervorkian or mortician or gravedigger role for political ideas of the Past.

There are always two parts to social progress. One is expanding ideas and concepts in the public mind about desirable forms of Change. The other is the destruction of the obsolete ideas and forms by exposing them to the reality which they have become, over time as political and social and economic reality has moved on, too frail or unbearable to endure. In the present political era Democrats did the first part from WW2 to 1964 or '68 or '72. Republicans have been doing the second part since. One side builds bridges to the future, the other burns those to the Past as Reality relentlessly moves in and forces society to change or fail.

It's a slow method, and painful. Yet it tends to minimize physical violence, and when the end of a political era/stage is reached the changes are, as a pattern, permanent in the hearts and minds and lawbooks. This society has in ~75 year periods successively rid itself of theocracy, monarchy, a strict caste system of labor, and a strict caste system of political participation. We're now late in the one started around WW2, defined by ridding ourselves of a strict caste system of 'organic' social groupings by ethnicity, religion, and gender. Hypothetically, the next round begins around 2020 and the economic caste system will be at stake.

[bloom]

81. I think

that all of the politicians at the national level (except maybe 5 of them) - see their job as protecting the "needs" of the corporations and that if they do that we will all have our "needs" met.

I'm afraid that it is more than just Bush&Co. who see the current situation as the US against the world. (or maybe the US and UK against the rest of the world).

The Republicans in general are there - psychologically. Everyone else is bad according to them. Esp. the French and of course all of the people in Iraq who don't want us there.

I think nearly every day - there has got to be a better place to live. A more positive place.

It would be easier, it seems to be in about any other place because you might see yourself as against the US - but you would be with everyone else. And that seems like a better place to be.

[Beam Me Up]

89. I appreciate your analytical skills. However, neocons claim to be shaping

"reality" while we analyze it. Given the fact that they've used the Bush pResidency and the events of 9/11 to get most everything they wanted -- perpetual war abroad and limited freedom at home -- looks to me like that is precisely what they are doing. In other words, we're not dealing with a history that just 'happens' absent the will and intent of certain vert wealthy and powerful groups and their agendas. I don't see anything "slow" about the emergence of Straussian ideologies in our society, for example.

[Lexingtonian]

91. I see that a bit differently

All the stuff you see as semi-disparate I see as pretty united, parts of the same. All the pieces- the 'faith-based community', the wierd Straussian/Leninist/Orwellian "ideology", the faux-Manichaean view of the world, the UnScientific methodology, the lack of all true beliefs except in the interests of the (or, their) Ego, the doctrines of utopia coupled to willpower alone, the internal sense of decline and degradation and End Times- are a wellknown phenomenon.

It's occultism on a political plane. It's not even new- the LaRouchians have been dabbling in a variety of it for close to forty years, it's the core of the Republicanism that Nixon constructed. The Religious Right is essentially an alliance of occultic religious groups, a common ground which constitutes why Southern Baptists, Mormons, Moonies, and Scientologists get along so nicely within it. The wierd schools of economics, especially Supply Side ideology and the Multi Level Marketing methods, and your basic con artistry up to American CEO-dom, are also occultizations and theologies of the sort. Imperialisms and death cults (i.e. militarism) are also variants. Have a look at Alastair Crowley sometime and compare his thoughts and methods to the present crew's. The intellectual argument is easy to make once you know the three basic dogmas of magic/occultism- the omnipotence of the trained will, the existence of another plane of existence in which All Is Known And Possible, and the way by which the object on that plane can be understood and manipulated to effect change, i.e. exert power, on the earthly level.

Occultisms of the sort live by claiming to 'reshape' reality. They're assertions of the power of the human mind over all the material possibilities of things, of magical efficacy of the adherents of the Faith and the spells of their High Priests. Occultisms are resorted to when reality cannot be accommodated and yet a need for power over it is a deep psychological necessity. Realities do grind down occultisms, though.

[Beam Me Up]

92. I've peeked behind that curtain a bit as well. I don't feel like

I "understand" occultism -- I've spent much of my life avoiding it, as a matter of fact. But I have been reading Rigorous Intuition, for example. The author, Jeff Wells, who is also a poster on this board, is quite focused on the occult underpinnings of all that is going on.

Are you familiar with Gurdjieff and his "ballet" The Struggle of the Magicians?

[snot]

77. Two thoughts

I've been around long enough to observe the trend, and it seems clear to me that one major conservative strategy since Nixon has been to try to portray all politicians as "just as bad" or "all the same".

But they are never exactly the same. In every faction, some are better, some are worse. There is always the possibility of encouraging those who are better and avoiding those who are worse. If we neglect our responsibility to try to do that, to distinguish among degrees and respond to each appropriately, we diminish the "rewards" available to those who are trying to do better -- we increase the risk that most will decide they might as well be "just as bad", because there is no reward for being good.

Second, I also feel I've observed confirmation that you can't fool all the people all the time.

[FormerOstrich]

83. Your rant typifies part of the problem...

your post can easily be interpreted that all except us enlightened few that the rest of Americans are these vile creatures that are stupid, uneducated, apathtic...for starters.

Well, while there may be some that are exactly as you say, I will not ever believe it is the majority. There is an old saying you get more flies with honey than vinegar. You aren't going to be educating many with your attitude. You seem to believe everyone that has less knowledge than you deem acceptable to be contemptible.

To start with I think you might be surprised at who knows what. I know it shocks me when I talk to my mother (in her 70s). She lives in rural Missouri and has most of her life. High School Graduate. She has very little internet access. I don't know how she does it but she is on top of everything. What would you have her do? She is not okay with what's going on.

A lot of people want to believe and hang on to the government may not be perfect, there may be problems, but cannot comprehend what is occurring today. Some days I have to take a step back and say okay am I just hysterical when I shouldn't be? Am I wrong? Can this really be what I think it is? That doesn't last long but it does cross my mind.

Then there are those that are so busy trying to survive they don't take time to understand. When you work a couple of jobs, have other responsibilities, living pay check to pay check, those issues seem large a looming. Their view to the larger issues is obstructed with survival.

Plus, you don't think there isn't a very sophisticated psyops that many people are susceptible to? Do you honestly think that there isn't someone that knows the buttons to push to rope in that percentage? I consider them victims. Personally, I am just so grateful that the techniques they are deploying don't work on me. That does not mean that techniques could not be developed that would work on me because I think everyone can be vulnerable to such. However, thus far, apparently what it would take for me and you and most of DU just doesn't catch a large enough percentage to make it worth their time....YET....never say never my friend.

Personally, I will not view my fellow countrymen with contempt. Just because they don't have the same education level, opportunities, mental health, or other things I may have been blessed with doesn't mean they are all bad. I may not agree with all of them, some may make me angry at times, some may be misguided, but when we are not all being manipulated we can deal with that. I think we know who are enemies are and it's not the general population.

We need all of us. We are being divided and conquered. Don't help them divide.

[billbuckhead]

87. I said a real majority and didn't mean that a large minority aren't moral

I would say that around 40% of Americans could fairly be called moral people. They don't think torture is acceptable, they aren't for theft or persecution, they struggle with various bigotries or actually may not be bigoted, they try to live by the golden rule.

Unfortunately, a large number of Americans of all races, classes and sexualities really enjoy being fascists. Today at work I heard two southern good ole boys, one Baptist and the other Catholic and a career military black guy yucking it up about about crushing the Arabs and the American "commies" who are holding the military back. Without hearing what they were talking about, one would have thought this was some some racial harmony moment but with the sound turned on it was ugly at the expense of Arabs, gays and liberals. I think that ugly conversation, after I wrote my post last night, sums up my present thinking. "We the people" might not know everything about the evil that is transpiring, but we as Americans certainly know that Bush is a ruthless murdering torturing career criminal. The big problem is how many are OK with it.

Recently on a cable business show the talking heads were talking about how stockholders now thought it was better to let crooked CEO's and CFO's off the hook because prosecution would cause the stock price to fall. I think this where we are now as Americans in the new "Ownership" society. We are fast becoming a society of reverse whistleblowers.

[Cats Against Frist]

90. I fully agree

I have nothing more to say. Nobody is *really* brainwashed. The rich don't get right without willing buyers, and if the middle class was looking out, for itself -- a group with resources AND numbers, things could be a hell of a lot better. Instead, half of them don't give a fuck, and the other half want to do it for everybody else, who doesn't give a fuck.