Could we agree that this crisis is from the "past 30 years," not the "past 8 years" and start taking

[omega minimo]

RESPONSIBILITY (I know, the word is a thread killer) for our actions, past, present and future?

This Saturday morning DU GD looks almost cohesive in certain light bulbs going off all at once :think: :hide: :think:



We may forgive and not forget the conspicuous consumption corporate branded mall rats who once came to DU GD to argue over SUVs and cigars and bacon; the old Boomers who went all hippie/yuppie on us and still think they're not culpable in going along to get along and enabling the predictable and predicted American twilight that resulted from Reagan's "Morning In America."

We may listen to and heed those who remember the Depression (and words like "heed") or those who were raised by them, in an era when history was still something to be learned, remembered, never repeated.

We may appreciate the energy and vitality of those inspired by the recent campaign and our eloquent, Barrackstar president; plus his efforts to do as much as he is allowed to do, to right the ship of state and the sinking economy.

We may wish that more of the inspired youth connected more of the dots and that Obama helped them do so by emphasizing recent decades' reality rather than avoid it with "bipartisanship" (not that he'd be allowed to....)

Let's agree to agree.

This is the system we live in;

The game is rigged;

The economy and the American public are propped up as much as The Powers That Be will allow;

If you go along with obvious bullshit lies and propaganda and and exploit labor and waste resources and spit on "welfare queens" and ignore homeless "campers" and call traitors "heroes" and buy the "Contract On America" and support illegal wars and don't impeach criminal presidents, when times are good, while the richest of the rich are siphoning off the commonwealth, you ain't part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

The will that you may or may not have displayed for all these (8, 30) years are still up to you now.

They want "consumer confidence"?

They want to tell media stories that destroy consumer confidence.

They turned us into "consumers," not "citizens."

They spent 30 years destroying the social safety net and a lot of you went along with it, with "Greed is Good."

Thank you, so very very much.

Let's all agree to take responsibility for our actions, face the fact that we are all in this together, not repeat the past mistakes of stupidly, self-inflicting this devastated American Nightmare.

IT'S TIME TO FACE HOW YOU AND YOURS CONTRIBUTED TO THIS AND DETERMINE TO MAKE RIGHT;

TO BE CONFIDENT, EVEN DEFIANT IN FACE OF THE DEPRESSION INDUCING LIES WE'RE FED EVERY DAY, TRYING TO SURVIVE;

TO FIND WAYS TO HELP YOURSELVES AND OTHERS;

TO SEE OPPORTUNITY AND POSSIBILITY IN CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION AND GREED BECOMING OBSOLETE;

TO SWEAR TO REMAIN CONSCIOUS AND CONSCIENTIOUS WHEN THE TIDE TURNS FOR THE BETTER;

TO TELL THE NEXT GENERATION:

NEVER AGAIN.


Teach them to not buy a lipsticked pig-in-a-poke. Tell 'em to heed your words this time.




:hi: :rant: :grouphug:


http://www.thomhartmann.com

[OHdem10]

1. Yep, The Economic Conservatism of past 30 years has finally

landed us over the cliff.

[omega minimo]

3. ... clinging to a branch like the cartoons

[blm]

2. Too many Democrats can't face the awful truth - the global fascist agenda had a FRIEND in Clinton

and his gang.

[omega minimo]

6. yeah and they'll LOVE you calling it what it is

:rofl:


Lots of folks were bamboozled by the newspapers as NAFTA, GATT, etc, were shoved through.

The jobs have been siphoned off for a looooooong time.

Thanks, Bubba!

Now its time to end CORPORATE WELFARE.

[omega minimo]

36. whu'd i say?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5005874

END CORPORATE WELFARE AS WE KNOW IT

[stillcool]

7. You could say the same about Jimmy Carter...

The Carter Doctrine certainly opened the door to 'pre-emptive' war.

[omega minimo]

11. hey, at least he didn't ship out SALMONELLA peanuts!

:evilgrin:

[Romulox]

8. That's the same gang that's running the Obama admin... nt

[bdamomma]

4. Reagan started it all, and the neo cons just put another nail

in the coffin, and against us. I really feel this is all a class war them vs. us.

[dkf]

5. The irony is that without conspicuous consumption a whole lot of us will become welfare queens

If we made our taxes simpler we would kill a lot of jobs. If we went to single payer we would kill a lot of jobs. Its amazing how many of us have jobs that are necessary due to red tape and bureaucracy.

Our problem is that we really don't need a whole lot of people to provide the necessities of life. Many of our jobs ARE unnecessary.

When people realize this and cut back on the extras there is overcapacity. And then these jobs are lost.

[omega minimo]

10. interesting. & so many of our "extras" come from outsourcing/exploitation.

IMHO it will be healthy for folks to have to face that.

[bobbolink]

13. As a "Welfare Queen", what are you going to reign over????

Could you please drop those RW terms?????

[marketcrazy1]

15. nice post omega minimo

I agree, we are ALL responsible for what has happened and what is coming.. we need to stop fixing blame, except our responsibilities and start fixing the problem!! our voices are NOT being heard! we need to stand up and SHOUT! ENOUGH!! clear the bad debt in our financial system, expose and prosecute the fraud! take the pain now instead of dragging it out over the next two decades and saddling our children and grandchildren with a debt, OUR debt! they can never repay!!

[omega minimo]

17. thanks. Applying the law would be a start. How did the bank bailout=loans end up being OPTIONAL?

:wtf:

[ProgressIn2008]

9. I've been wondering how the country will do when it can't blame Bush anymore

but has to look in the mirror, long and hard. I loathe neo-cons (though I always saw Bush as a court jester of the apocalypse and not anyone with actual power, unlike his puppet-masters) but "blame Bush" is not only a crutch, it diverts attention from the deeper, more long-standing problems.

These problems go back far longer than 8 years.

[omega minimo]

14. absoDUMBlutely

""blame Bush" is not only a crutch, it diverts attention from the deeper, more long-standing problems."

It also legitimizes the notion that he was making these decisions.

[blm]

18. I agree - look into WalMart's financial dealings (Jackson Stephens) and it dovetails w/BCCI crimes

that formed the backbone of the Global Fascist agenda - same names pop up, too. Jackson Stephens and Poppy Bush really set this nation on its fascist path and used WalMart as their battering ram to shove it down Amercan public's unwitting throats. Unwitting, but, still TOO eager.

[omega minimo]

19. illegal wars are such a nice distraction

:hi:

[tom_paine]

22. History tells us what is mostly likely to happen in a nation mentally configured as ours is.

And it sure isn't American History that tells us as loudly as German History.

You'll see. Probably 20 years away now, maybe more, maybe a lot less.

The details will be different, for Plausible Deniability's sake. No industrialized slaughter, probably back to the ususal sickness and attrition that comes from concentration camps, whether they dio industrialized slaughter on the side, like the Nazis, or not.

[omega minimo]

23. The Handmaid's Tale

:evilfrown:

[tom_paine]

24. Or worse. Depends on how bad the Greater Depression gets.

Depends on how fast the effects of Peak Oil, now slightly countered by the Greater Depression, come on.

Depends on how fast the effects of Global Warming and rising CO2 emissions, now ALSO slightly countered by the Greater Depression, come on.

Handmaid's Tale could be a paradise compared to what is coming.

In all fairness, with Obama just taking office, it is also not out of this question that this thing will be turned around.

[omega minimo]

25. only someone disengaged could say "Handmaid's Tale could be a paradise compared to what is coming"

and possible miss the point/implications/connections to life/death/control issues you posed:


"The details will be different, for Plausible Deniability's sake. No industrialized slaughter, probably back to the ususal sickness and attrition that comes from concentration camps, whether they dio industrialized slaughter on the side, like the Nazis, or not."


Women's lives/bodies are already the battleground of the insane, sick, authoritarian cabal so powerful in the world.

The "details will be different" -- the denial is already there -- (as you dismissive post suggests) -- my suggestion is quite plausible for the sort of Plausible Denial State you suggested.

Although, in the book, it seemed the public was more literate than that possible future, based on current trends.

[tom_paine]

28. Interesting point, and well taken. A little harsh, but you made such a good point I can take it.

I agree, women, African-Americans, LGBT, and others of color have always been on the front lines of the fight for liberty, as they always suffer the most for the lack of it

The poor die first, the weak and powerless are victimized by the strong sociopaths and their authoritarian followers first, because they are the easiest and most people could care less. These are unpleasant truths of life. Don't blame me for reality as it largely has been for 8000 years.

I understand your anger at the way I said what I said. I do stand by my words, and hope that you would try to understand that I didn't mean it in the way it sounds like you took it, to be dismissive of the awful scenario in "The Handmaid's Tale" as it pertains to yes, the very real life and death issues it raises and horrible abuses of women (and liberals, though it isn't discussed but more implied, if I remember from a deacde or so ago which is the last time I reread it)

And yes, something like that is absolutely plausible, if we are discussing the longer term of 20-100 years. Very possible indeed.

I guess all I was trying to say is, bad as "The Handmaids Tale" is "mad max" or "Farenheit 451/1984" would be worse.

Peace.

:hi:

[omega minimo]

29. I knew you could, TP

:hug:

I avoided being "harsh" and deny being "angry."


Well, as we toss around SciFi and diasporas (is that the word?), your point is well taken also. We're already in Orwellian times that dim some of warnings of the tsunami you are pointing at, in the future.

It's already "1984," we already have book burnings; peak oil and global warming, yes, could create a Mad Max environment.

Let me try once more to induce a bit more "engagement" with the point I tried to make. Not that certain groups "have always been on the front lines of the fight for liberty, as they always suffer the most for the lack of it."

Imagine being female. Imagine that YOUR BODY is that landscape, that environment, that battleground.

A plausibly deniable holocaust.


"The details will be different, for Plausible Deniability's sake. No industrialized slaughter, probably back to the ususal sickness and attrition that comes from concentration camps, whether they dio industrialized slaughter on the side, like the Nazis, or not."

[tom_paine]

31. I can't imagine being a woman, certainly that's true. All holocausts are "plausibly deniable" it

seems, until the skulls are exhumed, be it months later or decades. All races, creeds, colors, male and female.

I do take your point, and yes, I still say a little harsh but withdraw "angry" (though anger is a perfectly legitimate feeling to have when discussing a topic like this).

If nothing else, Obama means a small extension until whatever comes, and may mean what I see now as almost impossible, which is REAL, full-blown change, not change-lite.

Now I am off-topic, but unless I am missing your overall point still (possible, very possible), I am not sure there's much else to say by "you have my sympathies for that unique pain, but we are all going be suffering from the effects of The Bush Economic Miracle and the Bushification of the media and virtually all of our institutions, plus law enforcement...so there is going to be plenty to go around."

Including Plausibly Deniable Holocausts. It will be Plausibly Deniable Holocausts for EVERYONE! A Round of Plausibly Deniable Holocausts for the whole bar! Cheers!

Maybe not, though. The future is not yet written. Maybe this thing can be turned around. Not liking the odds after watching the exercise in PR and marketing that is the "Stimulus Debate"

[omega minimo]

34. I'm open too

"If nothing else, Obama means a small extension until whatever comes, and may mean what I see now as almost impossible, which is REAL, full-blown change, not change-lite."


Not having been on the bandwagon, I'm open to what he means and "may mean."

This could even be what "real change" looks like, in its glacial flow.

:thumbsup:

[Hannah Bell]

26. With the Bushes, it goes back more than 100 years; he's no court jester.

Kevin Phillips:

"Now, the one who was really the founding father, George Herbert Walker, that’s a familiar set names in terms of the names of the 41st and 43rd presidents. He was a financier from St. Louis, very hard-charging and very successful, was very much involved in his earlier days before World War I in repackaging companies in the south central United States, railroads, gas companies and so forth.
He became known to the Harrimans who were Union Pacific and railroad people, at very large scale in that role. Ultimately, Averell Harriman lined him up as Harriman’s partner in 1919.

But before that, he and his chums from St. Louis were very much involved in the wartime finance and the relations with the allies. The United States provided huge amounts of materiel for the British and French. George H. Walker ultimately came out of all of this as a major, major player on Wall Street in the 1920’s and 1930’s. What he did in that role with Harriman was that they did a lot of business in France—a little in France and mostly in Germany and Russia. Some of these episodes were really diplomacy on a pretty grand scale, because George H. Walker and Harriman went in and developed and tried to fix up the Russian oil industry in the Caucasus as things would happen 400 miles from Iraq where we are now.

That didn’t go over too well with some of the people in Washington, but they practically had under Harriman and Walker a kind of little intelligence operation in the investment business. Through one of the companies that they were involved in, the American International Corporation, which had played a considerable role in World War I, they actually hired as one of their directors, the fellow who had been the number two in the State Department intelligence operation.

To make a long story short, his role in international business, George H. Walker’s, was huge: ties to Russia and Germany and the ties to Germany will swim back into the portrait a little later. Samuel Prescott Bush, who was another great grandfather of the current president’s was a major steel executive in Ohio. And his connection was to the Rockefellers. Because Standard Oil of Ohio, the famous Standard Oil of the history books, owned some of the shares in Buckeye Casting, which was the business of Sam Bush.

So, he was connected to the Rockefellers, and Standard Oil used its power over the railroad industry through carrying oil to get their business for Buckeye Castings, which was mostly a railroad equipment. But during World War I, Buckeye Castings did war manufacturing, barrels for guns and casings for shells and so forth. But Sam Bush went to Washington and he was the—in charge of the section of the war industry’s board that regulated small arms, ammunition, and ordinance, ordinance being guns, basically, of an artillery nature. He was a major player in the wartime regulation of who was selling what in terms munitions. By the time the two streams converge, you get Samuel Bush’s son, Prescott, marrying George H. Walker’s daughter, Dorothy, in St. Louis in 1921.

What you have got is a family union that had more than a little bit to do with the emergence of the military industrial complex in the United States.

And I was on a couple of St. Louis radio stations on the day that the president went out to St. Louis, and I was asked by one of them, had I noticed that he never introduces himself as having had any tie to St. Louis. I said, I wasn’t too surprised, because St. Louis was the — takes you back into the George H. Walker and the whole role of that family, and I went through what the role was. So, that’s a very cursory look at Sam Bush and George H. Walker. These were big-time players behind the scenes in Washington, in World War I, and then especially George H. Walker in the 1920’s, and Prescott Bush, who is the current president’s grandfather was George H. Walker’s assistant and prot?g? in the W. A. Harriman firm and then in Brown Brothers Harriman, and he, too, had a lot of dealings with the intelligence services in Russia and Germany."

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/1/12/american_dynasty_fmr_top_republican_strategist

[omega minimo]

30. blistering

thanks Hannah Bell

[StClone]

12. A twist on Rush's Words: "Reagan is dead...his policies may live on

... but we're in the process of doing something about that as well." ......

Hopefully people will rise from their prescription drug haze and see we are being crushed by the greed and lies of wealthy super elites. And hopefully they will rightly see that Reagan was one who made this so.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4252426

[omega minimo]

16. twist on yours: Hopefully people will rise from their propaganda haze

[StClone]

20. Of all the adults over 35 I know

Around eighty percent are on mood enhancing drugs.

I have become aware that these drugs inhibit justified, though abstract, rational fears of their world (obviously that don't deal with direct physical threats). Randi Rhodes read one of my posts here and has been know to cite the exact same belief.

People may well be more susceptible to propaganda under the effects of these drugs. So, I specifically stated my belief this way.

[omega minimo]

21. wow, yes, thanks for that. And your point well taken:

"People may well be more susceptible to propaganda under the effects of these drugs."

Which is also the flipside of my view: the crazymaking of decades of propaganda may invite more drug use to "inhibit justified, though abstract, rational fears of their world."



:scared:

[tom_paine]

27. Oh so very true. n/t

[anonymous171]

32. Yeah. I really hate the Consumer "life"style. nt

[deaniac21]

33. As I travel down the back roads, of this home I love so much,

Every carpenter and cowboy, every lame many on a crutch..
They're all talking about a feeling, or a taste that's in the air,
They're all talking about this mighty wind, that's blowing everywhere,

Oh a mighty winds a blowin', it's kickin' up the sand,
It's blowin' out a message to every woman, child and man
Yes a mighty winds a blowin', cross the land and cross the sea,
It's blowin' peace and freedom, it's blowin' equality.

From a lighthouse in Barr Harbor, to a bridge called Golden Gate,
From a troller down in Shreveport, to the shore of one great lake,
There's a star on the horizon, and it's burning like a flame,
It's lighting up this mighty wind, that's blowin' everywhere,

Oh a mighty winds a blowin', it's kickin' up the sand,
It's blowin' out a message to every woman, child and man
Yes a mighty winds a blowin', cross the land and cross the sea,
It's blowin' peace and freedom, it's blowin' equality.

When the blind man sees the picture, when the deaf man hears the word,
When the fisherman stops fishing, when the hunter spares the herd,
We'll still hear the wondrous story, of a world where people care,
The story of this mighty wind that blowin' everywhere

Oh a mighty winds a blowin', it's kickin' up the sand,
It's blowin' out a message to every woman, child and man
Yes a mighty winds a blowin', cross the land and cross the sea,
It's blowin' peace and freedom, it's blowin' equality.
Yes it's blowin' peace and freedom, it's blowin' you and me!

[omega minimo]

35. preferable to

A Mighty Whinge

:evilgrin:

[scarletwoman]

37. Whatever. I entered the counter culture in 1967 and never looked back.

I've lived by my wits and creativity ever since. I've never owned a credit card, I've never strived for material enrichment, I've simply survived, and survived by simple living.

I saved money for 2 years in order to be able to buy the computer I'm now typing these words on.

Sorry if some of you are just figuring this shit out. But don't lay the blame on me, all along I've been telling anyone who would listen that we're being scammed.

So, yay. Some of you are finally figuring this out. Just don't include me in your "YOU AND YOURS CONTRIBUTED TO THIS", because I never did. And I've been reviled and ridiculed for years for the very fact that I've refused to contribute to "this".

sw

[omega minimo]

38. then that quote doesn't apply to you. mebbe you can help others get the concept

cuz it's happening whether they like it or not.

[scarletwoman]

39. I used to post exhortations about not using credit cards. The backlash was ugly to say the least.

I decided to not bother anymore.

I'll happily give survival tips to anyone who wants them. I'll share what I know about foraging, and medicinal plants, and dressing wild game, and what kinds of fabrics work best for keeping warm in winter.

But I'm done with trying to convince liberals that they need to fight the System.

sw

[omega minimo]

40. indeed, i recall.........

"We may forgive and not forget the conspicuous consumption corporate branded mall rats who once came to DU GD to argue over SUVs and cigars and bacon; "

[PM Martin]

41. Mr. Reagan certainly started this.

Things got somewhat better by 1984 and he won a second term by a landslide :argh:
and there was no turning back from there. Sadly, the economy of the 80's was a bubble based upon cheap debt and deficit spending. We in Canada experienced the same thing too. We were smarter in that we nuked the PC's for what they did. They had 2 seats left after the 1993 elections. We now have Bush Jr. Steve Harper who only "won" a minority government with 37% of the vote due to divisions on the left.
A united left would have crushed the Conservatives.

Back to my point now.
It seems when Clinton came in he simply was a manager. He did quite well with what he had (including a legislature hostile towards him). There was no desire to change things after Reagan came along.
Now that the bottom has fallen out, there is a chance to question and undo what Reagan did.

[omega minimo]

42. "there is a chance to question and undo what Reagan did......"

including the brainwashing? :applause: