It’s always darkest just before it goes pitch black

[Cyrano]

The political storm clouds hovering over America today are frightening. Especially when you realize that far, far too many Americans, (perhaps more than half), don’t pay attention to politics. Their votes are based on a name they may have seen on a yard sign, a bumper sticker, or a TV ad. In other words, our fates are linked to a lack of awareness among many millions of uninformed people.

Today's crop of Republican crazies are fired up and ready to “take back America.” And too many in the Democratic base are busy sulking. But, IMO, a possible majority of Americans are totally clueless as to what’s happening in their own country.

How do you shake millions of people out of a coma and tell them their house may soon be on fire? I don’t have a clue. But I do know that their lack of paying attention could cost them and us dearly. As I said in the headline, "It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black."

If you disagree with what I’ve posted here, fire away. But if you agree, do you have any idea how to awaken disinterested people to a possibly impending whirlwind?

[blue sky at night]

1. how do you say....

ya, i am with you a thousand percent; we are in deep fucking trouble, and the democrats are so busy crying the blues because obama isn't perfect enough that by this time next year he will probably be impeached.

HEY DEMOCRATS! WAKE THE FUCK UP!!

[Raschel]

8. Agree!!!

[lib2DaBone]

22. The Dems are crying the Blues because Mr. Obama has proven to be a tool of Wall Street.

[Angry Dragon]

2. They will not wake up until

they have no house, no job or one that does not pay the bills, they lose their health insurance because they are found to have an expensive disease, their retirement is gone because wall street stole it, SS is gone because it did not benefit the wealthy, their children can not compete against the rest of the world because they were taught to take a test and not really learn, they wake up one day and find they have no freedoms because they gave them all away.

[edhopper]

3. Americans seem to vote

based on "things aren't good with this guy, so I'll vote for the other guy."
Not even thinking that "the other guy" is the same guy that screwed things up.
No thought about policy or where the will lead this country.
We are truly fucked. We just barely survived GWB because Clinton left us in good shape. Another round of the GOP will kill us. And most Americans won't understand why.

[abq e streeter]

7. "And most...won't understand why" ....Exactly

They'll go to their graves convinced it was the liberals what done it.

[seabeyond]

4. i just keep thinking the dark is dark enough, but, noooooo. there seems to be

room for darker, and so many years to get here.

[abq e streeter]

5. I agree with you, and have posted more than once as how how much I'm at a loss

as to how to get a hypnotized and basically apathetic population to wake up. But I also fear that with the access to the airwaves etc of the "big lie" incessant propaganda of hate radio and complicit MSM, that a dangerously high percentage of those that do wake up will have their awareness twisted to the exact opposite of who's been screwing them over and they'll look for and find the usual fascist scapegoats. That part is already happening (i.e. your reference to republican crazies). My 92 year old WW2 vet father, who was politically aware as a kid in the 1930's, while always being a liberal, has been moderately so. He always has cautioned me about "extreme language" or thinking, and yet in just the last few years, he has started referring to the American right as fascists, and while he doesn't fear a Hitler type of fascism here, he now believes a Mussolini type is already happening.
So while I agree that there is great danger in the mind boggling number of citizens who have no idea what's happening, I find it equally or more dangerous to see how easily manipulated so many people (the crazies you refer to) are , who do have some vague understanding that something has gone horribly wrong.
I don't know why I replied even; I have no ideas for, nor solution to, the question you posed. But just registering my sense of impending doom and helplessness as to how to stop it, besides doing what is probably the coward's way out (but a path I may very well take if the tea party gang takes over) which is leaving the country I love.

[RKP5637]

16. I told someone yesterday we will probably see the time when many Americans are

refugees living in other countries. I think the US is really in for a bad time because so many in this country are so damn apathetic and lame. You father is absolutely correct IMO. I see the US spinning into a disaster, and yet when you try to explain any of this to many Americans they just give you a dumb look.

[lunatica]

6. Politics bores the crap out of most people

In my experience their eyes glaze over and they rush to dismiss the subject. I think most people know they're mostly uninformed but they don't want to inform themselves. They want to be told by the media or they'll just vote their party, if they vote at all.

People don't get interested until the last month before an election, and most don't care about mid term elections at all. And their interest doesn't include parsing the bombardment of political soundbites and messages. They don't discern that they're being lied to. Political campaign managers know this, which is why most ads are based on lies.

So every once in a while people realized they've been lied to, which makes them even less interested. Plus they don't worry about what doesn't affect them personally. Wars? What wars? Oh those! Are we still fighting those wars? Yawn...

[Raschel]

9. Yep, the right wing crazies love Soundbite Sarah for that reason. She is the octomom of politics.

[Odin2005]

15. Most people don't care because they (rightly) assume politicians are all corrupt bastards...

...who tell people what they want to hear to get elected. People "don't care" because they don;t have a reason to care, they are all just the same corporate-owned candidates.

[DJ13]

10. What happened to the excitement everyone had in 08, & who's responsible for its loss?

I hate to say this, but our own party is responsible for the apathy everyone but the crazies on the far right are feeling.

They voted in record numbers to move away from conservative policies, and got rewarded with a Democratic Congress and WH that figured they had no need to rock the boat and went too conservative in their governance.

Of course people became apathetic, they now feel theres no way to beat the conservatives who seem to continue ruling the country even when the people tried ousting them.

[RKP5637]

19. Excellent point. I thought we had fixed most of this in 2008. n/t

[chillspike]

11. The way to defeat people fighting to get what they want is to

give it to them.

[Catshrink]

12. For the GOP:

http://www.despair.com

[RKP5637]

13. Agree 1000%! Sadly, many Americans are asleep at the wheel 'till something hits

them smack in the nose. Maybe they'll start engaging their brains when they have lost everything and are living under some type of RW dictatorship being passed off as democracy, and ain't this the best country in the world.

One thing you can generally count on many Americans to do, is to vote for the wrong people for the wrong reasons and then wonder WTF.

The lamest thing going is democrats that say they will sit home on their ass and not vote as they pout.

[RagAss]

14. Maybe we need them to push us too far ....ever think of that????

[Cyrano]

21. Given the insanity going on today, how much farther do

we need to be pushed? It may already be too late to push back. Who knows?

[ladjf]

17. Americans are too tired to respond to this crises. They have

been beaten down for decades by professional propagandists. They were sitting ducks. This terrible Revolution is almost complete. I'm unable to even imagine the negative outcomes.

[rateyes]

18. I woke up! I woke up only to find that reality is worse than the nightmare!

Thus, I'm going back to sleep. Won't be at the polls this year.

[randomelement]

20. They're sleeping because the alarm clock has been disabled

They don't know anything because they're not being told anything

Just google "fourth estate fifth column"

Here's one link (among many):

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3790/is_the_fourth_estate_a_fifth_column/

How many movies have been made where the "sheep" are finally awakened ONLY WHEN a media outlet is compromised and the real message gets out?

Now, I'm not proposing we go out and overrun Fox News, but it would be great to just have control for a day or so. Put the muppet that looks like Walter Cronkite on the air (to hold their attention) and kind of give them a folksy "and that's the way it is" ....

A man can dream, can't he?